We went to Disneyland over President's Day weekend. We picked up Cayden after school on Thursday and we were all packed up and ready to head out. I should have videoed his reaction when we told him what we were doing. To say that he was excited is an understatement! He was laughing and screaming and whooping and hollering all in one breath over and over again. He has been asking to go back to Disneyland for a long long time and we finally just did it! We didn't get to our hotel until about 9:30 and Kyle had a nice long nap in the car on the way down so he was a little wired when it was time for bed. It was hard to get him to go to sleep and we were trying to keep him quiet because of the other people around us. Thankfully it was only the first night that he gave us trouble going to bed because the other nights he was just so tired that he was no trouble at all. We stayed at the Hampton Inn close to Disneyland and we were able to ride the shuttle to the park and back. We had to haul the stroller so that made it a little more challenging but it was definitely worth it to have our own for Kyle. We like to stay at Hilton properties because Don has points he can use to help pay for the rooms and they usually have a free breakfast! That helps make everyone a bit happier. On the way out of Vegas I bought Kyle this owl backpack thing with a long handle so that he could get out and walk some with out running away and getting lost. Best $9 I ever spent. I got the occasional dirty look from some people who must have thought it was mean to have him harnessed but I am sure they would feel differently to have their 2 year old lost in Disneyland! There were several mothers who talked to me in various lines asking where I got it. Some of us think on the same wave length!
Our first stop when we got to the park was to see Pluto. Cayden convinced himself that he was not going to be scared of the characters this year and he did really good. He did go up to them but wanted to stay a good arms length away from them. Kyle on the other hand had no qualms about running up to all of them. In fact he was not a fan of waiting his turn. I just loved seeing his face whenever we would see someone. Taking a 2 year old to Disneyland is hard but very fun too. We got other pictures from the Disney people where they give you a card that you can hand to the photographers around the park and they will take your pictures but then you have pay for them! I didn't want to pay $15 for 2 4x6 photos.
We started the day over in Fantasy Land and Kyle rode the carousel and Dumbo, Snow white, Pinocchio, and Mr. Toad. The line for Peter Pan was long so Cayden and I came back later. When we did come back we still had to wait 45 minutes and Kyle fell asleep on me. I carried his dead weight inching so very slowly to the front of the line. At one point I had to ask someone in front of me to tie my shoe because I couldn't put him down. Unfortunately waiting in that line was when the sun was in the worst possible place for me to be holding 30 pounds of sleeping baby. It was terribly hot and I almost thought I was going to lose it! We took turns splitting up a little but mostly Cayden, Kyle and I stayed together so Don and Caleb could ride Space Mountain and the like. It was so incredibly crowded but the weather was lovely. Cayden was a little disappointed because Small World was closed and over where Pirates and Splash Mountain are was ridiculously crowded and Splash Mountain and Big thunder Mountain were closed. That made it much worse for the lines for Pirates and the Haunted Mansion. We had checked the schedule though and that week was the best one to go as far as what was going to be closed down the rest of the spring. We really didn't have another weekend we could go anyway.
We loved Cars land! On the second day we were there, we hurried to California Adventure and then handed Don our passes so he could go and get fast passes for the Cars ride. The fast pass line was almost 30 minutes long and we had heard that if you don't get them first thing in the morning then they run out and you then you have to take your chances with a 1-2 hour wait in the line. Luckily we got the fast passes and were able to go on the ride later in the afternoon. I was bummed out though because Kyle was not tall enough to ride that ride. Because we all couldn't ride together they gave us a family return pass so Don, Caleb and Cayden rode the ride while I waited with Kyle and then Cayden and I rode it after they got out. We did that on Soarin as well. It makes it nice though too because the second riders don't have to wait hardly at all even if the fast pass time is up.
I didn't want to spend $15 on mouse ears so we just took a picture!
This was so sweet when he ran up to Jesse! She had on her hat and he pointed to it and said "you hat". The guy who was Jesse's escort gave him his hat to wear and then Jesse gave Kyle a kiss.
We ate lots of corn dogs, chimichangas and chicken nuggets. We tried to stay under budget by not eating at any of the sit down places. I missed my monte cristo but didn't miss the $100 it would have cost to feed us in Cafe Orleans.
We waited over and hour for Toy Story but decided that we better just do it. Kyle was quite well behaved. There were some awesome parades that Cayden, Kyle and I watched and we enjoyed the fireworks as we were leaving the park. Cayden was disappointed that we couldn't watch Fantasmic because they had some technical difficulties getting it going. I think we were there the first night it had come back from the winter break. We waited in our spot for over an hour and a half but that 's what Cayden wanted to do. I was amazed at how many people were there and by the end of the second night we had had enough of the crowds so we left around 9:00 and went back to the room and Don and Cayden went around the corner and picked up Little Caesar's pizza for us. Another way we stayed under budget was eating at expensive restaurants outside the park too. It was a fun time for all of us. In case you were wondering where Connor was, he didn't want to go again. He just really does not like Disneyland, or leaving the valley, or driving long distances, or crowds or lines etc etc etc.
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