here we go. finally regrouped myself enough from nearly 24 combined hours of school bus time, a hooplah of jousting, knight fights & eating with our hands & about 15 hours in the disneyland parks. thank goodness for
blogstomp!
we left friday morning around 7:15, a la school bus and began the voyage. the bus seemed to be making pretty good time for the most part. we thought we would get to medieval times early, but nope. we hit lovely LA traffic... and probably sat in the same spot for a good 20 minutes. not even the license plate alphabet game could save us. we made it to medieval times JUST in time to get in there, get our crowns (blue knight again. same as 2004) and get our seats. the girls swooned over the "thor" looking knight, but his good looks didn't get him very far. he was killed off, letting us all down. what a punk. though, the announcer guy (top right photo) has a strange resemblance to my 8th grade history teacher. after our sad defeat, we loaded the buses back up, and headed to the hotel to get some sleep before the big saturday.
after a lateish night, an early morning came, and we got ready and were down to go by 8:15. walked to disneyland from our hotel, and then after the rundown of the chaperon spot, we were free. erika and i zoomed over to CA adventure to get a fast pass for the cars speed racers. we waited in a gigantic line to get our fast passes... but once we got them, they were for our EXACT chaperone time. total ugh. but disney customer service to the rescue got us passes good for any time during the day, so we were stoked. made our way through cars land, which was totally adorable. the tractor ride was awesome, but the tires one, not so thrilling.
the speed racers thought? super awesome. it starts out slow, kinda in the way the monsters inc ride does, taking you through and "prepping" your car for the race. then you get lined up at the starting line and the car speeds onward. yeah, i'm pretty aware how stressed out i look in that picture. but it was fun. seriously.
we were going to head to the toy story mania ride, but i stopped us when i saw that jessie was out, and had a short line. once we got in line, we were informed buzz would be here soon to switch with jessie, and at that point in line, we would probably be getting our photos with jessie. so we went through the line, got our pictures with jessie, and then got back in line again for a photo with buzz. got lucky with that. but not so lucky as far as getting on toy story mania. the ride hadn't opened for the day yet. lame. we checked out the little mermaid ride. it was cute, but nothing super fancy to rave to all your friends (or blog readers) about. if you have a small princes loving child or need to rest your feet for a minute or two, totally go on it.
headed back to disneyland, got our fast passes for space mountain, and then hit up star tours & astro blasters while waiting for our chaperon shift to happen. the new star tours was pretty cool. it scans the audience and selects someone as a rebel spy and shows their photo on the screen. and each "tour" is a little different each time. and it's 3D. well, i could go with or without 3D. got our pretzels, found goofy, and then it was bench sitting time.
well... erika generally sat on the bench. i sat across the walk way by town hall because we found an outlet. some reason, my phone became lame and did NOT want to stay charged at all during that trip. so for a good 45 minutes, my phone charged. no kids came up to tell us they weren't feeling good. so that's a plus.
we got the desired sister pictures in front of the castle (aka the reasons why we decided we should/could chaperon this trip) and then once we delivered erika's sister back to her group, it was back to fun time. and off to space mountain.
we got on super quick. thanks awesome fast pass idea! no wait time at all getting on this one. we rode space mountain, looking super intense in our photo, and then headed to pirates. that line wasn't as horrible as it has been in the past, but it wasn't a short wait either. but of course, it's a classic and everyone generally wants to ride it... so that's what's up. tried to get some winnie the pooh character pictures, but they decided to bounce out (literally... tigger bounced out) as we got there, and had no desire to wait in that line to wait for them to come back... and then wait for our turn. thought about going on small world (erika likes that ride) but when we saw the line, decided food sounded better. so back to CA adventure we went.
i'm still not sure how i feel about the lack of giant letters in front of the gates...
we ended up at boudin's... because bread bowls are delish. but a real pain to chew. after eating, we went to toy story mania, which was open, but a fairly long line. but we decided to wait it out.
this, my friends, is why we don't take "above" photos in lines... hey there, creeper lady in the back.
p.s. i won this game, like a boss. but erika says "accuracy is what counts" you can decide who really won... aka. me. after this, we attempted to charge my phone for 30 minutes, but it really didn't do any good. got in a short wait line for soarin over california, where erika let out her aviation knowledge to some small kid in line. apparently she has this best kept secret about airplanes. after our lovely tour of california, we headed BACK to disneyland for a final time that night.
met up with my dad, and then we went and rode matterhorn. they've since updated the bobsleds, so no more awkward seat snuggling with someone behind you. which also allows for a single rider line. we tried to go see how space mountain's wait time was looking, but at 75 minutes, we opted to do otherwise. dad headed off somewhere, and we rode star tours again. we had a different beginning, but the same ending. we went to space mountain again, got up to the front and next people in line, and then apparently some moron decided to try and stand up on the ride. so they shut the entire thing down, and we had to wait for it to reopen. erika met up with her sister, and i met up with my parents, aileen & her two friends. decided to go on star tours... where this time i was the rebel spy. bum bum buuum. this time it was the same beginning, but a different ending. interesting how they do that. then we rode the astro blasters ride, and i totally beat aileen. alas, space mountain never reopened for the night, so we headed back to main street for the final meeting spot. yeah, and i almost wanted that sweatshirt, but it wasn't my size. it WAS bryan's size though... haa haa haa
it was a VERY long day in disneyland... but some how we made it.
i managed to only buy food & water, and no souvenirs or anything. which is pretty amazing! a walk back to the hotel, and then everyone was down pretty quick for the night.
erika and i claimed seats to ourselves for the way back and boy were we glad. much sleeping was done, well, up until the food stop that got all the kids hyped back up on sugar & caffeine. a lovely search for a shabby little gas station happened, and finally, we got home around 7:45 that night. was it crazy? yes. would we do it again? probably not. was it worth it? yes. am i totally stoked to go to disneyland again in the future? absolutely.
note to self: bring real camera to upcoming events.
i enlisted the help of her two brothers, her little sister emily, as well as one of her brother's fiance to help decorate the car. for decorating in the dark, i think we did a pretty good job! 
