Home from the Happiest Place on Earth

It's true, Disneyland is one of the happiest places on earth. They are really happy there. I was astounded by their attention to detail. Everyone we ran into, no matter what position they held, were polite and kind. I have to tell you one thing, right off the bat, I could NEVER work at Disneyland. I simply could not be that nice, all the time. [Seriously, ask the people I live with, they'll vouch for me for sure]

But for my sake, and my kids sake, I'm really glad that there are that many people, willing to smile and be kind to everyone they encounter. In fact, I'm pretty sure Madelyn came back with a bit of a swelled head. Everyone smiled nicely at her and called her a princess... [Upon our return, that came to an abrupt stop] We had a great time. The weather was great. The park [although busy as an ant hill] was great. The rides were great. We met characters, took lots of pictures, went on lots of rides. We figured out Fast Passes. We were finally able to visualize what it looked like to have 2 parks across from one another. We saw how the Downtown Disney area fit into the equation. We saw the laser show and the fireworks. We watched the parades. We re-went on our favourite rides. All in all, we couldn't have had more fun.

One thing I'd researched and knew about ahead of time was the Disney Photopass. There are dozens of photographers around the park, at any given time, and you can have your picture taken by them. They take your picture, scan a credit card type thing, and return it to you. This allowed me to be in numerous photographs [in fact,these photos will prove that I was on vacation with my family!] This was a no brainer for me, and we have lots of pictures to show for it, so fun. It also took a lot of the pressure off taking pictures all the time, though my camera was never very far from reach.

Disneyland had been transformed for Halloween. It was neat to see. Some of the rides were catered specifically for Halloween [the Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain] there were meet and greet with villains [we met 3!] There was the Main Street Pumpkin Festival [over 300 different carved pumpkins] Here are just a few pictures:

Look at that, even I'm in the pictures this trip! And imagine running into Tinkerbell there! How lucky were we?

This was the Jedi Training Academy, we tried this 3 times, until the kids were chosen to participate... The battle against good and evil. Mason got to battle Darth Vader, while Madelyn was up against Darth Maul. Both won't forget this experience for a long time.

Here we are with vacation Mickey. Madelyn's most favourite mascots are Chip 'n Dale. We luckily found them, and got a picture! And then there's Woody... He's much taller than I thought he'd be!

The kids were at the perfect age for this trip. I couldn't imagine them being any younger. We went hard for a whole week. I'm not kidding, we did 12 hour days. We walked and walked and walked. There was no complaining. Little girl had to be carried on Barry's shoulders a couple of times, but both of them did great. We did nearly EVERY ride in both parks. It was awesome. I was suitably impressed by both kids.

Having said that, the next vacay, will be just the Mummy and Daddy... :-)

I'm happy to be home, and I can't wait to put a little scrapbook together of our Disney Adventure.