Trip to Disneyland and LA!

We drove and Nana flew and we all met at our hotel across the street from Disneyland. Driving for 8 hours with a three year old could be horrible but Skyler was so good and patient - getting out of the house was a different story but we got past that and only a couple of hours off schedule we were on our way!

We had three days in the Disney parks (Disneyland and the newer California park) and, I won't go into every detail, but let me touch on a couple of magical highlights…

One day as we were leaving the park to go back to the hotel for naptime, just inside the entrance to the park, we spotted Snow White and Cinderella sitting on a bench under a tree with a small group of 7 or 8 kids sitting on the ground in front of them. Snow White would say in a sweet little voice like in the movie “Now see if you can guess this one” whistling tunes from Disney movies while Cinderella encouraged the kids to guess what movie it was from. Whoever guessed correctly got to get up and whisper in Snow White’s ear the next song she should whistle and give the Princesses a hug.

Skyler got a couple of them right and got to guess again. All of the sudden Goofy came running up and got down on the ground right in front of the Princesses and the kids and like a silly pup rolled around on the ground. Skyler got up and went over to Goofy and Goofy grabbed him, hugged him, and sat him on his lap while the Princesses continued whistling songs. It was just too cute to see Skyler sitting on Goofy's lap all snuggled in and looking totally comfortable lounging in the giant dogs’ arms! It was one of the most magical moments of the trip. The shocking thing is that in a park full of thousands and thousands of people we got to sit there with just a handful of kids and two famous Princesses!

A lot of the characters that walk around the park, like Mickey Mouse, are in a big costume and do not talk, but more and more theses days they are just dressed and made up as the character and can talk and act like the person did in the movie. Disney picks very good actors to play the parts, and they are so dramatic in their EVIL with exact posture, attitude and expression or so Sweet with their gentle voice and smile. Besides the Princesses we also met the Wicked Queen from Snow White and Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmatians and they were so true to the movie, very wicked! We also met Skyler’s all-time favorite Buzzlightyear, Woody and Jesse, Mickey and Minnie and after each one he would ask why they didn’t talk.

I think we rode everything we wanted to a couple of times and we ended each night at the park with a Winnie the Pooh ride and a couple of times on Skyler’s (and ours) favorite ride the Haunted Mansion!

We ended our trip with a visit to Ahmee and Baba's in LA. Even though they just recently visited us it was great to see them, hang around the pool a bit and see those gorgeous roses! Danielle, Bob and Sequoia came down and we all got a chance to hang out. Sequoia is getting so big and she's so bright-eyed and adorable! I look at her and I see an older, wise woman that looks familiar but I can't quite place the face.