Disneyland - the beginning

It's long past time that I should recap my trip to Disneyland, wouldn't you say?

So if you are a devoted reader of my blog, you will know that this was my first ever visit to the Magic Kingdom.  I'm not sure why I never went until now but it really was well worth the wait.  I went with two friends I've known for more than 20 years, Michelle and DeAnne.  They'd both been before so really, the trip was all for me. ;)

We stayed at the Grand Californian which was simply beautiful.  I loved being so close to the park. Here's the view from our hotel room the night we arrived.

Michelle surprised us right from the beginning by having these super cute, personalized pillowcases for us.

We got in kind of late so we decided to just walk over to Disneyland and check things out.  I loved all of the decorations for Halloween!

We got to Main Street in time for the fireworks - hurray for the photo bomb in our first group shot.  And please note the first timer pin, which actually did nothing for me...maybe it works better for kids?

Michelle will kill me for putting this picture up but I have to...so in her hand is this little bottle called "Fresh Drops."  She bought it at Safeway before she took a bunch of girls on some soccer trip.  This stuff is actually kind of magical - you drop a few drops into the toilet before you go...and guess what?  No smell.  Seriously.  It totally works.  I thought you'd all like to see this because it would make a great Christmas gift for that special someone in your life...seriously...

Okay, first day is done and now we're onto day two - the first full day of fun.  We went to California Adventure first and our first ride was The Little Mermaid.  Okay, so maybe not the best choice but there was also no line.  It was darling and fun - just not that exciting.  Oh and please note the new bag I bought for the trip - big enough for my wallet, camera and phone and super cute as well.

After our first ride, we took a quick photo together...love these girls!

We had reservations for brunch at Ariel's Grotto and look who we got to meet first off:

We sat outside, in perfect view of the closed-for-repairs California Screamin' (sadness) and waited for brunch to begin. I love my Michelley - isn't she pretty?

The food took forever to arrive so we posed with princesses while we waited.  I told Cinderella she had lipstick on her teeth just before we took our picture together.  I mean, wouldn't YOU have told her??? She's Cinderella, for goodness sake.

Belle showed me how to pose - I've got to work on how to position the hand, just so, I'm thinking. And no it's not one bit strange that a bunch of adults were taking pictures with the Princesses. Why ever would you think such a thing?

Michelley had to be with Snow White because, hello - they look alike!

Well, we waited and waited for brunch but they had something go wrong in the kitchen so we didn't get to eat.  So sad...so we left and got a corn dog (yum.)  DeAnne and I rode Mickey's Fun Wheel (swinging...I loved it when I thought we were going to sail on into the water!)

Next we went on Tower of Terror - twice.  Can I just say how much I adore that ride?  Here's the pic during my first ride - please note that I laughed my way through it, as you can clearly see.

The second time, we decided to pose and did a little jazz hands aka Just Jack!

We did a bunch of other rides too - Soaring over California, Monster's Inc, the Muppets, Turtle Talk and more.  At the end of the day, we went on the Grizzly River Run.  Michelle assured us we wouldn't get that wet.  She said "it'll just be a mist."  So we went...and as you can plainly see, we got pretty wet.  

So that's our first two days...stay tuned for more (before 2012, I promise!)