After Christmas, we abandoned real life and went on a trip to Disneyland. Scotty and I went to Disneyland for our anniversary last May, but our kids hadn’t been since December of 2019 (with the exception of Nicky who went for theatre last year). We were excited to go again as a family.
Real Quick
When we first walked into Disneyland, I told my kids to stand in front of the big Christmas tree “real quick” for a photo. I always say “real quick,” and then it’s never real quick because Eva always puts up a stink and either refuses to be in the photo altogether or won’t cooperate with her face (see exhibits A & B below).
This time, for what might be the first time ever, all four kids gathered, posed, and smiled, and we did “real quick” for real! They can do it! It is possible!
The Nap
Ho, ho, ho! Ho, ho, ho! Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!
Birthday Churros
Our friend Mark sponsored churros for my birthday. Thanks, Mark! That was fun and thoughtful.
Feed Bags
I tried to change up our food routine by bringing some new food into the park. You can only eat so many sandwiches… so one day I brought chicken pasta salad, and another day I brought spaghetti noodles with parmesan, which we ate out of Ziploc bags while waiting in line. It gave us a good laugh, especially since the kids kept dropping spaghetti noodles all over the ground, so we left a pasta trail throughout the entire Matterhorn queue.
Park Food
We take a ton of food into the park, but we also buy some goodies there. We share a lot of park snacks. This time we had churros, ice cream, sourdough bread, mozzarella sticks, chicken tenders, breakfast chimichangas, regular chimichangas, Tigger tails, beignets, and a lot of Coke.
Buy Your Own
We’ve purchased souvenirs for the kids in the past, but this time we told them we weren’t sponsoring any, so if they wanted something, they had to buy it themselves. Nicky bought an Indiana Jones sweatshirt. Zoe bought two little stuffed animals - a Mickey and a Pooh. Eva bought a little Stitch and a Groot toy. Daisy didn’t buy anything.
Most of our “souvenirs” came in the form of random things we found around the parks. People hide stuff in the ride queues, and Scotty and Nicky have a knack for finding things. Nicky came home with a huge collection of stuff including three legit Disney pins and tons of plastic jungle animals.
The Win
None of us have ever been able to beat Scotty at Midway Mania, but this time, Nicky finally got him! Here is a photo of Nicky and Daisy when they found out Nicky won:
We Didn’t Know
…that there are possums in Disneyland, but I overheard someone talking about possums, and that same night, lo and behold, a possum!
Firsts
Besides seeing our first possum in Disneyland, we hit a few other milestones this trip. Eva was able to ride Indiana Jones and Incredicoaster for the first time. She and Zoe both steered the cars on Autopia, but they weren’t very good with the gas pedal.
The Monks Unite
On our last night in California, we came back to the hotel to find it full of Buddhist monks. Hundreds of them! They were attending a World Peace Gathering at the nearby convention center. It was quite a sight to see!
The Birthday
I'm out of order here because now I'm going back to my birthday, which was day two of our trip. We left home on New Year's Eve and stayed the night in Saint George.
Early the next morning (my birthday), we left Saint George (trying to beat the New Year Vegas traffic - we mostly succeeded but had a stop and go session for a while). Things to note: the Luxor is currently a Dorito.
We stopped at the the World's Largest Chevron (Terrible's Road House) about 30 miles outside of Vegas), and I got a Coke. There was straw drama (the straw options were too long or too short), and the Coke tasted awful.
The Coke at Terrible's was terrible!
(Last time we stopped at that gas station, the power went out. I think we need to quit going there).
Upon arrival, we hung out at the beach for a while before checking into our hotel.
Then we took turns microwaving plates of my birthday dinner. I made and packed pot roast with carrots, mashed potatoes, and gravy. I also brought two red velvet bundtlets from Nothing Bundt Cakes, so... birthday cake!
And that was my 40th birthday.
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Even though this wasn't our best trip, we still have a lot of good memories. Hopefully we make good memories somewhere else for a while.
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