Our adventure started Thursday, Mar 7th when I picked up Grandma Moore in Salt Lake. She generously offered to take our family on a little trip and this long weekend happened to work out good for her and us and we decided to go to Disneyland. Grandma used to have a season pass to Disneyland so even though it had been a while since she had been her knowledge of the place still came in handy. She stayed with us Thursday night as our flight left Friday afternoon. It was the end of term and I had been telling the girls all week that everything needed to be turned in and they needed to be packed in time for us to leave. Lila asked to miss two hours of dance Thursday night because she was stressing. The timing was hard because the studio had been sent out at least 5 notifications that day about not missing dance but she hardly misses so I sent a message that she would be late. Then Friday morning she said she needed to go to 2nd period to help with a group presentation in Biology. When she got home she wanted to quickly record an assignment for a class. Man I was stressing because I wanted to be on the road around 11:30 and when I went down to check on her she was flustered. Her first recording went over by 15 seconds so she tried to redo it and her computer battery died so then she switched to her other computer. I stressed the importance of us leaving soon and to come straight up when she was done. We were finally on the road at noon and our flight was at 1:55pm. The shuttle from economy parking dropped us on the first level so we went ahead and used the Delta checkin and security on that level before heading up. We walked to the last A gate and sat down just in time for them to start boarding. The boys were really disappointed that this plane did not have the built in TVs like the ones to Cabo do. Andrew sat next to Grandma and read and for Marcus I managed to pull up one movie that was still downloaded on the tablet that I grabbed last minute which kept him entertained our whole flight.
Our flight landed early but didn't get a gate for a while and by the time we got to luggage claim they had already pulled our luggage to the side and we had to show our ID to get our bags. Then we got on the shuttle to the car rental place. Steve noticed a QR code to skip the line and filled out all of the paperwork and we were able to walk straight back to our mini van and off to our hotel we headed. Traffic was already getting busy and there are so many freeeways in LA that the navigation kept saying faster route has now been found. Steve was using his phone to cast to the van navigation so I had my phone up checking things out. We made it to our hotel safely and that was the most important thing.
That night for dinner we walked down to the Pizza Press and had some yummy smoked pizza, wings, and a salad. We even had a little leftover pizza for some light meals during the week. Our hotel was literally right across the street from the entrances to Disneyland so about 9:30 I heard these booms and went into the other room to look through the window since the boys were sleeping (we wanted to get up early Saturday for rope drop so they went to bed) and we watched the fireworks.
Saturday, March 9th would be our first day in the park. We saw that Disneyland had early hours that day so we decided to start in California Adventure. We arrived 30 minutes before the park opened went through security got our tickets scanned and were in line to head back. As soon as it opened we went straight back to the Cars ride. I saw my friend/neighbor Kara in the line for the ride, can you believe it. We were hoping to have a shorter line with that ride but we still waited close to 80 minutes and it even broke down while we were on the ride. (Two days later I thought I should have asked them to give us a lightning lane pass for that ride because it broke down on us and we didn't get to race another car etc but it was our first ride of the whole trip and I didn't even think about it. I was just glad we got to ride it before it shut down.) We got off the ride and Marcus said he didn't really like the dark part where the tractor was chasing us. I told him the tractor didn't even move. And he said, "Mom I got nerves, ok." I told him that was fine it was our first ride. Look at his face in the picture in the car, oh my heavens!
Then we went to Guardians of the Galaxy which is probably the craziest ride we rode. It's an elevator drop ride. I knew Marcus was nervous so I was having some serious anxiety after the first drop afraid he would be scared and never ride another ride with us. So I was holding down my bag, holding onto a bar to hold myself down a bit, and pushing down on Marcus's leg so it wouldn't be too crazy for him. We got off and Marcus said, "that was awesome! I loved that ride!" Crazy kid!
We knew Saturday would be busy so we were booking our lightning lanes as fast as we could use them. We hit Soarin (where we managed to score front row center seats which was awesome!), Golden Zephyr, Goofy's Flight School (which was just like Mouse at Lagoon), and we ate lunch in San Fransokyo at Aunt Cass's Cafe which was a must do for the kids. Then we headed into Disneyland. The topiary was Minnie while we were there because of Women's History Month.
