Disneyland!

I took C to Disneyland the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We went with my mom, my brother, his wife, and their two kids, Bryan and Arin. I hadn't taken C to Disneyland before now because: 1. it costs so dang much ($50 a ticket!) and 2. I wanted him to remember the trip. Personally, I hadn't even been to Disneyland since I was in high school and everybody that I talked to said that park seems so much smaller than when we were kids...

However... in typical Matt fashion, not only did we go to the park, but I also decided to buy annual passes for both C and I ($150 each!). You see my logic here was very simple, with two day tickets, I was already one third of the way there. Why not just nut up and pay for the whole thing! That way, C and I can run over to the park on Sundays for a few hours, while Emmy naps. You get three hours free parking at Downtown Disney, then you get to ride the monorail into the park! What's cooler than that? Yes. I am robo-dork dad.


The first ride that we went on was Star Tours. The look on C's face was priceless as he struggled to figure out why there was a real life C3PO and R2D2 moving around in front of him. Some of the questions that he asked me were... "Why are they taking away parts of R2D2 on a conveyor belt?" or "Who's Admiral Ackbar, daddy?" Totally rad. He was in Star Wars heaven. We got on the ride, strapped in, and away we went. During the ride, I could tell he was a little bit nervous because he was holding my hand pretty tightly. Afterwards, I asked him how he liked it and he said. "I was a little bit scared but I liked it." Perfect!


The next ride that we went on were the Teacups. We decided to ride them because we were waiting for our fastpass time for the Buzz Lightyear ride and the line was pretty short. I think that this really was the "hump" ride for C. He was extremely wary at first and didn't want to ride, whereas I was totally amped. Once we got on, and I started churning that cup back and forth, he started to laugh and have a good time. After that, we hit Buzz Lightyear, and it was pretty much smooth sailing from there.


Some more highlights

Listening to C sing "yo-ho, yo-ho, the pirate's life for me!" on the Pirates of Carribean.

The Haunted House, which was redecorated like the Nightmare Before Christmas, which C watches 3x a day

Running through the kid-sized tunnels of Tom Sawyer's island with C, just like Radies and I used to do back in the day.

Watching C watch the Fantasia watershow and having him ask "How do they make a dragon on the water?"

C's reaction to hearing the Star Wars music during the 50th anniversay fireworks show.

Seeing the faux snow falling on Main Street as we were leaving and still getting that cheezy magical Disney feeling

So there it is. All in all, C did an amazing job. We stayed at the park for 12 hours, from 10-10. Pretty amazing for a 4 year old's first visit. Of course, it REALLY helped that we had Arin and Bryan there to help carry him when he got tired, but the little dude had an amazing time.

Picts here