The Bryans go to Disneyland - Fourth Installment or Third and Final day in Disneyland

We woke up and got going as quickly as possible to be among the hoards of people streaming into Cars Land Wednesday morning.

We went straight to the fast pass line for Radiator Springs Racers.

While standing in line, a worker came by and told everyone that the fast pass line wouldn't even open for another 45 minutes.  Still, most of us kept our spots...this was a big deal!

Moments later another worker came up to the line and told everyone to just go get in the regular line for RSR because it was the shortest that line was going to be all day.

I moved to the other line and waited while Andy took the other kids on Luigi's Flying Tires.

I love Matt's face in this picture!

I still ended up waiting in line for at least an hour.  With about 20 minutes to go the rest of the family joined me (except for Ben who was too small for that ride.)

Merill and Nancy took turns with Ben in the stroller.  On their off times, they got in the singles line for RSR.

As we were nearing the front of the line, we saw Nancy close by in the singles line.  She hopped over and joined us making an even six for our car.

The scenery was amazing!  It all felt so natural...just like I was in Southern Utah or...Radiator Springs!

The time finally arrived!  We loaded a car and were off.

You drive around outside for a little bit and then go inside and see a bunch of the characters.

These were incredible...they moved and talked so fluidly.  We couldn't figure out what they were made of or how they made it so realistic.

We drove into Luigi's and he changed our regular tires into white walls!

It was pretty cute.

Then we started cruising super fast on a race with the car next to us.

We actually bought this picture afterward because we thought it was so funny!

All the girls in the back are screaming, while Andy's just lovin' it.  Although you can't see them that well, you can kind of tell that Josh and Matt are a little worried as well.

After our thrilling ride (it really was quite fun) we toured the rest of Radiator Springs.

Like I said...it was amazing!

 

The rest of us took a turn on Luigi's Tires as well...

Nice face Josh!

Then we had Breakfast at Flo's.

I had begun to see a pattern with Matt during this vacation...he strikes a pose for almost every picture.  Here is one candid shot that I caught.

You can see in the background of this picture just a portion of the forever long line for the RSR.  Even further back is part of the track for the ride so we were able to watch the screamin' cars go by as we ate.

 Later in the day when we passed by Radiator Springs again Andy asked how long the wait was for this ride.  3 1/2 hours!!!  And who knows if that was the longest?

I apologize for the plethora of pictures.  Up until this point I felt like I was showing most of you things you had already seen.  However, that's not necessarily the case with Cars Land.

(The kids thought it was pretty neat that it was only "6 days old" when we were there)

On to A Bug's Land...

It was just the right place for Ben.

He loved the rides...

As did everyone else...

I was excited to put Ben in these little bumper bugs and got him excited too until I realized there was a height requirement that he didn't fill.  We were both pretty disappointed :(

Check.  Moving on...

The day before, Merill and Nancy took the kids and Andy and I did Soarin' Over California as singles (there was a huge line).  We knew the kids would love it so we got fast passes the next day.  Merill and Nancy took Ben again and the five of us enjoyed the ride.

Waiting to board the ride (not the best picture but the only one I have of this).

Next, we got fast passes for the Grizzly River Run but our time wasn't until a couple of hours out.  So we took the kids over to Russel and Doug's ("Up") Challenge Trail.

They zip lined, rock climbed etc. and earned their Wilderness Explorer Badges presented by none other than  Russel himself.

being promoted to senior wilderness explorers

Finally it was time to get on the River Run.

I left my camera in the stroller since I didn't want it to get wet so you are spared any images that might have been.

Fun was had by all and when it came down to it I was the most wet.  It took a couple of hours for the back of my pants to dry off.

We got fast passes for "World of Color" for that night (10:15 p.m.) unsure if we would actually use them.  We knew we'd be exhausted and it would be awfully late when we would get back to the hotel but we got them just in case.

On our way to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch we caught a Pixar parade going down Hollywood Street.

I loved how the body segments of the caterpillar were all separate :)

The tail end of the parade was Mater and that was Ben's favorite part.

It was quite late in the afternoon so we were happy to arrive at the restaurant and relax and eat.

Ben ended up in just his diaper for his lower half since his mom accidentally forgot to change his diaper earlier in the day.  He was soaked through.

 

Ben was such a little monkey.  He would not sit still and kept climbing on Andy.

