Peekaboo!
He's always so happy in the morning.
Theresa had a couple photos from her phone she wanted to make sure I added. This is from Thursday when the three of them got to ride Radiator Springs Racers while I was watching Ian.
And remember how Ian was all smiles for her, but very somber for me while waiting for Peter Pan? He was smiling when she took her phone out for pictures.
Ian trying on my hat during Dapper Day.
Ok, back to Saturday morning.
Six stories up, but he's fearless. While we were preparing to head into Disneyland for Extra Magic Hours, I got a text from Kelly. They were planning on heading to the beach this morning and then driving the 6 hours home. Instead they decided to save the beach for another time and were wondering if we were interested in joining them for breakfast. Since we can visit the parks whenever, we had no problem skipping it and doing breakfast instead.
Where are we eating? Steakhouse 55. No not Goofy's Kitchen, but the place to check-in is right beside it so we went ahead and stopped by.
Ian really wanted Goofy's glove. No luck getting it off though.
Sophie saying hi.
Within 5 minutes, we were seated. Wow, he looks so big sitting in a high chair. We put some Cheerios in front of him and he did wonderfully.
Good morning Kelly, Sophie and Sean.
Good morning Flowers family.
Nothing on the spoon, but he was having a great time pretending to feed himself. While he does have decent coordination, he still left 4-5 spoons on the floor by the end of the meal.
Sophie is eating while doing the least amount of work possible.
Mmm. Hot chocolate topped with whipped cream.
Delicious!
Once breakfast came out, I was very impressed. T and I both ordered the Two Times Four consisting of either two pancakes or two slices of french toast, two eggs, two slices of bacon, two sausage links, and roasted potatoes. All this at one of the nicest restaurants the Disneyland Hotel has to offer, and how much does it cost? Can you believe a very reasonable $12? Amazing! If we're ever here for breakfast again, this would definitely be one of our top options.
After breakfast, we said our goodbyes once more to Kelly, Sean and Sophie and went back up to the room. We put Ian's pack and play in the bathroom, put him down for a nap and then started packing up the room. Checkout is 11am, so Theresa and I got packed up and called the bellhop to pick up and hold on to our luggage while we explored the parks.
There's a few more things we want to do before we go home today. The first is going to visit Jack Skellington in his temporary home.
My favorite way to see the Haunted Mansion is dressed up as Nightmare Before Christmas. I know some people hate it and some say I just don't know any better, but for me it's a must do attraction when it's decorated like this.
If you thought yesterday was hot, today is even worse. It was 11am and we were just baking under a cloudless sky. I put Ian on my shoulders because it was getting too hot holding him on my side. Still we're all sweating pretty good and Theresa is even saying we're going to skip riding Winnie the Pooh after this. You know it's hot then.
Whenever he's on my shoulders, the only toy in reach is my glasses, and then they end up in his mouth.
He's going to be a Haunted Mansion pro soon. Hopefully he's never too scared to ride it.
A horribly blurry picture, but I hope to improve it later. Every year in the ballroom there is a real gingerbread house and it changes year to year. This year there is a poor gingerbread man being impaled by candy corn spikes inside an iron maiden. The doors open and close on him.
After the mansion we did indeed skip Winnie the Pooh and went to the last item on our list. A Halloween Carnival has taken over the Big Thunder Ranch festival arena.
I'm sure there's lots of other fun things to do here, but we always come for the pumpkin carvings.
And as luck would have it, our favorite carver Ray is here. Ray Brown findraybrown.com is the one who got us interested in carving detailed pumpkins ourselves, and today he's carving Han Solo frozen in Carbonite. We left before he finished it, but I'm hoping to see it on a future visit.
All the way back in 2007, Theresa and I were wandering through Big Thunder Ranch and he was carving pumpkins. We had never seen such detail and quizzed him on how he created such beautiful pieces. He must have spent 10 minutes with us answering our questions for how he transferred the patterns, what tools he used to carve, how he preserved the pumpkins once they were finished and anything else we could think of.
That Halloween, we made our first attempt at carving a pumpkin with more than a kitchen knife and a smiley face pattern. Ray was really our inspiration for the all the pumpkins we've carved from that point forward. Seriously. Just a few links to our past carving parties. Michigan, Mississippi, Phineas and Ferb, Winnie the Pooh, Halloween 2012, Michigan 2012, and Halloween 2013.
So far Ray's created an Elvis Stitch pumpkin.
And Scar.
One of his colleagues carved this Maleficent. Since it's only the 2nd day of official Halloweentime at Disneyland there aren't too many pumpkins out yet. I'm eagerly anticipating our next visit though to see what else they make this year.
I also like seeing characters wandering around back here and interacting with guests. Chip walked around the pumpkins and thumped a few of them with his baton.
Then he grabbed a piece of hay and tickled the ear of this little boy who wasn't looking his direction.
A Merry Halloween Carnival indeed. There were a few other things back here to do as well, but because of the heat, T wasn't too interested in sticking around. Hopefully the next visit will be a little cooler.
Time to hit the road. On the way out we stopped by the Dapper Day Expo just to see what it was all about.
They take up a few rooms of the Grand Californian with vintage clothing and accessories.
The next stop was the bellhop to get our luggage, then the valet for our car. It's been an amazing weekend. It's a totally different experience at the park when you're staying there versus driving home and we had a really good time. I really enjoyed hanging out with some old friends and getting to know some new ones too. It was also nice to meet some people who recognized us from my trip report write-ups and just came by to say hi.
Spring Dapper Day is on March 1st and hotel rooms are available now! I know we're planning on going!
Just one more picture to end this report. Once we got home, Ian found a great way to beat the heat.
Until the next adventure!
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