Disneyland

When we lived in Orange County, Seth and I would go to Disneyland nearly every Friday night that wasn't a blackout date on our SoCal Disneyland passes.  I would pick Seth up from work and we would drive two freeway exits down the 5 and there we were, at the "happiest place on earth", where we would park, take the tram into Disneyland, go straight to the French Market restaurant or Red Rockets (depending on which of us chose that evening) ride Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion, or Space Mountain, maybe watch the fireworks, then head out Main Street with a stop to buy a caramel apple with nuts and Tigger fudge.  I mean, of course sometimes we would go for longer and go on weekends, but I loved our Friday Disneyland date nights.  Later, I worked at Disneyland, doing shows and special events.  So Disneyland has been a special place for me and Seth, and before Evie was even born, I began thinking about a family trip to Disneyland.  What age would be best to take her?  How would she react to the characters?  What would her favorite things be?

Well the trip has finally happened!  We flew into LAX on Saturday, got our rental car, and headed down to Orange County.  We had dinner that evening with some friends of mine from UCI: Toby, my former boss, and Ashley, Michelle, and Matt who were all fellow stage management students.  Ashley's baby, Hattie, is 9 months old and Nicole, Matt and Michelle's baby, is almost a year old.  Evie loved sitting near Hattie and watching her try to eat.  She kept remarking how Hattie is too young to talk.

Sunday was Mother's Day.  We went out for brunch, just the 3 of us, and then to the Discovery Cube, and then met up with my dad's cousin and his family for dinner.

This beautiful girl who made me a mama, siting beside me for brunch on my 3rd Mother's Day.

Climbing the rock wall at the Discovery Cube.

Monday was the big day, the day I'd been anticipating for so long.  Evie did not know we were going to Disneyland, and really didn't know what Disneyland even was.  So we left the hotel that morning and drove to the Disneyland Hotel where we would be staying for the next 5 days.  We got our bags dropped off and then started the walk through Downtown Disney towards the park.  She noticed all on her own that the Lego store had a HUGE Lego Belle and Beast and Lego Prince Phillip fighting Maleficent.  She noticed the Tweedles Dum and Dee on top of the World of Disney store, and she noticed the Lion King characters on the signs as we went through the bag check line.  

Waiting to get into the park

We stood in line to get into the park for about 30 minutes and then once we got in the gate, Seth picked her up and explained to her that this is where Mickey and Minnie and Donald and Daisy and Goofy and Pluto all live and that we were going to get to meet them.  She kind of mulled this over, and we pointed out to her that the flowers on the hill in front of us were in the shape of Mickey Mouse.  We walked through the tunnel under the train, and there was Mickey Mouse standing at the circle at the end of Main Street.  We went to go get in line to meet him, but heard that he would be taking a break soon.  So we figured we'd save meeting characters for later, but just that moment Minnie Mouse was walking down the street.  She stopped and took Evie's hand, gave her a kiss on the cheek, patted her on the head and was off.  That moment right then, I knew Evie was experiencing every bit of Disney childhood magic that I'd been so excited to see her have.

Her face when she learned who lived at Disneyland.

So we went up Main Street.  Evie was fascinated by the horse drawn carriage and the double decker bus.  We point out the castle and then planned to go into the castle, but on the way we happened to meet Aurora.  At first, Evie wasn't sure that meeting Aurora was a good idea, but she saw another little girl meet her and get her autograph, so that encouraged her.

We stopped at the little shop in the castle to get an autograph book for ourselves and then went through the Sleeping Beauty story walk-through in the castle.  Evie was enchanted with parts of it, scared by some of the effects, and left the castle just a little unsure about whether that was fun or not.  Then we rode some of the rides in Fantasyland.  We rode Snow White first, which might have not been the best idea because it's a smidge scary, but I told her what was coming up and she seemed okay with it.  Then Evie saw the Dumbo ride and requested that one, then we did Casey Jr., the carousel, and Alice in Wonderland before lunch.

Classic Daddy/daughter picture

On Casey Jr.

We also met Peter Pan and Captain Hook, two of Evie's favorite characters.  She loves to play "Peter Pan" where she is either Smee or Hook, Seth is either Peter or the crocodile, and I'm whichever bad guy she didn't choose to be.  Meeting the characters was great and she walked right up to them, carried on a conversation with them, and asked for their autographs.

After lunch, we met more characters, mostly princesses, and rode a few more rides.  

We saw Pluto on our way out of the park and he was very funny.  He put her pen on his nose and made her get it off, which she thought was hilarious.

