Happiest Place On Earth

After sitting for many hours and days in a bag of rice, the iPhone with all the beautiful Disneyland pictures has decided to not function ever again. 

This was kind of a really sad thing. 

Luckily, we took a few pictures at Disneyland with our real camera and there are just a few pictures from the beginning of our day at Disneyland that I had emailed to myself from Adam's phone. 

But, oh, I so wish that I had had the sense to email myself the very best of the Disneyland pictures instead of just emailing them to myself in the order that they were taken, there are so many pictures I would rather have than the ones I do. 

Oh well. 

I guess this means we'll just have to go back to Disneyland again someday.

And at least we have these pictures:

 

 

^ Dancing while waiting in line

^One of the best parts of the park in this girl's opinion: this curb.

Going up and down it over and over and mastering her curb-stepping abilities.

And yes, she did have a little diaper blow-out, which resulted in the change of outfit halfway through the day.

Before we went to Disneyland we did a lot of research about how to handle the park with a toddler, there are a surprising amount of blog posts out there that cover this topic.

Things like, tie a ribbon around the handle of your stroller so that you can identify it quickly in the sea of strollers that are parked next to each ride.

I had no idea what they meant by "a sea of strollers" but oh my goodness, that is exactly how it is, there are hundreds if not thousands of strollers at Disneyland, and it's so nice to be able to safely park your stroller next to each ride before you go on it, but good luck finding it if it isn't a neon yellow color.

So the ribbon was good advice.

Also, the bathrooms behind The Carnation Cafe on Main street are less busy than other bathrooms in the park (vitally important information for a pregnant girl).

And I really liked the idea of writing your cell phone number on your child's body in sharpie marker.

Luckily, we never lost sight of Ella during the day (holy cow, that would have been horrifying), but it was nice to know that if something crazy happened and she did somehow disappear into the crowd there would be a way for someone to be able to get a hold of us and let us know where she was. 

And the last bit of advice we appreciated was to have a very short list of things you definitely wanted to do and do those first and then you don't have to feel rushed or stressed for the rest of the day to accomplish everything you wanted to at the park.

We took it very leisurely at Disneyland, just walking from one land to the next, letting Ella explore, and we didn't go on a ton of rides, but we went on enough to make that girl happy.

She found the most joy at Disneyland in doing things like stepping up and down a curb in Toontown over and over and over again. 

And she loved collecting leaves and throwing them in the stroller.

Rides were cool, but being able to just enjoy little pleasures like that is what made her really happy. 

One of my favorite parts of the whole day was when Ella had zonked out in her stroller (unheard of for this girl) and Adam was hopping onto more intense rides (aka: non toddler or prego girl rides) as a single rider, which meant he got to cut to the front of the line, and I meandered through New Orleans Square with Ella's stroller.

 There are big trees that provide a lot of shade over there and there was a lovely breeze and the best part was that there was a big band playing jazz music and I just people-watched and soaked in the music (remembering a Big Band at a certain wedding 4 years ago this summer) and just felt relaxed and happy and it was perfect.

So I was glad that we went to Disneyland with a very laid-back approach.

Her absolute favorite rides and events at Disneyland were It's a Small World (obviously, what kid isn't in love with that ride?), the characters, and the parade at the end of the day (all pictures of her dancing at the parade are forever gone).

We couldn't really tell if she was liking going on rides or not until the very end of the day when we got on the shuttle to take us back to the parking lot and Ella got all excited and giddy and we realized that she thought she was on another ride, so I think the conclusion is that she thought rides were pretty cool.

Although Pirates of the Caribbean definitely got a few screams of terror from that little girl, poor thing.

Also, Ella's face here is awesome (translation: I am dang tired, take me home so I can sleep with my Gerard NOW):

The End.