Disneyland Day #3 (California Adventure)

Devin is at a Young Men's meeting so I've challenged myself to finish blogging about our Disneyland trip before he gets back. So on to day three.

The last time I went to Disneyland was back in 1997. All that was there was Disneyland and a very big parking lot and two Disney hotels. Since then things have changed a lot! California Adventure is now where the parking lot use to be. I was excited to go to a "new" theme park. It has been years since I have gone to a "new" theme park. Because California Adventure doesn't open until 10am we went over to Disneyland for a bit to kill some time. We took the traditional "In front of the flower Mickey" picture at the entrance to Disneyland.

Then one of the funniest things happened. We thought we would go on the Indiana Jones ride, but the line was really long. So we decided to go on the Jungle Cruise. A side note before I continue,... This is Devin's first time to Disneyland. We went to Disney World on our Honeymoon. In Florida they have Animal Kingdom which is like a really big zoo type park with REAL animals. Ok, so we were getting in line for the Jungle Cruise and Devin goes to hand me Anna.
D-"You hold her so I can take pictures."
J-"Why? What are you going to take pictures of?"
D-"The animals of course!"
J-"Devin, they are all fake! There are no real animals on the jungle cruise, well maybe some birds and bugs."
D-"But I thought this was the Jungle Cruise?"
Poor Devin, I didn't realized that we skipped the Jungle Cruise on our Honeymoon. He was all excited for a REAL Jungle Cruise. We still had a good time.

Spencer LOVED it!

I am happy to report that the Jungle Cruise Guide's jokes are still the same and still as corny as ever. I love the Jungle Cruise!
We then decided to head over to California Adventure for some Tower of Terror action. Thanks to fast passes and stroller passes and just short lines in general we were all able to go on it several times.
After that we went on the Monsters Inc. ride. Then we went to Muppet Vision 3-D.

Funny how Anna loved things like Pirates and the Haunted Mansion, but she really didn't like the Muppet 3-D show. I think not being in motion had something to do with it.
After that the brave people went on the Grizzly River Run. Maybe "brave" isn't the right word, the people who were not cold and didn't mind getting wet and possibly staying cold all day.
After lunch we waited in probably the longest line of our trip for the new Toy Story Midway Mania ride. IT WAS WORTH IT!!!! We actually went on it twice because we liked it so much.

Anna was smart and slept through the line and woke up just in time to get on the ride both times. If you have been on the Buzz Lightyear ride where you get to try and shoot stuff, this is very similar but WAY better. You are spun around to face these big screens that look like different midway games. You pop balloons with darts, shoot ducks, ....so many fun things. Sometimes when you hit the right target stuff happens too. A puff of air when you pop a balloon, a spray of water, all sorts of fun stuff. It was FANTASTIC!!!! It is even more challenging holding Anna and trying to shoot the gun at the same time.
In the afternoon we went over to "a bugs land" so the little kids could have fun going on rides. Anna liked Heimlich's Chew Chew Train.

David was brave and let Tommy drive the bumper car so he could video the family trying to "bump" each other.

I took the boys on the Ladybug Boogie ride. I kept trying to tell them that it wasn't like the Teacups, but they spent the whole ride trying to make it spin and ended up just falling all over.

We got to go on lots of rides. California Screamin' was excellent. It will be fun to see the park when it isn't under so much construction. The lake is drained right now because they are putting in a water/light show like Fantasmic. And they are adding new stuff all over. I guess they always give you a reason to go back again.
When California Adventure closed we headed over to Disneyland to see the fireworks. Anna was way tired and slept for the rest of the night. That includes sleeping through the whole fireworks show.

The boys had fun sword fighting with one of the park employees. She was outnumbered 3 to 1, but she held off the three boys pretty well.

Sadie even joined in a little bit.

Poor Spencer he had such a fun time he wore himself out and slept through the whole fireworks show. I think it was the next morning, really early morning, when he woke up crying, "I didn't get to see the fireworks show!" Poor kid!

Because Anna was sleeping, and because we actually found a bench to sit on, I sat on the bench with Anna before the fireworks started and Devin played with his camera. He even got some great shots during the show. I wish he had more chances to play with all the buttons on his camera that make it do different things.

We then joined the masses of people and went back to our hotel.