Our Big Adventure: Disneyland, Day 2

I don't have as solid a record of this day. Apparently we didn't take as many pictures. So, some of this will be out of order. Possibly.

9:57AM

Day two was our latest start. We had pushed so hard on day one that we were exhausted and needed to sleep. Beyond that, though, Bryan and I had stayed up much later than everyone else trying to figure out what to do about our planned short Disneyland days. We finally learned that we could possibly switch our tickets to the other park. Instead of going to Disneyland on day two, we decided to switch to California Adventure. We were some of the last people to breakfast this time, then we made our way to the parks.

9:59AM

The kids took advantage of the hot chocolate station at the hotel and enjoyed a cup nearly every morning of our visit. 

10:12AM

The difference between getting to the parks when they open and coming in a few hours late was kind of major. The security lines were much longer later in the day. Bryan and I were worried we would be told we couldn't change our tickets, but the woman that helped us was super kind and helpful. Apparently we could have changed them on the app, we just didn't know how. With our new plan of a second day at California Adventure officially in place, we went into the park.

11:21AM

According to my pictures our first activity of the day was the Animation Academy. I'm pretty sure we rode the Red Car Trolley either to or from this attraction, so we'll count that too. I love the Animation Academy! When we visited in 2013 we all learned how to draw Agent P from Phineas and Ferb. This time we showed up for a surprise character. It turned out to be Ember from the new movie Elemental. I think we all did pretty well, which is a testament to the skills of the teacher since some of us are artists and some are not. Okay, I'm not, most of the others are. Oh, and Topher dismantled his drawing board instead of drawing, so that was exciting. I successfully reassembled it. Here we have art from

Bryan:

Cooper:

Peter:

Phoebe:

Sophie:

Topher:

and me:

11:36AM

We missed seeing Rodgers the Musical by a few weeks, but you can see the marquee in the background. This was my "what is everyone wearing in case we get separated" picture.

11:44AM

After our art lesson, we cut through the Avengers Campus to get to some rides. On the way we happened to pass Spiderman and quickly lined up to meet him. Bonus: in these two pictures you can see some of the fun backpacks the kids carried on the trip. Cooper's is shaped like Captain America's shield, Phoebe's is Minnie Mouse themed, and Sophie's has princesses on it. Peter still takes his Spiderman bag pretty much everywhere. It holds his Epi-Pen nicely.

11:57AM

We were near the front of the line, so it didn't take too long to get our picture with our favorite web slinger. One of our favorite web slingers, at least. We like Miles Morales and Gwen Stacey a lot too.

12:12PM

The big kids desperately wanted to ride the Incredicoaster again. Since we'd done most of what we wanted the first day, we decided this day we would repeat our favorites. I took the first turn this time while Bryan waited with Topher. They enjoyed some blue cotton candy while we rode and had some to share with the other kids when we got back.

12:15PM

12:19PM

12:23PM

I spy Mr. Incredible near the Incredicoaster. We didn't meet him, but it was cool to see him at a distance.

12:31PM

Peter and Cooper got to ride with Bryan during his run since the girls had gone with me the day before.

12:35PM

I assure you, their poses and facial expressions were all intentional.

1:30PM

After the Incredicoaster poor Topher was near tears since everyone had now gone on a ride except for him. I believe this is when we rode The Little Mermaid, though I'm not 100 percent certain of the timeline. I do know we rode it at some point and that I definitely let my eyes close and my head lean on the tall seat back while we rode. I believe we rode Grizzly River Run next. After spending most of the previous day in wet jeans from this ride, Bryan opted to sit this out while the rest of us rode.

2:08PM

We were finally ready for a late lunch at Smokejumpers Grill, right outside of Soarin' Around the World. It was the best meal we had while visiting the parks! Seriously, it beat out the two fancy places we ate at. Hunger was probably only part of the equation. They had a fantastic gluten free hamburger bun and were extremely mindful of Peter's allergy.

3:10PM

After that we wandered over to the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail. We had missed this in 2013 and almost missed it again this time. It's kind of tucked away. It was essentially a big, redwood forest themed nature trail and playground, which is just what Topher needed at that point in the day. We spent a surprisingly long time there. Apparently this attraction is now closed for refurbishment, so I'm glad it was still open when we visited!

3:39PM

3:40PM

Bryan and I took turns keeping watch from a lookout spot. Peter and Cooper shadowed Topher while Phoebe and Sophie stuck together.

