Finally the recap! Disneyland Day 1

Okay... it's taken me a month to get to this!!  This will be a little shorter than I intended since it took me so long to get it together!!

We started breaking them into the idea that we were going on a trip about a week before we left.  Without even knowing what "going to Disneyland" really meant, they were excited!  Whenever we see the Disney castle that shows at the beginning of Disney movies, Megan would excitedly exclaim: "Mommy, is that Disneyland?!"



The first part of the trip was flying down.  It was an early morning for us, but not unbearably so - up and out of the house by 5am. Karen and Megan have both flown before, but probably barely remember it (if at all).  Megan was probably more excited about the prospect of flying than Karen, but after takeoff they switched roles.  Megan immediately demanded that we be back on the ground.  After a worrisome few moments (for this Mom), she got past the point of looking like she was going to have a freak-out/tantrum and settled in for the flight.  We landed at John Wayne about 1:30pm and caught the Disneyland Express to our hotel.  The girls loved being back on the ground and were glued to the window.

Megan fell sound asleep before we got to our hotel, but as Carl gently lifted her (we were hoping that we could get her into the hotel and let her continue napping), she woke up and immediately demanded to go to Disneyland... an indication of what was to come! :) By the time we got checked in, semi-unpacked and settle in, it was about 3:30.  We decided to head to the park to check things out.

Monday afternoons at Disneyland, as we found out, are VERY busy.  We were taken a little off guard by the number of people, but quickly recovered.  We headed through the Princess Castle (which the girls LOVED) and found a line of people waiting to meet some princesses.  Our girls decided to jump in line and we started our Disney experience waiting an hour for them to get to do a meet and greet.  They did amazingly well in the line (once they learned the ground rules, they've never really been in a line like this before so had no concept about having to wait their turn!).  We attempted at one point to leave with the promise of coming back a different day.  Karen put her stubborn little foot down and demanded that we stay.  Even though it was a long wait, I'm glad we did.  They still talk about meeting Belle and Snow White (it was one of the highlights for both).

We then wandered into Toon town - Megan refused to ride the little roller coaster there, but Karen rode and absolutely loved it!  While my Mom waited with a sleeping Lauren, I took Megan through Mickey's house, Chip and Dale's house, and Donald's boat.  She was not impressed (the girl was tired and couldn't understand why none of them were home!).  I did get a smile out of her driving Mickey's car.

The next stop was the carousel.  My Mom, Tina, Carl, Karen, and Megan all went to ride.  Megan freaked out as soon as he put her on a horse.  He took her off, got Karen buckled onto hers, and then spent the entire ride listening to Megan cry that she wanted to ride a white horsey (by the time she changed her mind, there were no more horses left for her to ride).

By this point we knew that the kids were tired, we were all hungry - so we headed out to downtown Disney to eat.  Tortilla Joes... it didn't score that high with us.

The girls went to bed pretty easily and then Carl and I headed back out to enjoy an hour in the park before it closed.  We only managed to make it on Pirates of the Caribbean, but still enjoyed ourselves. 

Wow... that was long and only day 1!