Sunday, May 17, 2015

Disneyland- Part 2, Characters

We didn't specifically set out to take any pictures with Disney characters, but we didn't pass up the opportunity either when it was right in front of us... and without a line.  We ended up taking pictures with pretty much all of the main characters. 

I think we got one picture together as a whole family during the week.  And this is it, with the Mouse himself.

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Arie was so excited to see a lot of the characters, but was particularly interested in Mickey Mouse.  While we were waiting, she stood over by the railing, bounced up and down, and repeated, as loudly as she could, "wanna see Mickey!!" with a big smile on her face.  She caught the attention of all of the cast members around and a lot of the other people around.  It was so cute.  She had people smiling and chuckling because she was just so excited and so adorable.  If I remember correctly, a cast member even came over and got her and took her over to get a picture with Daisy or Minnie while we were waiting. (That picture is below somewhere.)

This picture is really blurry, but when it was our turn, you can see how excited Arie was to go see Mickey.
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As the girls and I were leaving California Adventure one time, Oswald the Rabbit was standing at the front, all alone, with no line at all.  We figured we might as well take a picture.  This was our first character experience.  Arie was beside herself excited.  You can see it in her face.  She was so excited that when we got to Oswald, she started jumping up and down, which is what she is doing in this picture below.  Oswald played along and got up and started jumping too.  He is, after all, a rabbit.  The part I found the most hilarious...Arie has absolutely NO idea who Oswald even is.  But I guess being a giant friendly looking rabbit with a slight resemblance to Mickey Mouse is enough to get over the top excited about.
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Our picture with Daisy.  I think Kelton was waiting in line with Nate for Mickey Mouse (it was probably the one character line we waited in and it only took about five minutes) and was too manly to go take a picture with Daisy and Minnie.  We have a lot of pictures of Arie like this with characters.  It was hard to get her to look at the camera instead of the character.
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Excited kids with Minnie Mouse.
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As Kelton and I were headed back for lunch one day, Goofy was standing near the entrance, again with no line at all.  I think this picture is funny because it looks like I lost a couple of kids and replaced Nate.
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The girls and I were waiting for Nate and the boys to press a few pennies.  We chose to wait in front of this candy store window (in DCA) which happened to be about six feet away from where Goofy was taking photos.  He had quite a line waiting for him (you can see it on the right side of the photo in the background) but he kept coming over to our stroller and pointing out all the different candy to Arie and Natalie.  It was pretty funny.
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Pluto in Toon Town was quite the character.  He kept "eating" the kids heads.  He would stick his giant, open mouth over the top of their heads.  I think he did it to Hudson and Arie.  Arie couldn't figure out what was going on when he did it.
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And in this picture, he had just swiped Natalie's glasses!
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Goofy being goofy.  Sidetrack story... just the other day, (in May, not back in February) Arie was being really silly.  I asked her, "Are you silly?  Are you goofy?"  She laughed at me and responded, "No momma!  I'm not goofy!  Are you Donald?"  So funny.  I didn't even see it coming.
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Disneyland, part 1

The kids were very excited when the end of February came and we finally got to go on the Disneyland vacation they got for Christmas.  We left early on a Saturday morning (February 21st) so that we could get to California in time for the kids to play at the beach.  Christy, Tennyson, Hudson, and Easton joined us at the beach.  The kids were so excited and ran straight for the water.  But, it was a fairly cold day, so that didn't last for long before they were all freezing.  I hadn't really planned on them getting in the water.  I thought they would just walk in it and then play in the sand.  But because they got totally wet, they didn't want to stay at the beach for long.  It's funny to see which kids were wimpy about the cold and which ones didn't care and just kept playing.
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There was some kind of sailboat race going on (we were at Huntington Beach) while we were there.  It was kind of fun to watch.  That's Natalie out in the water.
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The next day, Sunday, we went to church with Christy and Tennyson and then hung out at their house for the rest of the day.  It was fun to visit and the kids had fun playing together.

Here's a good idea... let's get a good picture of all the kids together.  Because that's not too much to ask...
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Arie loving on Easton.
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These next two pictures are at the hotel the night before we started all of our days at Disneyland.  I thought it was funny that the boys, who were in the same bed, were sleeping the same way...
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And the girls in the other bed were also sleeping in a somewhat similar fashion as each other with their arms up.
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Morning came and we started day 1 of 5 at Disneyland.  Here's Arie watching the Astro Orbiters warm up before letting us on.  That puppy backpack leash thing was a great idea (because Arie likes to run away).  Until Arie figured out what it was actually for.  Once I tugged on it once to keep her with us and she wanted nothing to do with putting it on every again.
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Look at the anticipation.  This was our very first ride before hitting some of the other rides in Tomorrowland.  This kids love this ride, but it gets a long line that is not worth waiting in.  So we jumped right in when there was no line at park opening so that we wouldn't be forced to wait in a line later during the trip.
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