At Least...

You know, I wouldn't classify myself as a negative person. That being said, I'm not necessarily a ray of sunshine either. I’m just right in the middle…a realist with a smile on my face. Being happy and seeing the good around me isn't usually a struggle. This Disneyland trip really forced me to look at/dig for/make up “the bright side”. It was either look at the bright side, or curl up in the fetal position and weep in a wet corner of the Happiest Place on Earth. (Truthfully, I did shed a few tears in the cold, dark Aladdin theatre.) I found myself saying, "At least..." a lot! Haha!

James and I decided to take this trip in March of this year. What a great idea to surprise the girls for Christmas! We saved. And saved. And saved some more. The big day arrived, and we embarked on our journey. I knew we were going to have some issues with the weather. No biggie! Called my friend, Donna, and she let me borrow her three matching, adorable raincoats. I knew we were going to be dealing with huge crowds. No problem! We’ll have a good time anyway.

During our drive, it was either blizzard snowing or pouring rain. I do not use the term “pouring” in a casual way…it was literally pouring. No problem! It HAS to clear up a little by the next morning. We get to the hotel, and the girls want to go swimming. I thought our hotel had an indoor pool. Sadly, the girls were disappointed to learn we would not be swimming in 50 something degree, raining weather. Hey, at least I didn’t have to squeeze myself a bathing suit!

The next morning, it isn't raining! It’s dreary, gray, wet and chilly, but it’s not raining!

Wonderful! We ride the shuttle over, get our tickets, take a picture or two, and we’re ready for a wonderful day! First, we go and buy the signature mouse ears, and then we decide to ride the Peter Pan ride. As we’re waiting, it starts to drizzle a little. No problem! We just put on our hoods and open our umbrellas. After our first ride, we walk out to heavy rain. That’s ok! It’ll only last a little while. It’ll let up soon. We go ahead and ride the Dumbo ride. I get off and feel my mascara smearing. At least I’m not the only one with smeared mascara. Hmmm…maybe we should buy some ponchos. Done. I look at my poor girls, and their pink Converse shoes are drenched. They have raindrops dripping off the tips of their noses. They have these looks on their faces like, “What the…” We’ll try to find something indoors. Thank goodness for my dad and mom. They found some theatre type stuff we could do. Great! A warm place to dry off. Except it wasn’t warm. Hello, the cold air was blowing! We go to the interactive “Talk to Crush”. Raychel was one of the kids chosen to ask Crush a question. She asked, “What’s it like to be a turtle and live underwater?” He said, “What an excellent question, Dudette!” So cute! I was afraid she would get stage fright and not say anything, but she did well! She took her interviewing opportunity very seriously. Next, we went and watched the Muppet 3-D show. It was cute, but again, the theatre was freezing cold! At least we were out of the rain! Last item for the day was Aladdin. As we were standing in line, it all started to hit me. Hit me about how miserable this trip was turning out! I looked at my girls, all soaked to the core. Raychel was shivering, Anna wanted to go back to the hotel, and Leah wanted to go “back to our town”. I thought of ALL the hard work to save for this. The months of planning. I felt…well, I felt sorry for myself (Not to mention sorry for my girls who were freezing and wet! I wanted the whole experience to be magical, and it obviously was not that!). I think I was allowed to have a pity party. (At least I was not a pioneer. I thought of them, and all the rain and wet and misery they had to endure. Seriously, I would have never made it west!) Aladdin was phenomenal. A great way to end that crappy day. We go to wait for our shuttle. There are probably 75 people waiting to get on. We wait 40 minutes and no shuttle. Now remember, the rain has not let up even once since Dumbo. I call the hotel…twice…and let them know in a very stern manner that they need to get a freaking bus here and NOW! Yes, mama bear was growling and ready to attack. So the bus gets there…not even a full size one! I grab my girls and butt my way in (In the back doors while people are trying to get off). The big, bad bus driver is yelling at me to get off and go in the “right” way…in the front. “Wait in line!” Is he actually thinking I’m intimidated right now? Puh-Leeze! “Ummm…I don’t think so. The only way I’m getting my daughters and myself off this bus is if you come back here and physically move me. There’s no way you’ll move my body because I’ll claw your eyes out before you even reach me.” At least I can be mean when I need to be…hahaha!!!