We stopped at Jungle Cruise on our way back to Galaxy's Edge. It was a nice fun cool ride and our guide was hilarious. Then we used our lightning lane pass to ride Smugglers on the Millennium Falcon. It was so fun!
We walked around Galaxy's Edge for a bit and noticed Rise opened from a temporary closure and was only a 50 minute wait so we hustled over there. Just as we got in line they announced that they were having some difficulties so the wait would be longer than anticipated. We decided to wait it out. Then Marcus said he had to go pee. We debated Steve getting out of line and then coming back but it was a long twisty line. We found a private corner behind a garbage can and had him pee into a disposable water bottle and then threw it away. I was nervous about doing it but when we talked about it that night Andrew didn't even know we did it so I think that it was really discrete.😂 Our wait ended up being close to 80 minutes but it was totally worth it. It was a favorite ride of everyone including Grandma. The set for that ride is so cool and immersive which makes it so fun.
The sun had gone down and we were getting a little cold so we bought churros from a cart with guava cream cheese dip (a recommendation from Lila's friend) and had a little snack. Then we hit It's a Small World on our way out of the park. We managed to see a little of the parade as we were walking to Small World. We were tired but felt good about what we accomplished on our first day and headed back to the hotel. On our way back to the hotel we ran into our friends the Milnes our dance carpool buddies who recently moved. It was so fun to see them and Marcus told them about how he had the nerves that day.
We talked about going out to dinner but we just ate what we had at the hotel. I had placed a Walmart pickup order we picked up Friday after getting checked in to our hotel. We had easy quick things for breakfast, stuff for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, mac&cheese, some teriyaki noodles that were a hit and lots of filling snacks like protein bars, bananas, apples, yogurt covered raisins. The food was great for easy meals especially after a long day in the park.
I thought about letting the boys stay up for fireworks that night but it was daylight savings so the fireworks at 9:30pm would really be like 10:30pm and I just thought they could use the sleep and we would watch them another night. So they went to bed and didn't even flinch when the booms of the fireworks started happening.
Sunday everyone slept in until 9:30am. We ate a light breakfast watched church and played games. Ellie was not feeling too well so she was keeping her distance a bit. Then we decided to walk downtown Disney and get some food for dinner. We decided to put the boys to bed on time that night too because of the time change and we thought we would rope drop Monday morning and stay up late doing World of Color show and Fireworks.
Monday, March 11th everyone was sleeping in a little so I decided to let them sleep and we wouldn't do rope drop. As we started getting ready it was obvious Ellie was really not feeling well. I made her some salt water to gargle and suggested she shower to see if the steam could help her. We asked if she wanted to go in to the park and she said no and we said that's fine, do those few things to see if it helps and we'll check on you to see if we can meet up later.
We went into Disneyland and were planning to hit a few the rides right by the entrance that had low wait times. Just as we were loading for Indiana Jones Marcus, freaked out so I took him off the ride and outside. He said he didn't want to do Pirates of the Caribbean either so I took him to walk around the treehouse and to watch the Mark Twain boat go around the lake. Can you spy us in the treehouse picture Steve took from the Pirate line.
Then we hit the Winnie the Pooh ride Lila's friend said she liked. From there we hit Big Thunder Mountain where we saw a duck in his nest in the line.
Here we are in Toontownn to ride Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Train.
We kept checking on Ellie but she wasn't ready to join us yet so we headed to Tomorrowland where we drove cars in Autopia first. I rode with Marcus because he wasn't quite tall enough to ride on his own for that one. He drove and I did the pedal. He kept telling me I was going to fast but I told him the pedal wasn't actually regulating the speed it was just go or stop. Steve said Grandma full on rammed the car in front of her, oops.
Then Grandma, Steve, Lila, and Andrew went to do Star Tours and the Matterhorn while Marcus and I did Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster and got an ice cream treat. We met up afterwords and they told us that as they were loading for Star Tours it put up a notice that they were looking for the following rebel spy and then they flashed up a picture of Andrew they had just taken in the line while doing initial scans. They thought it was hilarious and it happened so fast they couldn't even get a picture of it.
