Vacation, Disney days prt 2

Day 2 of Disney. The next two days were spent at Disneyland Park. Being a Thursday, and being that we bought the 3 day Park Hopper tickets, we got to go early for Magic Morning, which basically means, you can go in early (at 9am, as opposed to 10a when the park opens) and meet some of the characters early morning and have access to some of the attractions earlier.

Below is the entrance of Disneyland, just after you enter the gates.

They were starting to decorate for Halloween, which I had been trying to avoid when planning our trip for Sept! (both the girls, but especially Brenna, are kinda scared of all things Halloween..even simple pumpkins/jackolanterns) Anyway, luckily there wasn't too much up yet and the things that were were cool things, not scary things. :)

Here's another cool thing the PhotoPass people did.. Look closely, and you'll see Tinkerbell in our hands! :)

Anyway, so we darted in and spotted a lot of the Mickey and friends characters in the courtyard. We had to pick and choose, as lines were beginning to form. We had already seen Mickey, Pluto, and Goofy, so we dashed over to have our first visit with Minnie Mouse!

From there we saw Chip or Dale, not sure which one. Actually both were there, but they were on opposite sides of the courtyard, so we just visited one of them. They should wear name tags or something, doncha think?

After seeing some of the guys, we then went and headed more into the park. The girls were ecstatic to see the castle (this would be Sleeping Beauty's castle...Cinderella's is at DisneyWorld)!

And I do love Disneyland for the nostalgia. I have been to DisneyWorld (as a high schooler) and while its huge and overwhelming, Disneyland has a lot more history, being the first Disney park and all... (below, the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse with the castle in the background)..

(Quote says, "I think most of all what I want Disneyland to be is a happy place...where parents and children can have fun. Together." - Walt Disney)

We walked around to the Princess Fantasy Faire. Its where they have a few princesses lined up and you can walk through and visit with them. They rotate princesses, so you never know who or which one you'll get to see. And apparently they don't like to share which ones are there or not there at the present time. Its all about just waiting in line and you get who you get and you don't throw a fit. :)

This part of the park didn't open until 10:00. So we had to wait just a bit to get in. Then, once in, we had to wait till the Fantasy Faire started up, at 10:30. I'm telling you... it was like cut throat to get in and be first in line to see the princesses. People were serious about this stuff! We were actually first in line when it opened, but didn't take off in a mad run when it did, so we ended up a little ways back in line for the Faire. But it still wasn't too long of a wait.

From there, we headed over to Mickey's Toontown. Its where the homes of Mickey and Minnie and all the others are located. That place didn't open till 11, which it almost was. But in the 10 minutes we had to wait we got a nice little history lesson from the friendly worker that was manning the gate. I'll stop here to say that everyone that works at Disney is so friendly! Like, almost a little too friendly, if that's possible. They call each of the girls "Princess" at any moment of interaction. They are all bubbly and filled with joy. Its so refreshing honestly. To be around so many people that are genuinely happy. I wonder if they ever have a bad day! LOL

Anyway, so he proceeds to tell us the story of how Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney were the best of friends and one time while they were visiting together, Walt wanted to build a theme park and so Mickey led him by the hand back in 1955 and showed him the beautiful California grounds now known as Disneyland, and told him "Walt, I think this would be a swell place to build a theme park." (and yes, he used the word 'swell') This guy was soo into this story. He then explained how no one used to be allowed into ToonTown but "the toons" soon realized that if they could come out into the human world that surely that mean that the humans could come into their toon world. So they opened the gates to ToonTown in 1993. ;) I loved hearing him talk and tell the stories. And all the other employees and characters (princesses mainly) around the park embelish their stories and what not. It was so fun to hear Belle talk about how she was about to go have dinner with the Beast, or how she needed to get together soon with her friends the teapot and candlestick. The kids ate up every minute of it. So fun! :)

Anyway, on to our day. So they led us into ToonTown, where we first went to Mickey and Minnie's house. And lo and behold, who was there, but Mickey Mouse himself!

Another photo and then we got to take a tour of Mickey's house. It was too dark to get any good pictures inside, but here's one of the girls in Mickey Mouse's car outside his house.

From there we went and saw Pluto again, Goofy at his playhouse, and we found Minnie again too!

By that time, we were getting hungry so we stopped at Daisy's Diner and had pizza. I just love this picture of Brooke for some reason. :)

After lunch, next stop was It's a Small World, where we rode the boat through seemingly endless choruses of "It's a Small World" sung in all the different languages the puppets portrayed. It was pretty amazing. And to this day, Brooke says that was one of her favorite rides in Disneyland.

