LA fun: Mulan and Lantern Festival
We found ourselves back in Hollywood for Mulan. Its a movie I enjoy more and more each time I see it. G got to wear her super cute Mulan dress from our WDW trip! Yay! The woman who played Mulan was beautiful and very sweet but Georgie noticed that she didn't seem to know the proper warrior stance. Not that G does it perfectly but I guess she thinks she does :-) she's gotten a little lesson each time she's met Mulan.

 See? Warrior stance :-)

 I always think its fun to see how the table decorations represent the theme.

Somehow, and I'm really not sure how, Georgie talked me into getting her another stuffed animal... she loves him though!

The movie ended about noon... what to do? what to do??

I'd read that there was a Lantern Festival going on at the Chinese Amerian Museum. Interestingly, the museum is not in Chinatown but instead just a few blocks away near the end of Olvera Street. We were close by and had no other plans so we decided to check it out.

Wow! I'm so glad that we did! What a great event! They had dozens of craft booths where kids could make kites, lanterns, dragon puppets, brush painting, origami (I'm pretty sure that's not Chinese but whatevs), and even an abacus. What I found interesting is that most of the crafts were pretty complicatedSeriously, Georgie-the-craft-loving-kid was in HEAVEN! They also had some Chinese dance demonstrations and more lion dancing. Oh, and guess who we came across? The Chinatown Queen and Princesses. They actually remembered Georgie from the CNY party the week before which thrilled the heck out of her.

We ended up being there about 4 hrs or so and finally had to leave because Georgie was completely exhausted. Plus, I can only take so much of being in downtown...its uh.... interesting.

Coloring this dragon took Georgie FOREVER! It did turn out well but criminy that kid is persnickity.

 Georgie is a Chinatown princess groupie :-)

This kite was one of the more complicated crafts. It started out with a plain piece of paper which had to be folded and then attached with yarn to crossed straws which required cutting notches into the end of them. Then the butterfly had to be chosen, colored and cut out. These were projects!

 This panda is by far the creepiest looking character I've ever seen.

Georgie's attempt at origami. Pretty good! I had to help her some but she did a pretty good job of keeping up with the instructions.

And finally, the abacus. Other than choosing the bead colors Georgie didn't make this at all. It was SO hard to put together but a pretty neat idea.

Georgie wanted one of these animal balloons in the worst possible way... sure, that was worth $5 :-)

Peter Pan on the big screen
El Capitain shows classic Disney movies in between their new release films. Its fun because even though I may have seen the movie many, many times in my life, I usually haven't had the opportunity to see them on the big screen. Its a totally different experience for sure. Many times they're brand new to Georgie.

The theater offers a character breakfast at the Disney Soda Fountain next door. Instead of Pan and maybe Capt Hook they had Jake from the Neverland Pirates. The show is really popular and I guess a bigger draw than Pan. G was happy, she loves Jake!

After breakfast we watched the movie. So funny. The old ones are charming and also cringe-worthy in their lack of PC-ness... I think I'd forgotten that they refer to Native Americans as "injuns". Still, I couldn't stop myself from silently singing along to "what makes the red man red, when did he first say 'ugh'". Georgie thought it was all great, of course. She laughed and laughed.

Monsters Inc
Back out to the El Capitan we went for the chance to see Monsters Inc in 3d and do a meet and greet with none other than Boo herself! As always it was super fun and made seeing the movie an experience not to be forgotten.

Our traditional marquee photo

and with Mickey!

Boo was soooo cute!

All ready for the show! I love the Christmas decorations in the balconies. They gave all the kids jingle bell bracelets so they could jingle along with the stage show.

The pre movie stage show was really cute and included several Christmas songs and then, at the end, "snow"!!

Making silly faces with Daddy at the soda fountain afterward.

Fun as always! We already have tix for Peter Pan and Mulan!

Wreck it Ralph opening
We'd been lucky enough to meet Ralph and Vanellope at Disneyland a week or so ago. But, like everyone else with a TV, we'd seen the trailers for the movie and Georgie was excited about it. Like they do for just about every opening they had a special event at El Capitan... yeah!

Bobby wasn't sure until the day before if he'd be able to join us so it was just G and me for the character breakfast with Vanellope. Friends Tanya, Jerry, Gracie and Kyle also joined us for the movie.

The movie itself was really cute! Truthfully, it was better than I thought it was going to be. There was lots of action, a cute and easy to follow story line, plenty of humor, and even a few tear jerker moments. Georgie really liked it! She munched her popcorn and giggled and had a good old time.

Later we headed over to what has become our favorite after-movie spot: Johnny Rockets for some greasy food and ice cream :-)

G made sure I remembered to take our traditional marquee photo. Finally the construction work they were doing is done. How cute is G in her Wreck it Ralph tshirt and Hello Kitty shoes??

In the movie Vanellope is a character from a candy themed video game called Sugar Rush. Naturally the theming for the decor was candy! Perfect for Halloween time don't you think?

Finally, Mickey is back outside in front of the soda fountain where he belongs!!!

At breakfast G just could not understand why oh why she couldn't eat the candy from the centerpiece.

After a quick bite...

it was finally time to meet Vanellope (again). I hadn't noticed the last time but now that I look at her she's a bit scary in the face. Anyway, she dances and jumps around so G thought she was awesome!

Girls!

This is G perusing the Ralph merchandise. She'd met an achievement on the way to the movie --well timed on my part so she could choose her reward at the movie. Score one for mom!

G with her prized Vanellope stuffy!

For some reason, and I have no idea why, these stilt walkers were in front of the theater. Eh, its Hollywood Blvd, who the heck knows what's going on half the time!

Before the movie they did a cute stage pre-show. They asked some of the kids to come up and participate but G was being "shy" that day.

With a pile of popcorn in her lap and her 3d glasses placed askew on her cute little face, G was ready to "wreck it!"

Gracie and Georgie spent a good bit of time after the movie playing this ball game they had set up in the basement. There was also a display of some of the props and models from the movie. Its really quite amazing the amount of work that goes into creating an animated film.

Haha!

Another fun day at El Capitan! I love that place :-)