The Happiest Family on Earth

We had a fantastic day at Disneyland yesterday! We were at the park just after it opened and zipped right off to the best kid areas - Fantasyland and Toon Town. Soren loved most of the rides except for the "scary ones". I guess I should have expected that from a boy who is scared of the cookie monster, especially since Disney seems to love putting some sinister element in all their animated movies. He did pretty well on the Alice in Wonderland ride (which is a ride through the dark where you see all sorts of characters painted up in glowing paint) until we came to the big scary queen-like character. She didn't howl or anything, but looked big and scary enough to scare the heck out of Soren. So we skipped the Pinochio and Peter Pan rides because those would likely be too scary too.

In fact, we were later walking through the park and saw that Alice queen character and Soren took one look at her and bolted the other direction!

What he wasn't afraid of though was the adrenelin pumping type rides. He wanted to ride on all the rocket/plane/car/coaster rides. I took him on the roller coaster in Toon Town since I saw that there were lots of small kids on it. He was really excited. I told him it would go very fast and be very bumpy, but he didn't waiver. He wanted to ride it. So we went. As soon as the thing took off I regretted my choice. It was fast! A kid's roller coaster, but still a roller coaster! His face was pretty much expressionless as we whizzed around the curves. I was pretty sure he was terrified into silence. But when we came screeching to a stop he looked up at me and said "that was fun!"

I think the part of the day he enjoyed the most was meeting the characters. When he first saw them he'd bolt over to them because he wanted to give them a hug. I don't think Pluto has ever been hugged so long and so hard by any child at Disneyland. He loved them! I'll post some pictures when we return. Most of them just show large plush creatures with little boy legs dangling below - he tended to get lost in the hugs!

Not sure yet what we are doing today. Likely either the Venice Boardwalk and Santa Monica Pier, or maybe the Wild Animal safari. We had considered going to Knott's Berry Farm, which neither Peter or I have ever been to, but I think we are ready for a switch from the crazy amusement park busyness for the day. We'll see.