~ A 21 month old, a celebrity sighting, & a whole lotta food~2 week trip~ 2/28 update

[LilAnn]

Great update! Love the new "hairdo! He still looks adorable, though. I always think the Tree of Life is so amazing. I can't believe how much detail went into that! I always feel like I see something new. Isn't it funny how good the little ones get once ice cream/slushies/candy is involved?

 

[ladybugmom]

Happy Thanksgiving Alison!!! I hope all is well! I haven't heard from you in awhile!!

 

[AlohaPolynesian]

Sorry I've been behind...I just finished school and had to pack up and move back home! I loved all your AKL pics. I should take your advice and try some motion sickness pills so I can ride EE. Can't wait to hear about the celebrity sighting!

 

[cjackearl]

I hope you had a very happy, blessing filled Thanksgivin, Miss Allison and Family!

 

[TinkandPooh]

Just checking in to see if the end of the TR has been posted. I have been following the TR for a long time and can't hardly wait to hear the end.
It has been a fantastic TR with plenty of info and great times shared as well as some great photo's.

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

Hi everyone! I am finally returning from a long break. It was longer than I intended. We had a wonderful trip to Disneyland and Thanksgiving was great with Todd's parents. I took my lap top with me, and then I never actually picked it up on the entire trip! So I apologize for the delay, but I am getting ready to post an update today.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

You got some amazing pictures there! Just lovely.

Very cute with the lemonade

The lemonade is a favorite memory of mind from this trip. We have some video of it, and I just can't describe the pleading eyes. How can anyone resist that?

Great update! Love the new "hairdo! He still looks adorable, though. I always think the Tree of Life is so amazing. I can't believe how much detail went into that! I always feel like I see something new. Isn't it funny how good the little ones get once ice cream/slushies/candy is involved?

I think that was Dylan's best behavior of the trip. When he sees the pictures of that lemonade he says, "Yum!" LOL.

The Tree of Life was so fun to explore. I had no idea what we were missing. I can't wait to go back and search for more animals.

Happy Thanksgiving Alison!!! I hope all is well! I haven't heard from you in awhile!!

Hi Becky! I know, I have been MIA. I can't believe I didn't touch a computer for almost 10 days. It was actually pretty nice! Although now that I have been working on my update, I realize how out of touch I was. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving with your family.

Sorry I've been behind...I just finished school and had to pack up and move back home! I loved all your AKL pics. I should take your advice and try some motion sickness pills so I can ride EE. Can't wait to hear about the celebrity sighting!

Wow! How was moving? That is something that I dread. We always end up breaking stuff. I really hope that motion sickness pills would work for you. EE is something that you definitely need to experience!

I hope you had a very happy, blessing filled Thanksgivin, Miss Allison and Family!

Thanks so much! I hope that you and your family had a fun day as well!

Just checking in to see if the end of the TR has been posted. I have been following the TR for a long time and can't hardly wait to hear the end.
It has been a fantastic TR with plenty of info and great times shared as well as some great photo's.

Update is coming up in a little while. Thanks so much for following along. I hadn't planned on it taking me so long to get through it. Life just got in the way (a lot) more than I thought it would. Thanks again!

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

We finished touring the Tree of Life and headed back over to FOTLK for the 2:00 show. We waited to meet up with my parents, and by the time we entered the theater it was 1:40. We were seated near the back of the Elephant section.

Dylan was being wiggly so we gave him some snacks to keep him busy. I knew once the show started that he would settle down and get into it. I was right. The singers came out and started the show and he sat right down. One of the ladies was doing her spiel and she did the part where she asks some guy his name. He said, “Kurt.” She said the part about how it was “her lucky day”, and he agreed with her.

The show kept going and the lady pulled the same guy from the front row up to make the Warthog sound. The guy was just huge. Todd was saying something about how the guy must be an athlete because of his build and his size. So the lady asked him to make the sound like a warthog. The guy took a deep breath and just goes for it….he got right into the microphone and started snorting and just being really goofy. We were all laughing and all of a sudden Todd says, “Hey, that’s Kurt Warner!” And that’s exactly who it was!! (For those of you who don’t know who he is, he is the starting Quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals. His team lost in the last Super Bowl.). I grabbed my camera and Todd grabbed the video camera. We were far away, so the pictures aren’t great, but you can definitely see who it is.

My mom got this picture of him being a warthog. LOL.

