CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE

Monday September 27th

Today is our first full day at the park. The entire family, all 34 of us, joined together to experience California Adventure. The kids were super excited.

We had no problem getting them up and out of bed that morning.

Robbie wanted to be in charge of breakfast, which I had no problem with. He got up early to make us all some delicious Mickey waffles and bacon.

Although we were all together in the park, we did not move together as a group. My parents wanted to divide the grandkids down into smaller groups and take them to areas of the park that they would enjoy the most. This worked out great. We had three groups of 6 and the youngest three stayed with their parents. While Granny,Gramps, Jake and Mer took the youngest group of kids to a Bug's land, the rest of us made plans on what to do.

The first ride of the day was Soarin Over California.

The ride is awesome.

Here's 2/3 of the cousins with McQueen and Mater



Lee enjoying a snack





Kimmie found these pilot goggles at one of the gift shops,
silly girl looks like she has bug eyes.




Lee and Malcolm found a t-shirt very fitting to their personality






Becky and Ches
By mid morning it was already getting really hot.
We went on the Grizzly River Run and enjoyed getting wet.





Malcolm and Rickie were the "monsters" trying to scare Emma,
Kimmie, Olivia, and Hanna at
the Monsters Inc. ride




Kimmie and Hanna in line at Monsters Inc.
We decided to go on the ride several times, there was no waiting
and it was nice and cool inside the building





Kimmie saw Stitch on the way to the bathroom.
The boys were really mad they missed this character.

We stopped and had lunch over by the Muppet's Sound Stage.

We packed sandwiches and fruit from home.

Lee, Rickie,Malcolm, Erica, Ali, and Robbie during lunch break.

Don't they look a bit wilted.

By this time the temperature had reached 100 deg.

After lunch Granny, Gramps, Jody and Matt took these six off to the "big" rides like

The Tower of Terror and Screamin.

The rest of us went to see the Muppet Show and then off to the Pier for some rides.

On our way to the Pier we came across these fountains.

At random intervals water would shoot up.

Everyone was super hot, so decided to stop and get wet.

The kids had a blast.

Getting wet and cooling off was a huge attitude adjustment
for our tired and hot little ones.

Ches should have played in the water, he was soo miserable.

I didn't mind the heat as much as Ches.

It was just like the "good ol'days" of our family vacations in July.

The day we were in California Adventure had record breaking temperatures.

The high was 111 deg. It hadn't been that hot for over 100 years. The high temp. drove most of the visitors away, so we did not have to deal with long lines, which was nice. But some of the rides closed because it was too hot.

On the Pier we saw Woodey.

Again the boys missed out.

Kimmie and Ches enjoying the Carousel

It was a super fun day. I got to ride Screamin for the first time, and loved it! Ches is not a fan of the big rides so he got stuck on kid duty alot, but he was a good sport about it.

After dinner at the Taste Pilot Grill the middle group of kids went with Granny, Gramps, Becky and Weston to go play, and the rest of the group went to Bugsland and the Tower of Terror.

Ches, Andy and I stayed with the kids while the other adults went and experienced the Terror.

All in all it was a lot of fun spending the day with the family.

Being such a big group, we moved through the park slowly, but that's OK.

It wasn't about getting on all the rides, it was about being together.

If it wasn't for the heat it would have been a perfect day, but hey, no family vacation is ever perfect.