Cars Land

A few months ago while Daxton and I were playing toys in our living room, I turned the TV on to find Cars 2 playing.  Daxton immediately dropped his toys, crawled to the TV, stood a couple inches from the screen, and began bouncing to the soundtrack.  I clearly remember him turning back to look at me with the biggest smile on his face and eyes lit up.  Thus began our family's love affair with Disney Pixar's franchise, Cars.
Since then, Daxton has continued to show more and more interest in Cars and loves to push his little car characters around the hard wood floors in our apartment.  I mentioned in the last post that we extended our San Diego trip an extra day with the sole purpose to visit Cars Land at Disney California Adventure Park.  
It did not disappoint!

By the time we arrived at Cars Land, Daxton was fast asleep for his mid morning nap.  It actually worked out perfectly, because Hadley had fallen asleep as well.  Michelle, Nate, and Brooks stood in line for "Tow-Mater's Tractor Pull" while Dallas and I pushed the sleeping babies around.  It was the perfect opportunity for me to explore Cars Land and take all the pictures I wanted before Daxton woke up.  Dallas was, once again, the most patient husband posing and smiling in each of the pictures!

Family portrait
(sleeping baby and all)

(Top Left: Our whole gang, Perkins and DeMary Families.  Top Right: Nate, Michelle, and Brooks entering Radiator Springs.  Bottom left: Dallas and I posing with one of Mator's tractors.  Bottom Right: exhausted babies, Hadley and Daxton.)

Entering Radiator Springs via Route 66

I absolutely LOVE the attention to detail Disney is so famous for.

Top Left: Fillmore's Taste-In.  A spot for great refreshing beverages (my dad would have loved it there!)  Top Right: looking down to Radiator Springs skyline.  Bottom Left: Sarge's Surplus.  Bottom Right: Radiator Spring's Curios both are shops where you can buy all sorts of memorabilia.

The Cozy Cone Motel

Each cone sold different yummy treats (churros, icecream, drinks, etc.)  This was also the location that you could wait in line to take pictures with different characters.

Standing on Route 66 looking towards Radiator Springs skyline with Luigi's Tires in the background.  Several of the disney workers were passing out different Cars Land pins to the children.  They handed one to our sleeping Daxton.

Flo's Diner

We ate here for lunch and the food was fantastic.  Daxton loved his mac n cheese, while I ate the most fantastic grilled chicken salad.  We ate around the side of the building which had amazing views of Radiator Springs Ornament Valley.

We walked around Flo's Diner to find the most amazing views of Radiator Springs Ornament Valley.

While we were watching the cars drive by, our little guy finally woke up.  He was quite confused (having fallen asleep after Monster's Inc and waking up to loud noises of cars zooming past.)

It only took Daxton a minute to realize where he was and immediately got excited and wanted to grab the cars zipping by.  I love the post nap sweaty, messy hair!

Watching the Radiator Springs Racers ride.

Since both Hadley and Daxton had woken up, we decided to head back over to Tow Mater's Tractor ride to meet up with Michelle, Nate, and Brooks.  While they were on the ride we took some fun family pictures with one of Mater's tractors.

Daxton wasn't too thrilled about sitting on top, but he loved standing and playing with the exhaust pipe.

Tow Mater's Tractor Ride

Disney is great with allowing child swap options for parents.  When Michelle and Nate were done riding, Dallas and I were able to hop right on instead of waiting in line.  Brooks wanted to ride another time, so he hopped in my tractor.  That tractor really swung us hard a few times so I was glad that we weren't all three sitting in a tractor together!

My little riding buddy, Brooks.

After riding the tractor pull, we all decided to eat lunch at Flo's Diner.  Dallas found great seats on the side of the building looking at Ornament Valley.  As we were eating lunch we had no idea that we were sitting right next to where the characters entered and exited Cars land.  We were able to see Lightening McQueen, Mater, and Red all drive right next to where we were eating lunch.

It was so funny to watch Daxton's expressions.  He would get super excited and tense his whole body up while kicking his legs excitedly.  He even waved as Mater drove by.

Brooks was most excited about Red.  He's been super into firetrucks lately.  He even ran down to greet Red when he saw him coming.

Daxton also loved Red until later when we were standing right next to him to get a picture and Red sounded his loud siren.  Daxton lost it mid picture!

Watching Red drive by.

After lunch at Flo's, we walked along Route 66 to the entrance of Radiator Springs Racers.  The ride had been having technical difficulties and had to close down for a couple hours, so we ended up just getting pictures by the landscape instead, the kids were too small to ride on it anyway and we still needed to check out the rest of California Adventures and then head over to Disneyland before the day was through.

We couldn't leave without getting pictures with the founder of Radiator Springs, good ole Stanley.

As we were leaving we found Lightening McQueen at the Cozy Cone Motel.  It was the perfect way to say goodbye to Cars Land!

We had so much fun at Cars Land and I'm so glad we were able to see it before moving.  We weren't able to go on the Racers or Luigi's Flying Tires rides due to maintenance issues and long lines, but I guess that just means we will need to come back again soon.  We had a great time and our little man loved it too.