September part 3: Disneyland: part 2

Warning, there are a lot of pictures coming up. And if you're not me or one of my kids, you probably don't care about most of them.

Day 2 of eating breakfast at the La Quinta. The boys loved it.

Dat face tho.

Everyone had to have their own map. Every day. Sheesh.

We wanted to get fast passes for Indiana Jones first, but the ride wasn't operating so no fast passes were available. Boo. So we went to the Haunted Mansion instead. It was all dressed up for Halloween as the Nightmare Before Christmas. I like it better the original way, but it was less scary for the kids this way.

We walked past Indy, and what do you know, it happened to be working again. Hooray! Since there was only a 10 minute wait, Colin and I went for it.

Indiana Jones is my favorite. Colin loved it too.

The Jungle Cruise is my favorite! When I was a teenager, my great ambition was to one day be a guide on the Jungle Cruise.

I love the joke about the lions watching over the sleeping zebra. It kills me every time.

Snuggles with Simba.

Hey, that picture of the castle isn't too shabby. Way to go, me.

Our first Fantasyland ride of the day was Snow White. For my first time ever, I had a ride break down and I had to be escorted off. I've had rides stop before, but I've never had to walk off of one. It was all quite thrilling. But I was disappointed that my kids missed the scary part at the end. Does that make me a bad mom?

I hope we don't end up like these guys!

Everyone loves King Arthur's Carousel. Especially Nana and Kate. I even hopped on and rode with Jude.

 

We only rode the Fantasyland rides that didn't have enormous lines. Thankfully, my kids didn't know there were other rides that we weren't going on. That's a point for ignorance. They did like every ride we made it on, even Pinocchio. 

I was trying to get pictures of the lands from Tangled and Frozen in the Storybook Land ride from our ride on Casey Jr.'s train.

 

After the train Nana walked the kids over to the monorail while Jude and I backtracked to fetch the stroller. Since no one was at the sword in the stone, we stopped. I like how it looks like the sword is emerging from Jude's faux hawk.

A view of the Matterhorn while waiting for the monorail to take us to Downtown Disney.

Nemo's whatever ride. I've still never been on it. 

Happy Monorail Faces!

Uh oh, not such a happy monorail face.

Jude was pleased with everything. That was nice.

We made the trip to Downtown Disney just so we could see the Lego store. I was super impressed with the displays outside.

Unfortunately, due to dangerous wind (?!), the monorail wasn't running when we were ready to leave, so we had to walk a looooong way back to our hotel. Grant and Kelli arrived in CA while Jude and Nana were napping and the kids and I were swimming. Kelli posted something on Facebook about the awesome view from her room (see below.) I replied with this view from our hotel room, just to make her jealous. The plan was to go back to Disneyland after a rest, since we cut out early the day before. I was having a hard time being patient while waiting for Nana and Pauline and the kids to be ready to go. But then Pauline suggested that we all go to Goofy's Kitchen (a character dining experience) at the Disneyland Hotel and see how long the wait was (she had tried to get reservations, but they didn't have any).

So we did. And after a looooooooot of walking and driving and waiting and walking some more, we made it. And the stand-by line wasn't bad at all! So we ate dinner with Goofy and Minnie and Pluto and Chip and Dale. It was awesome. And it was amazing of Pauline to treat us all to dinner, because there is no way I would have every been able to take my kids there on my own. It was special and awesome and super fun. Oh, and every child went to the bathroom, separately, at least 4 times. This is not an exaggeration. I spent almost all of my time shuttling kids to and from the restroom (which was not close) instead of eating. 

After dinner we watched the World of Color (kind of) from Grant and Kelli's hotel room. They stayed in the Disney Paradise Pier Hotel on the concierge level. It was awesome. Thanks for letting us stay vicariously with you, Grant!

We had a bit of a mishap on the way back to our hotel after we left Grant and Kelli's. We were walking through the parking garage, 100 feet from our car, when Colin stepped suddenly in front of me. I was carrying Jude, and I tripped over Colin. I went down hard, but managed to save Jude from most of the damage. I don't know if he bonked on the cement at all or just on my wedding ring. His head was bleeding, and my hand/knees were bruised and swollen. It really wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it definitely freaked out the strangers walking behind us.