Disneyland Day 3

Alternate title:  

How We Ate Our Way Through Disneyland, Day Three.

Sorry.  Are you tired of this yet?  I'm doing this more for me and my remembrance of the trip.  So feel free to skip the words and just glace over the fun pictures!  Or come back in a few days when I am done posting about our trip!

 We hit the park really early to avoid the crowds and get a lot of rides in without the lines.  Boo...I hate lines.  We met Mickey as soon as we walked in and then went straight for Frontier Land and forced encouraged our kids to ride my favorite ride...Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

 Dan, Lauren and I loved it.  The boys hated it.  Wimps.

 

Next up...Haunted Mansion. 

 

I thought Lauren might freak out but she loved it!  

We were famished after 30 minutes in the park and felt the need to spend more money...so we decided to get more of the Mickey shaped beignets at the French Market.

l;

Have you had these?  Messy little things but divine. 

 MMMmmmm....

 We had a pow wow to decide our next move...

 Pirates of course!

 We saw characters everywhere we went.  Lauren had a hard time understanding why she had MET Ariel and Cinderella the very day before and yet they did not act like best friends upon meeting a second time. 

 Toontown was up next in hope that Minnie would be home!

 

 

 Yep!  We waited in a short line where Lauren was thrilled to meet her favorite mouse.

 Getting her autograph

 Giving her hugs

 Then she invited us to come inside her little house

 We loved watching the cake bake and the dishes being done.

 None of the other kids could figure out how to make these things work.  Lauren got it without me even showing her and then proceeded to give everyone else lessons. 

 

 The boys went off to do their own thing while we waiting in line for 40 minutes to meet Rapunzel.

 

 She is Lauren's FAVORITE  - so the line went quickly with anticipation as Lauren versed me in everything she was going to tell her.   

Then we met her and Lauren went shy and would hardly say a word!  

Lauren showed Rapunzel her drawing of her that she had made in her autograph book.  Rapunzel asked if Lauren would come back and help her paint some new pictures on her walls. 

 Very sweet...but 4 year olds take things literally, Rapunzel.  Duh.

Lauren asked over and over WHEN the two of them would be spending an afternoon painting together!  Argh....

 She was really one of the chattiest and sweetest characters we met.  We had a good amount of time with her by ourselves which made the wait worth it.

 Our beignets were long gone by this point so we headed back to New Orleans Square to try the world fa"mouse" Monte Cristo sandwich.  Don't make our mistake and order two.  ONE serving is MORE than enough for two people.  I had lost over 20 pounds before I left for this trip and this one meal made me put back 19 of them back on.  

DELISH.

 

How to work off those calories?  Enjoying a leisurely ride on the Columbia I'm sure took off about 15.  At least.  I have NEVER seen both the Columbia and the Mark Twain running at the same time.  This will tell you how busy the park was.

 

 Just as I was telling my boys about Uncle Mike having a ride named after him at Disneyland, we came across his boat, the Gullywhumper.

 And his homestead that is marked out.  How cool is that?  It's a bragging right, albeit a small one.  But our family will take it.

 Greg steering the ship. 

All this boat riding made us hungry so we had to get Mickey ice cream cones. 

We waited for the train ride to take us back to Main Street.

 Where we watched the parade again and I watched Dan spoil his kids with balloons, cotton candy and popcorn.

 The world's most expensive balloon.  Although we did admire it's durable craftsmanship.  It didn't die for 3 more days, and that was totally my fault, not the balloons.

 We went back to the hotel for awhile and rested, changed our clothes and went back for more.

Ran into Goofy, one of Graham's favorites.

 He clowned around with the boys.

 We waited to go on Astroblasters, Star Tours 3D (LOVE it!) and Greg was thrilled to ride the rockets, by himself this year!

 I let LuLu drive me.  This ride is so cool at night.  Even better was getting off and hearing them say Happy Birthday to Greg and Lauren over the intercom. 

 For having so many people in the park at once, Disney is so great at the little things that make special moments for kids and their families.  

We went back to the hotel exhausted and happy!