So many great pics from this day, and just couldn’t relinquish any more to the cutting room floor. So, this is Part I – the day up to the nap!
We had fun at California Adventure…but we had SO MUCH FUN at Disneyland! Selah LOVED it. Here’s the day in order…
First off – thanks to Grandma & Grandpa Smith, we stayed the night at one of the Disney hotels, which allowed us to get into the park an hour early (before it opened to the public), and to take the monorail directly into Tomorrowland. That was key to the experience, and highly recommended for future trips. No pics of the monorail due to our haste in getting on with a stroller and about a thousand articles of unorganized baby gear, but safe to say that Selah enjoyed the ride.
First stop was the “Finding Nemo” submarines. This is the old submarine ride, and to be honest, was not much different than the old ride save some encounters with Nemo, Dorie, and the sharks. “Fish are friends, not food!”. She sat on Daddy’s lap, and definitely enjoyed seeing the familiar characters from one of her favorite movies.
The second ride attempt was the Buzz Light Year ride, and had the serious makings of a breakdown with gigantic robots with lasers and black lights everywhere – not to mention the extremely loud conditions. However, we were poster children for the difference that a child’s mood makes in enjoyment (ie. A Bug’s Life Spider from the previous day was after little to no sleep and a terrible mood after driving 4 hours, and Buzz Light Year thankfully was after a good night’s sleep, and a wonderful mood after waking up and immediately requesting Gramma, Grampa across the hall!).
She rode the ride with Grandma and Grandpa in the car in front of us, which was fun to get to watch. And by watch, I mean the 5 seconds that Jesse and I stopped competing to view our daughter (in a completely scary ride, this just demonstrates that the level of our competetiveness apparently supercedes our parental instincts)…who knew that the lazer guns in the car actually gave us points when we hit targets?!?!! Everyone is lucky that we only realized this about halfway through the ride, and did not make the group stand in line for us to “redo”.
Waiting for the ride:
I have a gun and I’m not afraid to use it!
The obligatory family shot in front of the castle to Fantasy Land:
Daddy and Selah being silly together, the norm ;):
Dumbo had to have been our longest wait of the day. Luckily, Grandma and Grandpa had the brilliant idea to wait in line for the ride, while we played with Selah, only doing the “handoff” in the last leg of the famous Disney switchback lines. Thank goodness. Her will to ride in the little elephants miraculously lasted the ~40 minute wait. And mommy and daddy proudly watched our brave little flier ride with my parents. I must have held down the shutter release the entire time because I have more pictures from Dumbo possibly than our entire trip combined, but I attempted to choose a representative series for your viewing pleasure.
Selah at the wheel (OK, more accurately, “knob”):
It’s a Small World came in between, but none of the pictures turned out for that. Selah loved it though – the singing, the characters, the dancing. It was a success, even without Grandpa who cleverly opted out of the Longest-Ride-With-Music-On-Repeat-Known-To-Man.
Up next, Toontown. Which was sort of a bust. Selah really wanted to meet Minnie. However, the line for greeting her favorite Minnie Mouse was 30 minutes long, and just when we got in line, Minnie went on “break”. This took the steam out of Selah’s sails (OK, mine), and we both had little energy to “encourage” her to wait longer for Minnie. However, convincing a very tired two-year-old that she can’t meet Minnie, and explaining the line situation, just wasn’t happening so well. So, we settled for a picture with Minnie’s mailbox (turned out bad so not wasting your time), and a distraction by playing on a firetruck with Grandpa. Much cuter pictures (I highly recommend clicking to enlarge and viewing her adorable face – and of course I’m not biased as her mother), and less of a wait:
Also to lift her extremly tired spirits, Daddy purchased a Mickey ice cream bar. Here’s the Before and After damage shots:
Before:
After (clearly):
If only we all could pull off “ice cream face” so easily, right? 😉
A quick stop for lunch ended in the inevitable nap, where daddy laid her in the stroller for a short power snooze to recharge:
Stay tuned for part deaux, the rest of the day (technically, just at Disney – minus the car ride to Vegas – we are all trying to erase that from memory!).
Seeking Joy With the Wheelers 