DISNEYLAND 2012

We just got back from our fun packed California/Disneyland trip! We had a blast and i am soooo sad its over! I had our trip planned out to the max before we even left i was very excited and couldn't help it! We left Saturday afternoon after i got off work. Nate had packed the car all by himself and was ready to go! We stayed the night is Mesquite, NV and ate a Crab Leg, Prime Rib buffet dinner on Saturday. We planned to sleep in a little on Sunday, but i think the excitement kicked in cause we were up bright and early. We got to our hotel around noon (yes we did loose an hour so it was more like 1) Unfortunately we weren't able to check into our hotel until 3 which we DID NOT KNOW. So we headed to Huntington Beach and paid a WHOLE $15@%@#$ dollars to park, and it was WINDY and FREEZING the whole time! So our beach venture lasted just until our hotel room opened up. We pretty much fell asleep at that point and just relaxed.

Little miss Gracie wanted to come with us!

MONDAY morning we got up and walked over to downtown Disney to pick up our tickets and make sure we knew how to get there. We stopped for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and split a piece of Snickers Cheesecake for dessert. With full bellies and smiles on our faces we hit the road for Los Angeles.

Oh Eeyore! 

Dorie & Nemo my 2 favorite FISH!

All of that is made out of LEGOS!!

Beast was huge as you can tell!

 We stopped and spent some time at the Los Angeles Temple and visitors center.  I'm sure the people inside were getting a good laugh at Nate and i trying to take a picture of ourselves using a giant ROCK! It was so beautiful and i am glad we were able to stop.

View from the road

 The next stop on our agenda was Chinatown ( my request) so we could do some shopping. We found this cute little vendor that had some purses. ( my MAIN reason for wanting to go) FIVE purses later and some negotiations i made my final purchase.(my husband loves me okay?!)   As we were walking out we noticed this booth with this little tank and two TURTLES in it. We thought it would have been like $20 or so for them, to our surprise all they were asking was $5 and $1 for food!! UHH OK!! I called my sister instantly since i had bought them for her, she was so excited! She was like a worried Mom making sure her little babies were going to make it home safe! Our Chinatown venture didn't last as long as we thought it would so we had to walk around some more trying to kill time. I did notice that i was the ONLY blonde i had seen in like 3 hours!! I kept feeling like EVERYONE was starring at me ( i NEVER thought i would have that problem in CALIFORNIA!!)

Leo & Filbert

 That night we went to the Los Angeles DODGERS vs Arizona Diamond Backs Baseball game. Nate had purchased these AMAZING seats as close as you could get without having a box seat. I am not going to lie i actually enjoyed myself at the game.

TUESDAY morning we woke up bright and early and headed to Disneyland with our magic morning passes. I was feeling super sick that morning AND our first ride was Space Mountain!! Which made me a little worried for the rest of the day… We grabbed me a banana and went on Buzz Lightyear ( where i totally crushed Nate's score!!!) and then I was good. We spent the whole day riding rides, there was hardly any lines at all, we basically walked onto most of them. We used our fast passes like twice that day for Splash Mountain and Indiana Jones(because they ALWAYS have a line). We went to ride Splash Mountain RIGHT after we had are lunch, so I was soooo chilly from being in the AC and not walking around, I was not wanting to get drenched very badly. The people coming off the ride were hardly wet at all… which seemed nice to me. But NO we got DRENCHED… I was soaked HEAD to TOE. Sadly I was wearing my sneakers and so my socks were all wet and we spent a lot more time walking my poor feet got blistered on the FIRST DAY!! We were able to finish the whole park except for Fantasyland that morning, so we walked over the California Adventures and spent the rest of the day there. We were even able to finish EVERYTHING we were wanting to.  They have a Toy Story Mania ride that Nate and I LOVED we rode it like 4 times! Which is funny because the wait was like 40 min each time!  Unfortunately Nate was not feeling so hot after we went on Tower of Terror followed by Screamin’ California. We spent the rest of the day doing not as adventurous rides.

He was so tired he fell asleep on a bench!

 We had dinner that night at Ariels Grotto is was very classy high end food, which if you are not used to or like its not very good. Which meant I enjoyed it and Nate thought it was ok ;) Our meals came with World of Color preferred seating tickets so we were front and center also known as the WET ZONE. This really tall couple came and stood right in front of me just as it was starting, and i wish i could have asked if i could go in front of them... With the downfall.. The world of color was still AMAZING the pictures don't even do it justice! It was all wet from the lovely mist and i didn't even care it was sooo worth watching!

WEDNESDAY we went to Goofy Kitchen for breakfast it was soooo much fun. The breakfast was amazing and all these fun characters come around to your table they will sign autographs and take pictures with you. Definitely worth going to and was just as good as Nate talked it up to be!

 My poor feet didn’t stand a chance on Wednesday though, I was dying by the time we even got to the park. We were able to do ALL of fantasyland (which I LOVE) and repeat rides that we had enjoyed the day before. We had a wonderful lunch at the BLUE BAYOU which if you don’t know that is the restruant that you can see when you go on the Pirates of the Caribbean. I love the atmosphere that they have there, I could eat there every meal if it wasn’t so pricey. After lunch we were kinda pooped so we did a few more things like Splash Mountain, but then ended up at the hotel taking a nap.

