a land of mice & men part I

disneyland: man, it took us forever to get there. we had it planned then cancelled. planned then cancelled. planned then cancelled again. honestly i was surprised when we actually got in the car to go. and man, it did not come at some expense. justin works in politics so naturally, election time is busy for him. despite that, the only time we could go was the night after the election. after he had been up for 24+ hours. after he had been working night and day. for months. what a trooper right? either way, i was up for it! we left bright and early at 5am and drove to ca. we had HOPED that the boys would fall back asleep. i was 1 for 2. landon was just so excited for disneyland, he was asking us if the strip hotels were disneyland. he was up for disappointment for about 5 hours. after several ridiculous traffic jams and some peed on pants, we finally made it. with landon falling asleep when we were 10 minutes away. we hadn't planned to stay on property but some things fell through so we had to book a hotel at the grand californian last minute. holy moley- i'm glad my kids don't want to go to college. we finally got in the park around noon and lived it up for a few hours before we all crashed. *please refrain from scoffing at my soccer mom necklace. it looks ridiculous but was really a lifesaver*

we started in tomorrow land and landon immediately adored the buzz light year ride- because it had guns to shoot aliens. of course. i had a few disneyland vets who had told me porter could go on almost everything and they were right. i was surprised what he could go on. he didn't really enjoy the rides like landon did- and man did he! it was so fun!

we got to meet captain america which was so exciting then landon got to play this video game [somewhat like the playstation kinect] where it put iron man's armor on you. it was so cool! i got a video that landon will no doubt blog about later.

the one ride i really wanted to go on was peter pan's flight- because landon just adores peter pan. the ride on wednesday was maybe 15 minutes. i thought that was too long so we waited- and ended up waiting 45 minutes. totally worth it. we were so lucky and the crowds weren't too bad any of the days that we went. my best and oldest friend kayla lives in so. cal and helped us plan this whole trip. she came and hung out with us wednesday and friday night.

it was super nice that she was there because justin and i were able to ride the cars land ride and then she was able to hang out with me once justin left. oh ya, did i mention that work somewhat ruined our family trip?? i know i should be grateful because it was an amazing trip but we spent a lot of money for things to not work out the way we wanted too. i am thankful he has a great job and he is such a hard worker- but it was 3 days. 3 days. i'm hoping after session we can try again for a family vacation where the phone doesn't ring constantly.

the second day we had a magical morning pass to disneyland which wasn't as magical as you would expect. they only had two lands open and they were abnormally packed since the rest of the park wasn't open. we still had some good times. not too many good times with characters though. we kinda had a suspicion that landon would be scared of all the characters- and he was. he did like peter pan, probably because he wasn't in a masked costume. for the record, he told me he wanted to meet goofy and we waited in the stupid line so i was GOING to get this picture. funny story: we were walking through main street and saw goofy and i said 'hey landon! look it's pluto!' and some bratty kid who was a good 30 feet away screamed out 'it's not pluto! it's goofy'. i realized my mistake right away and corrected myself. stupid bratty kid.

 to be continued....