Disneyland - Day 1

After the World Ag Expo, we drove another 4 hours down the coast and through LA (talk about nightmare traffic! It took us 1 hour to go 20 miles!) to our hotel in Anaheim so Thursday and Friday we could play in Disneyland.  I haven't been to Disneyland since I was 5 years old, so the only things I could remember were Toon Town and a stuffed toy monkey that made an "ooo-ooo-aaa-aaa" sound when I pushed it (which I did the entire plane ride home until my mother confiscated it).  I think I was almost as excited as our nieces and let me tell you, they were stoked!  On the shuttle ride from the hotel to the park they were laughing their heads off which made Daphne copy them with a fake laugh of her own.  Sweet Lyndee was cracking everyone up - she could not contain her delight!

Alan and Marie were awesome and bought us all the 2 day pass where you can jump back and forth between California Adventures and Disneyland.  We had heard the new Cars ride was impossible to ride unless you obtained fast passes, so we headed straight there and even though the park had only opened 15 minutes beforehand, our fast passes were for 4 o'clock in the afternoon and they were all out 20 minutes later.  Nuts.  However, we didn't realize until the next day how relatively uncrowded things were that day.  We were able to get on all the rides within 10-15 minutes (except for the cool Toy Story 3D shooting game where we waited about 40).  I gladly watched the babies while Burke, Kristen, Brett, Kevin and Danelle rode California Screamin' and I was so grateful no one tried to make me do any rides I wasn't comfortable with (I am NOT a roller-coaster girl).  On all of the rides/lands I was so impressed with the attention to detail  and the extra things like roving groups of singers/characters that make it such a magical experience.  The workers at each of the rides were cheerful and in character with their ride and even the street sweepers (who kept everything amazingly tiddy) had a ready smile and a friendly word.  As my father-in-law said, "Disneyland is a first class act!"

 I thought it was really cute that Daphne recognized Micky Mouse everywhere.  She says his name with such a sweet squeaky inflection at the end.  She's never actually seen any Micky Mouse movies or toys, the only reason why she knew who he was is because he's stamped on the front of her diapers!  As for the rides, she didn't seem to get what was going on when we were on them.  Most of the time she would just stick her index finger in her mouth and suck nervously as she stared around with wide eyes.  Observe -

We spent almost the whole day in California Adventures and probably only covered 1/3 of the attractions.  I think my favorite ride was "Soaring Over California", even though I got a little nervous when they initially lifted us into the air.

We had a rough time around lunch when Daphne refused to eat and threw a massive tantrum, but eventually she finally fell asleep briefly in her stroller which saved the afternoon and allowed her to be our happy little lady again as we waited for the evening parade.

Here's her look of awed concentration when the parade started.  Watching this beautiful babe enjoying the sights and sounds around her was my absolute favorite part of this vacation.

It's also no wonder she looked a little concerned as the unfamiliar Monsters Inc characters were the first to come down the street.  With the peppy music, detailed floats and animated dancers, she was delighted and clapping in no time.  I think if she could understand the concept of "favorite" she would have said the parade was her favorite part that day.

It may have been Lyndee's favorite too!  I don't think she stopped waving, cheering, grinning and clapping the entire program.

To finish off the evening we cruised back over to Disneyland to ride Pirates of the Caribbean with the entire family.  Besides lunch and the parade, this was the only time we were all together that day, which was really nice.  I appreciated that we could break off in groups and go at our own pace with family members who wanted to ride the same stuff with us.  These pictures of being on Pirates had me cracking up, especially when I saw LeAnn's face at the back of the pack in the vertical picture!  It was a great first day!