Weekday Adventure: Disneyland!

Today, we did the one attraction that we have been wanting to do since we moved to Southern California. We went to Disneyland! JD took the day off and we headed to Anaheim to celebrate Beatrice's birthday a few weeks early.

We got there about 30 minutes after the park opened. We should have gotten there an hour earlier. It was packed. The girls ate 50% of their snacks while we waited (and waited and waited and waited) to buy our tickets.

 

Speaking of tickets, see that bad boy up there? I lost it within 10 seconds of JD handing it to me. Somehow I dropped it at the ticket window and didn't realize it until we were in line to enter the park. Thankfully, I found it and my husband didn't lecture me too much on the importance of keeping up with expensive pieces of paper.

Once we got in, it was pretty overwhelming. Aside from being packed with people, there was so much to see, touch, and smell. It was sensory overload. Beatrice kept asking to get out of the stroller, but JD and I told her she had to stay put until we figured out where to start. We decided to go for the castle.

Beatrice is really into princesses. Cinderella used to be her favorite, but now Ariel is her number one girl. Guess who we saw as soon as we got to the castle...

I cried when Beatrice got to meet her. She was so happy and grown up the way she walked right up to her and started talking. They talked for 5 solid minutes about the benefits of being a human versus a mermaid (although Beatrice told her she prefers when she's a mermaid), about how Flounder can be a guppy sometimes, and other important princess topics. JD and I just stood back, snapping a million pictures (and crying), letting her have her moment. It was one of my favorite parenting moments to date.

Cinderella was right around the corner.

The rest of the day was spent riding rides, eating, and walking 100,000 miles. Speaking of rides, my kids were afraid of every single moving thing we put them on. I take that back. They enjoyed the carousel and train ride, but every other moving ride sent them clamoring into our laps in fits of terror. And being the awesome parents that we are, we just kept making them ride stuff.  

 

In our defense, we weren't taking them on any scary or dangerous rides. Just little kid rides through Pinnochio's storybook and such, but man those rides are weird. All of them felt like being in a psychedelic trip. I've never taken a psychedelic trip before, but I imagine it would be a lot like the Winnie the Pooh ride at Disneyland. The strange animated mannequins, flashing lights, and jerky movements of the cars freaked them out. And after we promised that the next ride wouldn't be scary at all, something else would totally freak them out. Disneyland wasn't the happiest place on earth for my kids.

Like I said, the train and the carousel were the only rides that did not produce tears from our children.

The other the thing Beatrice totally loved was the characters. She didn't know who half of them were, but if there was a furry figure, she wanted to hug them.

Disney wore us out. By the end of the day, this is what we looked like:

My feet ache, we spent way too much money, and we scared the crap out of our girls repeatedly, but it was such a happy day. I'm so glad we finally adventured at Disneyland!