We get back to the hotel, and I immediately put the girls in a hot shower. We re-group, change and go out to dinner. We decide to go to a mall because we all need better rain gear. James and I run into Sears to see what we can find. I find a pair of rubber “milking boots” (as James calls them) for $20 AND the real miracle is there was one pair in my size. Beautiful! I find these adorable House of Dereon/Baby Phat type boots for the girls. They are white with fur, and they will love them. They are on sale, and there were three of the same size. Heaven is smiling down on me. We eat, and the girls are begging to go on the mall’s carousel. The manager of the restaurant says the carousel closes at 9:00. The time is 9:10. We walk down there anyway, and guess what…the ride is going until ten that night! Ok, maybe this will be an ok trip after all!
We get back to the hotel, and I start getting things ready for the next day. I get out the boots to lay them out. Don’t tell me! One pair is TWO right shoes. UGHHHH. You know how it is when you’ve had a really bad day? You finally get to where you’re level headed, and you come to terms that everything will be all right with the world. Then one little event (like two right shoe boots) sends it all spiraling out of control again. Those of you with girls…you know that one cannot be left out. There was no way two girls could have new boots, and the third one be left out. At least I have a husband who knows that you can’t argue this fact. He knows he’s headed out at 11:30 PM in LA to find a Target for some new boots. At least I don’t have to explain these things to this man. He just puts on his shoes, looks at me and says, “What size?” Love him.

Then of course, I’m worried the one with the different boots will be bitter. We get up the next morning, and Leah (the one with the different boots) says nothing. Seriously, that’s a miracle.

Now the grand finale…Breakfast With The Princesses! What a perfect thing to do! The girls got to talk to each of them, get a picture, and Raychel got their “sign-atures” (signatures). I think Leah loved it the most. I loved watching their little faces light up when a princess came into sight. I’m so glad we borrowed against our 401k for that breakfast! Kidding…sort of! Haha! Ok, I’ll admit, I was still lamenting in my head...again...about the small fortune it cost for this vacation, and none of it was turning out the way I had envisioned (Yeah, sometimes I have a hard time “letting go”.). There was a group of English people walking behind us, and I thought, “At least I didn’t spend THAT much money to come here!” haha!

The rest of the day was spent doing what we missed out on the first day. More rides…Pinocchio, Snow White, Small World Space Mountain. YES, Space Mountain. Ok, I’ll admit, I was a little evil in my motives. I thought, “They need to experience a REAL ride after all those cutesy ones.” When it was our turn to board, I got a pit in my stomach, and thought, “What have I done to my poor girls?!” (By the way, I absolutely HATE roller coasters.) Raychel is with me. I’m gripping her hand and the lap bar like I’m giving birth. My eyes are squeezed shut so tight that warm, salty tears are coming out the corners. I can feel every vein and tendon popping out of my neck. “Please don’t let me barf on this!” We get off, and I trip because I’m a wobbly mess. Leah goes, “I wanna do that again!” Say what?! Yes, that ride was their favorite part of Disneyland! I asked them several times, and that is always the response. So I guess the joke was really on me. Serves me right! You know those hideous pictures they take of you on the scariest part of the ride? Well, my face looked exactly like I described it. Raychel was sitting there with her eyes closed looking like she was taking a nap! The day ends with The Cheesecake Factory. Anna says, “So what is this, Mom? Cheese or Cake?”

It took us 12 hours to get home because of all the flooded roads and icy snow. We made it, we survived and we had some fun! As we pull into Carson, Leah says, “I never ever want to travel far again because I love our town!” I’ll agree with Leah on that!

Our view on the way to Disneyland. Very pristine and beautiful.

Raychel must have been chilly.

We're so excited! Little do they know how "awesome" the day will really turn out!








First time visitor!

So I thought this tree was pretty cool, but you can see how crowded it is. No one left when it started to rain (Rumor has it the park is supposed to clear out when it rains. Not that day). You just had a huge crowd of people with umbrellas trying to maneuver around each other!

Love this! Before the monsoon.

Leah was having no part of this Pluto garbage.

My "Grumpy" guy. James was so funny. As we were waiting for the shuttle to pick us up (the one we waited almost an hour for), he says, "You know, this day is just about as funny as the day they told us we were pregnant with twins." HAHA!!!

So we got to the park an hour and a half early for the Princess Breakfast. We would NOT be missing that. We had some time to kill. haha!

Raychel

Anna

Look how drenched Anna's pants are!

Leah was the most excited!

Snow White!

Love Leah! This is her favorite princess.

Still so excited!

Cute little bugs.
Our view on the way home. I'm not exaggerrating how much it rained!