First Real Day of School

Now this was actually the first day of school. Second day in a row of getting up at 6:45. Not sure who it is harder for Max or Mommy. We leave the house at 7:30 to walk to school with our neighborhood friends. Max has two close neighbors in his actual class that he gets to walk to school with. What a blessing.

Sharing a laugh with friends

Posing with a friend, seriously walking to class, hanging up his backpack, and getting to work

First Day of School (Not Really)

Today was Max's official first day of school but it was only for an hour. The parents had an orientation meeting and the children got to go play with one another.

Hooray for Hollywood

We couldn't visit the LA area and not do the Hollywood thing.

Ronald Reagan Library

Daddy flew back to Texas and Mommy and Max went to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library with Nanny and Mary. The library is located in Simi Valley about 20 minutes from where we were staying. It really is a wonderful library dedicated to an awesome President. The library even had the Air Force One that Ronald Reagan flew on while in office. No photos were allowed inside but we did get this photo op at the door. Of course Max was just beside himself since he is obsessed with the presidents. He impressed all of the workers there with his knowledge. When we would go through a new area they would point at him and say there he is that's the one I was telling you about, the little presidential scholar. Even an election law professor from Pepperdine marveled at Max. His favorite area was where they had all the signatures of the presidents etched on the wall and then the area with each presidents picture. However, they stopped in the middle of the presidents and we couldn't find where they resumed, this was a little disappointing. Here are the pics if you listen closely you can hear Max calling out their names.



The hangup he has after Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison is that Grover Cleveland served nonconsecutively - before and after Harrison - so in his little autistic mind they should have hung up two pictures of Grover Cleveland.

Operation Nemo-Toy Story

Our last day at Disneyland was quite an adventure. We had tickets to Toontown madness which is entry into Toontown one hour before anyone else. We chose to try for Nemo before heading to Toontown. We sprinted to Nemo when the rope dropped and did make it on to the third sub but with the nature of loading and unloading submarines that still took twenty minutes. Was it worth it? Not really it is cool but, not much different than Nemo at Epcot.

We then headed to Toontown to see where all the characters live. Disneyland does have a better Toontown than Disney World – more character houses and a better roller coaster.

Once we finished Toontown we crossed over to California Adventure prior to opening trying to get a head start on the Toy Story Midway Mania ride. We got in the pre-line at 9:30 and the park didn’t even open until 10:00, which goes against every Disney Vacation we go on, we refuse to wait in lines. However, upon opening the line immediately jumps to a two hour wait, and that’s insane. A few minutes prior to park opening they walk the pre-line back to the ride, overall we probably waited 45 minutes to ride. Was it worth it? Unbelievably, yes! This is a great ride. Think Space Ranger spin but better. You are participating in various shooting carnival games and instead of a laser gun like Buzz you have this pull string gun that translates to a virtual version on the screen. You get to play around five different games. Very fun. We grabbed lunch at Burger Invasion (McDonald's) rode a few more rides and finished the day by seeing the broadway style show Aladdin at the Hyperion Theater. Fabulous!

Goofy's Kitchen

Goofy’s Kitchen is the best character meal that we have seen. Most character meals have 3 or 4 characters but this one had 8. We had dinner with Meeko, Pluto, Goofy, Minnie, Chip, Dale, Jasmine, and Fairy Godmother. It was amazing, just character after character. It was hard to decide when to go ahead and get up to get food. The food was great and had a separate buffet for children that included a peanut butter and jelly pizza that was awesome. The dessert bar was even better; Daddy couldn’t even sample it all.

Once we left Goofy’s Kitchen we headed back into Disneyland to watch Fantasmic and the Fireworks. We were a little early so we climbed Tarzan’s Treehouse a couple of times and then rode the railroad around the park. We found a great spot but unfortunately had to stand. Of course this was Max during both shows:

Disneyland

Up early again to hit Disneyland for early entry. We were let in at 7 and ran to Nemo’s Submarine Voyage. Much to our dismay Nemo was temporarily closed due to a ride malfunction. Instead we headed to space mountain, rest of tomorrowland, fantasyland, big thunder mountain, and haunted mansion. We rode the monorail over to Downtown Disney and ate at the Rainforest Café. We went back to the hotel to rest, mommy went shopping and Max and Dad headed over to CA Adventure to play in the Redwood forest and to grab a couple of fast passes. We met back up at the hotel and then went back into the park to use our fast passes before we had to make our dinner at Goofy’s Kitchen. We were able to leave our hotel room at 4:45 go ride a rollercoaster in the park, and walk to the Disneyland Hotel to make our 5:30 dinner time. That is the beauty of Disneyland, at Disney World you have to allow 30 min between each destination.

