spending the day with snoopy

when i pulled the curtains open the next morning, instead of a view of - well, anything, i found this:

after we'd all gotten ready for the day and repacked our bags to put back in the car, we headed down to the hotel's restaurant, where an old friend was waiting to say hello.

it was a short walk from the hotel to the front gates of the park, where we waited for our friends to arrive.

just inside the gate, we were greeted by even more "peanuts" pals.

and while we waited for one last friend to join our little group, we headed on into the camp snoopy area to test out a couple of rides.  we all got onto "sidewinder," the bean's favorite ride, which was lots of fun and a great way to start the day.  and then while the kids hopped onto the next ride, the old lady and i decided to go meet charlie brown.

they had their photo ops with the characters too, of course.

this is my most favorite character of all.

camp snoopy turned out to be *the* place to be, and the girls rode almost everything there was to ride in there.

after a nice lunch at johnny rocket's near the back of the park, they gathered at the fountain to toss in pennies and make wishes.

since we'd just eaten, we decided to head over and take a leisurely ride on the train, where we met a couple of "robbers" as we rode around the park.

log ride!  i hadn't ridden this thing in years.  the bean said she thought it was a mini version of splash mountain, and that's exactly what it was.

jaguar, her other favorite knott's ride.

the girls were all too willing to take advantage of all the photo ops.

we ended the day with a turn on "voyage to the iron reef," one of those 3D interactive rides where you get to put on glasses and shoot stuff.

we managed to get a group photo of our whole party before we finally skedaddled outta there.

dinner was, of course, at mrs. knott's chicken dinner restaurant.  everyone was visibly beat from the long day of walking and riding and excitement, and dinner was pretty low-key.  it had been a pretty awesome weekend, and our birthday princess knocked out hard in the car on the way home.

8 is great!