The boys had been looking forward to the Star Tours store because they heard you could build custom lightsabers there. I was not sold on the idea of them having lightsabers. I kept asking them what they would do with them (in my mind I was picturing fighting or uninvited hitting with them).
We rode the monorail and waved to Ellie because the monorail goes right by our hotel.
Then we went and did Smugglers again. Lila and Andrew were the pilots. Andrew told Lila to say, "Punch it Chewy" when he was supposed to push the Millennial Falcon into hyper-speed. 😂 Then we decided to head back to the hotel for lunch and a little break. Steve took Lila and Andrew to get some fancy churros. We really wanted to try these banana butterscotch ones inside California Adventure but it seemed like to much work to scan in over there to get some so they just went to the cart just outside the park in Downton Disney and got a few. They were super fancy but to be honest weren't our favorite and do to a little mishap with the order we ended up with a lot so we were kind of done with churros after that so we never tried the banana butterscotch ones.
After our lunch break, we decided to head to California Adventure for the evening. We had a lightning lane for Soarin and Lila wanted to see Radiator Springs at night all lit up. Grandma decided to stay behind with Ellie that evening and they watched a couple of shows together. We rode Soarin and were going to get dinner in Radiator Springs but no one was hungry yet so we looked at the wait time for Rise of the Resistance and it was 45 minutes so we booked it back to Disneyland and by the time we got back there it was up to 60 minutes but the line was way longer than the one we waited in on Saturday so I was worried it would take longer but it consistently moved. The boys taught us double double this this double double that that in the line. It was fun. We enjoy spending time in the line just chatting and relaxing. We were on and off of it in the 60 minutes. It really is a fun ride. The first time we rode one of the characters came face to face with Lila and asked her to tell him where the Rebel base was and it would save us all a lot of trouble. This time the character in the line was being sharp telling people to get up to the color they were told to go to. Lila looked at me and said, "I think this is the only ride in Disney where the workers don't have to be nice." Several people overheard her and started laughing. We were really glad we went and did it again that night. It is such a cool ride.
Then we hopped back to California Adventure and ate dinner at Flows Cafe.
After eating quickly we headed over to see Color of Wonders which is a really cool water light show. We really enjoyed that. We thought we would see the fireworks as we were heading out but apparently they only do fireworks on the weekend so then I felt bad I hadn't let the boys stay up late Saturday or Sunday. We showed them some pictures and video Grandma took our first night there.
Tuesday, March 12th would be our last day in the park. We slept in a little more since the boys had stayed up later. Ellie still wasn't feeling up to going into the park so we left her at the hotel again. We went straight back to Toontown to ride Runaway Train again and this time we waited in the regular line and enjoyed seeing all of the entertaining decor. Then the boys wanted to wander around Toontown for a bit so I ordered some mini cinnamon sugar donuts and they were a small yummy treat we enjoyed. Then we headed to the Smugglers Ride again. Everyone wanted to do Rise of the Resistance again but it was broken all morning it didn't get up and running until 2:30 and the wait jumped to 185 minutes so we settled on doing Smugglers again and as we got back to Galaxy's edge there was a show going on and storm troopers walked right by us. Marcus leaned over and said, "I can't get too close because I know one of the rebel spies." Then he whispered, "Andrew." He remembered the story from them riding Star Tours yesterday. 😂 We saw lots of characters in Galaxy's Edge: R2D2, Rey, Mandalorian, Chewy. It was fun to see them just walking around the area.
We thought we would check out the droid depot while we were back there but we had lightning lane tickets for Big Thunder Mountain which is really close so we went and rode that then went back to the droid depot where we found out the boys could custom build a remote controlled droid for the same price as the prepackaged ones we had seen the day before. They both thought that was cool so they chose that for their souvenir.
Then we headed to do Space Mountain with our lightning lane again. Grandma told us at the beginning she was not going to ride that one so she sat out with Marcus. The four of us really enjoyed the ride and wished we had ridden it earlier because we probably would have done it again. Oh well.
