Day 3

Day 3 started early - we arrived at the park at 8 to discover that it didn't open until 9. I thought that we had early entry, but it apparently is not on Fridays. I guess I should have read the paperwork.
Soooo, we waited.
When we did get in the park we decided to go to our early entry to Toontown, that was for Friday. Dillon loved it there, he could touch everything, sit in all the cars, and walk around Mickey and Minnie's house's. Again, he didn't like the roger rabbit ride too much.



Ashton also loved Toontown - he could touch everything and it would make noise or move. You can jump on metal plates around the fountain and noise matching the musical instrument will play, you can turn the oven on in Minnie's house and the cupcake will rise, there were lots of surprises for Ashton to discover. He LOVES to touch everything and find out how it works, so this was his idea of fun!



Once people starting coming into Toontown we left to head over to California. We wanted to make the first showing of 'Turtle talk with Crush'. This was SO amazing. It is in a theatre with a large screen near the floor and the kids sit right there in front. It looks like a big tank, and crush is in there swimming around. The show starts and he talks to you, not some precanned stuff, but he talks to the people in the audience and asks them questions and reacts to things that are going on. Dillon decided that he wanted to get up and leave so Noah grabbed him (the boys were sitting on the floor), this prompted a very shrill scream from Dillon. Crush looked over at them and said, "Whoa, did you hear that little dolphin, he just (insert noise hear). Wow, dude!" It was very cool, I have no idea how they do that, his facial expressions matched what he was saying and he moved towards the people talking. Very impressive.

We had reservations at the Blue Bayou for lunch. MMM, a Monte Cristo Sandwich. It's totally more food that you can eat, but I really tried because it is so good and we don't go to Disneyland everyday. We had made the reservations when we first got to the park on Wednesday, and Friday was the soonest they could get us in. It is the greatest place to eat at the park. Ashton was really confused how it could be day outside and night in the restaurant. No amount of explanation was enough to help him figure it out. Noah did get to see one of the rare shooting stars in the bayou. Dillon liked it so much, he fell asleep.

Noah and Troy decided to go on the log ride so Ashton and I hung out while Dillon slept. We went over by the pirate looking ship near Tom Sawyers island. Ashton thought it was fascinating.



The park was getting crowded so we headed back over to California and went to see Playhouse Disney Live. I knew that Dillon would enjoy this! He had a great time and got to see Mickey and Pooh, and they didn't want to touch him or talk to him, so he was happy. There were bubbles blowing from the ceiling and they shot out confetti and danced. It was preschool heaven. Noah even had a good time. My legs and butt fell asleep sitting on a concrete floor for 30 minutes, haha! This is kind of a crappy picture but the lighting was BAD, and I couldn't fix it much with Photoshop. But it shows how much Dillon loved this:



We headed to the 'It's tough to be a bug' show. Another great one, Dillon hid but Noah and Ashton loved it. Noah kept telling me, "I held my breath when the stink but sprayed, I didn't want to smell it. What did it smell like?" Dillon made sure to tell me when we left, "Dillon, Elmos World!" I think that meant, he prefers Elmo to Bugs. Good to know.

Now it was time for the parade at California. This is what happens when you have to wait:



Don't look at his nails, they are atrocious. I even tried to bite them off when I saw them. I was horrified that my boy had nails like that. Anyway, we had to wait for the parade and that meant making funny faces for the camera when I was trying to take pictures.



The parade was awesome, all the Pixar characters were there. Even though a very poorly behaved child pushed her way in (with her mothers urging) to where my kids were sitting right in front. She was terrible during the whole parade, a security person walking by had to tell her to get back once, but even that didn't stop her. Her mother kept saying, "If you can't listen and follow the rules, we're going to leave." And I kept thinking, "Stop saying it, just leave already." When we left I asked Troy, "Do you think there was something wrong with her or was she just a brat?" Troy says she was just a brat. Regardless the parade was fun and the kids enjoyed it while I stewed about the brat.



We headed back to our room to eat and go swimming before heading back out to the fireworks. When we got back to Disneyland that night you could barely walk through Main Street and the area in front of the castle was like a homeless camp. We walked through that and headed towards Dumbo - an employee said that Tinkerbell flies right over you there. Dillon and Ashton both fell asleep and missed the fireworks. I have to say, this was one of the most incredible firework shows I have ever seen. We were in the middle of them. The were setting them off around the castle (in front of us) and in Frontierland (which was right behind us). You didn't know which direction to look! Tinkerbell did indeed fly right over us and we could see the projections on the Matterhorn.
After the fireworks ended, it was madhouse. It took an hour to get out of the park, we had to walk through Frontierland and Adventureland to get out and it was like a sea of people. Troy was trying to push the double stroller through, it was not our funnnest time there. But we made it back to the hotel and crawled into bed. We walked 11.6 miles that day...