Disneyland and California Adventure, woo-hoo!!!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday as I'd promised--Madelyn ended up with a case of food poisoning at 4:00 am yesterday morning and I was up with her for a few hours. It threw my whole day off. She felt better after having vomited five times, but stayed home from school. Ugh. So anyway, DISNEYLAND!!

I love Disneyland! I think I was more excited than my kids for this day. It's really one of my favorite places in the whole world. :D

And I know... most 7-year olds don't go around in strollers, but perhaps your 7-year old doesn't get as spectacularly ornery and hypersensitive when they are tired as Madelyn does. It just wasn't worth the risk, seeing as we had a 12-hour day ahead of us at the parks.

The weather was cool and overcast. The high was around 69°, but seeing as we are still having snow here in Cedar City, it felt great.

The Matterhorn roller coaster was closed for maintenance, which was a bummer. But we managed to ride more rides than we ever have before, even though it was very crowded. Easter weekend turns out to be kind of a bad time to go....oh well....

 The first ride we did was the Mad Tea Party teacups. LOVE IT!!! I vaguely remember going on these with my brother Kevin when we were really little and laughing our heads off.

Madelyn had been scared to go on the Storybook Land Canal Boats because of the giant whale swallowing the boats, but she ended up loving it. There's miniatures of a bunch of fairytale places. I almost squealed out loud when we saw Cinderella's chateau and castle....they also had Prince Eric and Ariel's seaside palace, the Sultan's palace from Aladdin, and towns from Alice in Wonderland and Pinocchio.

 

 Luke could not understand why we were just standing around in lines for so long. He loved going on the rides, but HATED being in line. He kept trying to get down and squeeze to the front, which is his usual method:

 

There had been seven kids in front of him in line for this slide at Goofy's Playhouse, and he just ducked under all of them and bogarted his way to the front. Sigh. He does this all the time at the park and pool.

Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage

Jedi Training Academy we passed on our way to Redd Rockett's Pizza Port

Madelyn and I went on the Astro Orbiter, which is like the Dumbo ride but faster and more fun, while Luke napped in his stroller and Mark stayed with him (at the red arrow). Madelyn and Mark were waving to each other.

Fantasyland was PACKED. The sun had finally come out and it seems like the crowds doubled. Madelyn and I had to elbow our way through the Bibbiti Bobbiti Boutique to get her Cinderella nightgown. The line went clear out the door.

King Arthur's Carousel is great because it's only ever about a 5 minute wait. Madelyn didn't get her first choice of a pink and gold horse the first time, so we went again, and she still didn't get it. She thew a HUGE hissy fit and was crying and carrying on all during the second ride. I knew we couldn't make it through the day without her losing it at least once...

We had been on the lookout for the perfect mouse ears for her all morning, and she cheered up after we got her a Minnie Mouse hat with her name on it. Have I mentioned yet how expensive Disneyland is??? Oy.

We rounded the corner in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle and there was Princess Aurora!!

Madelyn was beside herself. This was her third trip to Disneyland and she'd met all the princesses but "Rose" (as she calls her), and she's her favorite. I was SO excited for her, I even got a little choked up. I'm so happy we happened to see her. The characters kind of come and go randomly throughout the park, and you never know who you're going to see.

Throughout the day, we also saw Pluto, Goofy, Chip and Dale, the wicked queen from Snow White, and also Minnie Mouse, Alice and the White Rabbit, and Mary Poppins and Bert.

I'd heard so much about the Dole Whip Float from the Enchanted Tiki Room that I had to go stand in line for one and see what all the fuss was about. It was sooooo good! It's pineapple soft serve ice cream floating in fresh pineapple juice. It was very refreshing. I've seen some copycat recipes, I might have to try and recreate it. Yummm.

Wow, this post is already going on forever. Next is California Adventure! We had park hopper tickets, so we left Disneyland and went across the plaza. They are remodeling the whole front area of the park so we were disoriented at first. We went over to the kiddie rides in "A Bug's Land". The crowds are almost nonexistent over there, so you can hop on all the rides really quickly. It's a nice change of pace.