 We woke up just in time to head to the ANGELS of Anaheim vs Chicago WHITE SOX game. The Angels tickets were a surprise that I had purchased for Nate about two weeks before our trip. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to two baseball games in one week. I also had never been to a game so I wasn’t sure where to sit or anything like that I ended up getting seats right by FIRST base (which apparently you are supposed to sit by THIRD, my bad)  We kept hiking and hiking up the stairs I was starting to get really nervous since Nate’s seats were so amazing, I didn’t want to let him down. I had spent the same about on my seats and he did his, so i couldn't figure out why they would be so high! Then we get to the club level so we thought we need to go up one more set of stairs, but an usher asked if we needed help and checked our tickets and sent us into the CLUB LEVEL. Our seats were PADDED, we had MENU and a WAITRESS who brought food right to us!!! It definitely turned out okay!

THURSDAY morning i was DEAD tired so i slowly got out of bed and got ready so that we could go to Sea World. I slept the ENTIRE drive so i dont have much information about that.. I loved sea world the shows were alot different from the last time i had been there. They let you feed the seals and sea lions the guy giving information told us that the older animals know that they are going to get fed either way, so they don't really feel the need to work for it anymore. But the younger animals will still come up to the wall and "talk" for it.

At the Sea Turtle exhibit we learned how you can tell if it is a boy or girl. Apparently it is by the length of their tails, so i let Madi know that both of her turtles are BOYS. ( she needed to know so she could name them)   Also the gender is determined by the temperature of the egg when its in the sand, so all of the eggs closer to the sand are GIRLS and the ones that are WARMER and closer to the sun are BOYS.

The shark exhibit wasn't as knowledgeable, i don't have any fish facts to share. The coolest part was walking through the tunnel where the sharks are above you.

 DOLPHIN COVE was not as fun, you have the opportunity to touch the dolphins if you can get them to come over to you. There was a lady there who knew all of them by name. We thought for sure she worked there, but apparently she was just a season pass holder....awkward. 

The OTTERS were so playful and cute!! i wanted to bring one home for my tub! Their trainer walked out to grab them and they were soooo excited!  But then the show was over.... kill joy

 SHAMU aka the KILLER WHALES.... i could sit and watch them all day long, they are beautiful animals. We learned how you can tell the difference between a male and a female other than their size. The males have two slits on the underbelly where the females have three, so that they are able to give birth. The slits on the female are also where the baby whale goes to nurse. We also learned why they have scratches on them, they use their teeth to communicate to one another, and also as a way to show dominance over another whale.

We saw three shows in Sea World and they were all GREAT!!! First the SHAMU show, i was kinda bummed that they don't swim with the whales any more but it was still great. Its pretty incredible how they get people that sit in the "soak zone" wet. They cup the water with their fin and huck water into the stands. Its pretty sweet. The second show we saw was the DOLPHIN/ PILOT WHALE/ BIRD show. They mixed all three into the show and they could swim with all of them, except the birds of course. The last was my personal favorite, the SEAL and OTTER show. This show was hilarious. They did all these skits with the animals and were super funny. After that, we walked through the exhibits and stores and bought some cool things.  We were done about an hour before the park closed but we deicded to leave anyways. We stopped at the San Diego temple on the way home i love that temple its GORGEOUS is reminds me of a castle almost as much and the Salt Lake Temple does. When we finally got to the hotel i had no energy to go out to dinner so we ordered a pizza and that was a very good decision!

FRIDAY THE LAST HURRAH!!! We started the day off in California Adventures went on a couple rides but mostly avoided wet rides, and also did a little shopping. Since we had finished both parks by this point we spent most of our time shopping, and doing repeat rides we really enjoyed. Like Toy Story Mania and the new Little Mermaid ride. We FINALLY got a GIANT TURKEY LEG on friday for lunch ( they are huge) We saw someone wearing a Turkey Leg shirt and for the rest of the day we were on the hunt to find that shirt! We went back to Fantasyland and rerode some rides. Watched part of the parade did more shopping and ate a deliocious dinner and the Big Thunder Ranch BBQ. We were planning on staying that night for the fireworks but we were pretty tired and still wanted to stop in the main disney store on our way to the hotel and my feet wanted to scream i looked like i was waddling for reals! So we saw them as we shopped.

SATURDAY BEACH We were in no hurry this day to get home we ate breakfast at dennys and while we were sitting there wiating for our food i realized that i had wanted to eat lunch on the pier!!! So then i was a little upset that we were sitting at dennys. We stopped at the Newport Beach Temple on the way to the beach. It is a very different looking temple to me it looked like Aladdinish Castle  but i had also just come from Disneyland so it is understandable... We spent forever trying to find somewhere to park at the beach understandable because it was sooo pretty! and WARM Nate and i had fun walking around the shops and watching the people fish off the pier. We even bought some fun souvenirs! We finally decided we should head home so we wouldnt be driving all night. We stopped just outside of Vegas for some Jack in the Box ( which Nate wasnt supposed to notice this but he did!! This little girl at the table next to us at Dennys was talking about an Oreo shake and he mom told her when they stopped for Jack in the Box that she could get one.. well i wanted Jack in the Box from that moment on.. ) We finally got home around 1am Sunday morning Gracie was super excited to see Nate.. yes i said Nate.. She loves Nate and was soooo excited to have her cuddle buddy home!