We accidentally went back to Disneyland. It was Cole's fault. The guy who kept saying, "Why are we even going to Disney? It's going to be so expensive and the kids are going to be ornery and it's going to suck" when we went last March actually suggested we go again for fall break. And then when I reminded him that we'd have to sell a child to pay for it (I'm not saying it wouldn't be worth it... just stating the facts) he said he'd get a painting side job to pay for it. Did you catch that? Cole was so excited about going back to Disneyland that HE AGREED TO DO MANUAL LABOR. I was shocked. But not so shocked that I couldn't start buying tickets before he changed his mind.
Then I emailed my mom and told her we were thinking about going for fall break. She immediately emailed back, "I'm in! I'm all in!" It was a tough sell. She loves Disneyland more than anything.
We didn't tell the kids we were going back - we just dragged them out of bed on Wednesday and told Caulder he had to go to school early. It was the school's fall dance day, so we told him my mom was coming with us to watch him dance. But there's no fooling the Twist. When we got in the car he started making a list of clues about what was going on:
- Mom had a sotcas (suitcase).
- Wer hedeg in the drecshin uv the erpot and iduho. (we'er heading in the direction of the airport and Idaho.)
- Dad told me that wr goeg to the bigist librere in the werld. (Dad told me that we're going to the biggest library in the world.)
So we told them when we got to the airport that we were heading back to Disneyland, and their reaction was amazing: they both just froze and did absolutely nothing. It was totally anticlimactic. Stinking kids. (Side note: blogger is flipping my pics and I don't know how to fix it. Stinking blogger.)
Disneyland was just as magical as we remembered. The boys absolutely loved it, although Tukk is still just a couple of inches too short to go on the big rides.
This is the real reason we brought Yaya. Heh heh heh...
After getting up at 5:30 am, flying to California and spending all afternoon at Disney, they were tired. We experienced a little of this:
And a lot of this:
But then we tanked up on churros and everyone was happy again.
Caulder's new favorite ride is Splash Mountain. He got to ride in the front a few times, and he loved it. Once we even got to stay in the log and go for a second turn without waiting in line again... it was a Disney miracle.
I think he rode this ride 8 times while we were there. He couldn't get enough of it. At one point my mom said, "What happened to this kid? This has everything he hates: crowds, loud noises, scary stuff, and water. But he loves it." We think it's some sort of Disney-loving gene passed on by the Yaya.
Tukk loved every ride. I think Winnie the Pooh was his favorite. It's a totally messed up teeny kids' ride with heffalumps and woozles and strange spinning colors. I'm pretty sure it somehow took him back to the days when he was jacked up on morphine all the time, because that's the only way you could enjoy it. My mom said it's a testament to her love for the boy that she took him on it 3 separate times.
He also loved the carousel, and of course Pirates.
We took Caulder on Star Tours for the first time, and it blew his mind. He thought all the robots leading up to the ride were hilarious. He totally gets robot humor.
We boarded our "flight" and were told our ship had a rebel on it that Darth Vader's forces were gunning for, and then they showed a picture of Caulder up on the screen. CJ couldn't believe it! His reaction was classic. After the ride he said, "They probably said I was the rebel because they knew I would never join the dark side!"
Tukk was quite the crackshot on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster ride. Until he discovered that he could make the car spin, and then he spent the rest of the ride trying to make me barf.
Caulder's second favorite ride is still Thunder Mountain Railroad. I think he did this one about six times, and he even got brave enough to keep his hands in the air the whole time.
Tukk practiced his sweet climbing skills ON EVERYTHING. Every fake rock, gate, fence, sign... I'm surprised he didn't get us kicked out of the park. We finally took him to the tree house so he could climb somewhere it was actually allowed.
We also stopped off at the Lego store so our little junkie could get his fix.
He didn't really even look at any of the Legos you could buy - he just spent the whole time doing this:
Tukk (and, if I'm honest, Tukk's mother) had a churro beard pretty much the whole time. That's the best way to tell whether or not you're having a good time at Disney: the thicker the churro beard, the more magical the experience.
But our favorite part of the trip was Mickey's Halloween Party on Friday night. It was AMAZING. They had spooky Halloween lights everywhere, fog on all the water, giant lit-up Mickey ghosts. It was complete awesomeness. The kids got to wear their Halloween costumes and trick or treat, which they loved. After we hit a couple of trick or treating spots we realized EVERYONE was in those lines and no one was riding the rides, so we ditched the candy stations and starting hitting rides. We walked right on all the big ones... I think our longest wait was about 5 minutes. Plus we had a giant bag of candy. And, you know, some churros. We were loving it.
They do special Halloween fireworks, and no one does fireworks like Disney. It was an explosion of magical fantasticness.
By 11 that night this boy had nearly reached max Disney magic/churro/candy capacity. He was in serious lunatic stage, and we couldn't stop laughing at him. The dude is hilarious.
Tukk was super excited to get his glowing Mickey ears. Which you can almost see in this super crappy picture.
And then the crash came...
The force was no longer with this Disneyland Jedi.
And the Tukk was out cold.
Disneyland, you are a ridiculously overpriced, money-sucking, financial black hole. And you are worth every penny. Especially when I'm not the one who has to do the manual labor to pay for you. ;)
