Fall Break - Part 1

At the Lego Store, Downtown Disney

 We take our family to Disneyland during Fall Break every other year, and this year was a "Disneyland Year." 

 One of our favorite things to do at Disneyland is ride "Splash Mountain" and make weird faces for the camera.... we usually decide on a "theme" and we all pose in an appropriate way.  We get tired of seeing the same expression of wide-eyed-wide-smiled surprise in every photo so this time we all tried to look the opposite... bored and expressionless.  Jay is even pretending to be asleep!

 Every time we ride the Winnie-the-Pooh ride we have the kids pose at this spot... it's fun (and kind of sad) to see how they have grown!

 After all these years, this was our first ride on the Mark Twain River Boat!

We love the rides at Disneyland, of course, but some of our favorite things are the non-rides.  The shows at the Golden Horseshoe are really fun, especially Billy Hill and the Hillbillies (music/comedy).  Very entertaining.


We have always loved "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln" on Main Street.  It has been completely renovated recently and it's quite impressive.  However, we were a little disappointed because he no longer recites the Gettysburg Address!  But it's still really cool, and very patriotic.

Captain EO was re-released as a tribute to Michael Jackson after his death.  Jay and I laughed our heads off remembering seeing it for the first time, but our kids had never seen it before, of course.  They thought it was pretty cheesy, which is totally is.  Totally.  The music is pretty catchy though.

Muppet Vision 3-D at California Adventure is very fun, and it always takes us by surprise even though we have seen it many times.  We are a Muppet-loving family.

The Aladdin show at California Adventure is awesome, but the close-up-and-personal interactive story-telling show at Aladdin's Oasis was really fun too, especially if you got selected from the audience to participate (which Collin did one year).  Unfortunately, they stopped doing the show, which is a bummer; it was very funny and entertaining.  It's still there, tucked between the Tiki Room (another of our favorites) and the Jungle Cruise (fun for some good laughs) but I think now they just use it for photo ops with Jasmine and Aladdin.

When Mary was younger we loved the princess storytelling, but that was also when it was in the toy shop, and it was very intimate... and really, really funny.  It's a lot different now.  Oh well.

We love Disneyland!

Oh, and if you are looking for a quiet place to have an affordable dinner at Disney (quite a feat!), duck into the Grand Californian and head for "White Water Snacks" by the pool.... you can buy pre-made salads and sandwiches, but we always order off the menu and they cook it to order and bring it you!  :)