For over a year I'd been trying to talk Brad into going to Disneyland. I started to get the kids excited about it by telling them what is actually was, and talked them into asking their dad if they could go *wink*. Finally we'd settled on a time. We told the kids that if they wanted to go they needed to start saving their money. (maybe you've seen the previous entry on how they decorated a jar to save their money in.) We finally told them they needed to earn $4 more. And when papa Clyde heard that what do you think he did? Of course, he gave them 4$ and they were so excited and ready to go ... so a few days later we let them in on the secret.
We talked about how they worked hard to earn the money and how mom and dad saved too. We gave them each a small mickey and minnie backpack that had fun things to do while we travel inside.
So they tucked their little back packs neatly on their nightstands and they waited two more days.
The day before we left at one point Embrie was acting whiney and tired and Brad said 'I guess you better go to bed early.' Garrett piped up and said "yeah! lets go to bed early so that we can get up early and we'll go to Disneyland sooner!" Just thought we'd put that on the record, first time Garrett has ever agreed to go to bed early.
He told me that he would get up 'bright and early' and I told him he'd better not get up too early, it would be a long day. 4:30am he comes into my room to tell me that it is taking a really long time to be morning. :) I told him to go back to bed for 3 more hours.
-all smiles riding the shuttle at the airport-
The airport was a new experience for them. I think they were just as excited about this as they were about Disneyland itself.
They were very good little helpers and followers.
On the plane they got out their backpacks and enjoyed the ride.
The night before we'd left Garrett and I started to get cold symptoms, not something I was too worried about. But as the plane descended into LA Garrett started to cry that his ears were hurting. Poor guy. My ears hurt pretty bad too so I was sure he was not exagerating. After that all day he kept saying "I can hear you just not very good." Little ears were plugged the rest of the day. But everyone else did great. We got into our hotel and got ready to see Disneyland the next day.
*********
When you're planning 3 days in the park you do want to get up early enough to be there when the park opens ... however, you don't have to do what we did and wake up at 5am.
So starts the tale of sickness, Garrett was coughing all night but seemed to sleep mostly ok. Embrie (which seems to happen everytime we've stayed in a hotel) has moments through out the night of half consciousness and yells and tries to hit everyone in reach. So we were up trying to settle her down a few times that night. Then she decided she was completely awake at 5am. So we tried to convince her it was really time to sleep, but the time she fell back to sleep at 6am everyone else in the room was awake for the day, ha! That might make for a long day for a 15mo old and a 6 yr old. not to mention mom and dad who'd been awake at 5.
BUT who cares when you're going to the Happiest Place on Earth? no one seemed to have any crankiness problems that day! :)
Our very first ride at DisneyLand? The Mad Hatter's Spinning Tea cups.
And then I got to do something that I bet most people have never done ...
I shut down the ride.
Yep. That's right folks! By some weird freak thing, while I was getting Embrie out of the cup my camera's battery compartment opened and the batteries popped out. I got one but the other rolled under the tea cup and got stuck in the track. Seriously...? So of course I told the ride operator because I didn't want it to cause a problem. But it was a problem. They tried to get it out and couldn't, the next group of people had to get off and they had to close it to get it out. Yeah and the next couple of minutes as we walked through the crowd I kept hearing little snippets of conversation like "someone's battery got stuck", "they closed the tea cups" Brad thought that was pretty funny. But they were shutting down fantasy land for filming that day anyway so I figure it wasn't too bad. (Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson were apparently there filming a movie, didn't see them though.)
- Buzz Lightyear ride-
The kids were amazed at the life size talking Buzz (we tried to get him in the picture but it didn't work out) Maren couldn't take her eye off him.) We ran into some friends from our neighborhood and went on a few rides with them. Glad they were there to help give us some tips. We didn't actually hit a ton of rides that first day because we weren't quite sure what we were doing.
The rides we did: Autotopia, Star Tours, BuzzLightyear, Tea cups, Space Mountain, a rocket ride,Little Nemo Submarines, Matterhorn, Pinnochio and Dumbo.
I had forgotten how dark it can be on Spacemountain, but Embrie was a trooper. After it was all over she said she liked it and it was fun, then she looked at me with that panicked about to cry look and said, I think I'm scared to go on it again.
While Garrett and Dad went on the Matterhorn (which by the way Garrett decided was also too scary to go on again), Embrie, Maren and I waited in line at Pixie Hollow to meet Tinkerbell and her sister Periwinkle.
This was a good warm up, my kids are a little shy after all. So Embrie wouldn't get her picture with Periwinkle but she did ask for her autograph. Maren wasn't so sure either.
with a little persuasion from mom and Tinkerbell Embrie agreed to learn the pixie handshake. And then smiled big for a picture with Tink.
Garrett in the meantime saw Goofy but would not go near him. Ha!
Another cool thing we did was Jedi Training. I saved us some spots right up front and was excited for the kids to possibly get picked to participate! Oh yeah there I go again forgetting that my kids are too shy to volunteer. :/ Who are these kids? Who doesn't want to be a Jedi?
It was pretty cool they picked a ton of kids out and gave them all robes and light sabers and taught them a few moves and then guess who showed up?!
Darth Vader!!!!
And then Darth Maul
Ok so I guess maybe volunteering to be a jedi could be a little intimidating with this guy around. Embrie quickly backed away from the front row seating when he started pacing in front of us. Garrett didn't back away but Darth Maul did make him jump a couple times.
Each kid that had trained got to fight against either Darth Vader or Darth Maul and of course the dark side was defeated! This was a cool show, wish my kids would have wanted to participate. Maybe next time?
And last but not least, no one knows how to do a parade better than Disney!
Mickey's Soundsational Parade was the last thing we did that night.
The kids saw tons of Characters and bounced along to the music. Maren was in awe.
Just some final fun shots at the end of the day.
One Character that we saw that day, I wish we would have stopped her, was Cruella Deville. Man that would be a cool and uncommon autograph to get!
