Life as a Yowler

Well I have a new favorite Disney park……Disneyland. What a great time we had yesterday!!! It was a great way to spend Mothers Day. Everything from the weather(the high was only 72), the size of the park, the different characters and rides, and atmosphere was great. Disney land averages 15 thousand less people each day than Disney World. We went on a Sunday, and on Mother’s Day at that. We were a little worried. When we planned this trip we didn’t consider that we would be going to do Disney on Mother’s Day. Honestly we never waited in line longer than 20 minutes. The weather in California was perfect. The Florida  heat really takes it out of us Michigan’er’s. Half the park experiences we’ve had I’ve been pregnant. Then the Florida heat is really difficult.

I told Brandon I had one goal and that was to have the kids meet Moana. We have met every princess except for her.  Brandon was making fun of me all day, saying that I’m having just as much fun as the kids. We disagree about what we should spend our time doing in the park. Brandon is all about every ride. I am all about letting the kids meet every character. So we’ve learned to compromise and try to do both things….rides and characters.

Bethany was with us to help. She was very very helpful. That extra adult makes such a difference with babies and older kids. There were way more family rides than at Disney World. The entire family was able to do lots together. We always go to these parks with the mindset of “let’s do as much as we possibly can and not worry about schedules or naps.” We push the kids to the max. We try to do everything humanly possible in one day. We don’t hardly rest. I pack tons and tons of snacks. We eat lunch and dinner, but we choose to grab something quick. I would rather not waste time eating a long meal. We basically shove food down ourselves then move on. We stay until park closing time.

May one point in time at 10pm Brielle was laying on the ground falling asleep on and off. We kept waking her up each time the line would move. Bethany felt sorry for her so she held her.

There were so many differences between land and world. The rides were very different. We went on this really cool submarine ride. It was literally a submarine that took us under water and we saw the nemo characters. It was extremely hot and stuffy in the submarine. Caed took the opportunity to poop his pants. He pooped at the very beginning of the ride of course. It was a 20 minute ride. Everyone got to experience the stench. I whispered to Brandon and Bethany. “Shhh. Just don’t say anything and no one will know this is us.” The ride was full of small kids so it could easily be anyone. Joah missed the memo. He very very loudly goes, “oh mom Caed definitely pooped. It reeks and that is definitely Caed.

This is just one of the many many rides we went on that was very unique to Disneyland.

We had the coolest experience with Tiana. She has a river boat ride in the New Orleans part of the park. We were  all sitting waiting for the boat. Brielle had to use the bathroom so Bethany rushed her. Just as they left the boat pulled away. I was so bummed. The boys and Isla met her. She signed 4 autograph books so she asked who was missing. I told her the story and that Brielle would be so bummed to miss her. I asked if she would ride the boat again, and told Tiana I would bring Brielle on the next ride. When the ride came to an end, Bethany was standing right there. Tiana came and asked me if that was Brielle. She yelled down from the boat “Brielle, wait right there for me.” She ran off the boat and hugged her and talked to her for awhile. We were all in shock, like “did this really just happen or were we dreaming?” It was too cool. We thanked her over and over. She really went above and beyond.

We’ve learned the way to ride every ride we missed throughout the day is to go right after fireworks. Most people leave after them. We had a good 1.5 hours of getting on and off rides in about 5-10 minutes. We rode every single ride in fantasyland in that 1.5 hours. The kids favorite was the Peter Pan ride. They had so many rides Isla could go on. She was having a blast. She was so alert and just watching everything. Everyone slept like rocks last night. We had to wake everyone up for day two of Disney today. We are on to California Adventure.