Goodbye Disneyland

I had made 7:30 reservations for the Lilo and Stitch breakfast.  Thankfully we didn't have far to go, it was just downstairs in our hotel.  So we got dressed and waltzed on down. 

Okay so we didn't really waltz,  

we walked, 

Fast!

We  had almost no wait after we checked in,  the restaurant was practically deserted. We got the customary picture with Daisy all dressed in her Luau gear and each got a Lei to wear around our neck before we went to our table.  While the kids were meeting Daisy,  Pluto came over to say hi as well.

For those of you not familiar with the Lilo and Stitch movie, it's set in Hawaii, hence the Luau theme. 

 

Stitch was hiding right by our table when we sat down, so the kids got to meet with him for a bit. Turns out, Stitch is a pretty funny guy!

 

 

Lilo came by soon after, but Hunter was up at the buffet, so only Kenzie got a hug.

The food here was fantastic, it was a buffet but they even custom-made omelets for you. There was the usual breakfast faire with a few Hawaiian twists.

Since it was so quiet, Mackenzie went up to dance with Minnie, who had taken over Daisy's photo duties.

Halfway through breakfast as more people were showing up, all the kids were called down the back of the restaurant to play a game with Stitch.  It was lots of fun!

The stars of the show, Lilo and Stitch. 

 

Kingston, for some reason only liked Lilo from a distance, he'd wave to her if he saw her, but when she came close he wouldn't even look at her.  He liked Stitch though. So did Hunter!!

 

Kingston was happy that he got some quality time with his boy Pluto

Pluto really kept the kids laughing, even Hunter who wasn't really into the characters, was having a great time.

 

When Daisy and Minnie switched out again, Mackenzie wanted to dance with Daisy, they had fun.

All in all, it was the PERFECT way to end our Disneyland Resort visit.  It was by far the best character meal we did, in terms of food, atmosphere and character interaction.  It was just FUN, and relaxed.  We all loved it.  Especially the part where stitch pretended to lick Craig's head and shine it up for him.  How did I not get a picture of that??

But with that, we checked out, waved goodbye to the statue of "Foofy" in the lobby for the last time and got into the car. 

It was time to head to Vegas Baby!

Disneyland Day 3 - Part 4

During the Jedi training Kingston had fallen asleep so I lay him down in his stroller, we decided it was time to start heading out of the park, It was 102 degrees (39c) and we were dying.

We walked back toward Main Street and stopped to take some pictures in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

Then we came to the Partner's Statue, it's Walt disney and the big cheese himself, Mickey. I took some pictures of the decorations.  Do you recognize the faces on these pumpkins?

50 points if you guessed Tinkerbell, Woody and Jack Skellington! (lol)

Here's the kids in front of the statue, yes we bought Hunter a souvenir lightsaber, in his favourite colour red, and he wouldn't put it down.  Craig and Kingston had fun with it too.

Our old buddy Goofy

We got some delicious ice cream from the Gibson girl Ice Cream Parlour, in an attempt to cool down a little. I felt kind of sad to be leaving, we weren't coming back into the parks that night.

Oh no we had other plans.  You'll have to keep reading to see what they were.

The first day we were walking in Downtown Disney, Mackenzie had seen the Libby Lu store.  Lucky for us it was closed, but she was dying to go in.  I had made her an appointment for 2pm on the Wednesday to get a makeover.  So as we left Disneyland, Craig and Hunter went to pick up the rental car, and take it back to the hotel,  and I took Kenzie to her appointment.  Kingy came too but he was still sleeping.

Finally they called her name, they had her come and sit at the makeover counter.  She got to pick from the booklet what style she wanted, no surprise it was the princess one, with a pink tiara.

First she had her nails done, with glitter even!  Much cooler than the way I do them at home.

She was so cute, she barely moved a muscle, and didn't say a word, but kept admiring herself in the mirror.

Once the nails were done, it was makeup time.  A little pink eyeshadow and some sparkly lipgloss.

Then it was time to do her hair.  It was pretty neat to watch, the girl was so quick, although I guess she does a lot of little princesses.  She used a ton of spray , that do wasn't coming out - ever!

and finally - the finished product

As part of the package, she got to choose a pet.  Kenzie had picked this little daschund type dog.

She got to pick a bag to carry the dog in, which was silver and shiny, a shirt for the dog to wear, which of course was pink, and a collar.  It was super cute.  She named her dog Tutu.

