For Christmas, the McArthur family opened tickets to none other than 'The Happiest Place on Earth.' It was a long month waiting to redeem those tickets, but on my birthday we flew the coop and headed for California. Everyone was super grumpy that day, so after a brief flip out by mom in the car and some tears from Katelee about everyone ruining my birthday, there was an adjustment in attitude and we were ready to party!
We started our excursion in California Adventure.
It was one of the best Disney days in the history of ever. It was overcast and little cool, which is nice for us cold weather fans and it wasn't crowded.
We got to ride the Radiator Springs racers two times and we were so fast-we won both races. The kids thought we were pretty amazing.
Backing up to the beginning of the day, we went to Guardians of the Galaxy because we anticipated needing to grab a fast pass to get on later. There was no wait (yes!) so we decided to jump on. Well, that may have been a bit ambitious for Master H. He went on that free fall and vowed never to go on that in his whole life again. We also sufficiently scared him as he went to the 'It's Hard to Be a Bug Show' and screamed at the top of his lungs thinking the giant spiders were falling from the sky to get him. It was a great way to start the day! Haha!
Permanently scaring our child was not the main focus of the day, we went on plenty of kids rides (including the Goofy Coaster, carousel and Toy Story Mania) which he loved.
The highlight of his day (or life) was meeting Captain America.
We all know Harrison has been a long time fan of the Original Avenger. He had adopted his persona for much of 2015 into 2017.
Cap and Harrison talked about patriotism, villains and saving the world.
They made an awesome pair. Our world is save in the hands of these two. It really was so fun to see Harrison meet his idol. Dreams were coming true! Captain America even inspired Harrison to have more courage because by the end of the night, Harry was asking to go on Guardians again! And he did! He ended up having a great time...we didn't subject him to the gargantuan spiders again though.
We rode absolutely everything we wanted to (that was open) multiple times and met some fun friends...
We were tuckered out and ready to hit Magic Kingdom the next day.
Harrison continued his quest for vanquishing evil as he trained to be a Jedi. He took on Darth Vader like the force had been building inside him for ages. Darth never knew what hit him. Harrison is already telling us he needs to go back to train to fight Darth Vader again.
We rode lots of rides, ate some yummy treats ( I fell in love with the raspberry macaroon)
met a couple characters...
Harrison declared Belle to be his girlfriend, which is a little rude since I used to be the girl of his dreams, but I suppose Belle can fill those dreams now.
Disneyland itself is magical and is the place where dreams come true. For Dave, however, it is sometimes the place of nightmares. He does not look forward to spending time in a place of musical, cartoon, giddiness. He is not a fan of rides all together, as is perfectly displayed in the evolution of ride photos here...
He starts out "trying" to like it...
He eventually just isn't amused...
Then, he just pretends it isn't happening. bwuahaha!!
We loved it, even if it wasn't his top destination. He was a good sport though and had to even give up sit down restaurants so we could get to every attraction I had mapped out. That is a big sacrifice, if you know Dave.
We had one more amusement park day at Universal Studios. Universal was much more crowded but there aren't as many rides we wanted to go on, so we were ok. We got to meet up with Chris and Les and Co as well as Shannon, so that was a lot of fun!
To cap off our last full day, we dined as they did in the Dark Ages and cheered on our knight at Medieval Times. Brenna was awarded the banner for queen of the banquet and now we all have to bow to her...actually we had to do that already, so no change there.
The following day we tried to be spiritual and attend a local church, but it was a regional conf, so we walked the pier at Newport instead.
We made some fun memories and can't wait to go back to Disney! I may have to take the kids solo, but we will be back someday! Haha!
The next week, I joined my mom and sisters in Las Vegas
to celebrate Shannon and her 40th birthday. We went to the Beatles Love show. It was lots of fun-we were singing and dancing in our seats! We had a yummy dinner, some treats...
and a grand time. Shannon and I finished it off with a buffet brunch at the Wynn. It was a Wynn for both of us! Ha!
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