Day 1 at Disney California Adventure

Since we were staying at a Disney hotel, we were able to get into the parks an hour before they opened to everyone else. Our first day at the parks was a Monday which happened to be the day we could get in early to California Adventure and we definitely wanted to take advantage of that! We headed to to Radiator Springs Racers first but the ride wasn't opening yet so we headed over to see Red. Or at least Dawson did... I think Dave and Ash were trying to get info on when Radiator Springs Racers would open.

We decided to head to Luigi's Flying Tires for our first ride.

 After that we met McQueen!

I loved the Cozy Cone Motel food shacks. :)

We noticed people had started lining up for Raditor Springs Racers (they weren't letting anyone line up before) so we decided to go over there. 

Ashlynn was too short to ride, and honestly she didn't want to go on it anyway! So her and I stayed behind while daddy and Daws rode. The plan was that I would go on with Daws again after they finished... 
I thought Ashlynn looked too cute just looking around.

 

We decided to go explore a little while we were waiting for the boys. A minute or so after we took this pic Dave sent a text saying they were getting on so we headed back over to see if we could see them on the ride.

Dawson didn't like the ride and didn't want to go again. I didn't want to go by myself so we headed on... to all meet Red this time!

Dawson was all excited when he saw these Piston Cups, he actually requested that I take a pic. I love that!

After that we headed over and rode Ariel's Undersea Adventure and then Monsters, Inc.

The kids weren't very fond of the rides. They liked them once we went on them, but they weren't excited to get on. Dawson was willing to try just about everything we asked if he wanted to ride (except Mickey's Fun Wheel) but we had to force Ashlynn to go on every ride so far. And she loved them once she was on there. She kept telling us "I changed my mind, I like this ride!"

After Monsters, Inc we went back to Cars Land, Dawson wanted to meet Mater!

McQueen was out when we got there so we grabbed a couple of things from the Cozy Cones. My favorite was the pretzel bites with cheese. OMGosh they were so good!!! We saw Mater drive by so Dave took the kids to meet him while I watched (or ate) our food. :)

After they met Mater they finished up eating and we decided to just walk around and do whatever the kids wanted to. As we were walking around we saw Donald. Thankfully by this time Ashlynn had warmed up to the characters... even the ones with "the big soft heads" so she was happy to meet him. :)

 We rode Toy Story Midway Mania next which ended up being the kids' favorite ride of the trip. By this time it was getting pretty hot outside so decided to grab a snack and head back to the hotel to have lunch and rest for a bit. The kids got churros... which happened to be their favorite treat of the trip. Yum yum!

On the way back to the hotel we saw Woody!! So we decided to wait in line to meet him. Before we got to him it was time for him to take a break so he quickly said hi to us in the line.

Thanks for the pic, Woody! I didn't realize Dawson's and Ashlynn's faces were so messy from the churros until after we met Woody. haha Oops!

Buzz was going to be out soon so we decided to wait to meet him. We got lucky when it was our turn Jessie came out, too!

We had a nice little break in our room and then headed out to see the musical, Aladdin. It was SO good!! Dave and I loved it and the kids LOVED it. After that we headed to see the Character Close-Up and Turtle Talk with Crush. The kids loved that, too. Ashlynn even sat on the floor with a bunch of other kids (Dawson wanted to sit in the seats with me and Dave still) and she was raising her hand and getting all excited when Crush was asking questions. It was too cute.

After that we headed outside and saw the Incredibles! They were just leaving, though, but we heard they'd be back so we stuck around. While we were waiting we ran into Princess Sofia

And Jake! So the kids were super happy.

And then we were first in line to meet The Incredibles. Dawson loves them (mostly thanks to Disney Infinity)! They noticed his Spider-Man shirt and wanted to see some of his moves... Dawson, of course, was happy to show off his fighting skills.

We sat down to watch the Pixar Play Parade after that. Ashlynn had a great view on daddy's shoulders.

We didn't plan on spending the entire day at California Adventure but we were having so much fun! It was almost 6pm and we didn't really have any plans so we decided to head over to Disneyland to see if we could meet any characters over there.

I love this picture of Ashlynn walking down Main Street.

We noticed that the parade was about to start there so we decided we might as well watch since we were there. :) :)  Look at these happy little faces!!

After the parade we walked around Innoventions really quickly, grabbed a bite to eat (which took forever... we should have just headed back to our room! lol) and then headed back to our room for the night.