After we felt we had sufficiently recovered from Disney, we decided to hit up Sea World. It was kinda crowded but not too bad. We divided and conquered for the first bit (rides) and then got back together to see a few attractions and shows. It was a fun day!
Abigail wanted to do this first thing. She calls these the tickle fish. They come and nibble bits of dry skin off of your hands, but it doesn’t hurt. She was there for probably ten minutes. We also had to stop by on our way out of the park so she could do it again.Sitting in the sleigh with her new octopus…whom she named Egbert but then ultimately decided to rename him…Octopus. 😀Checking out reindeer.Meanwhile, daredevil Joseph was on this ride.I told you this kid could find a playground everywhere!Yet another crazy Joseph ride.I was ecstatic when I realized she could go on this by herself, ha. She loves the spinny rides. Me? Not so much!Sharks!The orca show.Family selfie!I was happy to get this shot.These sea lions were hilarious begging for fish.Those egrets in the back were cheeky. They would swoop in and steal the fish as people were dropping them for the sea lions.This guy finally decided to get closer to keep the egrets from stealing his fish.She loves big chairs!She also loved being able to sit next to Elmo, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and Oscar.Mom’s backyard is an interesting place at night. Paul spotted several chubby raccoons and even a gray fox. We could also smell skunks, but luckily didn’t see any, ha.
Here’s the actual Christmas post. Christmas Eve was pretty quiet (Jason brought Luna over so she could play with Abigail) and so was Christmas. It was a pretty awesome couple of days to recover after Disney. 🙂
Playing with the old blocks.Playing with Luna.All ready for Christmas day!Santa came to fill the stockings!Unwrapping her new boots.He was actually excited to get a new sweatshirt.Video games are always good!Paul unwrapping…something. Unwrapping her robot unicorn. I wish the picture was able to capture the huge smile on her face!Another video game!My Little Pony figurines.My new wallet. Beetlejuice fans will understand the reference. 🙂Cool custom jewelry Paul had made for me: they’re porcupine quills!Playing with a toy that’s older than me. 🙂Showing me her classic My Little Pony that Santa left for her.Being pulled around the yard.She talked Joseph into pulling her (then I took a turn).All tuckered out!
Here’s the pictures from Disneyland, which we used as Abigail’s birthday present. We didn’t tell her we were going at all (she just knew we were going someplace fun) and she didn’t figure it out until the GPS told us to turn onto Disneyland Drive. To say she was excited was an understatement. It was drizzly in the morning, but that only lessened the crowds slightly. We didn’t go on as many rides as we were able to at Knott’s but we still had a pretty awesome time.
Abigail’s cake this year. We had cake and ice cream with Jason, Saira, and Luna the day before we went to Disney.In the parking structure at Disney. We thought she might figure it out that morning when we gave her the shirt to wear, but she just thought it was a fun Minnie Mouse shirt for her birthday. Once we got to the parking garage, we gave her the ears. Thanks, Amazon!My favorite sign. 🙂 “Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy.”Chip was right at the front of the park and was more than willing to take a picture and interact with Abigail. She loved it!Seeing her take in the magic that is Main Street was so fun.Sooooo…there was a rather sizable line to take pictures with the Walt and Mickey statue. I love that Paul thinks outside of the box, ha. We didn’t get the castle in the background, but we still got the statue!!The first ride we went on…Pirates of the Caribbean!All sorts of nostalgia for this ride (we did see a few places where they had updated things…including Jack Sparrow).I was glad to see that that smart dog still hasn’t given those scalawags the key, haha.A bucket list item for me: Haunted Mansion when it’s decked out in Nightmare Before Christmas!!It was fun to see all the Nightmare stuff!Instead of the growing portraits, they had Nightmare scenes.This one was fun!The vampire teddy has always been one of my favorite things from Nightmare.Look! It’s Zero!The attention to detail, y’all…Jack and Zero…Sally!!More snowy jack-o’-lanterns.Creepy angels with trumpets.Oogie Boogie.After Haunted Mansion (you can see two of the souvenirs we got there: Abigail’s Jack and my Sally ears…we got one other souvenir which is a vampire teddy that can sit on someone’s shoulder) we headed over to Star Wars land. We tried to take a nice family selfie, but Abigail brought Jack up at the last moment. Paul decided to just roll with it since you can still see most of his face. Just a little reminder of Abigail’s…unpredictableness. 😉Heading into Star Wars land…it was so cool-looking!!The Millennium Falcon!It started raining on us, so we headed out (with plans to come back) and went on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride to wait out the worst of the rain.While waiting for our turn to get onto Smuggler’s Run, we decided to do Autopia. We let the kids drive. It was a fun time! Joseph said that it’s way different than Mario Kart. 😉We also ate lunch at Pizza Planet (from Toy Story).The girls waiting for our food.The birthday girl!The sweet older brother.I remembered to get a picture of the castle as we headed through. We also went around in it to see the story about Sleeping Beauty. I hadn’t done that before, I don’t think. It was pretty cool!Waiting in line for Smuggler’s Run. Yes, we armed them both with light sabers, ha.Again…the attention to detail, y’all.Abigail loved this area right before the actual ride. All sorts of buttons and switches for her to play with.Soooo…with this ride being new to all of this, we didn’t realize the “jobs” they gave us were actually that. We let the kids be the pilots (originally it was me and Paul with the kids being the gunners and we had two guys that got put in our group that acted as mechanics). Apparently the way they steer affects the outcome of the ride. Whoops. Here’s Abigail crashing into practically everything……and Joseph trying his hardest to combat her crashing into everything. I think he was kind of stressed out (he’s really good at video games, so the fact that she was crashing into everything probably slightly frustrated him). I think he still had fun, though.Abigail had watched a video about Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway on YouTube way before we knew we’d be going to Disney. When we walked through the gates, one of the first things she asked about was going on it. The line for it wound through this super-fun area with all these fun Mickey things. This wheel spun.Both kids liked spinning it. 🙂I don’t think either kid has seen Fantasia, but I loved seeing Mickey’s outfit from the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.The kids like the Lonesome Ghosts movie, so it was fun to see the dresser. Right as I was taking a picture of it, one of the ghosts appreared in it. 🙂Doing some disco!She was excited to see the Mousekedoer from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.One part of the line area had a play restaurant with different condiments…we thought this one was awesome!Hanging out with Daisy!She can find a playground anywhere, ha!Waving hello to Goofy (he was just walking by, so no formal picture with him).After the main park, we headed over to California Adventure so that we could go on at least one ride there (Web Slingers) and check out the Marvel stuff. This food cart cracked me up.At the end of the day, we got Abigail a set of actual ears. She picked out a poofy set of Minnie ears which are so cute!!We really seized the day!
