The Tale of the Beach Babe Goes Punk Princess and the Sleeping Prince

Part 6

Due to things unplanned on my itinerary our first ride was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Savannah had seen this ride on TV and youtube and was anxious to ride this "train".

It however was not the best ride to start off with.

We asked her if it was too loud, too dark, too fast, or too rough and she replied, "it's too everything!

I think if this had not been her first "real" ride she would have been okay.

Archer spent a lot of time here.

We saw Goofy everywhere on this trip.
Here he is in front of his house.





Got to love Toon Town.

The Queen of Hearts

Savannah thought it was "way cool" to see the Fairy Godmother.

Ralph Brennen's Jazz kitchen brought her beniets when they found out it was her birthday.

They were not nearly as good as the double chocolate bread pudding souffle that Mark and I split.

They brought out a huge chocolate souffle that had more of a light bread consistency. Then they took the top off and poured in a warm vanilla sauce you would normally find over bread pudding. But it doesn't stop there! They then poured in a warm chocolate sauce.

Paired with a cup of decaf...I was in heaven.

Notice Archer's hat? I couldn't let him go to DL without mouse ears!

I found this toboggan at a children's boutique in our town.

It wasn't just cruel and unusual punishment.

The evening was cold so he NEEDED it. :)

One must also ride Dumbo with mouse ears on.

I don't make the rules, I just follow them.

Another one of Savannah's favorites.

Archer is happy to be anywhere with us!

He is so sweet.

The Tale of the Beach Babe Goes Punk Princess and the Sleeping Prince

Part 5

The question must be addressed of why we chose Disney Land over Walt Disney World. After all, WDW in Florida has EPCOT (my favorite park) which features pavilions from several different countries that Savannah is very interested in. So which is better? Disney Land or Walt Disney World? It depends on what you are looking for. Here is why we chose DL over WDW this trip.

1. DL in is southern California and WDW in central Florida. Did you see the pics in my previous posts of the OC? Enough said.

2. Once we found out we were pregnant and would have an 11 week old on this trip we knew DL would be the destination for us. Staying on property at DL you can walk to both California Adventure and Disney Land park making it easy to go back and forth from your hotel room to the parks. This comes in handy for adults too who cannot stay in the parks from 7AM opening until they close at midnight. But if you are staying on property at WDW you may have an hour bus ride to various parks because it is 30 square MILES (not acres). Nothings is close together at WDW.

3. Fantasyland at DL is far superior to WDW and that's what most kiddos ages 7 and under go for. DL's Fantasyland's increased number of rides over WDW makes up for DL's vertically challenged castle (but usually only the adults notice how small the DL castle is in comparison to WDW anyway.)

4. And lastly it's the original. This is the park Walt personally created. But this fact only has cool factor if you are a Disney fan.

Goofy checked into the Disneyland hotel with Mark. He was just hanging out in the lobby.

Balloons delivered to Savannah's room for her birthday. The hotel also had a birthday button with her name on it and an autographed 8x10 of Tink waiting for her. Nice touch.

The view of Never Land pool from our room.

We were lucky enough to get a newly remodeled room.

The rooms were very nice, modern, with an understated and tasteful Disney theme.

Notice the Mickey hands holding the lights?

The headboard may look beautiful as is during the day. But at night music plays and fireworks light up and then it really shines as the focal point of the room

After checking in Wednesday afternoon we spent the evening in DL park.

Savannah's first DL ride and Archer's first ride ever were the Jungle Cruise.

Here is Arch on the ride.

Our "tour guide" was pretty good. It's always funnier when they know their jokes are corny and they play up that aspect.

Next up, the Tiki Room which Archer found it hard to sleep through.

I've seen this attraction a million times at both parks and let's face it, it's pretty cheesy.

But you would never know it by watching Savannah watch the show.

She was amazed by the animatronic birds and singing.
To her it was wonderful.

Next stop Fantasyland where we rode the infamous Tea Cups. I know some people hate these but I LOVE them. The more spinning the better. Savannah liked to spin the wheel in the center as fast as she could to make them spin more ( just like me!). We rode this ride several times through out our trip but one time when it was just the 2 of us she looked at me as we giggled and said, "We are just like sisters!"

How sweet.

I imagine she and I will be close like sisters when she is an adult some day.

I look forward to it.

Some may call me abusive but I like It's a Small World as well!

As you can see from the pic, Mark painfully endures it.

Archer slept well on this ride.

It's a Small World has added several Disney movie characters into the ride in the Mary Blair style. Although they did it well and put characters in the appropriate sections (for example stitch and lilo are in the Polynesian section), I don't think the ride needed it.