3:46PM

The kids enjoyed the rock wall.

3:54PM

Topher and Sophie were able to use the ziplines, but Phoebe was just barely too tall. She was pretty disappointed about that.

3:58PM

This tree segment was massive! According to the accompanying sign, it was 1000 years old when it fell.

4:28PM

After we'd gotten to run and play, we visited Toy Story Midway Mania! again. This one is closed for refurbishment now as well!

4:38PM

I have no pictures of the next attraction, but I wish I did because it was one of my favorites of the day! We went to Turtle Talk with Crush. The guy doing the voice of Crush was hilarious! I was so impressed at his improv skills. Our whole family loved this one.

6:01PM

After chillin' with Crush, we visited the Sorcerer's Workshop.

6:12PM

That led us to the Beast's library! We got to take quizzes to find out which Disney characters we are. Topher learned that he's Winnie the Pooh and Peter and Cooper are apparently like Woody. Bryan got Peter Pan, Phoebe was Sally from Cars, and Sophie was Pocahontas.

6:13PM

6:14PM

Oh, and if you answer a little differently, your result changes. Topher went from Pooh bear to Scar. Sophie became the Queen of Hearts. Phoebe got Ursula from The Little Mermaid. She wasn't thrilled about that.

6:16PM

I'm most like Belle! Well, that makes sense.

6:27PM

We wandered back over to the other side of the park to jump in line for Soarin', that was my repeat request. One of the seat decks was malfunctioning, so it took a while to start. But at least we didn't have to leave the ride and try again like the people in front of us. I do love that ride.

7:33PM

Cooper really wanted to ride Guardians of the Galaxy again (so did I!), but there were no Lightning Lanes left. We decided it was important enough to stand in the long line to ride it. And yes, it was probably the longest line we waited in that day.

7:40PM

Topher was beyond tired and losing his mind a little during the line for this ride, so we broke down and let him watch Disney+ on Bryan's phone. At least we stayed with the Disney theme. Oh! And now you can see Topher's little backpack.

8:21PM

8:23PM

Topher finally crashed and Peter and I traded him back and forth while we were in line. We discovered that this kid can sleep anywhere.

8:46PM

Right as we were ready to board, Peter and Bryan both stepped out of line. Bryan had known the whole time that he didn't want to ride it again, Peter decided part way through. I thought it was nice of them to stay with us anyway. The rest of us loved it and discovered that there are different storylines! It was not the same ride we had been on the day before.

8:49PM

We were dragging and made the choice not to stay until the park closed. We knew we wanted to be at rope drop the next morning. So we slowly walked to the entrance. Actually, we rode the Red Car Trolley several times that day, including at the end, so I guess that ups our ride count. 

9:00PM

We took some time to sort of recreate this picture from our 2013 trip.

9:01PM

9:02PM

And we played with our Magic Bands. In theory we could make this medallion light up with the colors of our Bands. It mostly worked.

9:07PM

Peter was Topher's personal chauffeur as we walked back to the hotel. We had missed a few shows and didn't go on the Bakery Tour (one of the attractions listed in the map), but other than those things, we had done everything available at California Adventure, some of them multiple times.

9:28PM

We walked back into our hotel, totally worn out. Again, Topher dropped his stuff and climbed right into bed. Everyone was so tired that it was a little easier to chase them to bed. I set my alarm, looking forward to our first day in the original Disneyland park.

The Eyes Have It

I discovered these on my camera roll this week. I'm pretty sure Sophie was the photographer for all of them. It's always exciting to find pictures I didn't take.

Water Babies

I discovered this summer that our local middle school (our town is so small, we only have one), offers swimming lessons during the summer. Sophie had been asking to take swimming lessons, so I signed her and Topher and Phoebe up for one week. When we arrived the first day we discovered they were essentially private lessons, the classes had no more than two students, most only had one. I had no idea when I'd registered them, I'd thought it would be several kids per teacher. 

They learned so much that first week that I signed Sophie and Topher up again for a second week while Phoebe was off camping. This is the final week of lessons for the summer and I registered all three of them, now the third week for Topher and Sophie and the second week for Phoebe. They'll have their last lesson today. I'm seriously floored by how far they've come in these few weeks of swimming.

