New Beginnings Day 4, Disneyland

Danielle, Darren and Lillian moved to the Disneyland hotel in the middle of the night. I woke up to Danielle calling to see if I wanted to go see their room before they had to check out. At the same time, Kyle knocked on the door to see if I was awake. Kyle, Kayla and I got ready and set off for the Disneyland Hotel. The room was much prettier than I was expecting. I am a big fan of dark wood, and there were a lot of little touches. Danielle, Darren and Lillian had to go back to Paradise Pier to get ready, and Kyle was hungry. Kyle, Kayla, Barksy (my stuffed dog), and I wound up going to Goofy's Kitchen to see if they had any tables available. They lady at the desk said it would be a 45 minute wait. Kyle really, really wanted the peanut butter and jelly pizza, so we put our name on the list.

Before I go any farther, I feel the need to explain Barksy so you don't commit me to the insane asylum. He is a stuffed animal that Kyle and Kayla gave me for Valentine's Day last year. One day, as a joke, I took him on a sightseeing expedition that I went on. ( The reason I am a travel nurse is to explore the world, so I go sightseeing a lot.) I posted our adventures on Facebook, and everyone loved it. A lot of my friends have younger kids who enjoy Barksy's adventures, so he appears quite often now. You will see him in the pictures if you look through them.

Back to Goofy's Kitchen - they called us before we got to take our picture with Goofy. We definitely didn't expect it to be that fast. The parade was just starting as Kyle and Kayla went to get their food. I was checking out facebook on my phone when Chip came over and scolded me. He grabbed me and dragged me to join in the festivities. I had a small smile on my face when Kyle and Kayla returned to the table which surprised them. We sat around and discussed whether we should check out and go somewhere else or stay due to the fact that we would just be losing our money anyway if we checked out. Yes, I was that fed up with Disneyland. Then the characters came around. The character interaction was really spectacular, and I even perked up enough to have an appetite. Shortly thereafter, a cast member named Mike showed up. I am not really sure what his specific job was, but that morning his title was "King of Laughter". He even put Barksy on his tray of drinks and had his picture taken with him. By the time we left breakfast, my attitude was "It's a new day. We're heading to Disneyland. Everything is going to be great!"

We went to World of Disney for a little shopping. While there, Kyle and Kayla found Star Wars tshirts. Hers was an outline of Leia which said "I love you". His was an outline of Han Solo which said "I know." I LOVED the shirts and bought them for them. They surprised me with a shirt that said "The Force is strong in my family."

We met up with Danielle, Darren and Lillian and headed into Disneyland. We were stopped at security for a random check. We had been stopped every time we went in, so this wasn't any surprise. Darren was checked for the second time. While the rest of us stood there wait, one of the security guards looked at Kyle's hair and said "Sir, you're looking a little blue today. You are at Disney. You should smile."
We all laughed and headed to the gate.

Danielle wanted Lillian's picture in front of the train station, so we visited the Photopass photographer. We were the second one in line. I was shocked that it was so short.

On the way to get our picture taken in front of the castle, we ran across Mary Poppins and Bert. We strolled with them while they signed Lillian's autograph book. Then we did the mandatory pictures in front of the castle. Lillian could barely keep her eyes open.

We are a Star Wars family, so of course Tomorrowland was our next stop. We helped Buzz Lightyear defeat the evil Zurg. I was surprised to see that you email your pictures to yourself now. We jumped to Lightspeed and landed on Tattooine, winning the podrace and delivered the rebel spy safely to the Rebellion.

Lillian was still asleep, so the kids rode the Matterhorn while I browsed through the mad hatter with the baby. A spin in the teacups was next where my oldest son and I won the race to see who could spin the fastest. We had built up an appetite, so we had lunch at the Village Hause. Then we flew over London, aimed for the second star on the right and went straight on until morning. Peter Pan landed the boat on our Small World. Darren had wanted to ride It's a Small World with Lillian. She woke up just in time to find out that the world is full of laughter. I was really amazed at how much she LOVED this ride. She couldn't look at everything enough. We disembarked and headed to the wild west.

Boarding our mine train. I got to ride with my oldest son this time. No Disney trip is complete without me riding Big Thunder with Kyle. He makes me laugh so hard that I can't even breathe. It is just a tradition now. I know it seems like a small thing, but it was the world to me to do it again.

I was laughing so hard that we decided to visit our laughing place. Lillian was getting sleepy again while she and I waited. By the time, the baby swap ride was finished, she had fallen asleep. I took her back to the hotel room where we both napped. Eventually, Danielle and Darren came back to the room and got her. I slept until about 8:30. At that point, I got up, went to Downtown Disney and picked up tacos and nachos from Tortilla Joe's from everyone. I also did most of my packing, since I had to leave for the airport at 10 am the next day.

The rest of the gang stumbled in after the fireworks, and we sat up talking for a while. It was going to be an early morning the next mo rning, so we turned in for a much needed good night's sleep.