Whew!

 What an exhausting, exhilarating, expensive, and emotion-filled experience!  A couple of weeks ago, we took the boys out of school for 2 days to go to Disneyland.  We have wanted to take them and knew it would be a necessary adventure since we live in CA, but we were hoping to avoid some of the crowds.  We hate crowds.  I'm not sure what it's like when school's out, but it was pretty crowded.  Talking to some of the people in line, some of the schools in Utah and Arizona (at least) were on fall break.  Maybe we caught a lot of fall breakers, or school skippers like us, or maybe Disneyland is just always pretty busy.  Understandable, because it's a kid's dream and there is so much to see and do.  You can't see everything in 2 days.  We probably experienced about 1/4 of each of the Disneyland Resort Park and Adventure Park next door.  We didn't go on any of the big roller coasters or Tower of Terror (Alex and I didn't want to stand in line for just one of us to do those when we were there for the boys to have fun).  It really is a magical place for kids and pretty fun for adults too, if you don't get too exhausted by dealing with kids (which we did).  It was challenging with 4, especially since Weston had to be in the stroller most of the time and Nathan was the only one tall enough to do all the rides.  Jared was still too short for some of them, which is sad because he's the brave one and wanted to go on them.  Nathan was more tentative, although he did go on the Indiana Jones ride with me.  His head was down most of that ride.  There was no way he was going on any of the big roller coasters.  Both of them did the raft ride at the Adventure Park and Splash Mountain and their very first roller coaster "Goofy's Flight School".  

We had to take turns taking Nathan and Jared on rides.  We took advantage of the fast passes, but it was still hard for Owen and Weston to wait for us to get done. Weston was quite a trooper, having to spend most of the time in the stroller.  When he did go on rides, it was hard to hold him for the 10-15 minutes or whatever the wait was, because you have to park the stroller and then stand in line.  Imagine trying to keep a toddler who has just been sitting in his stroller for 2-3 hours confined to the line.  He went on some rides like the caterpillar in "A Bug's Land," the Ferris wheel, Winnie the Pooh, and the carousel.  He seemed to like getting wet in the water play areas in "A Bug's Land" and wandering around "Innoventions" looking at the lighted blue floor.  It's tough to be too small at Disneyland.  Most of the rides were still too scary for Owen.  Even the mild story rides usually had a scary character in it, like Ursula in the Little Mermaid.  He got to the point where we would be walking, and he'd see something that looked scary.  He'd stop right there, frozen in place, and scream, "I don't want to go on that!"  Owen's favorite was probably Winnie the Pooh, but he also seemed to like the Dumbo ride, which I thought might be too scary for him.  He liked most of the things in  "A Bug's Land," although he wouldn't play in the water area.  Actually, I think Owen's most favorite thing of all was popcorn!  (We were just glad that he's still under 3, so we didn't have to buy a ticket for him.)

Speaking of "A Bug's Land," there is a show about bugs in that area that we tried to see.  Since that whole area is geared towards the younger kids, I thought it would be a fun show.  I tried to take Nathan, Jared, and Owen to see it.  When we got inside, they warned us it might be scary for the little ones.  I didn't know just how scary it would be.  It was a 3-D show, complete with effects such as air blowing on you.  You really feel like you're in the show.  The very 1st scene was a giant poisonous spider that shoots out venom at its prey, and "it never misses".  As soon as we got "sprayed with the venom," Owen AND Jared were both screaming in my lap.  I scooped them up and got out of there.  I have to admit, it was really scary.  I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed sitting through the show with spiders and bugs coming after me.  If you're ever at the Adventure Park with kids younger than about 8, DO NOT take them to see this show!

The 3-D show that we did enjoy was Star Tours, a motion simulator ride on a spaceship, where you feel like you're in a Star Wars scene - very cool.  The technology for these rides is amazing.  We also saw a theater performance of Aladdin - also really good.  Owen even enjoyed that one and wasn't too scared of Jafar.  I loved the World of Color show at night, with water, lights, and music.  Unfortunately, even though we got advance "tickets" for an area and sat there for about 45 minutes before the show started, we still couldn't see it very well.  I took a couple of videos of the ending (while holding Weston), mainly just so Alex and Jared could see it.  Jared seemed to have to go to the bathroom at the most inconvenient times - one of those times was the finale to the show. 

We stayed until about 10:00pm both nights, to try to get our money's worth.  That's a really long day for kiddos whose bedtime is normally 7:30.  We stayed one night at a cheap motel called Zaby's Motor Lodge, which turned out to be very convenient for us.  It was only about a 1/2 mile from the park, so we could walk to Disneyland AND it was only about $60.  They let us check in early on the 1st day and park our van there all day both days (even after check-out).  I thought it decently clean too - we'd stay there again, IF we go again.  I'm sure we'll go again eventually, but it was really exhausting - I compared the experience to childbirth.  You swear you'll never do it again, but then a little while later, you're right back there.  And look at us... 4 kids later.  I guess if we stopped having kids, our Disneyland experience wouldn't be so hard either, right?  Oh well.  Did I mention that it was 95 degrees on the first day?  Hot and crowded.  Just what you associate with amusement parks.  But now Alex and the boys can say they have been to Disneyland (it was my 2nd time, although the last time I was there was maybe 28 years ago.  When did we go Mom?) 

Anyway, enjoy the Splash Mountain pictures, especially the one of Nathan and me.  Love it.     

Can you read the captions under the character names?
Donald - "impatient, irascible and hard to understand"
Goofy - "sincere, good-natured and lovably bumbling
Pluto - "faithful hound and best friend"

Besides Nathan not being a "hound", those describe their personalities pretty well.