Frozen Moments: The Magical Kingdom

I remember being a kid and barely being able to sleep the night before a trip. Then mom and dad would gently carry me into a packed car and back out of the driveway. Well, now I find myself the mom in this scenario and it is a whole new type of fun.

Disneyland lived up to its reputation and we truly had a magical trip. It had a serendipitous start because we had unknowingly booked our flight on an inaugaral trip into John Wayne airport (vs. LAX). This meant Mickey ears for everyone upon check-in, Mickey and Minnie met us at the departure gate and we got tons of complimentary food before, during and after the flight. The best part? On-flight mimosas to toast the maiden voyage from Vancouver to Anaheim started our trip with the warm fuzzies. Once we landed we were greeted by Donald, Daisy and Goofy. R&B were suitably impressed.

Of course we had the mandatory bamboozle with our shuttle from the airport to the hotel...after waiting for forty minutes in 30 degree weather we suffered a four-year-old's tantrum and an overactive two-year-old was intercepted from running out in front of airport taxis more than once. I'm not mentioning any names. We survived it though...with style! We were lucky enough to have Grampa and Grandma and Uncle B join us for the trip. Grampa even had a "mini-me" for the voyage...

On to Ho Jo's! We stayed at the same hotel the very first time I went to Disneyland when I was ten years old. Let's just say that was many years ago. Things have not changed much and it is still a good place to stay - fairly close to the maingate, everyone has kids, awesome waterpark, we got a main level room which was great for stroller access...It was definitely decent.

"M-O-C-Q-Y M-O-U-C"
We saw a lot of these happy little faces...

Turns out that B thinks this is a smile...

The carousel was a hit with everyone...

The teacups were number one on R's to-do list and she rocked those giant cup and saucers - with a little help from Grama...

B was more than happy to just go with the flow - and he kept this hat on for the entire trip!

Gpa did a lot of the heavy lifting...

...but Gpa: "Were you afwaid of da wobot at the top of da Matahone???"

We were total posers...

I'm the cheap-skate who takes a picture of the picture they are trying to sell you...

We met all of the important characters - Donald was tops with B...

...and for R it was Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beaty...

In my eyes, these two were the best characters in the park...

The ratio of adults to children was 5:2 but somehow when I stopped to take this photo of my parents little Indiana Jones took "Adventureland" seriously and decided to do some exploring of his own in Tarzan's treehouse...

In a split second he was gone and I could feel my heart in my throat as I frantically tried to stay calm while I leaned over the bridges to ensure that my precious boy was not floating face down in the fake creek. It was about two minutes of not knowing where B had gone. I rushed down the stairs to make sure he had not wandered down. I then realized that he must have gone back up the treehouse and sent RKA up to look for our little monkey. He was located in the treehouse trying to bypass the line-up for the tarzan rope. Lesson learned - you can't turn your back for a second on this kid!

Despite bringing multiple wardrobe changes, B found himself dancing pantless in Downtown Disney one evening...somehow it seems to be working for him...