But Savannah did want us to take picture of some of them.


That's the end of our first day at DL.

The park opened at 7AM the next morning and I am a rope drop kind of gal when traveling.

Too bad my travel mates were not!

The Tale of the Beach Babe Goes Punk Princess and the Sleeping Prince

Part 4

Before heading to Disney Land we decided to make one more stop in the O.C., Dana Point.

We missed their yearly whale watching festival by one week.

In hopes of seeing some stragglers we walked a nature trail on top of the cliff overlooking the pacific. We never saw a whale but we did hear sounds that suspiciously sounded like one.

It was beautiful none the less.



Good bye Orange County. Good bye Pacific ocean.
Good bye fresh local grown delicious food.
Good bye peace and serenity.

We are moving on to a chaotic, sugar charged, artificially made wonderland
and I can't wait!
Mickey, here we come!

The Tale of the Beach Babe Goes Punk Princess and the Sleeping Prince

Part 3

The Beach Babe

The Sleeping Prince

One of the bigger specimens in her collection.

Me and my little man.

Another

Beautiful

Sunset

At night the surf came up to the retaining wall under our balcony. We were literally over the ocean which created the illusion of being on a cruise ship out in the ocean (the tide is not all the way in yet in this picture).

I highly recommend the Pacific Edge Hotel.

Great view and inexpensive...

you don't find that in California very often!

"It's granola, it's granola, it's granola baby!"

Savannah made up a song to sing Archer on vacation which is now his favorite (now people are really going to think we are granola munchers. For the record I had no involvement in the making of this song).

He smiled, cooed, and laughed at her everytime she sang it and she is still singing it at home.

Looks like the beginning of a sweet sibling relationship.

We tried to take a few family photos on the beach our last morning before heading in land to Anaheim.

It didn't work out so well but at least we tried.

The Tale of the Beach Babe Goes Punk Princess and the Sleeping Prince

Part 2

Our vacation began with 4 nights in a hotel right on Laguna Beach in Orange County. I fell in love with Laguna on a family vacation when I was a freshman in High School. To a 90's teenager it was the coolest place ever. I bought a ring for my toe (no one was wearing them back home yet) and I had my first veggie burger here. Man, I thought I was cool.

The view from our balcony.

Looking the other direction from our balcony.

Inside, our room had beachy mod style prints.

Notice the crib in the corner? babysaway.com will provide all your baby needs so you don't have to lug baby gear around when you travel. I LOVE them! We used this company when Savannah was little as well. Just pick out the stuff you need and they will have it waiting for you in your hotel room. If you change hotels, they will move the stuff to your new location. They provide everything from highchairs to wipes warmers. This trip we rented a full size crib and a stroller from them. Hotels usually offer pack-n-plays as a baby crib and if you get an old one they can be terrible. And strollers are too bulky to carry on a plane, at least the ones you have to have for an infant are. So at the airport we use a sling (not the recalled ones! hotslings.com) or bjourn.

Oh, and the baby bedding matched the room perfectly. I'm sure it was a fluke but still cool!

That first night I watched the sunset over the ocean from our room as I nursed Archer. It really doesn't get better than that.

Savannah is in love with the beach. She ran non stop gathering seaweed or kelp (I'm sure Carly could tell me what it was).

She actually said she likes the beach better than Disney Land.

That will save us some money in the future!

Here she is with her little friend Brent she met while we were there. They played together everyday on the beach.

Archer preferred to nap on the beach. He preferred to sleep on the plane. He preferred to sleep at Disney Land. He preferred to sleep at restaraunts. Thus he is named the Sleeping Prince in our story.

We found a french restaurant in Laguna that was amazing, C'est La Vie. French food is Savannah's favorite after Italian. We have French night often at our hours. She was excited to eat out at this "fancy" restaurant. It was a nice place. The food was excellent and the presentation artful and beautiful. I wish I had taken a picture of my entree. Unfortunately this was the evening Archer was fussy. Eventually we gave up and took turns walking around outside with him. He was fine as long as he was outside. The next morning we ate brunch here and he did fine. That was another excellent meal. Savannah had a breakfast pasta with eggs, bacon, and cream. Surprisingly it was great! I had a toasted bagel topped with smoked salmon, a poached egg, and a dill hollandaise sauce. Wow! That and their awesome coffee made the perfect brunch.

I wish we had food like that closer to home.

The picture below is the dessert they brought to us on the house when they found out we were in SoCal for Savannah's birthday. She was thrilled.

This dessert had some serious wow factor on the taste buds. I have had some wonderful desserts and this is up there at the top and worth the flight back!