Wallace Words of Wisdom: A New Disney Experience

I love reading this sign upon entering Disneyland. It's so true! I always feel like I am entering a different realm when I go through the park's gates and I love having permission to forget any worries or stress and focus on simply having fun.

This trip to Disneyland brought a few first experiences that we had never had before!

We had 2-day park hopper passes and spent the first day in California Adventure. I definitely did not get out the camera very much this trip, but at least we have a few pictures. We went on the Toy Story ride for the first time, and Ben loved it.

Lacey Grace, age 7

Katie, age 10

This was Ben's 2nd trip to Disneyland, and it left much more of an impression on him since he was a breast-feeding infant the first time around. He surprised me by being afraid of the Winnie-the-Pooh ride. I thought it would be the perfect ride for a 3-year-old. I even made him go on it for a 2nd time because there wasn't a wait (unlike every other ride in the place). But, as I started looking at the rides through Ben's eyes, I realized that, in reality, even the rides geared toward small children are quite scary as you pass through dark areas, larger than life characters, and overly bright and stimulating colors. But, for the most part he was brave as we took him on ride after ride. He fared just fine on Pirates of the Caribbean and Buzz Lightyear. In fact, I think Buzz Lightyear ended up being his favorite ride.

He was so brave that he even went on the Matterhorn, which, incidentally, is Lacey's favorite ride. Lacey loves Big Thunder Mountain, too. She and Madi both love the more thrilling rides. I am sure that when she's tall enough Lacey will be tackling California Screamin' as well.

There was plenty of standing-in-line time this trip. The one thing that drives me crazy about Disneyland is the hordes of people. If Disneyland were a sole indicator of the economy, you would think that we were in a major boom right now. We were there on a Thursday & Friday and obviously, no one went to work those days because the entire world was at Disneyland!

We went on the Finding Nemo ride for the first time this trip. At the beginning of the ride you see a little of the old "Submarine Ride" motif, which felt a little out-dated and fake but then you plunge deeper into the world of Nemo and the animated characters surround you as you ride. It was very entertaining, and then you emerge once again into the 1970's era Submarine Ride for a brief moment before the ride is over.

We also enjoyed the updated Small World ride for the first time this trip. Ben loved Small World, which will forever be a favorite Disney ride for me.

And for our biggest first - I played the piano for the first time in Disneyland and Madi and Katie sang for the first time at Disneyland. And, we got to go "backstage" at Disneyland for the first time.

I have played the piano for our school choir this school year and right after Christmas break our director sent an audition tape to Disneyland. We were accepted and performed on Friday, May 15th. We decided to incorporate a little family trip with the school trip and it worked out great. We took the kids out of school a day early so we could spend a little more time enjoying Disneyland and California Adventure. It worked out great because we had time as a family on Thursday followed by time with friends on Friday. The girls enjoyed hooking up with different groups of friends and spending time with them before we performed.

We performed in Carnation Plaza and sang several songs that we have been learning all year. A Disney employee took us through some camoflauged doors in Toon Town where we walked to a large staging area with big locker rooms for the kids to change. We had to be very quiet as we walked because we were basically either adjacent to or underneath rides where people could hear us if we got too noisy. Once the kids changed, we were then taken to a practice room where we could warm up. We were then escorted, once again through the Toon Town doors and paraded through Disneyland to Carnation Plaza. The kids did an amazing job! They sang better than ever. We had one little hiccup which happened at the very end of our performance, sadly. Somehow the director and kids got off and we were singing a song that has several parts that repeat, so I could not tell where they were. Finally the director just told me to go to a certain measure and on we went. So we didn't end on a high note, but it was still a great experience.