I love seeing children's dreams come true. It's even better when that child is your own. Bean has been talking about going to Disneyland since she was, no joke, 3 years old. She stated that on her 5th birthday that we would go to Disneyland. So that's just what we did. Initially the plan was to just take Bean and leave Boy at home with grandma, but as the trip grew nearer and Boy got older, we decided to take him along.
We flew out of Provo Airport. It seemed like a weird concept at first, but I absolutely loved it. I would fly out of Provo again in a heartbeat. It was just so much easier.
When we arrived, we settled into our hotel. S did some grocery shopping for the week while the kids and I rested. We found an awesome 'suites-only' hotel which did free breakfast and free dinner. Plus we had the advantage of packing our lunches to take to Disneyland. It was great.
The Beaches
Our first evening we made our way to the beach. Bean was as excited to go play on the beach as she was to go to Disneyland.
In fact our first experience was so great that we decided to do a repeat trip on our last evening. Boy was starving and he seriously ate way too many sand-covered snacks.
It was beautiful. Every time I am able to go to a beach I try and make a mental snapshot that I can retrieve at any given moment I'm back home in Utah.
The Rides
Bean and Boy love the carousel so they were ecstatic to find not one, but two carousels--one in each park. The second day S and I took turns taking the kids on King Triton's carousel while the other went on California Screamin' (which is, incidentally, one of my favorite rides of all time.) There was no line for the carousel so the ride operator let us stay on and ride over and over again.
While Bean was doing her first roller-coaster, Boy and I explored Toon Town.
Bean still loves Dumbo!
Boy was able to go on Luigi's tires in Cars Land. He was barely tall enough and it was a good thing too--this kid loved that ride!
I took a picture of The Little Mermaid ride because it was Bean's favorite and we went on it half a dozen times.
When Boy started getting cranky each day, S would take him back to the hotel for a nap and I got to stay and play with Bean. On our last day we did everything in Bugs Land.
The following was the last ride we went on.
(My Facebook friends have already heard this story.) At this point we had kind of 'persuaded' Bean to go on all the BIG and scary rides. She may or may not have been done with any ride that moved at all by the end of our trip. When I went to take her on Flik's Flyers, she saw that they went up in the air and she was like, 'no way, I am not going on that!' I knew she would like the ride once it started--she loves Dumbo and the Rockets in Tomorrowland. But, yes. She started to cry as I dragged her on the ride. And then, being an awesome parent, I decided to take a picture of the whole thing (trust me there are more.) Really it was just to show S what was happening, but as we looked at them later I realized they were too good to not share on social media. And by the way, I was totally right. The ride started, she realized it wasn't scary, and she loved it.
The Characters
Before we left on our trip, Bean and I found this awesome autograph book at Justice with Anna and Elsa on the cover. I told Bean that one of our Disneyland priorities would be to find characters and princesses to autograph her book. She was so excited! The problem was, every time we found one the first day and a half, they were leaving. She was so heartbroken!
Finally, on day two, we found Minnie's location and I turned into a stalker. The Disney cast member said Minnie would be back in 15 minutes, so Bean and I grabbed a seat and an apple and waited. I am so glad we did--this kid was in heaven!
After that we found some of her favorite princesses.
The biggest deal of our trip was getting in to see Anna and Elsa. I had no idea just how big of a deal these two are. (I mean I guess I kind of knew but still.) They have fast-pass tickets that usually go within the first hour of the park being opened--and even then there is no guarantee that you will get to see them before 8 at night! It took three attempts and finally, after waiting an hour before the park opened and then sprinting to get in line, I was able to secure tickets for us all to go and meet Bean's favorite Disney princesses of all time!
I knew Bean would be ecstatic but I didn't expect Boy to be as into it as he was. Even as we got home he picked up our copy of Frozen and pointed to Anna (who may or may not have flirted with him the whole time.) The look on Bean's face was worth the entire trip. I was so happy for her!
In case you didn't notice, Bean wore the same shirt the entire time we were there. Luckily the hotel had a laundromat. She really wanted Elsa to see her Frozen shirt and she was so excited when both Elsa and Anna commented on it!
Later that day we were able to meet some of my favorite characters. I love the Tigger picture!
The Magic
I love Disneyland decorated for Halloween. Here we are going into the park the first day.
One of my biggest anticipations was going to Cars Land, which is a new addition since the last time I was there. It didn't disappoint!
The biggest downer of the whole trip was that it was unbelievably hot. Like 105. The kids were having a really hard time with the heat. When it was only 1100 in the morning and Boy was already having a meltdown while S and Bean went on rides, I remembered that there was a splash pad in Bugs Land. It saved our day! This kid was drenched but he loved it!
The next day the same thing started to happen while S and Bean were going on Space Mountain but, again, I found a huge water feature which kept Boy, and later Bean, happy for an hour.
I told Bean early on in the trip that if she was good, she could pick out a toy to take home with us. After going on her favorite ride, she had to pick The Little Mermaid dolls.
I really struggled with our decision to take Boy. He was probably unhappy more than he was happy and it made our trip a lot more difficult than it would have been if it had just been Bean and us. But as I was going through our photos I found this one of Bean and Boy jumping on the hotel bed. They had so much fun together at the hotel! S and I decided all we really need to do for a family vacation is find a hotel with an elevator near the beach and Boy will be happy. So while I still wish that I had listened to my gut and left him home, I'm glad that he had fun jumping on the bed, drinking chocolate milk, and eating pizza at 9 o'clock at night.
It's hard to imagine that a trip we planned so long for is over, but if the last few weeks are any indication, Bean will never forget it! (And neither will we!)
