The Happiest Place on Earth?

So, we finally took our long-talked about first trip to Disneyland!  However in many ways, the experience wasn't all any of us expected it to be.  Let's just say Colby and I are still fine-tuning our parenting skills and unfortunately, some of that had to take place at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Mishap #1: Star Tours

First ride of the trip.  Reid is OBSESSED with Star Wars.  Surely, this will be like a dream come true for him, right?  Wrong.  Both, Colby and I must have forgotten about the droid that was "operating the ship" pretending to have been controlling it for the first time and simulating a crash-landing.  Poor Reid.  He really thought we crashed.  

 

Mishap #2: The Matterhorn

Yes, I wrote, "The Matterhorn".  I know.  Horrible parents.  Should've trusted my intuition when Colby insisted Reid go on it, but it had been over a decade since I've been there, so I let Colby convince him to go on it to see... *cringing* ...the snowman.  At the time, Colby mistakenly believed that if he could distract Reid from seeing the ride while in line and convince him to go on it, he would be unlocking the adventurous side of Reid, freeing him to enjoy the thrill of rides such as these.  I knew it was wrong, even before the ride began to creep into the dark tunnel and Reid let out his long, deafening, never-before-heard shriek that he wanted off and tried desperately to wriggle out of the harness holding him in for the unknown nightmare awaiting him.  The ride seemed to last days, as we were shot through black tunnel after black tunnel, with an occasional ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN flashing in front of us with its red eyes piercing through my heart.  When it was finally over, I hugged Reid so tight, trying to hold back my raging blame towards Colby to help distract me from my own responsibility in it for not going with my intuition and allowing this to happen.  I could tell from Colby's face that I didn't need to say anything, but I probably still said a lot, including, "Snowman?  Snowman????  THAT was a monster!"  Oops doesn't cut it, I know.  If you ask Reid now how he liked Disneyland, I guarantee the first thing he'll say is, "I didn't like the snowman."  It's almost funny.  Someday.

Mishap #3: Yep, there's more.

Apparently 90% of the rides at Disneyland involve an element of fear: darkness, villians, natural disasters, etc.  Even the rides I considered to be "safe" rides, were not so, especially following the trauma of the Matterhorn.  The Peter Pan boat: darkness.  The Nemo submarine: more, even darker darkness, not to mention Bruce, the pointy-toothed, off-the-wagon vegetarian shark making a sudden appearance.  The list goes on...

We eventually just let Reid choose the rides, as we should have from the start.  He ended up sticking to the same few rides, which we all took turns going on with him again and again.  Once we all mostly recovered from the above mishaps, the week-long trip with three days at Disneyland/California Adventure was a blast, as  you can see from all the pics.  We were hugely blessed that both of our moms came along, as well as Colby's dad & step-mom who joined us for a day.

Reid's spirits had noticeably lifted after transforming into Pirate Reid:

Most of all, he loved meeting the characters, specifically Woody and Jesse from Toy Story.  They were so sweet to him, taking time to point out the Toy Story characters on the shirt he was wearing.  

 

 

Reid put his Fisher Price camera to work when we met Goofy and Pluto.  

The shot in the upper-left, he took and is one of my faves  from our trip.  The one in the upper-right was the one Goofy took after taking the camera from Reid!  The lower-left is Reid's idea of getting in a picture with them.  Lower-right, Reid took of Pluto at Goofy's Kitchen.

  

The Pixar Play Parade at California Adventure was also a big hit!

  

 

 

If Ronin could talk, I believe he would say that Goofy's Kitchen was his favorite stop.  The characters were so sweet with him that it almost justified the cost of eating there after Reid decided to suddenly be completely uninterested in any of them.  Chip (or was it Dale) would rub his fuzzy chipmunk finger on Ronin's cheek in a circular motion while Ronin froze in awe for minutes. 

And Goofy went above and beyond when he tucked Ronin's napkin into his shirt at the beginning of our brunch then, afterwards used it to clean him good as new.

  

All in all, it was a blast and we can't wait to do it again!  Well, most of it.