Disneyland Day1

On Monday January 4th, 2010 we headed out the door to DISNEYLAND wahoo! We'd been planning the trip since October but the kids only found out on Christmas morning that they were going. The girls didn't really know what it meant (Anna was 11 months old last time we went) but Jakob was really surprised & excited, especially because there would be 3 new temples to see as part of the deal! We tried to pick a time when it wouldn't be busy and all weekend I was silently "cursing" everyone we saw with a "you better not be going to Disneyland next week!"

We were not disappointed and had a fabulous time, doing everything we wanted to do.

There was a new exhibit "Sleeping Beauty's castle walkthrough". Now, Anna is not princess crazy but she does like Sleeping Beauty (probably because she is always pink) so off we went. Well, after about 4 steps up into the castle I ended up carrying her all the way through with her head buried in my shoulder because it was so scary to her. Here's Emma & Jakob waiting for us to come out and then Anna showing Dad what she thought about it. Anna was pretty much freaked out by all the fantasyland indoor rides, too thematically scary.

Jarod had been hoping that Jakob would want to ride some of the bigger rides with him, especially because he remembers as a kid not being brave enough to try them and then when he finally did, wishing he had done it sooner. Jakob had never been on a roller coaster before, but he HAS been playing Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 since Christmas, so that's kind of like training, I guess. So we got to Toon Town and Jakob did this...

...while the girls did this (and Jakob arrived in time for the final picture). Emma did not want to hug, give 5 or even touch any of the characters, but she did enjoy seeing them and saying goodbye to them. Anna loved the whole concept of the autograph book and enjoyed being in charge of that.

Then we hopped on the Disneyland Express train and I took the girls to do this...

...while Jarod & Jakob rode Thunder Mountain Railroad (which happens to be the only roller coaster I have been on at Disneyland - but not this time.) It is hard to tell what Jakob thought of it because most of his opinions were tied to how long he had to wait, but we think he liked it and only didn't want to do it again because he didn't want to wait in line again. He was definitely more nervous about the Jedi Show, than any of the rides!

As evening approached we got in line for It's a Small World and totally by accident got to see the holiday lights switched on. Pretty cool. (We've seen all the holiday stuff before because our previous 2 visits to Disneyland were in Novembers, but it was really cool to be right there when the lights came on)

The final selection of pictures for today is the Tomorrowland Astro Orbitor. This was one of Anna's favorite rides (and my least favorite, if you can tell by the way I'm staring at my knees while we are spinning round - in between asking Anna to stop making it bounce!) Ah, the things we do for our kids! The second time I rode it with Anna AND Emma! By the way, this was the first ever ride that Jakob did at Disneyland, 7 years ago.