At this point Lila picked out her souvenir shirt she wanted and Grandma bought this cute sling bag. It was the last souvenir purchases as Ellie had bought playing cards on the first day. Marcus was so excited about his BB8 he was ready to head to the hotel to play with it. Lila wanted to try this garlic cheese bread her friend recommended and Steve wanted to get some Dole Whip so we sent them to get those yummy treats while Marcus and I took the droids back to the hotel. When the got back they said they ordered two garlic cheesey breads and ate one while waiting in line for the Dole Whip and Grandma liked it so much she went back and bought two more. We really only ate snacky treats from Disneyland, definitely on vacation mode. Good thing we had yummy good food at the hotel to eat. After resting for a couple of hours we headed back into California Adventure to ride Guardians of the Galaxy again per Marcus's request then over to Web Slingers and just as we were getting in line Marcus started to freak out. I tried to convince him it would be fun but I was tired so Grandma kindly said she would wait with Marcus. It was a totally fun ride with spider bots which Marcus loves if I had known that I probably could have convinced him to do it. Anyway we came out and Grandma had taken him in line where he was playing with a spider bot so that was cute.
At this point Ellie decided she would meet up with us. So Steve and Lila headed to Disneyland to ride a bunch of rides with her using single rider lines. I took the boys and Grandma back in the Web Slinger line because Marcus decided he wanted to do it. Unfortunately a few minutes in the ride went down with a 15-20 minute delay so we thought we would wait it out they announced a longer delay and finally announced they would be closing the ride until further notice. We stayed close in hopes we could jump right back in line when it opened. Unfortunately at that time there were 6 major rides down: Rise of the Resistance, Space Mountain, Web Slingers, Matterhorn, Cars, Mickey Runaway Train. We were getting extra lightning lane passes because we had things booked we couldn't do but so many rides were down we couldn't even use them. Finally the 4 of us did Soarin again on our way to meet Steve and the girls at Smuggler for our last lightning lane pass there.
Just as we got off of that ride we noticed Web Slingers opened back up so I told the boys I would take them to ride that as our last ride of the trip. We were in the park later than I wanted to be because we needed to be on the road by 5am Wednesday to catch our flight home but Marcus really wanted to do it. I told him he needs to learn to try things because that's the only way to know if you like it or not. As we were walking towards main street Disney we were offered a ride to the gate in one of these original cars that Walt drove and we took it. It was like Grandpa had sent us a ride, he restored old cars so this was definitely something he would have enjoyed and his way of being a part of our trip. We were also grateful for the reprieve for our legs and feet because we were definitely doing a lot of park hopping today.
Everyone loved Web Slingers. Marcus was screaming, Wahoo! Yeah! The whole time and he even got the high score in our cart. Steve scored a little higher than him in the other cart but Marcus was happy and everyone had fun so we ended on a high note. I took the boys and grandma back to the hotel where we ate a little bit and started packing up. Steve and the girls hit a few more rides and caught a little of the World of Colors show before heading back. I finally got the boys to bed at 9:30 knowing everyone would be really tired the next morning but we managed to cram in as much as we possibly could. We got up at 4:30am and were on the road by 5am to beat the traffic. We were checked in and going through security at 6am. I was afraid the security line would be really long but there was no one in it at 6am on a Wednesday morning. Then we sat at the gate visiting and relaxing before our flight home. Grandma's flight left an hour after ours and she headed back to Phoenix. I thought the kids might go to school late because we got back around 11am but everyone was so tired. The boys convinced me to let them stay home and play with their droids.
Lila wanted to go up for the last class of the day but when I went to check on her she was crying so I told her to go take a nap so she'd be ready for dance. They found out on Monday that they are going to have to respace all of their dances before they compete on Saturday because one of their teammates has to have surgery. We are so sad for Brooklyn and decided to put together a little gift basket from the team so I was frantically running around trying to fill the basket before my friend Lori came. I picked Lori up from the airport on Thursday the same time I picked up Carole. Lori was coming to visit her son Brayden who has an internship here in Layton. We loaned her the Acura (the car Ellie drives) since we would be gone while she was here and wouldn't need it. Brayden came and had dinner with us Thursday night and they both enjoyed a ride in the Tesla. Brayden even tried to fit in the back jumpseats.
They came and had dinner here again tonight before I
took Lori back to the airport. She was a trooper and ran a few errands
with me on our way and we visited and laughed. It was so good to see her and hug her! We need to get together again soon!💕
Well there you have our trip to the Happiest Place on Earth.