Heimlich's Chew Chew Train, which is hilarious

Luke had only wanted root beer for lunch, so when Mark bought a churro, he ate the whole thing. Healthy!

Flik's Flyers

A

Francis' Ladybug Boogie

Ariel's Undersea Adventure is a new attraction, and I thought it was going to have crazy long lines. But we hardly had to wait at all! Even with lots of people, the line cruises right along. There's a big row of shells that move continuously and you get on a moving sidewalk and just hop on as an empty one comes along.

 

 The ride takes you through the story of The Little Mermaid with lots of music and animatronics. Robotized Ariel is a little weird, I must confess. Her exaggerated cartoon features don't translate over that well to 3D form. But it was fun and so fast that we went on it twice.

Paradise Pier has lots of fun carnival games and rides. The big California Screamin roller coaster wasn't operating that day. Not that we could have gone on it...but we could go on Mickey's Fun Wheel!

Mickey's Fun Wheel is a 160 foot tall Ferris wheel that has some stationary gondolas and some that go zooming around on an inside track. Madelyn wanted to go on a moving one so we got in that line.

Yep, even babies and toddlers can go. No seat belts...no straps....just a wire cage with some "motion sickness bags" in a little dispenser on the side. I was wondering what we'd gotten ourselves into.

For most of the ride, nothing much happens. And then all of a sudden your gondola goes SWOOSH down its little oval track and it flings out way to the side and swings wayyyy up. It was hysterical. You can hear the screaming from this ride all the way across the park.

From way up at the top (it was freezing, by the way) we could see the fountains that would be used for the World of Color show that night, and the red cliffs of the Cars canyon that is going to be opening this summer. Apparently they have replicated downtown Radiator Springs and it's expected to be a big attraction.

Next we went on King Triton's Carousel, which had these awesome, psychedelic colored sea creatures.

LOL!! I really wanted to ride a spangled humpback whale. Check out the glittery baleen.

Madelyn was skipping and Luke was hopping! Notice he's wearing different pants than before. We had to change his entire outfit in A Bug's Land because he got himself all wet in Princess Dot's Puddle Park. (Why do they even have stuff like that??) Luckily Mark was being our pack mule and had extra clothes for him.

 

We stopped for a caramel apple and giant Mickey Mouse cookie

Went on the Golden Zephyr and Jumpin' Jellyfish as the sun went down. I'm glad we'd been lugging our heavier jackets in the stroller with us all day. The temps went down into the 50's.

Then we picked up our picnic dinner and went and waited for the World of Color show to start. It didn't begin till 9:00 pm and the kids were bushed!

The show is free, but you have to either race over to the Grizzly River Run first thing in the morning and get a FASTPASS, or you can reserve a spot by buying an overpriced picnic dinner through Disney Dining. We went with the overpriced picnic--which I'd bought online a week in advance. They threw in light up toys for the kids and a tote bag. It was totally worth it!

There's a huge manmade bay in front of Paradise Pier, and the whole thing is full of fountains and lasers. There's a choreographed 30 minute show that they do twice a night.

They had music and scenes from The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, Wall-E, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pocahontas, Finding Nemo, Fantasia 2000, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and probably others I'm forgetting. What's cool is that they create these curtains of mist with the fountains and then project movie clips onto them. This is part of the house from Up.

(dumb light pole blocking our view) This is Beast in his transformation scene.

We all got a little wet, even though we were far from the water. Oh, and it was super loud. And there were bubble machines!

It was a spectacular show. Really worth sticking around for. Just shows what's possible with endless amounts of money, talent and technology!

 Then we made the mass exodus to the exit gates and walked back to our hotel, and saw some of the Disneyland fireworks from across the way as they went off. It was a very fun day!

Cali trip part 1

Hey there, folks! We just got back from a 5-day trip to California. It was muy fabuloso y fantastico y estupendo and I have had so much to do and have been so tired since we've gotten home on Sunday that I haven't managed to blog. Which is really saying something, seeing as I did manage to blog mere hours after giving birth to Luke, for example. Of course then I was just sitting in the hospital and did not have three thousand things to unpack and put away.