Believe it or not, all three kids are in this picture. Topher and Phoebe are both on surfboards (to teach paddling and balance) and Sophie is in the water near Phoebe.

Quality Time

"Mom, will you put this picture on the blog and say we had the best day ever?" -Sophie, yesterday, while we quietly played Legos together in the morning.

New England In the Summer

This was not our year for FSY. Our congregation was assigned to go last summer, and most of the youth went. But we were still isolating, so Peter and Cooper stayed home. This year our Bishop encouraged the boys to sign up as soon as it was open to off-year participants. I meant to sign up right away, but we were waiting on a scheduling issue, so it took a few weeks. By the time I was able to register them, the closest For the Strength of Youth Conference was full. So, I searched for the next closest. That is why Bryan spent aaaalllll of last Monday driving Peter and Cooper up to their camp in Amherst, Massachusetts. 

He drove up, dropped them off, then turned around and drove back, all in one day. That made for a very, very, long day for Bryan. We decided to break up the trip to retrieve them into two days, in part because we had to collect them by 7:30 on Saturday morning and we had no desire to leave our house at 3AM. Because Phoebe had left for Bishop's camp the day before, she missed out on our drive up to New England. We left in the early afternoon on Friday.

New England has a lot of trees. I'm sure it's beautiful in the fall, but the green of summer is my favorite.

I believe the last time we took a road trip with only two kids was in 2009. For real life.

It was about a four and a half hour drive up to Amherst. We took the scenic route instead of the city route which possibly saved us a few hours, depending on traffic.

We checked into our hotel for the night, then drove around campus to see where we would need to pick them up the next morning. I started taking pictures of areas on campus, then texting them to Peter and Cooper to show them where we were. Apparently we just missed Cooper at one building.

Cooper told us that the W.E.B. Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the tallest library in the US. I didn't get to go inside, but I did get out of the car to take a picture with it!

As we were driving around campus I found this lab and sent the picture to my sister, Paige. Maybe she's secretly a scientist in Massachusetts? By the way, I cannot spell the name of that state. I have had spell check correct me every time I've typed it.

The next morning Peter and Cooper were sad to leave the new friends they had made, but happy to see their siblings.

We could have gotten right on the road for home, but a friend had told me about a museum in town that I wanted to visit and it didn't open until 10 o'clock. So we got some breakfast, then visited Emily Dickinson's grave ("Oh! Statue world!" as Topher said when we walked into the cemetery), then found a fun park so Topher and Sophie could get some energy out. It was, in fact, such a fun park that Topher was completely filthy when we left. We had to detour back to our hotel room (thankfully we still had some time before checkout) so he could have a bath.

Then, with Topher clean and wearing his clean-ish clothes from the day before, we went to the Eric Carle Museum! This car is outside the museum. When we saw it I said to the kids, "Oh look, it's the Very Hungry Car-tipllar." Who says only dads can make up those jokes?

The museum was small, but lovely. Only the first room was dedicated to Eric Carle. They have a huge collection, but it appears that they rotate out pieces for different exhibits. This one was about his time in Japan and the collaborative work he did there. These two quotes spoke to my heart.

Visitors were invited to sit and create their own books after viewing Carle's work.

The second room was a collection about the artist Claire A. Nivola. I wasn't familiar with her work and I LOVED it! Her use of color and line was so beautiful.

The final exhibit (there was a fourth, but I only found out when I found the link for the museum to add to this post, oops) was all about depictions of horses in literature. It was delightful. Topher appreciated the puppet theater.

This was my favorite piece from the room.

Guess what else that exhibit had on display! A real Caldecott medal! I sent this picture to a few friends and one of them responded that she didn't realize they were actual, physical medals. I hadn't realized either, but now that I've seen one it makes sense that they would be more than just a symbol added to the front of beautiful picture books.

As we finished our visit we of course had to stop in the bathroom since we would be on the road for many hours. The bathroom was themed to match the museum! If you know the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, then these characters will look familiar.

Our drive home was mostly uneventful, except when we had to pull of the freeway and find a bathroom right away because Topher had consumed two kid sized sodas and a Frosty from Wendy's. We found a port-a-potty at a park. He was NOT impressed.

Pennsylvania has fewer trees than Massachusetts (ha! I corrected my own misspelling that time!), but it's still pretty.

We got back into town minutes before Phoebe returned from camping. We had just enough time to drop off our stuff and go pick her up. It was nice to have everyone back together.