Back to the VACAY....UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

I am sorry it has taken me so long to get all of these pictures up! We saved all of them to Ryan's computer and we are having a heck of a time getting them to my computer, for whatever reason. However, my sweet hubby spent the day yesterday trying to figure it out for me and I think he did it! Good job Babe!

So, let's continue....

We drove from Vegas to California with two VERY EXCITED kids on Wednesday. We checked into the hotel, unpacked and just relaxed a bit. Thursday morning, we drove 30 min into LA!

Jake and I laughed at the HOLLYWOOD on the hill. It's the first time we've seen it in person. Seemed kinda like it was all made up, until we saw it for ourselves! :) Ha!

We were so excited to be in warm weather! We were so excited to be out and having fun together! JAKE was so excited to be misted in the spray of the Universal "Disco Ball" as Mally called it. (You have to click on this picture to see Jake's face. It's so funny!)

This place was a ghost town. We had free reign over whatever we wanted. That was pretty sweet! This was the perfect pick for our first day. I am afraid that this after Disney would have been quite a let down. Don't get me wrong, we had a blast, but it is not really super kid friendly. In fact, Mal was too small for any rides. She didn't mind. She got to meet a lot of fun characters.

SHREK! Donkey asked where we were from. When we replied "Idaho" he wanted to know if we had ever made "Potato Waffles". The kids got a kick out of them.

Some of the other highlights.....

Dora

Diego

SpongeBob

Fievel

Frankenstein

Curious George

I tried to get Ry to have his picture taken with Marilyn Monroe....No Go

Homer Simpson

We actually met all of the Simpsons, but Jake really only wanted to meet "The Dad". He had NO CLUE who any of them were. We had just been on the Simpson's Roller Coaster and Homer won him over. Bart was standing right by us, but Jake said he didn't really want to meet "The brother" just the Dad. Pretty funny!

I LOVE that picture of Jake & Homer. Jake LOVED meeting him. He was totally playing around with Jake. So funny.

We rode the tram ride that goes through all of the studios and sets. We made our way down Wisteria Lane, which I am sure would have been a whole lot cooler if we watched Desperate Housewives.

It was pretty fun. They had some fun special effects. Jaws, an earthquake in a subway, a flood...all fun.

The pictures above are TOP LtoR: Jake ever the poser has a minion in his little sister. Jake & Ry pose as Producer and Director before getting on the tram, THE Deloreon from Back to the Future. BOTTOM: The Fast & The Furious car, Ryan and kids in front of the War of Worlds Plane crash set, (top) WICKED sound stage, (bottom) the plane crash.

I think we went on Jurassic Park like 8 times....IN A ROW! It was so much fun! It is a splash ride. Once you enter the gate and you see the first Dinosaur it is like you are IN Jurassic Park! The dino's are huge. It is pretty fun! You ride down a river in a raft and end up "accidentally" going into the water treatment facility where the raptors and TREX pop out and scare the CRUD out of you. Then you drop 84 feet and there is not one thing I could do to scream. That drop took my breath away every time. Between that and Jake's crazy laughter at how wet we were getting, we couldn't help but get right back on! There was not a line! How could we not?!

Probably the coolest effects were in Backdraft. You file into a room...the set from the last fire scene in Backdraft and the explosions start. Man does it get hot in that room! It was so cool. Mal was really unsure of it, but she made sure to let the park employee at the end of the "ride" know that it was on fire.

Fun day! We were looking forward to Disneyland the next day. We spent the night swimming at the hotel. Can I just say an outdoor heated pool in February?! AND it was warm enough to use it.....Yeah, I am POSITIVE I could live there!

Still to come Disneyland, Sea World, Wild Animal Park & The Beach! Ok, I'm ready to go back!