Disneyland 2013

Aaaaaah...The Happiest Place on Earth!  I really do love Disneyland.  I think its mostly the nostalgic feeling I get every time we go.  I love seeing the park again through my kids' eyes.  We don't go super often so when we do make it down it really feels like an extra special treat.

We were up before dawn so we could beat traffic down to Anaheim.  Luckily Owen fell back to sleep for the ride down, Scott...not so much.  I think he was too excited.  Every time we'd slow down he'd ask, "How are we ever going to get to Disneyland with all this traffic?"

But we made it with time to spare (ie get gas and pick up a bike lock for our stroller)

My pictures are a bit out of order because they are from multiple sources and I didn't want to spend forever rearranging them.  You'll get the idea, I promise.

Cinderella's castle (not so much centered, oops)

I mean this kid....he's too much.  Just posin' for a Disneyland brochure...nbd right? LOL!!!

Our day was fantastic, it was not crowded at all, the longest we waited for a ride was about 10 minutes and the weather was nice and cool (even overcast for most of the day, I was expecting it to burn off and be scorching, hence why I wore shorts, a decision I ended up regretting a little).

One of our first stops was Toon Town to meet some of the characters.

Scott was excited to see Goofy right away and gave him a big hug, then immediately stopped cooperating when I tried for a picture.  Story.of.my.life.

We were able to meet Mickey Mouse too.  You'd think from their expressions that the boys hated this part, but I assure you they didn't.   Sometimes the more excited they are, the blanker their stares become.  HAHA!

We played around in all the characters houses for a while which was a blast.  Also to be noted:  our first stop even before this was to go get Owen some ears.  Scott brought his along from his first trip to Disneyland so we definitely had to get some for Owen too!

Can everybody just stop and take this picture in for a minute.  Scott smiling for a picture with me.  Rare folks.

Goofy's house

We also stopped to meet Minnie.  Again with their enthusiasm.

Before all this Toon Town fun we hit up some rides in Fantasyland.  First up: Peter Pan.  Scott really liked it as he is quite the Peter Pan/Captain Hook enthusiast.  Owen did ok but definitely held onto me for dear life.  Understandably though because those rides are pretty stinkin' dark.

Mr. Toad

Alice in Wonderland (one of my personal faves)

A special shout out to Auntie CB (pictured here).  She came all the way to meet us at the park, got us in and spent some of her morning with us riding kiddo rides (and holding Owen's other hand!!!).  It was such a treat to get to catch up with her and we so appreciate her getting us into the park!  Thanks Auntie CB for the wonderful day!!!!

Many a shoulder ride was given yesterday (by daddy, mommy doesn't do shoulder rides).  Yes we were rolling with a double bob but Daddy's shoulders were really the coveted seat.

A favorite for the Campbell bunch is always Buzz Lightyear (if you don't know each rider gets a lazer gun to shoot at targets and get points.  For some this is all good fun and for others it is fiercely competitive, even so far as feeling the need to sabotage one's spouse.  All I'm saying is if you win by cheating...is it really a win?)

Around lunch time we headed over to California Adventure where we got to ride the new Ariel ride (although not that new anymore, it was our first time though since last time the line was like an hour long...um no.)  This might have been Owen's favorite so far....during the 'Under the Sea' part he started clapping and saying "yay" and signing "more".

After Ariel and some lunch we went to check out the new (even newer than Ariel) Cars Land.  O.M.Geeee.  I was totally impressed.  These iphone picture definitely do not do it justice.  I felt like I stepped into the movie.  So neat!

 I wish had taken more picture of it all (and better ones) but with two kids in tow.....well you know!

After all of that we were definitely in need of a little break and we were just in time for the Disney Junior show (ok, so maybe we planned on being just in time for it).  On our last trip the Johnson's introduced us to this little gem and now its a must for our crew. 30 minutes of sitting (glorious!) indoors.  So peaceful.  This round included Princess Sophie, Doc McStuffins (both of which my boys have never seen but that didn't seem to matter to them), Jake and the Neverland Pirates (SCORE!!!) and of course the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse gang.  Its puppets and singing and bubbles and gold dabloon interactive greatness!

We finished our day back at Disneyland with a few more rides.  (After every ride Scott would immediately ask to go on more rides....he kind of couldn't get enough, so cute!)

The one thing I wanted to do was ride splash mountain with Scott.  A girlfriend of mine just took her little boy recently and he was finally tall enough and since I knew Scott was about the same size I knew he'd be good to go.  So we went and watched the big drop and asked Scott if he thought he'd want to do it.  He said yes.  But only with Daddy (Daddy is the HOT commodity, Scott only rode one ride with me and its because I kind of tricked him into it, I think it would have been full on brawls between to boys as to who rode with Daddy if Owen was more verbal about it, Owen seemed to lose (aka ride with mommy) most of this trip but I'm sure next time we are going to have to have some sort of system. Glad I'm so popular :/ )  So Brian and Scott went for it and the verdict: AWESOME.  I guess the first little drop someone screamed and it scared the crap out of Scott, Brian thought he was literally going to jump off the log and have to be fished out of the water.  And then one the big drop Brian said he could feel Scott's heart pounding out of his chest, but he got done and said he liked it.  And who knows maybe next time he'll agree to ride with me....

Also, we don't know this man with the mustache I just couldn't crop him out of the picture well.

While the big boys were on splash mountain, Owen and I rode Winnie the Pooh (and I'm not complaining...Owen and I had a blast, can you tell by his expression?!) and were back in time to watch them take the plunge!

One more stop at Buzz Lightyear.  This time Owen really enjoyed his blaster, although he didn't shoot it at anything he just looked at it and watched it light up.

So much seriousness over here:

And for our last ride of the day: Autotopia

I definitely think this was Owen's favorite.  He was clapping and laughing the whole time.  At one point I said "woohoo" and from then on he kept repeating "whooowhooowhooo".  

Finally some pictures I "stole" from the disney photo pass:

Owen first lays eyes on Mickey:

Meeting Mickey:

And Minnie:

If you ask Scott was his favorites were he would tell you Peter Pan and Buzz.  Then he'd tell you that he did not like the Pirates.  We did Pirates of the Carribean and he was not a fan.  Eyes covered the whole time.  And its one of the longer rides.  Ooops, sorry bud.  Even though he didn't like that one we decided to give Haunted Mansion a whirl (parents of the year!) and he ended up liking that one much more.  Owen liked it all...so long as he had a death grip on my hands!

We ended the day with a visit with our dear friends who we don't see often enough, The Johnsons.  We had a great visit and even got to give the boys baths so they didn't ride home (and fall asleep) with Disneyland grunge on them.  Scott has talked non stop today about Riley and Parker and how he wants to go back and play with them (actually what he said was "I want to play with Riley and Parker at their house today instead of preschool.")  And he also wants to show them his halloween costume (Leilani: we will be texting you a picture when we are in full batman gear, he's very adamant about this!)  Thanks for having Johnson gang, hope to do it again soon!

A fun and memorable day!!!  Until next time Disneyland!