It was pretty amazing to me that this guy played in the Super Bowl just a few months earlier, and there he was up there snorting like a pig and just being totally goofy because it was making his kids laugh. After he sat down, he laughed with his kids and then he watched all of the other people making animal noises and he cheered loudly for each of them. You could tell that he was really into the show. Later on his kids were part of the little kiddie parade.

The show itself was great. We had debated skipping this show because Dylan was tired and it was so hot. I am SO glad that we went. It was so GOOD today. You can tell when the performers are just “on”, and they were on today. The monkeys seemed to do some new stuff, and the bird girl looked so free up there. I told Todd that I wanted to be her. LOL It looked so fun. He just rolled his eyes at me.

Here are the pictures we got between our cameras. I love these first 3 pictures.

After the show was over, it took us a long time to get out of the building due to where we were sitting. The whole group that was with Kurt Warner was still sitting down and we had to walk right past them. There were a ton of Disney security people around him, just sending everybody past him and out the door.

I took Dylan to the bathroom to change his diaper. We noticed that Mickey, Minnie, Goofy & Donald were all in the area. They all had very long lines (probably everyone that had just left FOTLK). I wanted Dylan to see Mickey Mouse again since he had only seen him the one time at the beginning of the trip. We stopped and talked to a CM and she said the wait would be at least 30 minutes for each character. We talked about it, but decided not to wait since it was way past Dylan’s naptime.

As we were getting ready to leave the area, Kurt Warner and his group came out of the FOTLK building and stood right behind us! I was able to get a couple more pictures, although they are not very good. He was putting his kids in their strollers and getting them all situated.

I was talking to Todd about him later. We talked about watching the Super Bowl and how we had rooted for his team just because we liked him as a person. I already liked him for being such a quality person and because he is so up-front about his faith. After seeing him be so attentive to his kids and how he was not afraid to be silly in front of a room full of people, I am just a bigger fan of his.

So that was it. We are such big sports fans that this was a really amazing person to see. This was about as good as it gets for me! It is so fun to see him playing football on TV now because it just makes me smile to have this memory.

We decided to leave the park. It was after 3:00 and Dylan was really tired. We took some last pictures on our way out, since we knew it would be a while until we came back for another visit. I was getting those sad feelings of knowing that it would be a while until we are able to go back.

Dylan fell asleep in the car as soon as we left. Since we had a really early lunch, we all were hungry so we went to eat at Sweet Tomatoes. This was in the Crossroads area right down the road from our condo. Since it was an off time, there was hardly anyone there.

We love this place. The food is always very good, it is clean and it is a really good value. I didn’t write down the price but I think it was around $9 - $10 per person, and it is all you can eat. It has a lot of salads, soups, baked potatoes, pizza, pasta, breads, and desserts. We were totally stuffed by the time that we left.

Dylan slept right through the whole lunch. He never budged.

We went back to the condo and Dylan woke up in the car. We put him back down for a nap and kept our fingers crossed….and he fell back asleep. Yay! He actually slept until 7:00!! While he was sleeping I took a shower and did a load of laundry. My parents left for their conference around 6:00.

Now tonight we had a different sort of activity planned. Not sure if I have said this before but we are huge NBA fans, and more specifically Sacramento Kings fans (I know, my team came in last place during the last season). Tonight was the NBA draft that we had been looking forward to for months. As a result of the Kings’ terrible record last year, they got a very high pick in the draft. To say that Todd had been obsessing about the NBA draft would be an understatement. He was so excited that there was no way that we were missing the draft, which started at 6:00. (For those of you who care about the NBA, the Kings ended up drafting Tyreke Evans, and now that the new season has started we are really happy with their pick. Go Kings!! Ok, I’m done now.). My dad even wanted us to text him at his conference with all of the info. LOL.

Anyways, we ended up watching it for about 1 ½ hours. During that time the thunder & lightning rolled in again. We had planned to go back out and possibly go mini-golfing but decided against it. The rain only lasted for a little while, so we ended up going back to the pool for an hour or so to let Dylan work off some energy.

In spite of Dylan’s late nap, he was ready to go to bed by 11:00. I think we finally had tired him out! We all decided to go to bed at 11:00.

 

[tinkgurl]

OMG so cool that you got to see Kurt Warner!!!!!!! I definately know who he is. Like you said, that's so great that he didn't care about looking silly in front of everyone. That's so great he was having a blast with his kids.

 

[jordanyosh]

Okay...I can't believe you saw Kurt Warner!!!! Being a Niner fan makes it hard to love the Cardinals, but I LOVE Warner for those very reasons that you stated.

I wish they had won the Super Bowl! It's nice to hear how he carries himself off the field matches his on field persona.

