Day 5:
We took a short intermission from Disneyland to spend a day at Universal Studios.
Our short 50 minute drive took us 2 hours to get there from our hotel in Anaheim. LA traffic is no joke. I was a little bummed that we were getting a later start at the park than we wanted, but it all worked out in the end.
The park was wayyyy less crowded than Disneyland had been the previous two days, so that was a nice break. We were able to do every ride in the park (some rides more than once) within 6-7 hours, and that was with taking the time to stop and eat and let the kids do some playing.
Our first and most important stop of the day was to Harry Potter world.
It was just as amazing as I remembered it being from when I went to the one in Florida during my senior class trip.
There really wasn't anything the kids could do there, but us adults enjoyed it.
Universal Studios Hollywood only has two places for young kids. One is Super Silly Fun Land. There was only one real ride there (the weird creatures on the left above), a splash pad, a tiny play ground maybe?. I can't remember what the other thing was, but there really wasn't much. The nice thing was that it wasn't crowded at all, so we were able to take the kids on the weird creature ride a few times without ever having to wait.
Quite possibly our favorite "ride" of the day was the studio tour. The kids were able to go on it which was so nice after them being left off of rides for most of the day. It was interesting and really neat to see all of the different effects and sets. I loved that you really didn't know what was going to happen next.
Creepiest Dora I've ever seen hahahaha.
And Hudson still doesn't even have a clue who Dora the Explorer is because he's never seen the show, but when in Rome I guess haha.
Ella did actually fall asleep in the park for an hour at best, but we were very grateful for that hour. We would have been more grateful if she had fallen asleep in the stroller instead of only staying asleep if someone was holding her, but we couldn't be picky. My mom was nice enough to have her back broken by the girl while she slept. Taylor and I took that time to ride the three rides in the lower part of the park, while Hudson got to play in the children's jurassic playground. Shout out to my momma and family for hanging with the kiddos while we went on all the rides they couldn't go on! Which was practically every ride..
Overall, Universal was a lot of fun for adults, but it wasn't that much fun for kids Hudson's and Ella's ages. I was really surprised at how little there was for them to do in the park. We made the mistake of leaving the park at a terrible traffic time, so it took us at least 2 hours to get back to our hotels. Once we were back in Anaheim we got In N Out for dinner, so that made up for all the traffic and a cranky Ella that we dealt with on the way home.
Day 6:
We went back to California Adventure after our intermission at Universal Studios. We spent a lot of the day in Cars Land and on the pier. We watched Disney Junior Dance Party and danced with DJ the car.
Nap time with our little Cars lover.
Blurry but look how happy he is riding Mater's Junkyard Jamboree
My aunt posted the picture of Ella on her snapchat, and it basically sums up how Ella felt about the trip hahahaha.
That night my mom and Aunt Beckie took the kids back to our hotel and put them to bed for us so Taylor and I could have a little date and see World of Color. We went on a couple of rides together, got a sundae at Ghirardellis and watched the World of Color show from the front row. It was so nice to have that time together and I don't think my mom or Aunt Beckie minded crashing a little early that day since they were asleep when we got back to our hotel haha.
Day 7:
Back to Disneyland for the first official day of their Christmas celebration.
Ella finally fell asleep while we were walking to Main Street to watch the parade.
Her nap wasn't all that long, but we were grateful for any nap that happened in the park
Hudson loved watching the parade.
He is a huge fan of Christmas, so he was in heaven with every single part of the parade.
Looking at all the lights on It's a Small World
Day 8:
Final day at Disneyland. We only had until about 2 in the afternoon until we had to start the drive back to the airport, but we did everything we could in the time we had.
These two passed the time waiting to see Winnie the Pooh and Santa Claus by hugging each other.
It was so random and cute.
Ella was not a fan of Santa.
She was also tired and ready for a nap, so that didn't help at all..
Hudson on the other hand was super excited to get to see him.
Another comparison of Taylor and Hudson
Our very last ride of our time at the park was Peter Pan's flight.
Pictured above is Hudson and Ella killing time while waiting for the ride.
The ride broke down not long after we got in line, but we decided to wait it out since we didn't have time to do anything else before we needed to head back to the van to leave. The ride started up again after we had waited awhile, and then it broke down again.... Thankfully, it was fixed just in time for us to ride it, finish loading up the van, and still get everyone to the airport in time for their flights.
We had intentions of driving to St. George, staying the night, and then completing the rest of the drive home the next day. After spending forever in LA traffic getting to the airport and then basically back tracking, we were farther behind schedule than what we thought we would be. We stopped at the creepiest Burger King around 7 for some dinner. It was super ghetto, and the playground was terrible. The playground was dimly lit even though it was inside, and the slides and climbing equipment had graffiti all of them. Hudson and Ella were bummed that they couldn't play, but ew. We basically got in and out of there as fast as we could.
All of the things that were given to Ella at one point in an attempt to get her to stop fussing hahaha.
By the time we neared St. George it was after midnight, the kids were asleep, and we just wanted to drive home without Ella crying for hours again. Considering that we had 4 adults in the car who could drive as needed we made the decision to ditch our hotel room and drive straight through-only stopping when we needed gas/when the driver was too tired to keep going. This lead to more stops than we would have made during the day, but we were so thrilled when we were rolling into Idaho Falls around 8-9 in the morning. The kids only woke up whenever we stopped, and they quickly went back to sleep when we got going again.