Learning to Draw Goofy

We stopped in the Animation Academy. During our show the animator was teaching everyone how to draw Goofy. I thought my Goofy was pretty good until I saw this:

Compared to his mine looked more like Goofy's son Max:

Of course here is Max's version, we call it Abstract Goofy:

Disney's California Adventure

We got up early in Anaheim and headed to Disney’s Grand Californian where we would be staying for our Disneyland trip. We checked in and were able to get early entry into California Adventure. We were able to ride Soarin before the park even opened. Once we left Soarin we stumbled onto Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto. After seeing the characters we headed over to Flik Fun’s Fair where we had the whole section to ourselves and one other family. Next up Playhouse Disney Live, Animation Academy, and Tower of Terror. We headed back to our hotel and checked out our room and rested for a bit. We went back to CA Adventure and had lunch with the Princesses (Ariel, Cinderella, Aurora, and Snow White) at Ariel’s Grotto. After lunch we hit more rides and then the Pixar Parade. The interesting spin on this parade was that each float squirted water at you so you never knew when you were going to get blasted. Here is our $7 Balloon that was pelted with water.
On our way back to our hotel we stopped in at the Redwood Forest playground area where Max took on the tire swing.



Then off to the rapids. After getting soaked we headed back to our hotel to change before coming back to catch the Electrical Parade from our reserved seats (thanks AAA).

California Fun

While waiting for Daddy to arrive, Max spent his time swimming, playing with dogs Tiffa and Holly, and going to the mall. At the mall Max sampled the frozen yogurt place called Pinkberry. It is not sweet like Texas frozen yogurt, it taste sour like regular yogurt – just frozen. Mommy ended up eating Max’s Pinkberry and bought Max Hagen Daaz instead. While at the mall we couldn’t resist riding the two story carousel, never seen one of those before. Daddy arrived in the evening and we headed to Anaheim where Max crashed.

California Bound

Like good little airline travelers we checked into our flight last night and then checked the gate again before we left for the airport. We had Daddy drop us off at terminal A since we were scheduled to leave from A16. Once we get our boarding passes we find out they changed it to D29. Not so bad, we will ride the skylink over to the brand new terminal. We get on to the skylink and Max has a blast riding the train. We finally get to D29, we sit our stuff on some chairs, glance over at the computer and it says that plane is going to San Jose and we were headed to Burbank. About that time the loud speaker announces there has been a gate and terminal change for our flight, now it is taking off from Gate C19, so back to the skylink. Whew, we saw alot of DFW airport today.

Once we got on the plane, Max did his ritual of reading the safety instruction card over and over again. I think he could pass the flight attendant test by now, he knows all the details of what to do in an emergency.


Once we were in the air he wanted to know each state as we were passing over. Unfortunately he began to ask if we were in New Mexico right about the time we passed downtown Ft. Worth. I told him Texas is a really big state, it may take awhile. Fortunately, we had a very talkative pilot that would come on and tell us where we were every so often and what we could see.

As the pilot announced we were going to begin our descent Max decides to tell me his pee pee is coming. Great timing, we rush to the bathroom, cram in, get bounced around, and the anxiety of the situation is too much and Max says it won't come out. We run back to our seats and get buckled back in before we land. Good news the pee pee did come out at my cousin's house and so now Max has officially used an unfamiliar toilet. Huge accomplishment for him, in fact actually sitting on the airplane toilet was a huge accomplishment too, I was certain that wasn't going to happen.

Babe's Chicken

Tonight we met our friends at Babe's chicken in Frisco for dinner. Our friends had always talked about this place called Babe's and how great it was, so when I found out one was opening so close I thought we have to go with them. We had a great time and the food was wonderful. Each person orders the style of meat they want and then everyone shares the salad, sides and the yummy biscuits. During dinner the waitresses take turns singing and then everyone takes a break to dance the Hokey Pokey with all the children. We couldn't convince Max to go dance but he had a great time playing with his friend Ranger. Thank you Lemaster's for being our Babe's Buddies.

Bath and Body Works

One of Max's favorite activities is to go to Bath and Body Works and pick out our anti-bacterial soap. We always stock up when they run it 7 for $20 and he always chooses seven different scents. (He calls them flavors) So if you ever come to our house and wonder why we would of chosen some strange scent, just know that it was Max. The sales ladies always get a kick out of him in the store, he runs around smelling each one and calling me over to say mmmm, smell this one it is good. Once we get home with all our soaps, he continually takes inventory and sorts them all over the house.

Another pic from our trip to the mall:

Back to Swimming

Round Two of swimming lessons began this week. It is the next class up from the last. Max is doing great, here he is jumping in and swimming to his instructor and then swimming back to the wall.



Max's favorite part of swimming lessons is taking a shower afterwards at the gym.