Disneyland Day 4

Disneyland Day 4
November 20

Our last day was spent in Disneyland!  We sent the Helquist's on ahead of us to spend a little time with their own family that morning.  Mostly because we felt bad having them wait on us. We move a little slower with baby girl, and Matisyn took a really long time to eat each morning.  We enjoyed walking slowly down Mainstreet and checking things out and soaking it all in.  We walked back to the rockets because all three kids had been wanting to ride them, so we wanted to get to them first.  I was happy to wave to them on the side with Kaylee, and let Matt spin in circles.  They all loved it, and we were happy to avoid long lines for that one.  The morning was the least busy.  By that night the park was insane with people!  After the rockets we headed to Fantasyland.  Emilyn's request was to walk through Sleeping Beauty's castle.  The girls enjoyed it, but I think Lucas thought it was a little too dark and scary.  I needed to feed Kaylee, so I hung out on a bench, while the others went to ride Snow White.  Sadly, the ride wasn't working right, and the line was taking forever.  They finally gave up and headed over to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  Then we rode the Carousel.  After that we met up with the Helquist's to head over to our character breakfast at the Plaza Inn.

Kaylee slept happily through the rockets!

The kids all tried to get the sword to move, but no luck this time!

After our character breakfast, Emilyn was beyond excited to get to use her special pass to ride the Matterhorn.  Last time we were in Disneyland they had barely changed the height requirements for the ride, and even though she had ridden it when she was super little, we found out after waiting in a long line that she wasn't tall enough.  They gave her a special pass to bring with her next time so that she could go straight to the front of the line.  She could take 6 people this time, so the four big kids and the moms went together.  I'm just impressed that I kept that pass safe and was able to find it before we left!  She was a happy girl!  Matt and Lucas rode the Buzz Astro Blasters while we were gone.

Minnie girls posing in front of the Matterhorn

So one of my regrets of the morning was not making it to It's a Small World while the lines were shorter.  I knew all of my kids would love it, and the Christmas decorations make the inside and outside so much fun!  I must have been willing the line to be short, because we somehow timed it to be there right when they were opening a second line.  Everyone was able to meet up and jump into line just in time for us to make it on the ride together.  It didn't disappoint!  Even Kaylee was fascinated with the whole ride!  I love that you can see on all us with this selfie on the boat.  :)

After Small World the moms took all the kids, except Kaylee went with Matt, to ride the Disney Railroad.  We rode for three stops to New Orleans Square.  Lucas loved the train, and was especially excited about the dinosaur sections!  The dads went to get fast passes to Thunder Mountain Railroad and get Cora and Kaylee their matching Minnie glasses with their names etched in to match the rest of our family.

In New Orleans we rode the Riverboat.  We haven't done that with this group before, and the kids liked it more than I expected.  We even got to ride with Princess Tiana, which was an added treat.  We enjoyed some Frozen lemonades and waited for our Fast Passes to be active.  The park was getting crazy by this point and there were people everywhere.  It was hard to ride anything without a fast pass or a rider switch pass.  We purposely chose a time of year that is generally much less busy, but due to the opening of "Season of the Force" and Star Wars mania it was a very crowded day.

The moms rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad with the four big kids and then we got rider switch passes for the dads to ride with them.

Next was the Jingle Cruise.  It was a LONG line, but the holiday theme was a lot of fun.  The animals were having a great time with a Christmas shipment that had been dropped on them.  We ate snacks in line, and Lucas fell sound asleep on Matt, and missed the ride.

Lucas woke up as we entered the Tiki Room.  We all love that place, especially while eating delicious Dole Whip floats!

Next we went to find seats for the Holiday Parade.  We were late so there wasn't much left.  We were about to settle on a not so great spot when Mike mentioned to the Disney cast member that he wished we would have found seats earlier.  Greg the awesome cast member says, oh yeah, well come with me.  We followed him to a special reserved seating section with front row seats right by Small World where the parade was starting.  We had an amazing view, and everyone LOVED the parade.  Lucas was especially endearing, waving and cheering and grinning ear to ear while some of his favorite characters passed us.  There were lots of lights and great music, and everyone was feeling the Disney holiday spirit!

There just can't be enough pictures of this face of his!  So much happiness and joy!  Emilyn was pretty excited and happy to be there too!  The parade was amazing, but I could have spent the whole time watching the excitement on my kids' faces!

Kaylee snoozed through most of the parade.  We started using how much Kaylee slept through something to rate how it was.  Kaylee gave the parade nine snoozes.  Or Kaylee just gave that ride three snoozes.  The girls liked to use this rating system!

After the parade we went to see the show "Mickey's Magical Map."  It was so good, and we loved the music and dancing.  The kids were all glued to it.

We decided to squeeze in a visit to see the princesses.  The line took longer than expected, but it was worth the wait.  Matisyn is getting too old to be as excited about them, but she surprised me with how cute she was with them.  Emilyn was in her element visiting with them.  Little Cora was the most excited though!  We got to see Belle, Cinderella, and Snow White.  Then the dads took Jens, Matisyn, and Emilyn to use their fast passes and ride Indiana Jones.  Emilyn barely didn't make the height requirement, but luckily they let her ride.

Alison and I went with the other kids in search of some place to eat dinner.  By this time the park was wall to wall people.  I think it's one of the busiest I've ever seen it.  I was trying to push Kaylee in the stroller and drag Lucas with the backpack, but it was slow progress with all of the people.  He was not cooperating, and we were all pretty exhausted.  We tried a couple of places that didn't work out, and then we finally tried the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe on Main Street.  It was so busy too, but we decided to wait in line.  In a sort of miracle, Alison managed to find us a table for 10 and we were able to wait for the Dads and have a place to sit down and eat dinner.  I was so very grateful for that seat!  It ended up being even better because we ate slowly, and by the time we were done we were able to watch the Paint the Night light parade again from our table.  It was crowded and we couldn't see perfectly, but it was a great way to end the night.  Cora and Kaylee slept in their strollers right by our table.  

These two are so cute.  Jens and Matisyn are getting so much more grown up, but it's fun to see that in many ways they are still little.  We managed to capture them holding hands once, which was so cute.  They are good little buddies.

After the parade we went with our little family to the main store to let the kids each pick out a souvenir.  They had been begging, and thinking, and agonizing all week over what they would pick.  We kept telling them to wait until the last night to decide.  Lucas had fallen asleep by this point so we picked a Toy Story  playset with all the little characters and a large T-Rex stuffed animal from the new movie The Good Dinosaur for him.  We surprised him with them the next morning, and he was very pleased with our choices.  "Rexie" has slept with him every night since!  The girls each chose a baby stuffed animal character.  Emilyn chose Baby Pluto and a Minnie Mouse cup, and Matisyn chose Baby Pegasus from Hercules and some little figurines.  We said goodbye to the Disney magic and walked back to our hotel.  We were gone from around 9:00 in the morning until around 11:00 at night.  The kids were troupers.  We loved having four full days in both parks, and although we were exhausted, everyone was so happy with all the things we were able to fit in and the experiences we had.  We are so grateful for amazingly well-matched friends to travel with!  It was a great trip!