Our California Adventure Part 1: Disneyland

So, several months ago, we were in Dallas visiting Ashley and Wayne and the four of us started talking about taking a summer trip together.  We came up with going to Disneyland because we all love California and agreed that Disneyland would be perfect for us because it's a bit smaller.  Then , we decided  to throw in LEGOLAND, and while we're there, might as well do the San Diego Zoo!  Plus, we want a couple days of sightseeing, so our little summer trip turned into a full week in California!  We were so excited for this trip!  I got Pearce a Disney shirt to wear on our first day at Disneyland and also got he and I a few more athletic type outfits to wear.  We were all going to do two days at Disney...one at Magic Kingdom and one at California Adventure.  Chris and I decided we wanted to do a 3rd day at Magic Kingdom while Ashley and Wayne took their kids to do sightseeing in LA.  We all got to LA Friday evening and got unpacked in our hotel room and then walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner...Clancy's.  We LOVED Clancy's!  Pearce was soooooooooo excited to see Nathan and Charlotte!  Saturday morning, we got up early, got dressed, and then went downstairs to eat breakfast.  We were able to take a bus from the hotel to take us to Magic Kingdom, which was really convenient.  While we were on our way, I realized I had forgotten Pearce's stroller back at the hotel!  I was seriously about to cry and was so mad!  I knew Pearce had to have a stroller, because he  and wants me to hold him just walking from the parking lot to the store.  After a bit of a mommy-meltdown, I decided that I could rent a stroller from Disney, if I really needed to.  Well, a couple hours in, I went to rent a stroller :)  Disney's strollers have really come a long way since the last time I went....no more big plastic strollers....these were nice jogging type strollers!  Almost made me want to "forget" my stroller the other two days!  I read a girls' blog who is a big time Disney fanatic and they go to Disney World ALL the time time!  I read on her blog that she and her husband had recently taken a trip to Disneyland, so I emailed her and asked her for some tips on navigating it and how to do fast passes, etc...  Well, she totally hooked us up and let me use her app called Touring Plans.  You just plug in the days you are going to be there, what rides you want to ride, and then basically, it gives you a step by step plan on what rides to ride first and when to get fast passes.  You get the app on your phone and it give you up to date wait times and will change your plan if it needs to.  Basically, it saves you a lot of time, so I was really thankful for her letting us use her login info to use that app!  So, we got there early and had our plan ready and were off and running as soon we got in the gates.  I totally got a "magical" feeling as soon as we walked in.....just love that!  Pearce was tall enough to ride everything except for one ride at Magic Kingdom and one ride at California Adventure.  He LOVED them all (well, wasn't a fan of Tower of Terror afterwards) but loved the scary roller coasters the best!!!!!  We really didn't have to wait too long for most of the rides, which was nice.  The first character we saw was the wicked queen from Snow White.  It was great because she was sooo in character!  She snatched Charlotte and Nathan's autograph books and when they started giggling about it, she said "What are you two silly children laughing at" which only made them giggle more!  Pearce just stood there biting his fingernails :)  I had to tell Pearce that if he wanted to meet more characters, he had to keep his fingers out of his mouth!  Pearce got better with that.  He loved meeting Mickey and Minnie, Buzz and Woody, Flick from A Bug's Life (I think that's his name!), Alice from Alice in Wonderland, and when he and I had the opportunity to meet the fairest of them all, Snow White.......well, he failed miserably :)  Snow White said in her sweet voice, "Well, hello there handsome" and that was all it took for him to bury his head deep in my neck!  Still got our picture taken with her though!  I'm so happy Chris decided to let us have a 3rd day at Disney!  We agreed that Pearce would like the Magic Kingdom better than going sight seeing and it was just so nice to not be rushed and just do all of Pearce's favorite rides.  We even got to catch a show about Rapunzel which Pearce LOVED because he has seen the movie, Tangled, several times.  We were on the front row, so got to see Rapunzel and all the actors really well!  Pearce's favorite ride of all was the Hyper Space Mountain, which is a Star Wars themed roller coaster, but sadly it was broken, so Pearce couldn't ride it one last time :(  He did get to do Star Tours which is a Star Wars simulator, so it worked out.  At the end of each day at Disney, the kids got to pick out a souvenir, which was really fun for them!