Disneyland/Kauai Adventure - Part 2

I often find myself wishing I could just bottle up a moment to remember it and save for later. Going to Disneyland with my 3 sweeties, much to my surprise, was one such moment. I was quite skeptical, given the ages of our kids, that it would be a waste of money as 1) they have only seen a grand total of about two Disney movies and 2) we literally had to you tube the word “rides” to show Isla what we’d be doing all day. She was thrilled nonetheless and her delight with the experience was contagious.

 

We didn’t really censor anything (as shown by the fact that the first ride we went on what Snow White’s Scary Adventure – I’d forgotten how scary that ride is! It’s name should have clued us in but it didn’t…) Afterword Isla asked “Was that ride a little scary?” We took her on Pirates of the Caribbean (again I’d forgotten how disturbing some of the scenes are) and I did my best to lighten the mood by saying things like “look at them throwing fireworks at each other!” In the end, this was her very favorite ride and she even put her hands in the air for the drops. She kept telling us absolutely adorable things like “I’m not scared because I’m so brave.” For some reason these comments made me love her twice as much as before, if that was even possible. We even took her on the Haunted Mansion ride. There was really no lightening the mood on that one but I tried nonetheless: “Let’s try and blow out all the birthday candles!” and “Wow, someone really needs to clean this house! Look at all the spider webs.” Even still, she was really brave (and continued to tell us so). 

The highlight for Graham was taking his two daughters with him on the teacups. They were hooting and a hollering and all three had their hands in the air. I’m pretty sure this was Emma’s favorite as she kept saying "teacup! teacup!" throughout the rest of the day.

Dumbo was also a big hit as was the carousel, for Isla at least. Emma wanted to be rescued from the ferocious horses I guess.

We got the spend the day with the Himes family who we hadn't seen since Christmas. They are Disneyland pros so they showed us the ropes and were all over getting us fast passes.

I was pretty disappointed that Isla was literally a curl too short for Splash Mountain. I think she would have done great on it! Graham and I went and got completely and totally soaked. I know, I know…I’m pregnant. I talked to my doctor and he left it up to me to do what I felt my body could handle and Graham said the ride was no more impacting than my driving (hey now!) so I just sucked it in and acted casual and there you have it. My only regret is not going on it again!

The girls both had a blast being able to "drive" the cars on Autopia.

Most of us ate Mexican for dinner; Emma on the other hand drank it. 

We arrived at the park when the gates opened and stayed until after 11 PM. Emma, who’d only taken a 40 minute snooze all day found a second wind and literally walk/ran the entire mile back to our hotel WHILE PUSHING her asleep older sister in the stroller. It was awesome and we received numerous comments from fellow walkers that the situation appeared reversed.

After a hard last year of grad school, this much-needed day of family time refreshed me to no end and I’ll cherish these sweet memories.