Vacation: Day 5

DISNEYLAND, the best day of our trip!

WARNING: This may be a long post with LOTS of pictures; you have been warned!

Neither Matt nor I have been in a very very long time & we were excited to go. Both the boys were excited to go. In fact, for the past several days, anytime we got in the car he asked if we were going to Disneyland.

We thought it would be fun to go with Nicole, Curtis & their boy, that way the boys would have another little friend to play with all day.

The morning started off with breakfast at the hotel Nicole was staying at. Afterward, we drove to Disneyland. There were very few cars there, & we got really excited. After getting all the goods we would need for the day we started our adventures.

First stop, the parking lot tram. Nicole's boy loved this. She said he would ride it all day if they would let him. Ryan enjoyed it, & Nathan put up with it!

We decided it was silly to make the boys stand in line while Matt bought our tickets to Disneyland, so Nicole & I took the boys over to the entrance of California Adventure & took their pictures with each of the giant letters in "CALIFORNIA". It sprinkled a few times off & on while we did this, but the boys didn't seem to mind at all.


Just as we went into our first ride, it started to rain. That seemed to be the curse for the morning. It rained off & on all morning. But it didn't stop up from having fun!

The first ride of the day, Buzz Lightyear. We walked in & Ryan thought it was cool to see a life size Buzz. Once we were on the ride, neither child liked it too much. It was quite noisy, which scares Nathan. Why Ryan didn't like it...who knows!

Next was Star Tours. Nicole stayed with the two little ones, while Curtis, Matt, Ryan & I went on the ride. The closer we got to the ride, the more scared Ryan became. We were going to have him sit on my lap, but alas, the rules stated otherwise. So Ryan sat between Matt & I with white knuckles for the whole ride. He said it really didn't like it, but it couldn't stop talking about it ALL day.

We soon discovered that any ride we took Nathan on, he didn't like. We figure between the noise and the dark, not to mention he has never been on any rides before, he hated just about everything we went on.

I think Ryan's favorite rides were, The Finding Nemo Submarine, Winnie the Pooh & Alice in Wonderland. As for Nathan is favorite part was seeing the different characters. Unfortunately do to the weather, we didn't get to see too many, and it was all in the afternoon after the rain had stopped.



It was great going with some friends that have a little boy that couldn't go on the rides either, so we would take turn watching the kids and going on the rides.

Can you believe that neither boy liked Pirates of the Carribean, despite liking the movie? The only thing Ryan didn't like were the drops at the beginning of the ride.

The best part of the day was when we finally go to see Mickey Mouse! For those of you that don't know, Mickey is Nathan's favorite character in the whole world. He has 5 different plush ones at home, plus a blanket & 3 shirts that are all Mickey. All day, Nathan wanted to see Mickey. We finally got to see him after a little bit of a wait. When we got into Mickey's stage, (he was filming the Sorcer's Apprentice), we were the first ones to get to see him. Matt put Nathan on the floor & off he ran to give Mickey a huge hug. I was shooting a ton of pictures from one angle as Nicole was shooting from another angle. Nathan got to spend several minutes with Mickey & the ushers were really nice to let him spend as much time with Mickey as he wanted. Just seeing his face when he got to see Mickey was worth all the tears and "I'm Scared" on every ride.




We also got to see Minnie, Pluto, Tigger, & Goofy. Later in the day we were able to see four of the Disney Princesses, Auroa, Cinderella, Ariel, & Belle. Ryan would have nothing to do with the princesses, but Nathan loved them.


As the day drew to a close Matt & I went on the new Indiana Jones Ride while Nicole & Curtis watched the boys. When we got done we switched places with them. While Nicole & Curtis when on the ride, Matt took our boys to go on Alice in Wonderland. They loved it! It seemed like forever before Nicole & Curtis came back. Low & behold, they got stuck on the ride for 10 minutes! Apparently a few other people on the ride with them go stuck on the same ride for 30 minutes last time they rode it! Hmm...glad that wasn't us!

We got front row seats to see "Fantasmik" thanks to Nicole & Curtis. We were a little nervous about the noise for the boys, but we had borrowed "earphones" from our friends in Vegas. Matt decided to take Nathan farther back so he wouldn't be so scared. After the show, Matt said that Nathan fell asleep 2 minutes before it started & he slept through the whole thing.

We ended the day with a ride on "Thunder Mountain Railroad" and a visit to the souveniour shop. Nathan got a Mickey Mouse ball, Matt a Mickey Mouse Tie, Mom a Mickey Mouse bag & Ryan, despite his severe dislike for Star Tours, got the Transporter toy that you sit in during the ride!

After a long & tiring day, we headed back to the resort at 10:15pm or so. We were not even out of the parking lot and Ryan was asleep. Not much later, Nathan followed suit.

We had a great time and would have loved to go back a second day, but it is way to expensive, so we'll settle for another day in a few years!