She also managed to find a set of 3 necklaces, with coloured beads that said best friends forever on them.  Which she bought with her own money to give to her 2 best Kindy friends.  (They were VERY happy with them once we got back home, I wish I had thought to get a picture of the 3 of them wearing their necklaces)

So we hurried out of there before she could find anything else to buy, and went back to the hotel to show off for the boys.  Craig had been busy loading all the carseats into the car.  We hung out for a bit, and Kenzie got changed.

  

We were heading down to Hollywood!

A little before 5 we headed down to the concierge to see what the nights offerings were.  Mmmmm chicken flautas.  You know how we love our mexican food, and these were good.

By 530 we were in the car and on our way.  Clever Craig had gotten a GPS  with the car, and she was his new best friend.  I had written the directions in my handy dandy notebook, so I kept an eye on her, but she kept us on the right track.  

It took about 40 minutes to get to Hollywood.

We managed to get caught in the traffic going to the Neil Diamond concert. You know, singer of great hits such as "sweet caroline" and ummm, yeah that's all I know.  So we got around the traffic and parked the car.  We came out right onto Hollywood Boulevard, and directly across from us was our destination

Yes we were going to the El Capitan theatre to watch the new Tinkerbell movie.  What a treat!

It was starting to get dark and we didn't really want to loiter, so we quickly crossed the road and went into the theatre.  Last time I was in Hollywood was about 8 years ago, it hasn't changed much.  There's all kinds of interesting characters about, such as a guy dressed as spiderman hanging from scaffolding, you get the picture!  Well actually you don't, (haha) you can take their picture, but you have to PAY them!

Anyway - we went inside, grabbed our popcorn and drinks and were shown to our seats.  Being a Wednesday night the theatre was pretty empty, which was a good sign because this was to be Kingy's first movie and I just didn't know how he was going to be.

We sit through some funny previews, the lights go dim, the curtains go up, and who should come out onto the stage, but Tinker Bell herself.  She danced around for a few minutes, the kids thought it was a riot, then she left and the movie began.

The kids LOVED the movie, I thought it was pretty cute, Craig may or may not have fallen asleep for a little bit. Kingston did great, I stood in the back with him for about the last 10 minutes, which he was happy with, he just didn't want to sit anymore.  Then we headed back out into the crazy street.  We went next door to look at Disney's Soda Fountain Store.  None of us were really hungry though, so we took some pictures and went back to the car.  Quickly, with the spiderman guy yelling after us that we should take his picture with the pretty little girl! 

CREEPY!!

That's a popcorn bucket Hunter is holding up, remember this, it'll come in handy later...

Kingston was overjoyed to see his buddy Mickey, and went right for the nose again!

Finally we were heading back to our hotel.  The GPS was leading the way.  All was good until, well, let's just say she gets a little touchy if you deviate from her instructions in any way, apparently bathroom stops are out of the question!  We got back on track and were almost back at the hotel when Kenzie started making noises in the back, uh-oh I know that look, she was about to be sick, luckily we had brought the popcorn buckets with us, I just managed to get the lid off and hand it to her in time.

Gross I know, but at least the rental car was saved.

It was late when we got back, so we pretty much went straight to bed.  I had something fun planned for our final breakfast the next morning.

Disneyland Day 3 - The Jedi Training Academy

We finished up our lunch.  Hunter had gotten a Pizza from Redd Rockett's Pizza Port, and he insisted I take pictures of "the most giant pizza in the whole world"  So here they are for your viewing pleasure!

Hunter has just started getting into Star Wars, and at Disneyland they have a really cool show where they pick kids from the audience and train them to be Jedis.  He really wanted to have a go.  So he and Craig went and sat down in the front of the stage and hoped he would be picked.

The Jedi Master and his assistant arrived

I had made Hunter a sign to hold up and it worked.  He was chosen!!

First they were given some basic training

Next they were shown how to use their lightsabers

Suddenly - cue the music - the Stormtroopers appeared

And with them was Darth Vader and Darth Maul, who wanted to recruit the young Jedi trainees to the dark side.

Naturally the young Jedis refused, and it was time to use their new skills in battle.

Hunter was chosen to face Darth Maul

The young Jedis were victorious

Darth Vader left, giving a final warning!

The Jedis were congratulated on their skillful fighting

Hunter has such a great time and he was really glad he had done it.