I worked for Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes for 12 years--many of those in the Bay Area. Just so you know, the CEO is a Christian as is the Vice-President of HR, Vice-President of Admin and VP of Purchasing and Director of Marketing all of whom are good friends of mine. Back when I worked there, the Corporate staff was about 50% Christian. It was a wonderful working environment. I miss it, but ended up having a higher calling...

 

[sharonW]

Welcome Back! Love your pictures on this update.
Anxious to hear all about you Disneyland adventure.
Disney is just theeee GREATEST place on earth, I
know you agree!

 

[beatlesblonde]

That's sooooo cool that you saw Kurt Warner, I'm a HUGE football fan (Go Colts!) and I probably would have had a heart attack. I remember watching the NBA draft too at Conseco Fieldhouse (home of the Pacers) and Twittering all the picks through the first round. Great update! (PS. I rooted for the Cardinals in the last Superbowl too )

 

[ladybugmom]

YAY!! So glad you're back, Alison!! I missed you! How cool that you got to see Kurt Warner! He seems like a really great guy! And I just LOVE the FOTLK show!! It's one of my favorites!

 

[cjackearl]

Hey Allison! I LOVE the Lion King show! And you got some of the best pictures I've seen of it. My photos never turn out well in that theater. I agree, being the bird would be pretty awesome.

I have to admit that I have no idea who Kurt Warner is, but he sounds like a pretty great guy. What a fun sighting.

 

[LilAnn]

Yay, you're back from your trip! I hope you are feeling better too. Wow, you saw Kurt Warner? I have to admit, that I am not sure if I would have recognized him on my own, but I do like him and rooted for the Cardinals in teh Superbowl. I've never seen the FOTLK, but your pictures look amazing! Looks like a good show!

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

OMG so cool that you got to see Kurt Warner!!!!!!! I definately know who he is. Like you said, that's so great that he didn't care about looking silly in front of everyone. That's so great he was having a blast with his kids.

I know! I was so excited when Todd recognized him. We were across the show from him but he was in the front row, so it was easy to see him. His kids were having a great time.

Okay...I can't believe you saw Kurt Warner!!!! Being a Niner fan makes it hard to love the Cardinals, but I LOVE Warner for those very reasons that you stated.

I wish they had won the Super Bowl! It's nice to hear how he carries himself off the field matches his on field persona.

I worked for Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes for 12 years--many of those in the Bay Area. Just so you know, the CEO is a Christian as is the Vice-President of HR, Vice-President of Admin and VP of Purchasing and Director of Marketing all of whom are good friends of mine. Back when I worked there, the Corporate staff was about 50% Christian. It was a wonderful working environment. I miss it, but ended up having a higher calling...

I was raised a Niner fan, so I understand what you are saying. After we lived in San Diego my loyalty has changed to the Chargers, but the Niners still have a place in my heart. I've always like him for the reasons that I stated though, and I was really happy to see that he seems to be the person he represents himself to be.

We LOVED eating at the Souplantation when we lived in SD. We were on a college student's budget so that was a treat to eat there. And whenever we go back it is on the must-eat list. That is awesome about the people who work there. I had no idea. I'm glad that you got to work in such a great environment.

Welcome Back! Love your pictures on this update.
Anxious to hear all about you Disneyland adventure.
Disney is just theeee GREATEST place on earth, I
know you agree!

I'm going to try to get started on that TR this weekend. I'm still trying to organize my pictures and my notes. Disney is definitely the greatest place on earth. We had a great time on our trip.

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

That's sooooo cool that you saw Kurt Warner, I'm a HUGE football fan (Go Colts!) and I probably would have had a heart attack. I remember watching the NBA draft too at Conseco Fieldhouse (home of the Pacers) and Twittering all the picks through the first round. Great update! (PS. I rooted for the Cardinals in the last Superbowl too )

Hey, you are leaving for your trip in 1 day! Have a wonderful time!!

Do you mean that you were in the arena while the draft was going on? How cool is that? I bet it was a fun environment to be in, because you would get to hear everyone's reactions.

Seeing Kurt Warner was awesome. I almost did have a heart attack when he came out the doors and stood right behind us. As we were leaving we stopped to take some pictures and he was walking right behind us too. It was really exciting!

YAY!! So glad you're back, Alison!! I missed you! How cool that you got to see Kurt Warner! He seems like a really great guy! And I just LOVE the FOTLK show!! It's one of my favorites!

