California Adventure

Our last day at Disney and the last post that no one will want to read but me.  By day three, we were still going strong to get to the rope drop.  The sunny blue skies made it so easy to wake up!  I'm not even kidding.  We sprint-walked to get to the Lightning McQueen ride and the big boys got there so fast they had to let people pass them in line until I could catch up with Henry.  The ride was incredible and I could see why Marcus cried (literally) the first time he went on it during his choir trip to Disney years ago. Henry loved it too, even though he doesn't care much about Cars.  He just liked the race at the end and that his car won.

Marcus is such a rule breaker.  Best ride ever!

Henry's happiness made the trip so much better

twinning!

After riding Cars, we headed over to see all the Avenger stuff and ride the new Spiderman Webslingers ride.  We waited almost 90 minutes for the ride.  It was brutal.  We played all sorts of hand/slapping games, charades, and 20 questions.  I'm pretty sure we provided some good entertainment for those around us.  I'd say the ride was just ok.  

The two LOVE SpiderMan so getting a photo with him was awesome!

We finally caved and bought the stupid Genie Pass.  Disney doesn't do Fast Passes anymore so you pay $20/person for an online reservation system that gets you onto most of the rides, but not the new fun ones. By day three we were done waiting an hour for any ride so this app came in handy, even if we had to wait a long time for our ride time.  The pouring rain definitely put a damper on everything.  Turns out even Disneyland isn't great when it's pouring rain.  So many rides shut down and everyone is constantly on the lookout for a place to stand where they won't get wet.  Waiting in lines while being pelted with rain isn't fun either. Even with our ponchos (that we bought at 7-11 which saved us tons of money) we were still soaking from the knees down.  But we persevered and went on several more rides before the long slosh home.  Our hotel was literally right behind California Adventure.  If only we could have hopped the fence it would've been a five-minute walk instead of thirty.  We got back to the hotel and no one wanted to go back for any more rides that night.  The kids were done.  And the rain was relentless.  So we dried off, ate food, swam in the pool, and got ready for our 5:15am shuttle to the airport.

We saw a cool 3-D movie to kill time and get warm

Parker and Henry loved running around some playground thing while the rest of us waited for a table and food at Flo's Diner

Check out those smiles!  I'm not sure they even knew who Goofy was but they sure were happy to see him!

So.Much.Rain

I forgot to include a few pictures from Disney at night.  The extra lights and Christmas decorations are just incredible!

It looks celestial.  The firework display is amazing and was synchronized with the Christmas music.  Pretty magical if you ask me.

The lights on Small World were jaw dropping.  Randy has new goals for our house next year.

Henry loved Small World.  They added in a lot of Christmas stuff and somehow made the whole place smell of cinnamon!  I'm not even kidding, it was crazy.

Henry is still talking about riding on Dumbo

If you can't have a girlfriend, put your arm around your brother (big eye roll from me)

Ending things on a high note with the biggest smile from Henry.  I'm not sure Disney would've been worth it without his happiness and enthusiasm.  He was the perfect age for this trip.