Disneyland, take 3

I'll change the dates on these old entries later, so they'll be in the right order on the blog. It's maybe silly to post them at this point, since I won't be able to remember many details of the trip, but I want them here for the record. This was Hazel's birthday visit to Disneyland a year ago, the week before she turned three.

As you can tell, it absolutely poured one day. It wasn't raining when we got there, but after Uncle Milton kindly drove down to join us for lunch, the heavens opened up and folks actually left early for the day. It was the strangest thing to see Disneyland almost deserted. We stayed for awhile, of course. What's a little rain? Hilary and I already had some dollar store rain ponchos on hand, but we had to dash in and buy one to cover Hazel in her stroller. Even though folks were running to leave the park, we still had probably a 30 minute wait for the Peter Pan ride. What is it that makes that ride so popular? It's probably the only Disneyland ride we've never gotten to walk right on to - the only one! On the other hand, we rode It's a Small World three times in a row - no line, so we just stayed in the boat and kept going. Afterall, it's probably the longest ride at the park (other than the train), and it was warm and dry inside. We'd just pop our hoods on for a few minutes until we got back inside and then take them off and enjoy the dry warmth. At that point though, Hazel had soaked through her second set of pants (her stroller seat was sopping wet), and the park was really almost empty. Funny... although folks were leaving, I don't remember seeing anything actually closing or employees herding anyone out the gates. Maybe Hilary remembers something different? Hazel still laughs about getting back to the car and putting her legs through the arms of a dry shirt to wear for pants. So did she have fun in the rain?

You bet - there's a big grin in there!

It was nice to have lunch at The Blue Bayou and watch the pirate boats glide by. Hazel's still way too scared to ride that one, but she liked watching other folks float by and she liked her pirate hat.

And the next day, the sun shone brightly again on the happiest place on earth. She loves to spin in the purple teacup!

I'm not sure why this ride is so much fun, when she can't see over the hood of the car and watches everything whiz by out the side window.

Waiting for the coolest parade ever - the Pixar parade in CA Adventure. She looks so silly with a binky, since we're binky-free now. Interestingly, I deflated both of these balloons and still have them. Maybe I should get them re-inflated and surprise her - sounds like a plan.

She really is easy to entertain. Why play with the balloon, when there was six feet of ribbon to play with? I'm not kidding - I complained about how long the strings were, but they have to be long enough so that the vendor doesn't get lost in the balloons while they blow about. Really?

And just to prove that we don't spend our entire visit at Disneyland, here we are playing at a normal playground. My very brave park rider is leery of the moving bridge.

This was an early climbing attempt - cautiously brave...