Every time we go to AK I think we might skip FOTLK because we have seen it so many times. Then we go, and I am so glad that we didn't miss it. It just has so much detail and I don't get tired of it. Seeing Kurt Warner was so cool. Even Todd was impressed.

Hey Allison! I LOVE the Lion King show! And you got some of the best pictures I've seen of it. My photos never turn out well in that theater. I agree, being the bird would be pretty awesome.

I have to admit that I have no idea who Kurt Warner is, but he sounds like a pretty great guy. What a fun sighting.

My mom has an amazing camera. You can tell the difference between her camera & mine in the pictures. But mine still turned out ok. I usually don't even try to take any pics because they never turn out good, but since I already had my camera out from taking pictures of Kurt Warner, I went for it. I'm glad that I did. I figured some people would not know who he is (if you don't follow football). He has just been a person that has been very open about being a Christian and has started some foundations for people in need. Very quality person and I really admire him for it.

Yay, you're back from your trip! I hope you are feeling better too. Wow, you saw Kurt Warner? I have to admit, that I am not sure if I would have recognized him on my own, but I do like him and rooted for the Cardinals in teh Superbowl. I've never seen the FOTLK, but your pictures look amazing! Looks like a good show!

You should see the FOTLK on your next trip. It is definitely worth the wait. To me, it is still the best show at WDW because there are so many different parts to it.

To be honest, if Todd had not recognized him, I probably wouldn't have either. You just aren't expecting to see someone like that at Disney. I noticed that the guy was physically huge, but it didn't really click until he said his name. Then I recognized him.

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

Today was our last full day of our trip. We had to leave very early the next morning, so it didn’t count as a “vacation day” in my mind. We were all sad, because even though we had been there for almost 2 weeks, it really did not feel like it had been that long. Why is it that there is never enough time at Disney, no matter how much time you give yourself? It is the ultimate curse of the Disney fan.

We got up at 7:15 because our plan was to leave by 8:30 to get to MGM before the park opened. My dad decided to drop off his rental car this morning before we left. He & Todd left at 8:10 and they didn’t get back until 8:45. They had to drop off the car at one of the DTD hotels and Todd said there was no “drop off” area. You just had to find a spot in the parking lot, and there were no spots anywhere. It took my dad a long time to find a spot to park. That seems like a really dumb way to run a car rental business. Wouldn’t you want all of your cars located in one area??

We finally got on the road at 9:00 AM but we missed the exit to MGM (my fault, I was not paying attention), and then there was no place to easily turn around. We had to take a long detour and we didn’t get to the parking lot until 9:30. We didn’t realize that it was EMH at the park on this day, and the park was already PACKED with people.

We got into the park with no problems. Todd and I wanted to ride RNRC, so we headed over there to get in the Single Rider Line while my parents took Dylan with them to get FP’s for Toy Story Mania. When we got to RNRC, the SRL was closed because it was pretty full already. The stand-by time was 50 minutes, so we chose to go to ToT instead. The stand-by time was 30 minutes so we got in line.

They had the misters running at a very high speed and it made the mist look like fog. The whole area felt very creepy. Very cool. The only problem was that it made it difficult to take pictures, so I gave up.

I called my dad and he said the FP for TSM was for 3:30, so he didn’t get them since we would be gone by then for Dylan to take his nap. We told him we would be in line for 30 minutes so they decided to take Dylan to see The Little Mermaid show.

The line went quickly and we got on the ride in about 20 minutes. We sat by some first-timers from the UK, and they sounded really excited, but scared. On my other side was a girl riding by herself. She kept laughing, and she had this really weird/funny laugh because she was nervous. Todd was laughing at her, and it made her laugh even more. She told us that her boyfriend was waiting for her – he didn’t want to ride it!

ToT is SO fun! You know how there is the part where the ride brings you up really fast and you come out of your seat and hover in the air for a while before your butt hits the seat again? That is my favorite part, and we had it happen twice! I was so excited I kept saying, “We got 2 hovers on one ride!!” LOL. We were so happy when we got off the ride, and of course we wanted to do it again but we didn’t have time.

Since this ride took less time than was planned, we went back to RNRC to see if they had opened the SRL. It was still closed.

I called my parents but they didn’t answer their phones so I assumed they were still watching the Little Mermaid show. We took our time walking down the street towards the big hat and took pictures of the buildings. I love this park. I love the architecture. I love the palm trees. I don’t know why, it just makes me totally content.

