Disneyland---what did we get ourselves into?

We traveled all day Sunday and got to Anaheim that evening. We were very pleased with the hotel we stayed in. It was very clean, spacious and comfortable. We took the shuttle over to Disneyland to pick up our tickets. The kids were so excited to be there that instead of going right back to the hotel we went into Downtown Disney and window shopped a little. We ended up going to bed at about 8:30 p.m. We were so tired that I think we all fell alseep pretty quickly. We got up at 6:30 a.m. so we could make it to the park before it opened. We waited in line for a bit before the gates opened. Ty could not understand why we were just standing there and not going in. When we did get in we went to the Pirates ride. The kids were excited until Ainsley realized how dark it was. She started crying and it took a lot of convincing that it was a fun ride. It turned out that she had fun, but it still scared her. Tyler loved the ride. We went on Splash Mountain and then we walked around the park a little more. We rode the train and went into toon town and rode the little roller coaster.

Here the kids are on the tea cups. I took the pictures and, as my sister Rachel knows, I couldn't look up from the center of the cup without getting really sick. After the tea cups, we went over to the California Adventure park. We saw the Tower of Terror and decided to give it a try with the kids. Ty was BARELY tall enough. We got on the ride and the kids didn't seem to have much trouble with it. It was so fun! When we got off Ainsley and Ty refused to go on it again and were getting pretty suspicious of doing anything else. In fact, they were begging to go back to the hotel. We were in Disneyland and they wanted to go back to the hotel to go swimming. We needed a break anyway, so we went back and headed for the pool which must have been 20 degrees. We didn't stay long. We went back to the room and let the kids watch a little t.v. When we were getting ready to go back, they didn't want to go! I couldn't believe it. It was our fault, though. We had made them go on so many scary rides and they hadn't seen that many characters yet, so they were pretty sure Disneyland wasn't as fun as they had been told.




After that, we decided that we brought the kids and we needed to make it fun for the kids. We told them no more scary rides and the rest of the vacation would be kids' choice. We had a better evening. We got to meet a few more characters. Tyler loves Snow White and the Seven Dwarfes so when he saw his favorite, Dopey, he had to meet him. He even got to meet the witch from Snow White.



Ainsley met Goofy while Ty was meeting Dopey. He was being so silly to the kids in the line and Ainsley was laughing at it all. She went right up to him and gave him a big hug. We got to watch the new Pixar Parade. They had all the Pixar characters and the kids had fun recognizing them and anticipating which one would be coming next.

After the parade, we headed back to the Disneyland park. We stumbled upon this little area where there were Snow White and the Seven Dwarfes statues and a little wishing fountain that played the wishing song from the movie. They loved singing along with the song and throwing money into the well. At the middle of the day, we were wondering if coming was a huge mistake but by the end, everyone was enjoying themselves and looking forward to the next day.