California Adventure

The first thing we did when we were let into California Adventures was high tail it to the ride "Toy Story Mania". This ride is THE. BEST! -- my most favorite ride of the trip. :) It also doesn't have a fast pass available ... but, luckily - California Adventures wasn't super crowded - so we were able to ride it like 4 times. Anyway - this was how we started off our day:

 

Lookin' pretty sweet, eh?  :)  So, the game works as follows:  we spin around in little these seats that take us from screen to screen where we use our trigger gun to earn as many points as we can on each screen by shooting targets.  Each screen is different and it all looks totally 3D.  SO.  COOL!!!

Me and Marissa rode this ride together every time.  That was awesome.  She won our game the first time we played ...

... with these scores.  Our accuracy was pretty good, though - huh?  ;)

Here is the gang of people that wanted to brave the "California Screamin'" ride:

The rest of us hit the Carousel.  (I DID end up riding and LOVING California Screamin' a couple of times -- such a fast and fun ride.  I was surprised at how much I loved it.  ;))

My beautiful girls!

This is what Aaron and Tyler had to say about California Screamin':

We ran into Woody!! And - I think this is the only picture I was able to get of our whole group.  We sure had fun together!

The Ferris Wheel was fun because ALL of us could fit in one cart.  Marissa was having a nervous break down because she is so terrified of heights - but, Carly was right there with her. 

... and she even made it to the top without having to close her eyes!

Here's the rest of us:

We gave the Goofy's Pilot School ride a whirl!  Krystal was nervous - it IS fast and lurchy -- but, super creative and adventurous and fun!

She gave it an "okay" sideways thumb.  ;)        Then we saw Jake from the Neverland Pirates!

 

Eating one of our many lunches of PB and J sandwiches.  (Although, one day we had soup in bread bowls at this very spot -- and they were amazing!)

Because it was a little chillier this day - we went in to try some activities inside. 

 Krystal got chosen to talk with Crush (the turtle from Finding Nemo) - which was pretty much the coolest thing ever.  She asked him what his favorite color was, and he replied, "Well, green of course.  What's yours?"  She said, "gold"  (of course).  Crush's response was, "Woah!  You have expensive taste!"  haha.  Then he asked her about a "#1 Fan Finger" he found - he didn't know what it was.  She told him it was a #1 Finger.  When he asked her what he should do with it, she said - "Put it on your hand ..."  (he did that and said , "then what?" ... so she said, "Put your hand up in the air .......... and scream."  SO - Crush did just that!!  It was pretty hilarious.  What a great experience!  (we weren't allowed to take pictures)

We learned how to draw Jack Skellington from "The Nightmare Before Christmas".  I was amazed at the results!!  Incredible work, guys!

 

Another one of our VERY favorite rides was the Monsters Inc. ride - which we ended up riding like 8 times or something within the week.  It was great!  At the very end the slug secretary Roz would actually talk to some of us individually.  She talked to Tyler EVERY time - it was so funny!!  One time she asked him if all of his paper work was turned in.  For those of us that know Tyler - and how behind he is ALL. THE. TIME. on paper work -- well, we got a pretty good laugh.  On another occasion, Aaron and Ellie were sitting together and Roz said to them, in her nasally voice, "Are you two brother and sister? - Young lady, if that boy gives you any problems, you come see me..."  (and then looking at Aaron) "I'm watching you!"  LOL!

I was with Tyler this time - and she said to me - "Lady in the white sweatshirt - is that your husband?  Because he just winked at me!"

Man, that was a fun ride!

We didn't go on The Hollywood Tower of Terror this day - but, I snatched a picture.  Who do you think ended up daring to go?  Stay tuned to find out.  ;)

The "Bug's Life" land was so SO cute!

These bumper cars were hilarious - because you could only go like .05 miles per hour.  hahahaha.  I'm not sure if Aaron and I bumped into anyone.  But, we sure laughed a lot!

Marissa looks so darling!

The Heimlich Train was cool, because the ride incorporated all of our senses - 

--we could smell all of the yummy and weird smells -- we felt very small with the gigantic props 

-- we even got dripped on by the watermelon slice!  Then we were off to ride Flik's Flyers which were made of left over food containers tied together with sticks and flew with "balloon" leaves stitched together ... so clever!

Uuuuuhhhh - another go up high ride ... so Marissa panicked!  :)

But - it ended up not being so bad after all  and we all enjoyed the cute and clever sights from the perspective of bugs!

I sat on this ingeniously made bench!

Francis' Ladybug Boogie:

Tyler and his girls - 

The Little Mermaid ride just opened this year - and it was adorable!

 

Oh yeah, baby - check out our scores on Toy Story Mania the second time we played!  (Our scores got better every time!  I think I ended up with 198,000 in the end ... with like 18% accuracy.  haha)

Yeah - I beat Marissa this time!!

This pretty much sums up the end of every day ---

We kept SO busy and had the best time EVER!