The happiest place on earth

Well. Life got a little hairy again and I stopped blogging for a couple of months. But I'm back.

Right now, life is grand. We're on summer break right now and have about three more glorious weeks of freedom before we have to go back. Lance and I celebrated the well deserved break by flying out to California as soon as school ended. We had a fantastic week at Universal Studios, the LA Zoo, the Griffith Observatory, Knott's Berry Farm, and California Adventure. And of course, no trip to the area is complete without a couple of days at the happiest place on earth, Disneyland. It was Lance's first trip to the world of Disney and he was not disappointed. He's already ready to go back. :) Anyway, some highlights from our trip:
So as I said, we flew out of Hawaii as soon as we possibly could. We actually were in California by 5 am on the first official day of vacation. We busted ass at work before we left because we knew that absolutely everything had to be finished before we left and we both didn't sleep well on the plane so we were pretty exhausted by the time we got there. Unfortunately, we weren't able to check into our hotel until 3 and oddly enough, not many places were open at 5 am. We ended up eating breakfast at McDonald's and driving around LA. We also decided to get our trip to Trader Joe's out of the way since it was one of the few places open before 11 am. We bought some omiyage and much to my delight, found one of the yarn stores that I wanted to go to. The people here were really friendly and helpful and I had tons of fun poking around their yarn. Lance took a short nap on one of their comfy chairs while I shopped. We ended up going to a mall to kill the last few hours before we could check into our hotel.
On our second day, we went to Universal Studios. We had decided to pay a little extra for front of line passes and it was totally worth it. The passes allowed us to jump to the head of line for the attractions and gave us the opportunity for behind the scenes access for many of the shows. We went pretty early in the season and the area schools weren't on summer break yet so the crowds weren't too bad. The new Simpsons ride was pretty awesome and the tram tour was just as enjoyable as I remembered it. I got soaked on the Jurassic Park ride and as Lance was pretty dry, he found this immensely funny. Between the wetness and the looking of terror on my face as we plunged towards our death, the picture came out pretty funny so Lance purchased it. For some reason I managed to get soaked on all the rides on our trip where getting wet was remotely possible.
On day three, we went to the LA Zoo and Griffith Observatory. The LA Zoo was humangous and I'm glad we decided to visit it. The habitats were so much more natural than the Honolulu Zoo habitats and the way they have it set up allows visitors to really get a good look at the animals. They have this alligator there named Reggie that they actually got from a lake...in a California park. We also had fun distinguishing the nannies in the zoo from the mothers/grandmothers.
We switched hotels on Day 4 and were pleased that the hotel's promise of being right across the street of Disneyland was most definitely true. We dropped off our car at the new hotel and went to California Adventure. We had planned our California Adventure/Disneyland days before we left using Ride Max and our planning really paid off. Using the itinerary from Ride Max and taking advantage of as many Fast Passes as possible, our ride wait times were minimal. The longest wait we had was at the Toy Story ride and there was little we could do about it since it was a relatively new ride and Fast Passes weren't available here. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go on the Tower of Terror and I was contemplating making a run for it the entire time that we were in line. But you know what? It was an awesome ride. We followed a poor little 6 year old girl who was sobbing as we left the ride. We actually saw this kind of thing quite a bit where kids were taken on inappropriate rides and ended up sobbing as they left the ride. Lance took quite a bit of video on our trip and we have one that he took on California Screamin' which was the hugest rollercoaster. One of the coolest rides was Soarin' Over California were you "hang-glided" over California. It was really realistic and I found myself lifting my foot a few times so I wouldn't hit the virtual mountains.
I was really looking to Day 5 of our trip - Knott's Berry Farm. I love Knott's. I love the historic feel of the park and I love that the crowds aren't nearly as bad as they are at the Disney parks. When we first got there, we were able to ride the log ride three times before the line started to get a little long (we were trying to take the best picture possible). I convinced Lance that we had to pan for gold and $7 and 20 minutes later, we each had discovered gold! Hopefully we can retire on our riches.
We spent days 6 and 7 at Disneyland. Lance got his first pair of Mickey ears and I got another pair since I got my last pair when I was four. We also picked up a "1st Visit" button for him from the Town Hall and he proudly wore both throughout the park. We had developed itineraries using Ride Max and used as many Fast Passes as possible for Disneyland as well and like at California Adventure, we were glad we did. I highly recommend downloading Ride Max to anyone who's planning to visit the Disney parks. We had to zoom around the park to meet our itinerary on the first day but our wait times were minimal and we got to slow down on the second day. There are no words to describe the greatness of Disney. They really go above and beyond to make it seem like you're not just in an amusement park but in a completely different world. What I love about Disney is that they do everything better than everyone else. They really have created the happiest place on earth.