We finally made it to Disneyland! We had planned to go for AK’s 6^th birthday in February, but we all had the death flu(see below). We had planned to go for BW’s 35^th birthday, but God had other plans as Grandma passed away that week(see below). CJ broke her arm(see below) so we weren’t quite sure that we would be able to re-schedule for the following weekend. My parents had been gracious to purchase tickets for us as it was supposed to be a family outing with all of my siblings and the tickets had to be used by April 30^th so we kind of had a deadline. But finally, on March 24^th we were able to go. 

 

Fortunately, I learned long ago not to tell my kids when we are actually going to go somewhere fun because when I did something would come up and they would be greatly disappointed.  So this whole time, we had been telling them that they would go to a special surprise place.  Honestly, I was much more disappointed than they were when we had to re-schedule. 

 

So, we went with my sister Kelly and my dad. We immediately went to Fantasyland knowing that the park was going to be extra crowded because it was a Saturday and many schools were already on spring break.  We went on Dumbo first which is always a huge hit. Then we decided to go on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. It’s amazing how differently you see things when you are a parent. As I rode literally through “hell” with EF on this ride and she held on tightly to me and we got off the ride and I looked behind to see BW with our 18 month old with the biggest eyes and the expression “What in the world was THAT????” I knew we had made a mistake. AK got off and said that if we ever came back to Disneyland we were NOT going to go on that ride again. We decided to go on the carousel to “cleanse the palette”, but AK wouldn’t go on and told Kelly that he didn’t want to go on anymore rides the rest of the day. Considering how long I had waited to take my kids to Disneyland and that it was only 9:00 in the morning, this was just not an option. BW gave AK a nice pep talk and promised not to take him on anymore scary rides. Big hits were Chip & Dale’s Treehouse(AK LOVES Chip & Dale), Autopia, Thunder Mountain Railroad, Star Tours and the Jedi Training Show. Unfortunately, we had been right about the crowds and many lines were just way too long for us to wait through, even with fast passes. So someday we will get to go back and enjoy the Matterhorn, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones.  Fortunately, since they had never been before they didn’t know what they were missing! Here are some of my favorite pics:

 

Girls in the teacups

AK on the pirate ship – He would have stayed here all day!

AF getting ready to watch the parade.

 

Thanks to Kelly and Papa for coming with us! They were able to watch napping kids and be that extra adult needed when we needed one to go on certain rides.   Praising God for a very memorable day!

 

-J