We did so many things that I'm going to have to do a separate post for each day. I took over 400 pictures, so you know, it's a little much for one post.

DAY 1: A Rocky Start

 All we had planned for Wednesday was to make the drive from Cedar City to Anaheim in time for a 6:00 pm dinner reservation we had at Tortilla Jo's in Downtown Disney. It's 444 miles and should take around 7 hours. We had a lot going on in Cedar and were up late packing and tying up loose ends and didn't leave till 9:30 am. Still I thought we had plenty of time.

But...then we got stuck in traffic at a dead standstill for nearly an hour outside Baker, CA. Oooooohhhhh California traffic. It's a good thing we had a Harry Potter audiobook to listen to (Book 6--The Half Blood Prince, which is my absolute favorite) because otherwise I would have gone stark raving mad. Also the kids each had their own portable DVD player. Man, I wish those things had been around when I was little!! Kids are so spoiled nowadays, not having to just stare out of a window (or fight with their siblings) for hours on end in the car. *Update 4/12/12: Luke's already broken the lid of his clean off. Must be some kind of record. Thank goodness Mark is handy and fixed it...

We finally got going again and made good progress for a while until Madelyn suddenly announced that she had to find a potty RIGHT NOW and I pulled off at the next gas station we saw. (Gas, by the way, was like $4.45 a gallon for the cheap stuff in CA...) When we got back in the car, I saw a local street sign that said we were already in Anaheim. So hey! We should be a few minutes from the hotel!

*Back up a little* Usually when we go on a road trip, I print out step-by-step MapQuest driving directions to everywhere we're going. Especially in LA, you need something like that to not get hopelessly lost. But Mark had just borrowed an old Tom Tom GPS unit from his brother James, and he assured me that we wouldn't need the MapQuest directions. So I didn't print off any.

Anyway, after the gas station, Mark told me that the GPS said we had 17 miles left to go. That seemed odd, but oh well. The GPS lady kept telling us in her annoying, dispassionate voice to "keep left" and not get off the freeway. So I go the 17 miles and I start to suspect something is wrong when the freeway ENDS, meaning we are approaching the COAST, and the street signs say we are in Costa Mesa. We had overshot our hotel by 15 miles! STUPID GPS!!!!! I wanted to punch that disembodied GPS lady in the face.

By then it was 5:00 pm and we hit major gridlock when I turned around and got back on the freeway. We finally managed to get back on the surface streets and had to travel about 14 miles up Harbor Blvd. going through all the stoplights. Uuuughhhhh. We finally made it to our hotel and I raced in (and stood in line for 10 minutes) to check in so they wouldn't give our room away, and then we drove around to Downtown Disney parking (and had to change Luke completely because he'd been chewing on his shirt the whole time and was soaked) and hurried our butts to Tortilla Jo's. We were 11 minutes late for our reservation, but they let us in. Good. Freaking. Grief. It had taken us 9 hours to get there.

 Tortilla Jo's is a really nice Mexican restaurant, and I'd scored a $30 gift certificate by signing up for their restaurant group's emails on my birthday (they give you a gift certificate that's good for 60 days after your birthday). Woo-hoo!

 I had just come back from the restroom with Madelyn (who, by the way, was in a super duper sulky mood until I threatened not to buy her anything that night) and they brought me ice cream with a candle and a couple of waiters sang loudly to me and people started clapping. It was awesome!

 The kids helped me eat the ice cream and it was so yummy. And so were their chicken flautas!

 Anyway, after all that, the rest of our night was great.

We went to the Lego Store and strolled around the plaza

  

Then went to this enormous Disney store that stretched on and on foreverrr.

 Of course everything is way overpriced, but you come expecting it. Madelyn ended up getting one of those blue Cinderella nightgowns the next day ($35...*choke*). She got a pink Aurora one the last time we were there and has worn it about 500 times. So at least I knew the new one would get used.

