Sand should be renamed the devils dirt. It is literally everywhere and once it touches something, including your body, that thing can never be free of sand again. I have not found any amount of shaking, brushing, scrubbing, washing, rinsing, sweeping, or showering that will rid something/someone of devil dirt.
It is in our hair, under our nails, in our swim wear and clothes. In our bedding, shoes, ears, chairs, towels, shower, and all over the floor no matter how many times I sweep. Sometimes I bite down and it's in my mouth and we have not even been to the beach that day. It is in all the expected places and in far too many unexpected places.
If sand wasn't necessary for the ocean, I would never ever go near it. End rant.
Now onto the happiest place on earth. Well, unless you're my dad (he's in the middle).
Disneyland, CA.
We woke early and set out expecting traffic to hold us up for at least an hour. But luck was on our side and we sailed right to Anaheim. No stopping. Not even any slowing.
We were meeting my parents there and were miraculously able to pair up right away.
Being some of the first patrons into the park worked well to our advantage. We shot to the front of every ride for the first two hours. It was a far cry from the 70-90 minute waits I remember in Disneyworld.
First up was the Indiana Jones Adventure. The boys were totally jazzed to start with this ride. Particularly Samus and Lucas as they had started reading the Indiana Jones books. The ride was pretty intense visual and roller coaster. Some shell shocked little boys came off the vehicle. I don't think the were prepared for the level of storytelling or visual effects that Disney throws at you.
We decided to take it down a notch with the Jungle Cruise where almost all of the tour guides puns went straight over the boys' heads.
In an effort to further scar the children we took them on Pirates of the Caribbean and followed directly with the Haunted Masion.
There was a lot of little boy eye closing in the first hour of their Disneyland adventure.
We were still basically just walking into rides, so we made our way to Splash Mountain. It was still chilly when we splashed down and almost everyone got drenched. As you can see from the above picture, my dad does not really enjoy roller coastery rides. Which makes the rest of us delight in his misery. We are serious sickos. But you saw his face. Tell me that's not funny. At least he's a good sport about it.
And since Dar enjoys roller coasters so much our next stop was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Marcus and I rode with our hands in the air the whole ride. He is an awesome ride partner-always up for anything.
The first ride we had to wait at was the Matterhorn. But it seemed to go fast and was totally worth the wait. That damn snow yeti scared the crap out of me. I guess I thought the ride was just a mountain with bobsleds. Then. BAM! Yeti. BAM! Yeti. BAM, BAM!! Yeti, Yeti. Everytime he popped out I screamed. But it was fun anyway. And we got to laugh at my dad as he came off the mountain in the sled behind ours. The kids could barely contain themselves this time.
After having the life scared out of us, we decided food would be necessary. And, as usual we waited until we were ravenous when we ate so we stopped at the first kiosk selling food. The turkey leg and corn on the cob kiosk. Nothing rests your stomach like a turkey leg the size of your head. And Cheetos.
It appeared the days of jumping onto lines was over. Lucas was absolutely dying to go on Space Moutain even though I'm not sure he even knew it was a roller coaster.
Thankfully we had an hour to let our thanksgiving feast settle before we boarded.
Needless to say, my dad nearly died.
Also, even though the entire ride is in the dark, Samus and Lucas kept their eyes closed for the duration. It was my favorite ride. Had the wait not been 70 minutes in the heat of the day, I would have gone on Space Mountain over and over and over.
We managed to coax my dad onto one final ride: Star Tours-the adventure continues. We all had a blast on this one and Lucas was targeted as the rebel spy. I'm fairly certain the boys had no idea that the vehicle we were in never left its spot. And it didn't matter. We loaded up at the gift shop, where Samus got a book.
After the book purchase, this was pretty much the scene:
Eating ice cream
During the parade.
At this point it was hot. We were all beginning to melt. So naturally we each ordered more ice cream than we'd ever eaten before. And it was the best ice cream ever.
We browsed some shops, watched a Mr. Lincoln animatronic thing in an air conditioned theater, and held it together with a wish and a prayer through the daytime parade.
Samus and my parents had had enough of the magic, so they walked back to their hotel and took naps, while Jason, Me, Lucas, and Marcus rode the subs and Mr. Toads wild ride. We also ate a ridiculous steak dinner and then it was time for the night time shows. They were of course nothing short of spectacular.
We said goodbye to Disneyland. Everyone was beat and so we headed home where we slept like dead horses.
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