Todd had not eaten breakfast before we left this morning, so we went to Starring Rolls bakery to get something breakfast-y. It was really busy inside and most of the breakfast stuff was gone. He didn’t really want a sandwich so he decided on ….. a huge rice crispy treat with chocolate on top. Yum!! Who cares if it’s not healthy? We were only on vacation for one more day.

I love the look of this restaurant. We have never eaten here, but I want to someday!

My dad called and we walked over to meet them by the hat. My mom said that Goofy & Pluto had been out earlier and Dylan stood in line to meet them. When he was the next person in line to see them, they said their time was up and they left. She said that he cried for a long time because they left. So sad.

It turns out that they were getting ready to come back so we went and stood in line. We were 3rd in line, so he definitely got to see them this time.

When it was his turn, Todd took him up and he ran right to Pluto. Pluto gave him a big hug and Dylan didn’t freak out. Yay! We had made some progress! Both of the characters played with him and Dylan was really happy. He would start to get nervous but the characters would do something different to distract him and he would be fine. Once again I have to say that I am impressed with the CMs that are in the costumes. They are very good at reading each child and acting accordingly. This was a wonderful memory for us.

We finished the visit and Dylan kept waving goodbye to them. All of a sudden, the wind really picked up and black clouds rolled in. We made a quick decision to go to the American Idol show, since Todd wanted to see it again. We walked over and felt the first raindrops falling by the time that we got in line. It had literally been blue skies 5 minutes earlier. I covered the stroller with a stroller poncho and we went inside. We sat in the same seats that we had the first time we had seen the show.

I took some pictures of the contestants and judges this time. There were totally different people as the hosts and the judges. This time there was a female host and the judges still played the same roles as Randy, Paula and Simon but this time the mean judge was female.

All three contestants were very good singers. The girl who sang last won today. She had a good voice but was much better about getting the crowd involved than the other two. After we left, we all agreed that this is a great addition to this park, and that it would be really fun to go to a finale show at the end of the day to see all of the winners competing against each other.

It had stopped raining by the time we got outside, but it was obvious that it had DUMPED rain. When I got to the stroller, the poncho had a ton of water puddled on top. The weight of the water was so heavy that it had pulled up the front of the poncho and Dylan’s seat was soaking wet. I had to tip the whole stroller sideways to dump the water off of the top. I was bummed that his seat was wet, but it could have been SO much worse if we hadn’t had the poncho at all. It looks like we were lucky and avoided a really bad storm.

Where did we go next?

 

[sharonW]

Yeah, Your back!!...but waaaaaa your TR is almost over
What a wonderful vacation! I totally agree, our longest trip to
disney was 10 days and nope it wasn't enough!! Its the feeling
of living in a whole other world where everyone is happy and just
getting away from the hum dum of daily life!! What wonderful
memories you made with your lit'l guy.....So, when is the next
trip???

 

[tinkgurl]

Woo! An update!

I love the misters in the ToT line. I think they make the area look creepy too! Such good theming!

I love when you fly up out of your seat on the drops too!

Aw..love the pics of Dylan meeting Goofy and Pluto!

Ooooh your pics of Hollywood Brown Derby made me excited to be trying there for the first time in March!

I love the American Idol Experience! We had that female host one of our times there!

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

Yeah, Your back!!...but waaaaaa your TR is almost over
What a wonderful vacation! I totally agree, our longest trip to
disney was 10 days and nope it wasn't enough!! Its the feeling
of living in a whole other world where everyone is happy and just
getting away from the hum dum of daily life!! What wonderful
memories you made with your lit'l guy.....So, when is the next
trip???

I know, I feel like it has been forever since I have been on the boards. I keep waiting for life to slow down and it is just not happening.

I agree with you about being in another world at Disney. The outside world tends to not exist when you are there. I think we might be thinking about another trip to DL for Spring Break. We bought the AP so we are trying to take advantage of it as soon as we can...

Woo! An update!

I love the misters in the ToT line. I think they make the area look creepy too! Such good theming!

I love when you fly up out of your seat on the drops too!

Aw..love the pics of Dylan meeting Goofy and Pluto!

Ooooh your pics of Hollywood Brown Derby made me excited to be trying there for the first time in March!

I love the American Idol Experience! We had that female host one of our times there!

Hi there! I agree, it has been a long time since my last update.

I've never seen the misters going like that in the ToT line. It was so cool. Talk about attention to detail! And the floating feeling that you get on the ride is the best feeling. It feels like you are totally weightless. I love it!!

I can't wait to hear what your thoughts are about the Brown Derby. Are you going on the dining plan next time? I think it always seems so expensive to pay OOP, so that is why we haven't been there yet.