Disney California Adventure Park

A couple months ago, our good friends and neighbors, the DeMary's, invited us to join them on a trip to San Diego.  We've spent the last few weeks excitedly planning our adventures.  When Dallas and I decided we were going to move to Florida in August, I immediately started making a list of all the things we needed to see and do before leaving.  After a lot of research (yes, I spent hours researching and getting totally excited about the DisneyWorld parks) I realized that the new Carsland was only located at the Disney California Adventure Park.  Cars and Cars 2 are literally the only two movies that Daxton will show any interest in so needless to say we have spent hours over the past few months watching them over and over and over...
How could we leave California without seeing Carsland!?
So instead of driving straight to San Diego, we and the DeMary's spent a day covering both CA Adventures and Disneyland.  It was a crazy long and busy day at both parks, but so worth it!

Photobomb Michelle!

We had driven to Anaheim the night before and stayed at a super cheap dive for the night.  Obviously it was not up to Daxton's standards because he was literally up for most of the night.  It made for a very exhausted Perkins family the next day.  It turned out great though, since Daxton ended up taking three naps throughout the course of the day in his stroller.

Hadley, Brooks, and Daxton showing how excited they were to be woken up early...

It has been over a year since we have been to the Disneyland parks in Anaheim.  In fact the last time we were here, I was a couple months pregnant with Daxton and most of CA Adventures was under construction.  It was great to see what they had added over the course of the past year and a half.  

Buena Vista Street shops 

While Dallas and Nate ran ahead to get fast passes for the Carsland Racers ride, Michelle and I took the kids to ride on Monsters Inc.  Since there was no line when we arrived, we ended up riding it a couple times before the guys got back.  As we were leaving, Sully was greeting guests.  We didn't want to wait in line, so I snapped it in between kids.

After Monsters Inc, we all headed to Bugsland.  Daxton fell asleep at this point, so we didn't feel the need to drag him out of naptime in order to ride a few rides, but Nate and Brooks had a blast on the lady bugs ride.

I'm always amazed at the detailing that Disney puts into their parks.  Each new area has so much character.  I love how at Bugsland everything is built in larger than life scale so you literally feel like a small insect maneuvering throughout the different rides.

After Bugsland, we headed towards Carsland where Dallas literally had to hold me back from bouncing out of my skin.  I was so excited!  Due to the massive amount of pictures from that stop, there will be a separate post dedicated.

After Carsland we rode the Ariel ride with all the kids.  We loved watching Daxton's different expressions while riding.  He was a bit confused, but kept wanting to go back when done.  Ariel was great because he got to sit in between mommy and daddy and there were lots of bright colors.

I love the skyline for Paradise Pier, especially with all of the gorgeous flowers.

It was great to travel with the DeMary's.  Not only are they great friends and super easy travel buddies but we got to go on all the rides as we switched watching each other's children.  I wasn't able to go on any of the fun rides last time since I was pregnant, so Dallas had a blast making fun of my squeals on each of the roller coasters.

Brooks loved being able to watch for his mom and dad on California Screamer.  Both he and Daxton were great playing along the pier.

After spending a few hours at CA Adventures we headed over to spend the rest of the day at Disneyland...which will also be another post :)