Day 6 - Can you be a Jedi And a Princess?

Our fourth day in Disneyland! We headed over to Tomorrowland to Fast Pass Space Mountain since I hadn't had a chance to ride it yet. Violet was asleep so Wes and Adelle went on Finding Nemo. Lydia had declined. While shopping I got a call from Wes saying that "Jedi Academy Training" was starting. He was still waiting in line for Nemo, but Lydia decided she wanted to catch the show. There were a fair number of kids, mainly boys, who were waiting for the show. They were all hoping to be chosen to be trained by the Jedi Master! Lydia was one of the lucky ones to be chosen.

She and several other kids trained and learned light saber combinations.

All of the sudden we were invaded by storm troopers.

The stage rose up

and out came Darth Vader

and even Darth Maul. It was a scary moment for the kids. One younger child ran screaming off the stage, terrified and had to be comforted by his parents. Darth Vader asked the kids to join the dark side. The Jedi Master forcefully told him that they would never join. Then the fighting began!

Lydia was one of the trainees chosen to fight Darth Maul. There was a woman next to me when she saw Lydia said "She looks really nervous". I said "That's my daughter".

Even though Lydia was scared she fought bravely! I was super proud!

Violet wasn't impressed with everything. She had been woken up by all the noise.

Adelle and Wes caught the end of the show. Adelle was quite worried for Lydia when she found out she was on the stage with Darth Vader and Darth Maul. The force was with the trainees though and they defeated the evil, dark side. Lydia has a certificate to prove it. Adelle came up to me afterwards with stars in her eyes. She wanted to be a Jedi too. We promised to come back to a later show to let her try to get selected.

We caught Buzz hanging out nearby and got some pictures. Lydia wasn't interested in meeting the Space Ranger, but Adelle was. Violet seemed quite taken with him and really enjoyed trying to play with his buttons.

We didn't have luck at the next Jedi Training. Adelle wasn't chosen and she was just heartbroken! We decided to go and meet the Princesses instead. Lydia didn't feel like waiting for an hour to meet them so her and Wes headed of to Toontown while Adelle, Violet and I waited in line to meet the royal ladies. We ran into some people we knew and even made some new friends. Just as it was time to see the princesses Wes and Lydia met back up with us and Lydia decided she would met the princesses after all.

Adelle was quite lucky! She got to meet her favorite princesses in the exact order of preference. Tiana, Jasmine, and Belle. I was very happy that we caught Tiana since she had been eluding us in New Orleans Square. Adelle was so excited and Lydia even seemed to enjoy herself.

Jasmine asked where we are from and asked if we had flow our magic carpet to Disneyland. Wes informed her that no, we had in fact taken our camel.

Belle asked if Wes was a prince or a beast. The girls kindly said he was a King. Then Belle told the girls how lucky they are to have a sister since she never had one, only the beast.

We headed over to Fantasyland to catch a few rides and also happened to catch some of my favorite characters, Alice and the Mad Hater. Alice and the Mad Hatter were quite taken with my hat and Alice said "I want one". Violet enjoyed playing with the Hatter.

We were quite lucky because the Mad Hatter and Alice skipped off after visiting with us even though others were waiting to see them.

We went back to Tomorrowland to try again at Jedi Training for Adelle. She participated quite heartily in the pre-show where we all had to yell "Jedi" as loud as possible!

She jumped up and down hoping with all her little heart to be chosen. Lydia even pointed at her sister to get their attention. Sure enough, she was finally chosen. She put on her robes and got her very own light saber.

She even got a brief moment of reflection with the Jedi Master and Trainer.

Even though she is small she was chosen to fight Darth Maul as well. I was impressed how well she kept it together. She was quick and agile and fought well.

She made sure she ducked at the right moment.

*Sniff* My girls are growing up! Before I know it they'll be Jedi Masters!

Adelle proudly displayed her Jedi Training certificate. It was so fun to watch the girls. I was relieved that Adelle had been given a chance as well.

We rode rides the rest of the afternoon and caught a bite to eat. We made less then stellar dinner choices again. We decided to finish out the day with something special. Wes had been eyeing some sketch artists for days and he had found one he really liked. We decided to get our own special souvenir by getting as sketch of Lydia and Adelle. Karen, the sketch artist, was very engaging with the girls.

She was absolutely marvelous!!

She was a little timid when I asked if we could take her picture with the girls. We absolutely adored her and her work and thanked her over and over for the sketch.

Isn't it great? I think it was probably one of Wes' favorite things about Disneyland. Now we just need to hang it on the wall. We headed back to our hotel since Disneyland was closing at 8:00 for graduation night and settled down to rest so we'd be ready for out last day at Disneyland.