Disneyland

I have so much in this blog that I'd love to share with everyone. Then there's stuff I probably should have used a little more discretion. Too late. I still want to write it because I'm entitled to, but I guess a bit of privacy on an open blog isn't possible. I'm going to keep it closed to those not invited for now, but it kinda sucks. I have Disneyland stuff now that I want to share, but only the 12 invited people will read it. I guess writing for you 12 and myself is good enough. For now.

I took my daughter to Disneyland recently. What it means for me to be able to go to Disneyland, or on any other trip for that matter, is probably a little different than the average person. I grew up a poor girl in the hood. When I was a pregnant teenager, I never thought I'd be able to do stuff like this. Actually, as a pregnant teenager, I didn't have a damn clue what I had just gotten myself into. I still assumed that I was going to marry rich. Or some bullshit. It wasn't until I had a few years of hard parenting experiences behind me that I abandoned all hope that anything would ever be OK. Thankfully, I rock and was eventually doing OK. And able to  take my kid to Disneyland. Not once, but twice.

Our trip started September 8 at 10am when our car arrived to take us to the airport. A long black sedan, not a taxi. Silly Sally encouraged me to price it out and sure enough, it cost less than a cab would have been. So we arrived at the airport in style. Sydnerella was nervous, so nervous that she puked before boarding the plane. I was almost beside her puking because the plane we were getting on wasn't much bigger than a 4 person cessna. We had to walk down on the tarmac to board, which I've never done before, and it had propellers. I was terrified that a little man would be jumping up and pulling on them to get them going. I swear to god I thought that's how propellers worked. Actually, I don't really know if that's NOT how they work because I was strapped in taking migraine strength Advil and getting my earplanes in place to prevent my eardrums from bursting. Oh, and just a warning to you, never ever EVER bite in to a liqui-gel Advil to get it into your system faster without water. Ever! Fucking gross. I think at the moment I discovered that, I would have rathered feel the pain of steak knives driving into my ears which is what normally happens when I fly. Fucking hell.

So we arrived at 5pm, Los Angelas rush hour, and spent the rest of the evening doing whatever we wanted. Cheesecake Factory for dinner, a quick walk down Anaheim Plaza, a dip in the pool and hot tub (the ONLY time we hit the pool, which if you remember from a previous blog, did not make me too happy having to switch hotels because of the damn pool ....), then a stroll through Downtown Disney, which was my most memorable part of our trip. 

We were really there! The excitement kicked in as soon as we walked passed Disneyland and California Adventure and we couldn't wait to get to sleep so we could wake up and go to DISNEYLAND.

For the hour it took us to get ready the next morning, I broke out in a song and dance performance of "I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it" randomly and even though Sydnerella was looking at my like I was high, I could see that she was just as excited, and probably even wanted to start dancing with me. After hitting up the IHOP patio at the East entrance, we spent the next 3 days at the Disney parks. A lot of which was spent standing in line for rides and dodging strollers. Seriously, if your kids are in strollers, they wont even remember Disneyland and you're just hindering your own experience. Just sayin. Dawdling around the park was great for Sydneralla at times though because she gets motion sickness. A new discovery for me. And being the rotten parent that I can tend to be, it didn't dawn on me to get her some Gravol until 7pm on the last night we were at the parks when I was standing in line to go on the Tower of Terror and Sydnerella was sitting outside waiting for me. I felt so bad that I hadn't thought of the Gravol that I left the line and told her we'd take it easy. We had both went on the Tower of Terror the day before anyway, and she loved it. See ... that's my Goofy

Also, I had been on a few rides without her because even though the roller coasters don't make her sick, she just doesn't like them. Except Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ... She loved that too. Hmm ... maybe her motion sickness just increased when we were doing something that she simply didn't want to ... Like Space Mountain. Space Mountain is so damn awesome I wanted to ride it over and over and over, but refused because of  the 50 minute line ups. That, and Sydnerella's selective motion sickness. I wore a nice low cut tank top on that ride and was placed at the front. When I got off the ride, the first thing I noticed was the picture of me with my hair blowing in the wind, the biggest damn smile on my seriously unphotogenic face, and my boobs up under my chin with barely my nipples covered. Good thing Sydnerella wasn't with me to see that, she would have been mortified. Our trip was a lot of work. There's was no down time, no relaxing, and even after a good nights sleep each day, when my feet hit the cold floor in the hotel, they were still burning. My shins, heels, and ankles are still in shock after what I did to them. Thank god the weather was decent. I am a pale faced Canadian, I can't handle the heat. It hit 36 (96F) one day for a few hours, but for the most part, it was 28-32 during the day (82-89F), and down to 18-24 at night (64-75F). Except the morning we went on the Grizzly River Run. It had just rained, was about 20 degrees, overcast, and a little bit windy. And of course, we didn't get wet the whoooolllle way down ride, but hit the geyser at the very end. We were soaked. People looked at us with pity knowing full well what happened as we walked 15 minutes back to our hotel to change. The Grizzly River Run was an awesome ride though, probably my favorite, but I wasn't going to be made a fool again ...

Yes, that's a rain poncho. And yes, Sydnerella thought I was a total dork. But a dry dork. Of course we didn't hit the geyser all 3 times we went on after I put the rain poncho on, so she was also dry. Without the poncho. Great ride.

Another great ride was Soarin Over California. Great and evil at the same time as Sydnerella and I were both a little green after that one, and that officially put her out of commission for anymore crazy rides that day. And after a bit of some normal 14 year old crabbiness because she was hungry and "just wanted a nap", I poured a Monster energy drink down her throat. $4.75 was a great bargain for her almost instant jolt of energy that lasted the rest of the day. Our favorites were the Jungle Cruise, Indiana Jones, Peter Pan, Storybook Land at night when all the ducks are sleeping beside all the little villages because it looked hilarious, and of course, Splash Mountain. We went on that ride at least 6 times, maybe 8. Just before the park closes and the line up for Splash Mountain has disappeared, they let you ride repeatedly, without getting out of the log. By far, Sydnerella's favorite part of Disneyland.

That's my awesome kid in the sunglasses hoping to get wet, and me in the very back, without my poncho.

Sydnerella's least favorite part (besides the strollers and the lack of random places to around the park to nap) was the fact that we went a week too early. Little did I know when I booked back in April, that the Halloween celebrations started the week after we went. And the Haunted Mansion would be transformed to entirely Jack Skellington and the Nightmare Before Christmas.

To date, Sydnerella's favorite thing in the world. She's a Jack freak. She was shocked, sad, bummed, and begged to stay an extra week. But when we walked passed this ....

she quit complaining about Jack. She knows I'm Pirates-crazed, knows that I pretty much just booked the trip to ride that damn rideonly to find out a week before we went that it would be closed. So we both shared some sadness over this, then moved on. We were in freaking Disneyland. And we had a freaking blast.

California Adventure

Toon Town (this is the tank that almost showed the twins to everyone at Space Mountain)

Hey Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine, you ... Never mind

Sully ... Monsters Inc ride kicked ass

96F temps and a long line-up for this pic. Sydnerella was miserable ... Great cover though