Green Tee

Wednesday mornings are made for green tees and baby snuggles. Our favorite Caroline quote from the trip was, "Do you know what my ten favorite things are?"

Jeff, "No. What are they?"

Caroline, "My number one favorite thing is mashed potatoes. And my second favorite thing is BABIES!" Then she proceeded to tell Jeff the remaining 8 things while I blow dried my hair.

Caroline loved Lincoln and spent many a morning cuddled up with him on our bed. It was so sweet.

Hey look. Eli and Carson were looking at the camera! Liiiiiiinnnnnncoooooolllnnnnnnn....

And look at these two girls who were willing to put on a happy face for me while they waited for their parents.

Our plan was to rush to the Peter Pan ride first thing Wednesday morning to beat the crowds. Little did we know the crowds would hit us far before we ever even got to the park! They parked us clear out in the boonies and it took us a half hour just to park and get to the security area. Then, once we reached the security area, there were hundreds of people packed in, trying to file through the security lines. It was bizarre! There were millions more people than what had been there the day before.

Probably an hour later, we filed through all the lines and finally made our way into the park. The green shirts were my favorite for locating our group. They were easy to spot, which was great for finding the Thomas Crew amid the swarm of other park-goers on this day.

We made it to Peter Pan and gawked at all the people in confusion. We could NOT figure out why the park was so busy on a Wednesday. Strollers lined every edge of the sidewalk. We bumped into people with every sway of our stride. The lines were miles long. It was NOT the nice, slow September crowd we had come to expect from our last visit. 

Nevertheless, we carried on to Neverland.

Claire is so funny. She is such a spunky little girl and perfectly annunciates each word she says which sounds hilarious coming from such a small person. 

Photo cred - Becky. Thanks for snapping one of the better family pictures of us from the trip!

Next up was teacups. Does everyone agree that this is the dumbest ride, but we all feel the need to ride it for nostalgic reasons because it has somehow been deemed THE ride to ride at Disneyland? You CAN'T go to Disneyland and not ride teacups. So we did. And we waited forever in line for the teacup street cred. 

Would you like a cup of green tee?

LOOK AT ALL THOSE PEOPLE! This is about the time I began to conspiracy theorize about the crowds. You see, my brother Jacob is a man of data. I'm convinced he crunches numbers and analyzes charts in his free time. Said brother PAID MONEY two years ago for a chart of Disney statistics to determine the most optimal week to go and avoid the crowds. 

What week did his analyzing determine? The middle of September. Boom. Family Vacation Booked.

When we went two years ago, the crowds lived down to our expectations. We pretty much had the park to ourselves. By Wednesday of this trip, I acquired a growing fear that everyone had gotten their hands on the same chart that Jacob had seen and all these people had also determined this was the best week to go to avoid the crowds, so we were all crammed into the park trying to analyze our way out of the crowds together. 

We didn't find out until the end of the day that the crowds were due to a mid-week California Teacher Work Day, but I think my theory still holds up.

With the crowds and the heat, a family favorite was It's a Small World. 10 minutes in an air conditioned building? Fine. I'll endure the annoying music.

Eli quite enjoyed this ride for more reasons than the A/C.

I don't remember where/what/or why this was, but look how cute!

Wait! This area looks familiar! Because this is where we spent 95% of our Disneylanding. Smack dab in the middle of Buzz and Star Tours. As I eluded to in the last post, Eli discovered the Star Tours ride and was OBSESSED! It was the only ride he requested to ride. And he managed to ride it at least 12 times throughout the week.

He would stare at R2D2 in awe. Giggle at C3P0. And he gave me a run-down of the ride when I went with him for the first time after he had already been on it a few times. I don't know what it is about little boys and Star Wars, but the minute he laid eyes on all those space robots or whatever the heck they are, he was in love. And he has yet to stop talking about it since.

So this is probably one of the millions of times my mom and I were riding the Buzz ride with Carson while Eli was touring imaginary galaxies via Starship.

At the end of the day, my parents joined us for a go on the Winnie the Pooh ride. In an unexpected twist, this ride ended up being Carson's favorite. It was his first time being introduced to Winnie the Pooh, but he found the storyline of the ride hilarious and couldn't get over Pooh eating all the honey at the end. Sorry Buzz, you'll have to up your comedy game to win Carson's heart.

We were Pooh-ped after that and were ready to call it a day. Since we were parked so far away with the crowds, it took us forever to get back to our car. As we were driving out of the parking lot, we saw my dad signaling us with confusion.

"I lost my keys!" He announced. This was immediately humorous to me. My parents are the most put together, organized people I know, so the fact that my dad would manage to lose his keys at possibly one of the worst places ever to lose your keys got me giggling in surprise and confusion.

Pockets were checked. Possible locations of separation were discussed. Heads were scratched. Lost and Found was called. There was no explanation and few immediate solutions...other than to have everyone cram into our car and hope Belle's Castle would foster some answers.

I'm sure I offered my seat to my mom, but she preferred to lounge on top of our stroller instead.

As soon as we got back to the house, my parents were so kind to fix us a nice grilled meal despite their irritating set-back. They both seemed a little distracted trying to figure out how to get their car back without a tow, ticket, or hundreds of dollars to get new keys made. After dinner, my mom was rummaging around the house mumbling about where on earth her phone was.

After about 10 minutes of looking, we gave it a call and heard the ring coming from a very unlikely place:

If only the keys were as easy to locate -- as surely they ended up in a spot equally unlikely. We never did find the keys, but were able to resolve the issue when a neighbor offered to express mail my parents their extra key, and Disneyland was so nice to not tow, boot or charge my parents for their extended stay in the parking lot.