We bought a balloon on the way out of the park and on our walk back to the hotel, Evie had a moment which I think just shows the simplicity of childhood joy.

We had an early night since we skipped nap.  We got checked into our room and went to sleep about 8 pm.  The next morning we were off and running, chasing down characters for autographs, and riding more rides.  Evie specifically requested to ride the teacups and we went on Small World for the first time out of a few on our trip.

We did not take a stroller with us and Evie walked every step of the way without a complaint.  In fact, she still would skip on the way back to the hotel.  We went over to California Adventure after a nap on Tuesday and checked out some rides and met more characters over there.  We watched the parade while eating ice cream and went to Bug's Life which Evie was particularly impressed by.  She loved that we were under these giant clovers so that we felt like bugs.  Then we went back to Disneyland to watch the night time parade.  The parade itself was incredible, but even more incredible was this beautiful look on her face.

Wednesday we had planned to have breakfast with the characters.  We met went to Goofy's Kitchen which was in the building next to our hotel room.  We finally got to meet Chip and Dale who had been elusive til then.  In fact, Dale noticed that Evie was eating a cupcake (we had told them we were there to celebrate Evie's birthday, which is true in a way), and Dale led her over to the ice cream machine and helped put some ice cream right on top of that cupcake.  Evie loved it.

We spent more time in California Adventure that day.  When we went back to our hotel, we had a big surprise for Evie.  The day before we had bought Evie a stuffed animal Cheshire Cat (which she calls a Treasure Cat).  We didn't show her when we bought it and instead we had it sent to the hotel.  While Seth was helping Evie get ready for a nap, I hid the cat under Evie's blankets and pillow so that just the smile of the cat was showing.  She was so surprised when she went to the bed and asked who gave her the cat and said that he was her favorite part of the day.

We went back to California Adventure after nap and ended the day with World of Color, the night time show in that park, which Evie didn't care too much about.  It was a lot of clips of videos we couldn't quite see and had a lot of fire and Star Wars music.  But she loved the ferris wheel, the Toy Story ride where you have 3D glasses and get to play arcade games through the ride, the rocket ship ride, and The Little Mermaid ride.  Seth and I never spent much time in California Adventure when we would go there, so it was nice to see more of that park and it's the perfect pace for kids.

Evie got a little piggyback ride on the way back to the hotel for a nap on Wednesday.

On Thursday, we rode a double decker bus down Main Street and then rode Autopia and the Finding Nemo ride while waiting for our appointment time at the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique.  Evie was turned into a princess, courtesy of our friend Matt and his girlfriend Taryn, who were extremely generous and bought Evie a pampering package.  She got to choose a princess outfit, complete with crown and wand, had her hair, make-up, and nails done, pictures taken, and then was off for a special presentation to their royal highnesses Jasmine, Ariel, and Snow White.  Evie chose to be Aurora which was funny because Taryn and two of her friends who were also at the park were dressed up as the three fairies from Sleeping Beauty.

Turning into Aurora

We ran into Goofy outside our hotel building and he was a perfect knight.

After Evie and I got a little nap at the hotel, we met back up with Matt and Taryn, rode lots of rides, had a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar, and then watched the fireworks.  Evie loved the fireworks and especially the part where they projected different colors and patterns on the castle so it became the castle of different princesses.  She also loved the fake snow during the Frozen portion of the fireworks.

I love this moment between these two.

Today was our last day at the park, and we took it a little leisurely.  We sat through a timeshare presentation while Evie played in one of the most awesome playrooms I've ever seen, and for our time and trouble we received 9 fast passes and $100 in gift cards.  Then we went to the parks where caught autographs from a few stragglers: the Ducks Donald and Daisy, Alice, and the Mad Hatter.  We bought a few more souvenirs and goodies, rode a couple of the greatest hit rides including Big Thunder Mountain, Alice in Wonderland, Buzz Lightyear, and Autopia, using some of our fast passes to skip those lines.  We put our last fast passes to use for Space Mountain, which Evie wasn't such a fan of because she couldn't see what was coming.  Then Evie was interested in watching the river and feeding the ducks who were on the river bank, so we let her do that, and then headed out.  We drove up to Oxnard this evening and are staying with Matt until we go home next Wednesday.

This trip had the potential to be disappointing, considering how long I've been thinking about it, how high I had my hopes set.  But it absolutely met and even exceeded my expectations.  Evie was impressed by the magic, the rides, the spectacle, the characters, the story...  I was impressed by the expressions and joy on Evie's face.  It was magical for us both.