Disneyland - Day 1

It was an early morning as we woke up around 6ish to start getting ready. Dad was picking us up just after 7am so we had to be all ready to go. We finally got Ariel up and headed on our way to the airport. Dad took our picture outside, which funny enough, we have a picture of Ken and I in the same spot when we left on our honeymoon.... here we are several years later with our daughter heading to the happiest place on earth again. Hee.

Ariel did well on the airplane. We had been telling her about it every time we saw one fly overhead leading up to our trip. At first we had her in the window seat, but she eventually made her way to the center seat between both mommy and daddy.


She really liked the safety card... as did Ken who was making fun of the cheesy drawings. Haha.


The flight was smooth and didn't seem too long. We had bought 2 of the little picnic boxes and chowed down on those for lunch. We finally got off and made our way to claim our bags. They happened to be some of the first ones off the plane, woot! Which was good because as we made our way to the spot to meet our shuttle it pulled up shortly after we arrived.

I got Ariel on board, who was nearly asleep at this point, and Ken got the bags checked in. However, when I put Ariel in the seat, I saw one of her golden 'slipper' shoes from Grammy was missing from her foot. My heart sank... and looked all around me, no shoe. Ken got on board and I ran out to check outside the bus. No shoe... I felt myself fighting back tears. It was just a shoe but still I was so tired and had a headache from the flight that it was hard not to be disappointed. I got back inside because we were leaving right away and sat down holding it together.

Ariel looked at me pointing to her shoeless foot. 'Shoe gone!' she said. No kidding... I sighed. We started driving away and I decided to let it go, not much we could do now... until we had our Cinderella moment.... 'Did anyone lose a shoe?' There was Ariel's 'glass slipper' being handed person to person back to us. Yay! I then tucked them away and left Ariel barefoot. Haha. Didn't matter anyways, she was out to sleep in a matter of minutes.


She slept until we got to our hotel. It was so cool being back at the same place we stayed years ago, and it looked just as lovely. The first thought I had was at how hot it was, and then remembered how the pool was to be under construction during our stay (something I found out last month while checking our reservations). Then our second wish was granted, I heard splashing... no way! The pool was indeed open. When we checked in, the fellow said it got finished early. Yay! Our room is super cute, and Ariel has her own bed. We are on the 6th floor over looking the open pool. Hee.


We got changed and headed down to the park to exchange our papers from the travel place for the tickets. Then we headed through those gates... the music playing, the people laughing and us in pure heaven! Truly this is our vacation home.


First stop was a trip to the Mad Hater for some mouse ears for our little princess. She really loved trying on all the hats until we found the perfect ones for her. Daddy got a new 'Nightmare' hat too.


We walked around a lot so Ariel could take it all in. Since it was a Sunday, it was pretty busy. A visit to the castle was next, I think our princess was impressed.


Our tummy's were grumbling for food so we went over to find a place to sit and eat. We went to Cafe Orleans...


...and waited for our table. We were surprised that it became available quickly and we were seated and waited on promptly.


Dinner started with some Pommes Frites, Ariel's personal request for fries mainly, hehe.


Then Ken and I both had the Monte Cristo. I can tell you that it REALLY filled us up for the remainder of the evening. Haha. Ariel ate most of the fruit and wasn't interested in the sandwich part, but I think she was still kinda out of it from the traveling at this point.


After dinner we decided to try a few rides to get Ariel use to it. We started off with Pirates of the Caribbean, since its just a boat ride mainly. She was a little worried at first with the dark and spooky sounds but at the end she was talking about riding the boat again.


So we then did the Jungle Cruise, Dumbo, Carousel and Winnie the Pooh. Highlights included finding Pooh's thoughtful spot...


...and yummy treats from his shop after the ride. We all shared a 'tigger tail', very tasty!


Ariel really loved the carousel, and even found the perfect horse for her with an 'A' on the saddle.


Daddy tried pulling the sword out... he wasn't strong enough. Oh well. Ariel didn't seem impressed though. Haha.


It was so magical seeing Disney at night. Plus there was a full moon, so it was very pretty. The castle was just glowing.


At 930pm the fireworks started... oh WOW! That was a pretty amazing show! Ariel was glued to it and I don't think her eyes could get any bigger.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

By far the highlight of the show for her was seeing Tinkerbell (or Abell as she calls her) fly around. I must say it was pretty cool, hee.

As we were leaving for the night, I commented to Ken that it was strange for the few hours we were there, no sign of any characters.... but like usual, when you say something like that you are always surprised. Who do you think we saw.... MICKEY MOUSE himself. Ariel was THRILLED! Her first character and its the big mouse, how cool. She smiled even though she was shy, but she sure couldn't stop talking about him all the way back to the hotel. She wanted to go back again to see him. Awe. Ken was pretty proud. Haha.


So that ended our day of traveling and our first initial visit to the park. Can't wait for tomorrow! Meeting up with Amy and her son Boston (some of my online friends) and later Allie and her girls Avery and Ainsley for lunch. Yay!


Look for more adventure tomorrow! Here is Ariel signing off at the big 'A'. Bye for now!

(Also, big congrats out to Kelly and her family! They welcomed a baby boy Ezra weighing in at 9lb 6oz! I was waiting all day to get in to check her blog since she went into labour the night before we left. Lol. Can't wait to see pictures!)