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Disneyland re-cap

Disneyland!  I’ve recovered.  It only took me four days.  :)  Right after Disney my family went home and Kenny flew to New York for meetings.  I was left on my own with a messy house, overly tired girls, and a toddler who decided he didn’t want mom to leave again so hanging on and never letting go was the solution.  Last week was a bit crazy to say the least!  But we had so much fun at Disneyland.  Claire (my sweet niece) wanted a trip to Disneyland with her cousins for her 5th birthday and we were counting down to this trip for months!  My parents stayed with Kole and my sister’s 18 month old so we could enjoy some time with the girls.

Four adults with three kids.  Now that’s more like it!  Not a bad ratio at all.  Especially when the kids are these three girls.  They were SO excited to be together at Disneyland and they were on their best behavior the whole trip.  I have to admit, it felt pretty good to be there with no stroller!

Here are a few pics from our two days at Disneyland…

THE CASTLE!  C’MON DAD!!!
Alice and Mad Hatter!  My all time favorites.   

 Sweet Minnie.  

 Small World never gets old.  

Tea anyone!?
Mickey looks good even in horrible lighting.  I need to learn his secret. 

Just a spoonful of sugar!
 Boarding the boat for a Jungle Cruise.
Chatting with the Princesses.  

Addison and her little cousin Claire were so excited to see the princesses, but Ellie was anxious to head on to the next ride.  I was watching my girls chat with Snow White and out of nowhere felt a great big lump in my throat.  

I was flashing back to the last time we were at Disneyland when I took this picture.  It was three years ago, but it feels like it was last month.  My girls are growing up and before long the magic of the princesses will be a thing of the past.  Talk about depressing.  
Think I can get Kole into Jasmine and Snow White?  He’s already a fan of Tinkerbell.  :)
Speaking of the girls growing up, this was our first trip where they past the height requirement for all of the big rides.  We were so excited to take them on all of the fun stuff!  We tested the waters with a few smaller roller coasters (like the one in Toon Town which they loved) and decided we were ready for Space Mountain.   What we didn’t realize (until we were buckling our seat belts) was that “ghost galaxy” was about to take place.  Seasonal creepy looking ghosts they add to Space Mountain just for the month of October.  As soon as the ride started I knew we had made a mistake.  Pitch black, eerie screaming sounds, the roller coaster going up and up and up, and the scariest looking red skeleton head looming ahead.  WAY too scary of a ride for our girls.  I was sitting by Ellie and grabbed her hand and told her to close her eyes and it would be over soon.  I couldn’t enjoy one second of that ride because I was so stressed about the girls.  I kept yelling at El during the ride to just hold on, but it was so loud I knew she couldn’t hear me.  When we got off Addison and Claire looked as white as a sheet and El was in tears.  They saw her crying and then they started crying.  All three girls were bawling.  We all looked at each other like “what in the world were we thinking!!?”  Car and I kept saying “I don’t remember that ride being that fast!”  “I don’t remember that ride being that scary!”  We felt awful.  We all four declared ourselves the worst parents ever and tried to make up for it with lots of cotton candy and frozen lemonade.  
And suckers.

And toys.  :)

Luckily, we were saved by Thunder Mountain Railroad.  A roller coaster that the girls LOVED.  Still fast, but without the darkness and satanic monsters.  Bonus.  A much better option for our 5, 6, and 8 year old!  The girls loved it so much that we kept getting the fast past to do it again and again and again.  Picture above is Addie waiting for our turn on the ride…  
and here she is ready to go and waiting for me to join her!  
I always rode with Addison on this ride and the two of us would get laughing so hard.  My voice has been hoarse for days because of the screaming and laughing that took place on Thunder Mountain Railroad.  Definitely my favorite memory from this trip.  :)
 Taking a stroll through Tarzan’s tree house.

 Goofy is always a crowd pleaser.  

 Toy Story Ride at California Adventure.  Another favorite!
We spent half of one day at California Adventure and had so much fun.  We were able to catch the Pixar Parade while we were there.  I just love a good parade.  :)

 Seeing Toy Story friends made me miss my little guy!  I kept thinking “oh Kole would LOVE this!”

We ended our time there with the new CARS ride.  It was a blast!  
Definitely a must if you are making a trip to California Adventure.  
Aside from our Space Mountain blunder, the trip was a huge success!  We didn’t even mind waiting in lines because we were all having so much fun visiting and just hanging out together.  Kenny and I got season passes again and the lady at the counter said  “Looks like you usually have season passes but took some serious time off!  What happened!?”  I told her we had another baby and were in major lock down mode for a while.  
But not anymore.
As Ellie would say: we’re back!  
:) 
xoxo, Erin
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20 thoughts on “Disneyland re-cap

  1. Looks like you all had heaps of fun. I went to Disneyland in 1985 and 88 as a teenager and I can’t wait to be able to take my 10 year old boy there as well. Madly saving like crazy to be able to get there in the next year or so.
    Cheers
    Julie, Melb, Australia

  2. So exciting to see all the photos, we are making the mammoth trip from Australia to LA next September but going to Orlando Disneyworld. Cant wait. So glad you had a great time :)

  3. I was just going through our pictures from Disneyland. I as not as good about taking them as you were.

    It was so fun to run into you guys there! Thank Kenny for yelling out my name. Wish we had had more time to chat.

