Make A Wish Trip Day 3 (Cars Land)

Yes, I am aware that I never finished blogging about our trip! Ha!  So here's Day 3!

We waited to go to Cars Land (at the California Adventure Park) until we had an entire day so we could spend as much time as possible.  I figured that Sunday the boys would be super tired from flying on Sat. and also the time difference so that's why we waited until Monday to go.  I think Cars Land was everyone's favorite, especially for me and Joseph!!

Eli's "excited" face while waiting in line for the tractor ride (first ride of the day)

he LOVED it and we ended up coming back and doing it again later that afternoon!

It looked EXACTLY like the movie.  Everything was in the exact same spot!!

Sam and Daddy on the tractor ride (similar to the fair ride "the scrambler")

Waiting to see Lightning McQueen.  Lightning and Mater switch out every 20 minutes or so. By the time we made it to the front of the line Mater had come out, but the boys were fine seeing him as well!

Thought this was funny...can't wait to see the video that Joseph got of me on the Luigi's Tire ride (kind of like a big air hockey game except the tires were all soft and would just gently bounce off each other)

Saw Red in the street after our ride!

Meeting Mater!

(Mater and Lightning were actual cars that would drive out, with their "handlers" walking beside and their eyes would move...they had some prerecorded phrases, about 7-8, that they would "say" when you walked up to take a pic with them)

Stanley!!!

Eli's favorite ride!

(A quick side story....those of you that know about fast passes know that they are handy...the fast passes for this ride were "Sold out" before 11am!!!  And the wait time never dipped below 90 minutes all day!....I could feel the stares as we walked past the wait line 3 times, yes, 3 times to ride this....oh well, the thought of waiting in line with two preschoolers trumped any guilt I had over having a Make A Wish pass!) 

Eli was super excited each time we rode it!  We even have video of him dancing his way up the line! (They piped Cars movie music throughout this section of the park! it was great!)

Sam was pretty excited too!

Posing with his Cars Mickey ears and his Radiator Springs Racer car

(side note: we lost this car about an hour later and then had to come back that afternoon and buy a second one that promptly went straight into Daddy's backpack for safe keeping! haha)

The dumbest ride EVER!! Haha just kidding...but we did have to ride it twice at Eli's insistence...it was a SLOOOOOOWWWW preschool train that looked like Heimlich from Bug's life....it went down a little path that had large plastic food and Heimlich would exclaim how he Loved each one that we passed. The boys loved pretending to eat the food as we went...hence why we had to ride it twice! haha

The boys loved the Bug's life land because it was all slow preschool rides....Joseph and I finally escaped by promising a ride on another carousel at the Paradise Pier section! haha

His "ready to go" face on the bumper cars
(My neck is not usually a fan of bumper cars, but have no fear, this ride was soooo tame! haha)

Eli in serious thought during the Little Mermaid ride

(Later in the Day he asked to ride it again citing that "It has such a happy ending!" haha)

On some flying ride in Bug's Land

Pic with Woody and Jessie

Where's Sam, you ask?  He's hiding behind me...I swear that kid drives me nuts sometimes! haha

(Side note: We had to endure tears and disappointment earlier when we got in line the second time to see Lightning McQueen and literally we were the next in line when it was time to change and Mater came out, but we had already seen Mater so we left and said we would come back later...of course to Eli that meant never....Soooo, when we got in line to see Woody I made a point to ask his handler if we had a chance to see him and pulled the "make a wish" card as well as the "he just cried over McQueen" card (shameless, I know!) She assured us we had plenty of time....as we got to the front of the line Jessie and her handler walked out to switch, but fortunately Woody's handler saw that were the very next group in line and made Woody wait.  Because Jessie was already there we were lucky enough to get a pic with both!!!!  Sam was a little overwhelmed by all the costumed people and refused to be in the pic but because time was ticking for Woody to leave I just said "take the pic without him!" Oh well, we can show him later how stubborn he was! haha)

Riding the King Triton carousel (each animal was a sea animal...loved it!)

On the Ferris Wheel

Funny pic....this is typical us waiting on food!

On some "Flying Zephyr" ride...Eli kept calling it the silver train and we couldn't figure out what he was saying until he pointed it out! haha

Finally got a pic with Lightning McQueen 

(We learned our lesson and got in line when Mater was out there and just planned to let others go first if we made it to the front of the line before Mater left....weirdly enough, when we got to the very front it was time to switch so we were the first to see McQueen! What is it about our family that causes characters to switch out? That was the 4th time that day that happened!)

Each of the cozy cones were food vendors!

Ice cream headache! 

Yummy ice cream!

The second time on the racers and Sam wasn't too sure...he's not a fan of the rides where things jump out (just like his momma) and on this ride before you race there is a scene where the big combine tractor chases you!!

Eli and Daddy up front in the racer

(by the third time we rode it Eli requested to sit alone and made Joseph scoot over to the other seat!!! So brave!!)

They rode "Soarin" which surprised me when they liked it!

Phineas and Ferb dance party...We waited over 20 minutes for this because the boys requested to see it....

Then as soon as it started both boys hopped out of their strollers (on the front row) and hid behind us.....not sure why they freaked out but it was impossible for us to leave gracefully because of the crowd behind us...So Joseph and I just stood there with two empty strollers and watched Phineas and Ferb dance! haha

Eli hiding behind his stroller! haha

The beginning of the Pixar parade...our favorite parade!

I'll post more pics later today about the rest of our Day 3....Right now, I've got 4 kiddos itching to go outside and play (yes, 4! because we have friends over to entertain us during Spring Break this week! School cannot start back soon enough!!!!

Enjoy!