Disneyland Journal, Part 3. Young Lady In The First Row, Is That Your Brother?

As both the previous posts have been fairly lengthy, we will keep this one a little shorter. So, here we go:

8:00 a.m. - Wake Up. The excitement that causes people, especially children, to wake early full of nervous energy on a vacation has worn off, and the walking on concrete for hours on end exhaustion has started to set in. We all roll out of bed with this Disneyfied zombie look that says, "I think I would prefer to sleep for another four hours, but we are going to have fun today, even if it kills us."



10:00 a.m. - Arrive at California Adventure. First thing we do is make a break for the Soarin' Over California ride. I am going to take moment and welch on my deal for a shorter post by saying, I LOVE THIS RIDE. Reasons? 1. The music is some of the most relaxing music ever heard in a theme park. When I hear it anywhere, I automatically get a glazed look in my eye and the knots in my shoulders release just a little bit. 2. What other ride gives you the smell of pines when you fly over the forest, or oranges when you fly over an orange grove? True, if you are on the second or third row, it might allow you to smell the foot odor that can come with walking all day in a theme park, but I am willing to overlook that. 3. I love the sensation of flying. My brother-in-law Cody for his bachelor "party" went skydiving. I would totally do that in a heartbeat. Shannon has pretty strong feelings against that because she feels strongly I should not put myself in a position of dying while we still have four kids at home. But I love that feeling of flying. After this ride, we see it is going to be a busy day at the park and so we fast pass this ride because it is one of our favorites.



10:30 a.m. - While Shannon, Braden and Abby go on the Grizzly River (get soaked on a round raft) Ride, I take Logan into the huge play area with rope bridges. It is funny to me that this trip and the last trip included both my boys just loving the rope or "net" bridges. When we went there the first time, Shannon was terrified to walk on these, but both our boys just eat them up. Abby too for that matter.



11:45 a.m. - Abby is determined to eat at the Corn Dog Castle. They serve the largest corn dogs I have ever seen. She then sits in the stroller while I push it and eats her corn dog. Now that folks is livin' La Vida Loca.



1:45 p.m. - We stop for lunch and I finally get my clam chowder in a bread bowl. Having lost it the way I did the day before, I appreciate it just a little bit more.



2:30 p.m. - Logan has his transcendent moment of the trip. He gets to go with Braden and Shannon to the Playhouse Disney show. Here, he gets to see Mickey, Goofy, Handy Manny and many more in a show where he is invited to sing along and participate regularly. You must understand that Logan is the kid who when he goes to Library day, refuses to sing along or get involved in story time other than to listen. He wants no part of interactivity. Well, I guess Mickey and Handy Manny are enough to get him to shed his inhibitions as he jumped and yelled and sang at full volume through the entire show. He came out and couldn't get the words out fast enough about how good the show was. That is why you go to Disneyland.



3:25 p.m. - We ride Monster's Inc. We had not been on this ride before. It was fun but at the end, Roz is the last thing you see and the car you are in stops right in front of her. At this point, she said to Abby and Logan in the first row of our car, "Young lady in the first row, is that your brother?" Abby looks around clearly embarressed and squeaks out a "yes". "I thought so, you both have two eyes." My kids thought that was the greatest thing ever. They repeated that no less than 50 times over the next two hours. I have to say I am truly impressed how good at Roz's voice all three of them are, especially Abby. She makes me proud with the number of voices and accents she can do well.



4:45 p.m. - After 45 minutes in line, and being talked up by a giant Mr Potato Head, we ride the brand new Toy Story Midway Mania Ride. Awesome!!! I mean you are basically playing a video game in 3-D. How cool is that?!?! Unfortunately, we couldn't turn around and do it again, because as we mentioned, 45 minute wait.

6:00 p.m. - Leave park and go to dinner. In what is quickly becoming a tradition for my wife and I, I order something that is safe and a known quantity. Shannon orders something a bit on the unknown side. She then hates her meal and wishes she had gotten mine. I feel bad for her, but not enough to eat what she got nor give her my dinner.

6:45 p.m. - Tonight it is Braden's turn to go with Dad and he decides he would like to do pin trading. We buy him a lanyard, pins and a lanyard medal. He said it reminded him of getting a medal at gymnastics. Anyway, on the way home, he was so happy he was saying things like, "Everyone who loves their Dad, raise their hand." Then he would raise his hand as high as possible. Now that is a confidence booster. Never mind he was mad at me a mere half hour later, for now it was awesome. He also wanted to ride the parking tram. This probably added an additional 10 minutes to our journey and gave us the opportunity to walk through a darkened parking lot, but when your son is singing your praises the way he was, I would have ridden the parking tram to San Diego and walked back if he wanted me to. One of my best memories with Braden, hands down.

9:00 p.m. - Kids are in bed and as we knew we would before we ever went on this trip, we were in place and ready to watch Lost. That is commitment right there folks. However, I begin to notice that if I lay on the bed in the same position for too long, my bones, muscles and ligaments all begin to protest to the point I can almost hear them screaming. And we have three days left! I am glad I am young at heart. My body is telling me that might be the only young place I have left.