Disneyland 2015

Stop 5 on the road trip was Disneyland.. Well, it was supposed to be stop 1, but we moved things a bit last minute to travel early!

We have stopped counting how many times we have visited "the happiest place on earth"..

When you are that happy, you shouldn't count!

The highlight of this trip was that our kids

- were not in strollers 

- we did not have to chase after them or worry about them getting lost as they had cell phones with them

- they eat faster and by themselves

- they don't need to be accompanied to the rest rooms

- and they were bold enough to go on "single rider" passes to bypass the long lines. 

Granted, going as single riders kind of defets the "family" aspect of it, but hey.. we stay in the same line till the ride point.. then we split up into differnt cars and we are usually within one or two cars in each ride. Once inside the ride, it is all dark and dingy for the most part and you are screaming your head off.. except for the little one, who missed squeezing daddy's hand during the rides we were okay. 

We started off the day with the usual pictures at the entrance.. 

 moved through the park and did as many rides as we could. We did stand in line for 40 minutes to go "as a family" in Space Mountain .. so we could buy the photograph they click at the end. We are so familiar now that we pose for the camera on Space Mountain. 

We ran back and forths, got fast passes where we could, split up to do different things every now and then.. basically let the kids decide.

we watched two parades and parallel processed one parade while standing in line for "it's a small world"!

Then the kids decided to wait in line for 60 minutes in Toon town for a 60 second ride while San decided to stand in line for a little over an hour to get a picture with Mickey... for old times sake!

I was torn between the two and did neither. Just sat at the fountain and took pictures for passers by.. 

Selfie sticks are banned in Disney.. and it is so sad to watch 8 people try to fit into a selfie. Did my bit of social service while watching the kids inch their way to the top of the line for their ride. Lot of good karma in that one hour in Toon town!

The kids knew I was mad after their ride because the sun had set and daddy had told them that toontown looks amazing just before sunset as the colors come alive! after receiving a little lecture and promptly forgetting that lecture, we moved fast to exit the park.. at 6PM.. that was a first! 

Good Karma sometimes doesn't come back right away. I took the picture above of the kids, then went stood there and asked this lady to take a picture.. we got this back. For some reason, she decided to do her own thing.. we are happy that the family was in the frame!

then came the best part. As part of the package ticket, my darling wife had got us this pass for "dining with characters" at Goofy's kitchen in the Disney resort. The kids took a short break to dress up and we went for dinner.. 

we had the time of our life watching them be so happy!

You can see from the video that the highlight was Goofy's kitchen..

We had shared iPhone photos from Disney on FB.. Had to come home to get this one from the Canon.. This one is going to be framed.

Next time, we should just skip the park and stay at the resort (we have never done that) and just have breakfast, lunch and dinner with the characters.. more fun.. more smiles!

One weird thing on this trip.. There were no desis in sight in the park. We were joking that someone must have sent a memo to all desis telling them that 30th was a no Disney day or something and we missed the memo! We saw maybe 3 or 4 desi families in the park all day. 

All four of us had a great time, yet again!

Ventura beach and Harbor Village

Stop four on our road trip was the Ventura beach and Harbor Village. The beach was very cold and given I like heat more than cold, we decided to walk along the beach facing the sun to see if that would help. 

It did to a limited extent.. Hope that my Vitamin D blood test due next week will pass with flying colors after all the sun we got last week.

The waves were tall and rough and there were not that many people around at noon.

we saw these baby Plowers on the beach.. they were moving so fast and well camouflaged in the sands and shadows.. it took me a lot of clicks to get this little guy. 

Then from nowhere this eagle comes down and takes some of these birds! Amazing how nature works!

 The kids had fun running around and climbing the little dunes. 

Then we went to the Channel Island visitor center. We have always wanted to go to Channel Islands park, but they require a lot of planning as the boat tours get booked months in advance. This time we stayed within walking distance of the starting point, but again, same result. No tours available. 

The visitor center is much hyped in the Ventura city website, but it did not live up to that hype. Compared to other visitor centers we have seen in National parks, this one is "okay". 

We proceeded to go to the Harbor Village. This was the real deal! Had lunch at a nice Italian place called Milano's. The food was great! After lunch we walked around the Harbor and took pictures.. the kids went on a paddle boat ride for an hour and that gave us a nice break for a high tea!

This family portrait was taken outside Milano's. 

They had the entire walkway nicely decorated with these lamps. We watched two guys patiently change the decoration for each lamp from Christmas greeting to New Year greeting. 

The paddle boat ride was starting to be a disaster. We watched another family struggle to even get out of the narrow path. The kids somehow managed to navigate through, and once they were out, they had a great time. 

They were very tired after the one hour paddling in the sun. 

 We stopped by for some last minute pictures in front of the murals on the way out. 

and it was time to say bye to Ventura and head towards Anaheim, as we had a date with Mickey the next morning! 

All of us loved the Harbor Village. It is a quieter less cluttered version of Sausalito and the people were sooo nice! Maybe it was the holiday spirit. Maybe the people in the Ventura harbor village are nice by default. Either way, we loved it!

They say it is 5 PM somewhere, for me it is 9 AM somewhere! So the blog takes a break! 

We pick up at stop 5.. later!

Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

At first we were wondering if we will go see a museum because we were driving through a very residential neighborhood. Then, as promised by google maps, at the end of a normal looking residential street, was this cute museum!

There was a large whale skeleton that greeted us ...

The museum was a single story school looking building with different rooms allocated to different things. It was target to really young kids (aged <10 in our opinion) to introduce them to science concepts. They had a nice microscope which projected the images on a 52 inch TV. The kids just stayed put there and viewed rocks, snail sheels, anything and everything and watched the images. We had fun at that exhibit as well..

Here is Jr. after focussing on some grainy rock

They had one room dedicated to space and space related items.. the thing that caught our eye in this room was this meteor.

There was a large exhibit about archaeology and excavations that focussed on two things. The pygmy mammoth, which I did not know anything about till this trip, especially that they were found in this area 12,000 years ago, and the Indian tribes of the area that were opressed by the settlers. 

The kids were not happy after listening to how the natives were treated and are still feeling the after effects of those days.

The little one seemed to know all about it already because she had read this book about  a girl who had survived alone on the Channel island for 18 years in a book that was part of her school read! The conversation started and ended with "Appa, you don't know anything!". If there is one thing I actually do know by now, it is that I don't know anything. 

There was a beautiful cheat sheet, in case there is a time scale quiz! 

They had a cute Christmas tree with butterflies as ornaments. We loved it!

We spent less than 2 hours here, but the kids had a good time. There were smiles all around, a few new things learned and information tucked away for future use. 

This reminded us of the Kids discovery museum in Sausalito. 

It is indoors and the kids feel nice and warm and have fun doing science work! The exhibits are very nicely done and the explanations are very simple.

The staff was also very friendly and helpful and guided the kids through various activities. 

This place was small but made our day!

Strongly recommended, if you have kids under 10. This is a great place to visit in Santa Barbara.