The Happiest Place on Earth

For many years, I have visited Disneyland and been annoyed. It's too crowded, too expensive, too much of a pain for me to have any fun. Maybe it's because my kids aren't very adventurous and all the rides they want to go on have had a four hour wait (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, a little).

In 2006, we went for Thanksgiving and Scott kept telling me that it wasn't crowded. "This is great! I don't know what you're complaining about??" Maybe it's the fact that Caleb has enough time to have three meltdowns before we can go on any ride, or the fact that people keep running into me. Maybe it's the fact that none of the children we have with us (my niece was with us, too) are willing to eat food that can be found in one location. Or that it's costing me a million dollars to be here. I just don't know...

But yesterday, we went to Disneyland and had a BLAST! We started the day by gorging ourselves on a tasty breakfast buffet with Lilo & Stitch, which Caleb LOVED (the characters mostly, but the food, too). We walked onto the rides (we even took a picture of the sign saying there was a 0 minute wait on Space Mtn!). We went with Caleb's godparents, which meant that everyone had someone to play with. Caleb's godmom is an organizational genius and brought great snacks that enabled us to postpone eating in the park until dinner, at which time they found a restaurant that provided food that accommodated everyone's dining idiosyncrasies. Fantasyland was navigable, even while pushing a stroller, and the kids were able to go on all the rides with negligible wait time.

We went yesterday because it was my birthday. We used to go to Disneyland for Nikki's birthday, but since it's in March, there are always hoards of people on Spring Break. Scott's birthday? Also in March. Caleb's is May-even worse crowd-wise since the rest of the free world gets out for summer vacation before California. Since I don't enjoy people making a fuss over my birthday (really, what is there to celebrate about getting older at this point??), this was the perfect way to spend it. Yeah! A new tradition. :)