 Luke got an R2-D2 light up toy that spins around and beeps and screams just like the real R2. He was mesmerized by that thing. I don't know how Star Wars got hooked up with Disneyland, but they're sure making $$$$$$, is all I can say. I guess they had to have the boy's equivalent of all the princess stuff.

 Around 8:30 pm (California time, which is 9:30 pm Utah time), we headed back to our hotel and unloaded the car.

 We stayed at The Red Lion, which was very nice, had reasonable rates, and was within walking distance to Disneyland. Of course the first thing Luke does every time we get to a hotel is to run to the phone and start dialing out on it before we even have a chance to put down our bags. Then we have to unplug it because...

 He plays with it every time he gets the chance. We gave the kids a quick bath and then we got to watch the Disneyland fireworks from our room!

 We were up on the 7th floor (we had requested a room where we could see the fireworks, which go off every night at 9:30 pm) and had a great view. The fireworks are shot off mainly behind Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland (which is actually quite short so you can't see it from here) and there on the far left you can see the lit up Ferris wheel called Mickey's Fun Wheel over at California Adventure.

 The kids loved it and we started to get excited for Disneyland the next day!!

Stay tuned for that post tomorrow, if I haven't scared you away by this crazy post!

Berry Mousse Cheesecake

*I posted this recipe a couple of years ago, but it is so awesome I wanted to post it again. I made this for my birthday last week. Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum.

Yum.
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 3/8/10

Folks, we have a winner!! If you're in the market for some high calorie heaven, you've got to try this. For the first time in (my) cheesecake history, I was able to get really good results. Here's why:

#1 You must let the cream cheese soften completely as to not have lumps. I let it sit on the counter for an hour and that did the trick. You can also try nuking it, but be careful to not overheat it. Microwave in 20 second increments until you reach your desired texture.

#2 I cooked it in a water bath:

Cheesecake is essentially a custard and needs slow, gentle heat. The water bath provides a moist cooking environment and ensures a steady, low temperature. My cheesecakes always turned out either too dry or too runny in the center before, but his time it was silky smooth and even. (By the way, if you normally use a spring form pan for cheesecakes, you'll need to wrap it in foil to keep water from seeping into the batter.)

Berry Mousse Cheesecake
recipe adapted from allrecipes.com

*This recipe makes a huge 13x9 cake, but it can easily be halved and made in a 8 to 9-inch pie pan or baking dish. Leftovers can be frozen. You can use graham cracker or Oreo crumbs for the crust.

Crust:

5-6 Tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs

Filling:

4 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese (don't use low-fat or whipped versions)
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2/3 cup sour cream

Mousse topping:

1 (8 oz.) tub Cool Whip
3/4 cup seedless berry jam of your choice
1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk (optional)
fresh berries for garnish

Preheat oven to 325° F. Combine melted butter, sugar and graham cracker crumbs. Press into bottom of 13x9 baking dish. Bake for 10 minutes. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Beat together until light and fluffy. Pour batter on top of cooked crust. Place cake pan inside of a large roasting pan. Place on oven rack. Fill the space between the two pans with hot water about halfway up the cake pan.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or until center is almost set. Check by sticking a toothpick in the center. Look for moist crumbs, not runny batter.

Slide out oven rack with cake still on it. Use turkey baster to remove some of the water surrounding the inner pan before removing it to cool completely.

For the topping: In a medium bowl, fold the berry jam and sweetened condensed milk into the Cool Whip. Spread over top of cooled cheesecake and refrigerate for 2-4 hours. Go and lick the bowl that had the mousse in it. Garnish cheesecake with fresh berries. Serves 15-18.

Tactical advice from Luke

 "Say you've gotten in trouble for something or other..."

"Like, maybe you used your new stroller to reach the fish food, which you then dumped on the floor..."

 "Or maybe you just don't want mom to get you dressed. What do you care if it's only 40° outside??"

 "All you have to do is run to your bed, or just plop down right on the floor. Then you start to make snoring noises. No need to close your eyes--just lie down and snore. Mom will think you're asleep and leave you alone."

"Works every time!!"