Trip to California - Part 2 - Monday with Mom at Disneyland

On Monday we had planned for me to take Joe, Mel, and Ethan to California Adventure where we could go on all the big rides without the little crowd of toddler cousins to slow us down. Corey has a friend who is from Irvine, California, who has a friend who works at Disneyland who could get in 3 people for free (good to know - and I'm glad Corey has these connections... saved us a bit of money - 4 passes to Disneyland for the price of 1, not bad for the vacation budget). So the only glitch was she had to go to check in at Disneyland at 8:30, it was 8:30, and California Adventure didn't open until 10. So we skipped out on the California Adventure plans since we didn't want to wait in the courtyard for an hour and a half and figured we'd check in and have fun at Disneyland.

(side note - going to Disneyland over California Adventure turned out to be a good choice - Later in the week (soon to be documented) on Thursday we went to CaliAdvent. with all the Wrides, and Ethan and Mel were just barely too short to ride on California Screaming, which was what we were all hyped up about at California Adventure anyway, so on Thursday I was able to leave the other kids and go on it with Joe (4 times) with the other kids had fun with Grandma and Grandpa - so it was a good thing...)

We had fun - we went in and first thing went on Space Mountain like 3 times in a row - yeah! We went on the Matterhorn once, Splash Mountain twice, Thunder Ranch Railroad twice, and some of the other little rides.

They all loved the Roller-coaster rides - here we go on Splash Mountain!

One of the highlights for me that I just thought was so fun was the Jedi Training Academy! We got there early and waited at the Tomorrowland Terrace for the 3:30 show - and we were not disappointed - lucky for me Joe, Mel, and Ethan were all chosen to train as Jedi's (Ethan was one of the last chosen to go up - he was getting worried and so was I! Lucky break for me - 3 for 3). Here's Joe fighting Darth Maul (and a very convincing Darth Maul at that!) Ethan and Mel got to take on Darth Vader - they let each kid come up and have their 5 seconds to prove themselves brave by taking on the Evil Empire. It was really fun, I was laughing a lot. It was a very good set, good sound effects, great costumes, it was a lot of fun. They each got a certificate stating they are certified Padowans. We headed for the hotel at 6:00 to save some energy for the next day, Tuesday, when we were coming back to Disneyland again with all the cousins, aunts, and grandparents. See you tomorrow Disneyland!