Disney!!!

Our surprise trip to Disneyland was fantastic! After taking the ferry back from Catalina, we stopped at the Queen Mary before driving into Anaheim. We hadn't told the kids about our plan. So we're driving through town, there are Mickey ears and the word Disney everywhere and we're asking the kids to guess where we are going - nothing, no clue. Finally, they put two and two together and the happy screams begin! I have the best video of it if I can ever figure out how to upload it.

I'd read about this amazing program called RideMax. You input your Disney parameters - times of visit, rides you want to go on, breaks, etc. and it spits out a to the minute schedule. Well, I hadn't put it together before we left and we didn't have a laptop with us. Thank goodness for Cabrini who spent hours on the phone with me to tweak our schedule. We had a minute by minute schedule of our day at Disney. This prompted a sleepless night for me as I pondered, fretted and worried about how on earth I was going to get the family to the Peter Pan ride by 8:03 when the park opens at 8. I dreamed about the schedule and awoke with a start gearing up for the day. A key point with the schedule, arrive early. Nathan scoffed when I said I plan to wake the family up to get to the park. Note the picture above on the shuttle - it's still dark out!
If you know us, you know that we normally are not the first in line - anywhere. We can game up though and note, us grabbing the gates ready for entry.

A clear view of the park! We roared through our schedule and it really was perfect. The entire morning we had nary a line. We did learn that Maddie preferred quiet rides and Theo loves roller coasters. Nathan became a convert to the schedule and realized the importance of waking early to get to the park.

My favorite line of the day. A mom with a new baby in line at Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Me: How old is your baby? The mom: 5 weeks, it's her first visit said in complete seriousness. Really, because who brings a small baby like that to Disneyland? We also met kids who were on their 20th visit! Crazy.

Unfortunately, we didn't get the Mr. Sanders Pooh car.

We had lunch in the New Orleans restaurant serenaded by great music.

We'd scheduled rest time. Gabriel was in the middle of an almost four hour nap so Nathan took Maddie and Theo back to the park.

This was pretty much Gabriel's expression the entire time at the park.
Theo did go on Space Mountain. Would he do it again? No! It was at Space Mountain that I learned the beauty of the guardian pass. Because we had a child unable to go on all the rides, I was granted a pass to "get to the front of the line" for rides. Little did I know that you really got to the front of the line. I went through the back entrance and barely breaking my stride hopped on Space Mountain. We ended up riding almost all the rides that we wanted to. We were amazed at the crowds especially after 3pm and wondered if Disney ever cuts off attendance (we found out they do).

Both kids loved Peter Pan. Maddie's favorite was It's a Small World and Theo's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

We stayed at the park until 11, catching the firework display but missing Tinkerbell. It was an amazing, exhausting day. I can't imagine doing a week of it. But, we caught the magic and will surely do it again someday.