  4. What wonderful memories you created!

    Does your mom want to adopt me? She seems to be such a blessing for your family. I am so happy for families when I hear they have opportunities like this, but it makes me wish we had that kind of support in our family/friend pool as well (we don’t, in 3.5 years, we had one sleepover away from mom & dad and I can’t even get anyone to watch one while I take the other one swimming or to a park district class). Anyhow, I know from reading that you love your family and just had to share that I thought “bless that fantastic woman” for giving you that special time. I am also happily envious your girls get to spend time like that with their cous. My kids’ each have a cousin their age but they live OOS (my entire dumb family decided to move to the state they convinced me not to move to because it was a) too hot/awful/hurrocanes #) did I want my kids growing up without family for bdays, holidays, school stuff c) did I want to spend all my vaca time & money visiting? Nope I didn’t, so I stayed put – and over the next 5 years every.single.one moved there. Andsomehow we spend all our $ & time visiting. So our kids only see their cousins once a year (or maybe less this year) which breaks my heart since I always dreamed of my kids having cousins their age to grow up with. ) anyhow, all that to say, your families sound so wonderful, I get so happy reading about your adventures!
    good luck recoperating :)

  5. Thanks everyone!

    Andee – it was SO fun seeing you there! We loved catching up with you!

    Anonymous – Thank you! I know. My mom is the best and I really am so lucky to have all of the family support I have. Thanks for your sweet comment!

  6. Looks like you had a great time Erin! That’s what I love about living here in So Cal: Disneyland! My little girl is only 2, so we haven’t made the trip yet with her. I can’t wait to take her there :)

  7. Oh, what FUN!! I always love to read about your adventures and see your photos! Your family is just precious.

  8. Looks like a fun Disneyland trip!! I loved looking at all of the pictures. I love the one of Ellie and Adi walking together. So sweet!

    My daughter had her beautiful baby boy Saturday. Watching him come into the world was amazing. We can’t wait until he can join us at Disneyland.

    Have a great week Erin while soaking in all of those great memories. :)

  9. Cathy!! I’m thrilled for you and your family! A little boy! That is such great news. I’m sure he is absolutely adorable. I want to see a picture of him when things settle down for you! Your daughter is so lucky to have you there with her. My mom was in the delivery room when we had Ellie and she still talks about what a special moment that was. Enjoy your sweet grandson! New babies really bring into focus what life is all about. So so happy for you. :)

  10. This is a post after my own heart! I adore Disneyland!!! Can you believe the we have season passes too?? And it’s an 11-hour drive for us. We’ve already been twice this year and if it weren’t for baby on the way we would’ve been there the same time as you. We will be going at the end of January (and yes, I’m bringing a 7 week old baby, but I can’t stand to miss it).

    Last year was the first year that everyone in our family was able to ride all of the rides together because our four-year-old was finally tall enough. Space mountain is usually our favorite ride but I’ve never done it in October with the screams and ghosts.

    Looks like you had a great time!

  11. So fun seeing all these pics! So glad you finally made it back! YAY! You have arrived! How awesome are your Mom and Dad to come and stay with the little ones! Think we could talk them into staying with Kole and Jensen so we can go again?! It seems like just yesterday we were there in the rain, then at the same times it seems forever ago! We’ll have to discuss future Disneyland plans at Thanksgiving! Pierce really wants to go to Lego Land too, so we need to put that on the discussion agenda as well. Are your girls interested in going?

    So glad you had such a great time! And I’ll be sad with you when El outgrows wanting a stuffed animal from Disneyland! Hope it’s not for a while longer!

  12. I had to read the part about space mountain out loud to my husband because I did the SAME thing to my 5 year old daughter in May at Disney world. And it didn’t even have the Halloween special effects! The ride terrified her and my sister, husband, and I all got off going I don’t remember it being that fast!! I felt awful. All was good after a little while and we enjoyed the rest of our trip but it makes me feel better that I’m not the only parent who has done that :)
    Jennifer

  13. OMG- the same Space Mountain experience just happened this past summer in Disney World with my 7.5 year old. He wanted to ride so badly and was finally tall enough. Well…in Magic Kingdom, you ride individually. I spent the entire ride leaning forward trying to hold onto his shoulder. I thought for sure he was going to fly out of his seat because he was holding his ears instead of the bar. He was crying before it ended and continued for about a hour. He climbed right into his sister’s stroller and pulled the canopy down over him. Bad mommy moment here.

    So glad you guys had a fun 2 days with the girls! Love reading your log :)

  14. I can’t wait to take Kendall to Disney!! She loves Toy Story and is really getting into Princesses now:) Looks like you all had a great time. I am pretty sure I would be crying as well after that ride!! Have a great week getting back into the grove of things!

  15. My daughter hates anything scary so whenever we talk about making a Disney trip again she makes sure I know she NEVER wants to go when they have it ready for Halloween. This just reaffirms that is a good decision! I can’t imagine her on Space Mountain with ghosts, ah!!

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