First Day at Disneyland

We made it through our first day at the Happiest Place On Earth. We went with Sarah's family (Kangs) and some of their friends (twenty people altogether). You'll see the Kang cousins in many of the pictures. It was so nice to have friends for our kids to enjoy Disneyland with. This is Beth and our kids' first time, so I'm happy to watch them enjoy it.

We spent the first 20 min getting autographs and pictures with a few of the princesses around Sleeping Beauty's Castle. The princesses lived up to their reputation for being friendly and patient with the kids, much to our delight. It's so much easier to enjoy the experience when your expectations are exceeded.

Later in the day we visited Pixie Hollow and saw Rosetta, who was very friendly and polite with the girls. Despite how much they enjoyed meeting her, they want to go back when Tinkerbell is there.

We took a while in Fantasyland and then Toon Town, riding a lot of the classic rides (Peter Pan's Flight, Tea Cups, It's a Small World, Gadget's Go Coaster, etc.).

The small kids in our group we split into buddies, which help keeps them from wandering off too much. John's buddy was primarily Grandpa :)

Not surprisingly, Everyone enjoyed those rides. But Britton and Elise went with the older kids on The Matterhorn and Big Thunder Mountain! That means next time we go back we can take her on Splash Mountain, and maybe even Space Mountain when it opens on Friday. Beth and I had a fun time on Splash Mountain (alone), and thanks to a FastPass it was a short wait too.

We stuck around for the Soundsational Parade on Main Street and were quite blown away. The kids got to see all the characters go by right in front of them. The coolest part (in my mind) was a personal greeting from Peter Pan, who in perfect character gave each kid a high five (he was tricky with Britton at first, moving his hand to the side). Unfortunately, by that time we had run out of room on our memory card and I was unable to capture that nice moment.

We started at 9:30AM and went until the park closed at 8PM. Let's hope we'll have enough energy to do it again tomorrow!

Update from Beth:

A couple funny moments to remember: When Princess Aurora told the girls that Ariel was just outside her castle, Lucy yelled "Ariel!" so excited to see her very favorite princess, but a bit like Aurora was chopped liver.

Britton sat next to me on the Nemo ride, which was very fun, but quite sedentary and in the dark. When we got up to depart our submarine she let out a huge yawn. Afterward she looked at me and exclaimed: I'm not tired! I'm not tired!

And all three of the kids were talking in their sleep last night. I heard Lucy ask to go on the caterpillar ride, Britton talking about the rides, and John making some of his cutest noises.