radiator springs

our boys love pixar movies, like LOVE them!  when we heard that california adventure at disneyland was opening a "cars land" we were super excited!  we decided to do a day at california adventure since the rides and characters there are right up the boys' alley.  instead of telling them where we were going we simply told them that "while in california, we'll try to find radiator springs."  that definitely got the excitement going.  so monday morning we started out "search" which was fun because a lot of the billboards on the way to disneyland have lightning mcqueen on them!  finally, with park map in tow, we found this:

 the set up was soo cute!  the boys loved seeing all the places from the movie!  halfway through the town we spotted this guy:

he revs his engine and says ku-chow!  the boys thought he was awesome, and talking to them personally!  justin and i jumped in the shot too, i mean hello- it's lightning mcqueen!  we have all his lines memorized (and everyone else's in the movie!)

after our stroll through town we headed over to bugs life, which i had the boys watch the day before.  kade was really excited to see hopper- the boy loves his grasshoppers!

 we watched the little bug movie, which delighted the boys and creeped out all the girls, especially the ending!  we rode some rides like heimlich's lunch train:

 bug bumper cars

take-out box spin (kade)

 (crew)

 we ventured to some other areas for monsters inc., and the little mermaid.  we went back to cars land and saw some familiar faces:

 red

 and mater, who yelled "dad gum!" while going by

 we did a little tractor tipping:

shauna and alyssa

 justin and crew

we also did the talking with crush show, and "bodacious brody" was selected by crush to talk to him, which then meant that i had to talk to crush as well, it was so cute!  we watched the pixar parade and the twins we're so excited to see everyone, that might have been the highlight of their day!  afterward we headed over to the toy story area- i love the toy story ride! 

 brody, grandma diane, crew and shauna

 kade and grandpa clarke

after the carousel they brought buzz lightyear out near by, which i honestly thought would be a good idea to see.  as you can notice, kade was not on board for this.

 i am confused as to why he cried with buzz lightyear, but was more than excited to touch and pose with hopper?  funny kid.  later we took brody on soaring over california and he was just in awe of the whole thing!  the whole ride he had that excited disbelief face on, it was so magical to watch, i loved it!  we spent a few more hours playing, but eventually the boys (and mom) were too tuckered out, and needed to head home.  our last stop was a toy store so each kid could pick out an action figure- as in a singular toy, however this is what crew decided on:

 can you see how exhausted he is?  poor little guy!  we did settle on the action figures (two zurg's for crewkade and a woody for brody.)  

it was a great day and so fun to watch the boys get so excited over the magic of disneyland!  i think they'll be talking about the day we found radiator springs for quite a while!