This is the entrance, and every hour on the hour the puppets come out and do a little dance or something.

Pictures don't do it justice, so here's a quick video (of course, in this one, you don't get to see many puppets), which shows Brenna's reaction. I don't know if she was singing over and over again (Brooke was!) or if she just kept saying "Wow." Either way, it's adorable.

From there, we went to the Mad Hatter's tea party and rode in the famous spinning teacups! (I did ride with them here, but just stepped out to take a quick picture after)

At the bathroom break, Brooke pretended to sleep while waiting for Brad and Brenna.

We worked in pairs. Since Brooke is too old to go with Daddy into the men's bathroom, I always took Brooke with me and Brad took Brenna with him (she's still oblivious). And I have to say, at Disneyland, even the bathrooms are exceptional! Not only are they clean and cool, etc. but they each have a theme depending on what part of the park you are at. Here we were near Alice in Wonderland and the Tea Party stuff, in Adventureland. So, the bathroom stalls were done as a deck of cards. Cool, huh?

From there, we had the longest wait ever! Waiting to see Tinkerbell. I'm not sure why this line was so slow-moving. We were expecting spectacular things after that long wait (and really, it was still only maybe 30 min...not too bad for a theme park. We were just spoiled by the no-waits or the 5min waits)

In the end we got to see this person from Tinkerbell's stories, who I later found out was Silvermist I think?

And then the beloved Tinkerbell herself, who got the girls to pose like her, which I thought was cute. :)

Then while Brenna napped in the stroller, Brad and Brooke stood in another long(er) line to ride Dumbo, which ended up being another one of Brooke's favorite rides. From what he told me, you got a magic feather as a 'ticket' to ride. Then, once inside your own Dumbo elephant, there was a gear shifter looking thing that controlled whether Dumbo went up or down. So Brooke had a blast going up and down non-stop. She loved it.

We stopped for a snack at this candy store on Main Street USA...

And got these Mickey Mouse shaped rice krispie treats. Brooke likes to be sure to tell people, that even though you can't see in the picture, even the sprinkles on top were in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears! She got a kick out of EVERYTHING that was Mickey Mouse shaped. :)

We listened for a while to this wonderful ragtime piano guy who took requests. He was fabulous!

We also caught the tail end of a show with Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter and friends...

We then went and browsed some of the stores and shops on Main Street USA.

That is where we came across the Silhouette place. I had read before that you HAVE to stop and get a silhouette done. I saw the sign in the window, and thought that it was drawn or painted or something.. and though, eh..... I don't know. Brad didn't want to do it. But after reading all the good things about them beforehand, I thought maybe I was missing something and talked him into going in just to check it out.

Turns out, I was missing something. These were not drawn or painted...they were HAND CUT with scissors. They were only $8...whether you got one person or two...for 2 papers/cutouts. So we did it. We also paid for them each to have a frame as well (another $8 each..still not bad). First Brad sat down with Brenna, for all of 1 minute. Then she told Brooke to go next. It literally took her less than a minute! To hand cut their profiles. I asked her later and she said she had been working there, at that store, in Disneyland for 36 years. Amazing.

They then took her cutting and pasted in to the white background, framed it and we were done in less than 10 minutes total. And this was the result... amazing!

So glad we did that...and you should too, if you ever go to Disneyland! :)

From there, we went and rode the train around Disney to get a bird's eye view.

Here's Brenna hanging, er...I mean waiting, for the train...

Then we needed to, again, go get us a spot for the upcoming Street Party Parade. So we went and got us some hot dogs for dinner and this Mickey Mouse shaped pretzel...

We camped out on the street, ate our food, and waited for the parade to start.

Brenna was so funny, dancing in the street beforehand...

As they came to each little area, the floats stopped, the characters got off and invited everyone to come dance with them. Brad wouldn't take the girls (wuss!), so here are the girls and I dancing on the street with all the characters. It was a lot of fun!

From there, Brooke had been wanting to ride the (other) rocket ship ride located at this park. So we had just a little bit of time before the park closed, so her and Brad went over to ride it. Once again, another crazy ride I was NOT getting on. So Brenna and I waited for them. Until, Brenna decided SHE wanted to ride too! So all three of them got on and rode this crazy rocket ship ride...that went 50ft+ up in the air and spun around very very fast! Crazy girls! (these are so not my children :P )

Brooke, again, thought the Mickey Mouse shaped benches were too cool.

Again, Brooke had a blast, but then the park was closing (at 8p on Thurs nights), so we took a last look at the beautiful castle glowing in the night and said goodbye until the next day...