The Happiest Place ... And The Unhappiest Place

Todd and his mom (a.k.a. Nana) shared their birthday at the end of February (the day after I finished the Bar), so we decided to head up to Disneyland to celebrate and introduce Joseph to the place. Todd and I haven't been since we were kids, and it was really fun. It's a lot more compact than I expected, but that was nice because it was quick to get from place to place.

Joseph wasn't a fan of waiting in line for our tickets (or waiting in line for anything else), so we let him run around the entrance area for a bit and he loved it.

Joseph doesn't really know many Disney characters yet. He knows Nemo, of course, and he also knows Minnie because we got a Minnie toy in a cereal box a few weeks before going and made sure to teach him who she was. So I was happy that about as soon as we entered the park, he saw Minnie in the distance and got really excited yelling "Minnie! Minnie! Minnie!" Unfortunately, Todd and the camera were not with us at that point and we didn't get a picture.

We decided to start off by riding the train because Joseph loves trains, and he really liked it. He didn't want to get off. Here he is waiting and then riding.

Then we had to do "Small World," of course, even though I never really liked that ride. It was one of Joseph's favorites.

I know I'm making a really weird face in this picture, but Joseph is cute, so I'm sacrificing my dignity and posting it anyway.

Next up was the "Finding Nemo" submarine ride (which, when we were kids, was just some random submarine with mermaids and stuff). So, as excited as we were to go on a ride where he knew the characters ... it totally scared him. So much for that.

But here we are before the terror:

Then we went on "Autopia." I think he was still a little young to enjoy this because, though Todd put him in the driver's seat, he wasn't really getting the whole driving thing.

Following that, we went on Buzz Lightyear, the Jungle Cruise (which he enjoyed), and Pirates of the Caribbean (which he also enjoyed). Here are some family pics and pictures of the birthday boy and girl (and Joseph) near Pirates.

He also HIGHLY enjoyed the parking lot, storm drains, rocks and sticks on the ground, stairs, and a dead bee.

Here he is with the bee:





And stairs:

By that time, Joseph was getting a little worn out, so Nana and Brent took him home and Todd and I stayed to go on the grown-up rides. Thanks to FastPass, we were able to go on all of the big rides, and then we also went on most of the little kid rides that we hadn't gone to with Joseph because we wanted to see if they were what we remembered.

All in all, we are major Disneyland fans and are excited to take Joseph back (especially as he gets older). It's very clean and well-maintained and really, we felt like kids again.

The day after our day in the Happiest Place on Earth, Todd and I spent some time in the Unhappiest Place on Earth: the Emergency Room. To spare the details, Todd is fine, but for a while they suspected he had appendicitus. We had to wait for about 8 hours in the emergency room for them to come to the conclusion that he didn't. But he was still looking so cute: