Our Last Day

A surprise sighting of the Queen of Hearts on our way to Minnie Mouse's Character Breakfast.

Ready to eat....and eat....and eat.... you gotta love a breakfast buffet!

The Fairy Godmother was the closest we got to Cinderella this time....hopefully we'll have better luck for Mia next time.

Although Minnie is Ella's all-time favorite character now....she was still sizing her up while we were there.

Poor Ella! She could tolerate the characters when one of us was near enough to grab onto, but a surprise visit from Eeyore just about gave her a heart attack! I guess I should say Poor Eeyore too. I'm sure that's not the reaction he was going for! :)

Getting snagged by Captain Hook on our way out.

While a very nice Daddy waited for us in the hour-long Princess Fantasy Faire line, a very nice Grandpa (with convenient wheel chair access) took all of us on my all-time favorite ride Thunder Mountain. We had already been on it quite a few times, but it was fun to get one last ride. Maddi was so brave, but I really thought she was going to slip out at one point!

The girls could not get enough of Sleep Beauty's Castle

As if 2 character breakfasts and a princess lunch weren't enough we still broke down and waited (or I guess I should say, Lance and Ella waited) in the long long Fantasy Faire line (there is no wheel-chair access or fast passes for this one). We still hadn't seen Cinderella so we thought we'd give it one more try and sadly she ended up not being there, but it was kind of rainy in the morning so it was nice to be under cover for awhile. And I think we've had our fill of princesses!

Ella REALLY wanted to be one of the big girls and be in the picture with the princesses but just couldn't bring herself to go up without Mommy.

Ella had to be patient while we all took turns riding on rides she couldn't go on, but I think Grandpa's ride-on cart, was just as fun for her.

I LOVE the poncho picture!

This really sums up the end of our last day....Rain, Rain and More Rain. Actually we felt really lucky because the original forecast was predicting rain on all 3 days that we were planning to be there, but we made it until the afternoon of the last day before it really started raining.

It was funny b/c we had all been laughing at the people who were buying the $7.00 dollar Disneyland ponchos so that they could go on the river-ride without getting wet, and in the end, we were so grateful when Grandpa so kindly bought each of us one of the very same ponchos! Which ended up being life-savers that last day!

Ella was so cute drowning in her poncho.

Taking cover after the Jedi Training Academy show had to be canceled mid-show.

Jedi Training Academy.

This had to be one of the highlights for us as well. Now to give a little background, Mia really doesn't know a whole lot about Star Wars. She's never seen the movies or anything but after talking with her cousin Luke and hearing about his visit to the Jedi Training Academy in great detail, she's always talked about going and fighting Dar Vader (as she calls him). So our second day there we went and watched the show (they choose kids from the audience to come up and be a Jedi in Training) and she really wanted to go up but didn't get picked and said that was okay because she was wearing her princess dress and that just wouldn't work too well! :) So the next day we had some time and asked her if she wanted to go to Pixie Hollow to see Tinkerbell or go to the Jedi Training Academy again and.... Jedi Training it was! I love that about her. However being our second time there I knew she was really counting on getting picked to do the training and.... thankfully she was. I think Lance and I MAY have been more excited than her. It was the cutest little show though and the kids take it all so seriously especially when Darth Vader shows and up and tries to convince them to all come to the dark side and and they all scream NOOOO!

At the end of the show each Jedi gets to come up and fight Darth Vader all on their own. Mia told me afterwards that "My heart was just jumping!". I can imagine that seeming VERY real to a little child.

Again I felt like luck was on our side b/c a few kids after Mia went, the rain started pouring and they had to cancel the show immediately before some of the kids had gone up to do their fight. :(

Mia was one happy little girl after this and it was so fun to watch!

Our last ride of the trip...Space Mountain. Mia, Lance and I got to go together on this one. Mia had been looking forward to it the whole time, and loved it.

We took a picture of the screen that shows your picture from the ride. We were laughing b/c in the picture all you can see of Mia is a few strands of hair sticking up in the seat, however you can't see them at all in this picture! She was sitting right next to Lance.

Cute Maddi.

Lance was shaking his head and laughing as I packed a whole bag of all our snow gear for the Disney trip, but I think he only wished I had brought more when all was said and done that last night. This picture was taken as we were all TRYING to stick out the rain in hopes of seeing the fireworks and Fantasmic show, however they ended up getting cancelled and I think we were all a little relieved to leave a bit earlier than planned. We were all REALLY cold and REALLY wet when we got in the car to head home...but it was all worth it.

And that's it! We're finally done with our Disneyland Update. It was a wonderful trip, and I have to agree that Disneyland is definitely ONE of the Happiest Places on Earth! :)