Disney or Bust!

As we planned our whirlwind trip to California

we knew we'd spend a few days in the "Southland"

and we just thought it would be so cool to take Taylor to Carsland,

the newest attraction at Disneyland California Adventure.

We heard it was "like walking onto the set of the animated film".

But for even the one moment we considered it,

we looked up the prices and decided it wasn't possible. Not this time.

But only a day later we received a generous and timely gift

with instructions to spend it on "fun"

and we knew exactly what we'd do with it!

Here are a few snapshots and a video of our time with Taylor!

She was just stoked about the tram from the parking lot!!

She had NO idea all the fun that lay ahead!!

Look at that face-o-excitement!

Welcome to Radiator Springs!

(For those of you that aren't parents of Cars movie-loving tykes,

let me just say-- you've got to give it a chance.

Watch it two or three times before you make a final verdict.

It's so clever, has a grrrreat soundtrack

and seriously this is one of the BEST "lands" I've seen at Disney!

I assume it would be "cool" even if you hadn't seen the film
a bazillion times-- but for those of us that know it inside and out

this was absolutely incredible!

I think our daughter will be a rollercoaster junkie in her teens!

This was only our first ride of the day!

She got to meet two of her "best friends"

Lightening McQueen

and Mater

(like Tuh-mater without the "Tuh")

Look at her glee!

We traveled as light as we could
so we opted to bring our still camera and not our video camera
for our whole trip to Cali.
That being said- I did my best to capture Taylor's excitement
over Carsland, the rides, and Disney in general!

Remember you must go to our site
hickles.blogspot.com
to view the video!

I also wanna say we enjoyed the parade so much!

The entire thing was made up of Pixar movie characters

and the Pixar movies are some of my favorite Disney films!

Nemo, Dory, Marlin & Squirt preceded

Dude Crush!

Buzz, Woody, and other Toy Story characters

preceded Slinky the Dog.

(there was a person that got to be the "behind" of Slinky!)

And just to make it even MORE perfect for our lil' girl

they had an Ariel ride too!

And King Tritan's Carousel

Tay liked the Otter cuz it reminded her of our zoo here.

She got to meet Buzz.

We missed meeting Woody by about 6 people in front of us,

but she was super excited that she got to see him anyway

and then when Buzz took his place she couldn't have been happier.

Then Tay's best bud, Eli, joined us for about an hour at the park.

They are so sweet together.

We sure miss having him just down the street to play with!

Love these friends!

Taylor still regularly takes a nap at home

so at about 2pm we were in line for a ride

and she fell asleep on Daddy's shoulders.

And it was HOT.

Poor Daddy!

Our sweet, exhausted Adventurer.

She had a total blast, and was talking about it for days!

I got an email today saying that Taylor's book is shipped

and will come to our house soon!

She's gonna be so stoked to get to relive her adventures

by looking through the pictures in her book.

Here's the link to it again, if you didn't get to look at it last time!

We are so thankful that we got to go.

Blessed!