Trip Report, Day 4

Day 4 of the trip was Day 1 of Disneyland! Woo Hoo!
We woke up early Tuesday morning to catch the Magic Morning Hours at Disneyland beginning at 7am. Had a little breakfast in the hotel room, then headed out the door. Weather wasn't sunny and warm like at Legoland, but at least it wasn't raining (a HUGE blessing!).

Got to the gate before it opened, did the countdown, then headed straight for Fantasyland and Dumbo the Flying Elephant (arguably the slowest loading ride in the park!).

Our earliness paid off with no line at Dumbo, then we followed it up with the rest of Fantasyland in relatively short order. The only line to speak of was Peter Pan, but we still blew through Fantasyland (in order: Dumbo, Matterhorn Bobsleds (twice), Alice in Wonderland, Tea Cups,

Peter Pan, King Arthur's Carousel, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Scary Adventures, Pinocchio's Daring Journey, Casey Jr. Train Ride, It's a Small World Holiday, ,hot chocolate at the hub, Sleeping Beauty's Castle Walk Through) in a few short hours. In fact, the longest line of the morning was for hot chocolate (due to the cold).

After Fantasyland (and hot chocolate) we headed over to Frontierland, where we did Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (twice),

then Critter Country and New Orleans Square, where we hit Haunted Mansion Holiday (which was fantastic, by the way),


Splash Mountain (three times),

FYI, Hannah's petrified look is purely mugging for the camera.

Winnie the Pooh (twice, for the sake of a photo), Lunch at the French Market,

the Pirates' Lair on Tom Sawyer Island,

then we rode the Disneyland Railroad out of the park for naps.

After a little downtime at the hotel (yes, we slept) we headed over to California Adventure for Aladdin the Musical (nearly broadway-like in caliber and worth the price of park admission),




followed by dinner at "Award Wieners" (great corn dogs!), Mike and Sulley to the Rescue, ElecTRONica (a giant, TRON-based street party, complete with this really cool performer called "LaserMan") and we ended the day at Soarin' over California.
If you're keeping score at home, that's 27 attractions on Day 1. Awesome.

Legoland Bonus photos

Because you're a faithful bloggg reader, here are a couple of bonus photos from Legoland.

David, June 2004

David, December 2010

Trip Report, Day 3

We woke up in our Anaheim hotel, ate some continental breakfast and hit the road to Legoland in Carlsbad (an hour south). We stopped in Oceanside at a Best Buy to buy a new video camera since we realized that ours had given up the ghost the day before. Unfortunately, we had no way to charge the battery, so the abundant videos would have to wait until Disneyland. We did take some (though not much) video with the still camera at Legoland; even with little video proof, we certainly had a fabulous time. The weather was beautiful (85 degrees for the high) and the park was perfect. We were there by the time they opened the gates and really had no lines to speak of the whole day.

One cool thing about Legoland is the fact that many of the rides are interactive. There's a driving school in which the kids drive mini lego cars...


On the Sky Cruiser you have to pedal in order for it to go (it's motorized, but it senses whether or not you're pedaling). Another ride, the Kid Power tower requires you to pull a rope in order to ascend, then letting go of the rope lets you descend (gradually).
For the Knights' Tournament, the riders get to choose the intensity of the ride on a scale of 1 to 5. David and I dialed it right up to 5. We were smart to plan lunch AFTER this ride.

Finally, a big attraction at Legoland is the Miniland USA area. It has several mini cities from around the United States with some amazing lego buildings in them. It's easy to spend long periods of time looking at all the detail in each of the many buildings.
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They even had some extra features just for the holidays!

After the park closed, we headed over to In-N-Out Burger for some California goodness.

I prefer the Double Double Animal Style, thank you very much. With cheese fries and a neapolitan shake, of course.

Trip Report, Day 2

Sunday morning we got up earlier than we wanted to (but right when Seth wanted to), went to IHOP for breakfast (highly recommend the Banana Bread French toast), waited too long for our food, ran out of there to make it to church and sat through the Christmas cantata of the Tropicana Ward (a performance, to be sure). After sacrament meeting, we were on the road again. A relatively uneventful drive (listening to the Tennis Shoes among the Nephites series) got us to Anaheim by mid afternoon, where we checked into the hotel (right across the street from Disneyland--if you look closely you can see the park entrance and Space Mountain in the background).
Once we got settled in and put on our shorts, we walked over to Downtown Disney, where we spent the evening ogling souvenirs and enjoying the fabulous(!) weather. We just beat the dinner crowds at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen Express (pretty good cajun food).

We spent a LONG time in the following stores: World of Disney, where we contemplated every possible Disneyland souvenir, Build-a-Bear Workshop, with some exclusive Disney wares, and the LEGO store, where they have (among other cool stuff) this really cool video screen that scans the box in your hand and shows the item built and in action on top of the box (see Space Shuttle, below).

After hitting the shops (and buying nothing--yet), we poked our heads into the Disneyland hotel, enjoyed the Christmas decorations in the area, then headed back to the hotel to get some rest for the following day, when we'd head down to LEGOLAND!

California Trip Report, Day 1 ('bout time!)

I've had all these great ideas for blogging about the trip, but my time and energy have never coincided to actually blog. I have time; let's see how long the energy lasts...

Day 1, Denver to Las Vegas
We left home about 5:30 am, got 10 minutes down the road to the interstate where a bungee cord snapped and we lost the stroller. I parked on the shoulder, played Human Frogger in the pre-dawn hours, picked up the pieces and we continued on our merry way. We assessed the damage at a rest area on I-70 and bid adieu to the stroller (it was on its last legs, anyway---an exciting demise, to be sure). I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to the Georgetown, CO sanitation workers for filling the entire rest area trash can with our stroller.

We then continued westward over Vail Pass, where whiteout conditions had us driving pretty darn slow for a while. Once we got past the town of Vail (where ski traffic was backed up a LONG way at the off ramp), the roads and the weather cleared and it was smooth sailing the rest of the way to Las Vegas. In Eagle, CO we discovered that Burger King makes great croissanwiches and nasty everything else for breakfast. Highlights of the rest of the drive included the cool rock formations west of Green River, the 80 mph speed limit on I-15 in southern Utah and the canyons of northwestern Arizona. The kids enjoyed spotting the St. George temple from the Interstate ("wow, it's OLD!") and loved the twilight skyline of Las Vegas.After we checked in at the Excalibur Hotel, we went to Greenberg's deli in the basement of New York New York (sandwiches to die for), tooled around the strip a small bit, found it to be largely pornographic and spent the rest of the evening in the relatively safe, four-story M&M's store.

Merry Christmas...

...from the Happiest Place on Earth!

Autumn Time

One of the great things about our front yard is our big beautiful maple tree that shades our house in the summer and provides loads of leaves for hours of entertainment. Seth loved hiding his blanket in the pile of leaves and then jumping into it (maybe it made the pile softer?) I wonder how jumping into a pile of prickly, dry leaves full of bugs (and who knows what else) ever became fun...but it certainly is to my children.


And one of my personal favorites shows Seth practicing his leaf levitation skills. I never knew he had it in him. What a kid.