Eventually he calmed down and enjoyed my cheese ravioli as much as I did.

(I can't remember if I mentioned in the earlier posts that we were going to try and stick as close as possible to the semi-ketogenic diet while on the trip...it quickly went out the window)

After lunch we strolled down Downtown Disney and went to the Disney store for the boys to buy light sabers.  I don't know what got into me...I guess the Disney spirit...but I actually allowed it.

Abby's choice of a souvenir was a necklace filled with hand picked beads of her favorite princesses and other Disney things.

I got Ben a little pack of plastic Nemo toys that he has quite enjoyed since returning home.  He likes to line them up but gets quite frustrated because Dori doesn't stand on her own.

Back in the hotel the kids were ready to go swimming.  I was glad we were able to fit it in the schedule for them.

Ben absolutely loves the water but he also likes to be independent in the water which is not a good combination for someone with myoclonics seizures.

Even in the very shallow pool (a couple of inches deep) he wanted to just crawl around in the water on the cement ground.  So I followed him around bent over with my hand against his forehead in case he jerked forward and face planted.

The older kids were enjoying the water slide but we had to call it an evening kind of early because Ben was getting frustrated with not being able to do what he wanted.

We ate popcorn and watched t.v. while we cleaned up in the hotel room.

It was getting to the point where we needed to make a decision about "World of Color".

After much debate and discussion we decided to just go.  Josh almost stayed in the room to go to sleep (with Merill and Nancy in the adjoining room) but as we were walking out the door he got flustered and decided to join us.  I figure it was approximately a mile walk to Paradise Pier...Ben fell asleep on the way.

It probably ended up being a good thing since he wouldn't have been able to see a thing...we didn't get a very good standing spot.  The other three sat on the ground until it started and then took turns on our shoulders and in our arms throughout the show.

We all ended up being glad we went.  It was quite an amazing show.  Lots of Lights, colors, music and movies.  None of my pictures really turned out except for a shot after the show was over.

Somehow we made it back to the hotel room.  We transferred Ben from the stroller to our bed and everyone promptly fell asleep.

At 5 a.m. I woke up to a seizure.  It only lasted a little over a minute and then he fell back asleep.

The next morning we hurried and packed up and then had a quick breakfast outside with the birds...seriously, these birds were everywhere and they had no problem getting close to people.

We said goodbye to Disneyland as we hopped on the shuttle to the airport.

Thank you Mickey!  We had a grand time.

Side note 1: In one of the little shops in the airport, Nancy and the kids and I stopped and bought some snacks for the flight.  There we met a fellow traveler that was English.  Somehow it came up that he had gone to school with a couple of The Beatles.  He was headed to Salt Lake for a conference.  He said he was very excited because on Sunday morning he was going to "the Mormon temple" to hear the world famous Tabernacle Choir practice.  It was fun for Nancy to be able to tell this man that she "worked" there.

Side note 2: We had boarded the plane and Abby and I were waiting to see who would be the third person on our row.  We knew the flight was sold out so we knew someone was coming.

The last person to board the plane, last minute, was an Orthodox Jewish man.  He sat down next to me, I greeted him, he mumbled something in return, pulled out his Torah and immediately began praying.

I ended up extremely tired from the Dramamine and was kind of out of it for the first half of the flight.  When the drink cart came along I came to and that's when he and I started having a conversation...starting with children/family and rather quickly turning to religion.  I asked him where he was headed (Salt Lake was just a layover for him), he told me he was going to New York to commemorate the death of the chief rabbi.

He asked me what religion I was and acted kind of surprised when I told him.

We asked each other question after question about our respective faiths.

It was really quite intriguing to me although I told him more than once that my husband, who was sitting across the isle, should be the one talking to him since he was very familiar with the Hebrew culture and had been to Jerusalem and loved studying anything related to it.  Not that I wasn't enjoying myself, but this man probably would have had a better and more interesting conversation with Andy.  I knew Andy was glancing over at times during the flight a bit jealous of my situation.

We talked until we landed and then said goodbye.

It truly was a neat experience for me and changed my perspective on some things....got me thinking.

Anyway, we gathered our luggage, gave much thanks to Merill and Nancy and drove home.

What a trip...packed full of new and wonderful memories.

The kids are already talking about going back :)