Some Disney pics

One of the first things we did as a family was go to Disneyland. Since Apollo, Mom and Aimee had never been, I figured it was about time they experience this beloved piece of Americana. Many thanks to Laura, who acted as our guide for the entire day. Laura is a Disneyland Expert...you can ask her anything about Disneyland and she will know the answer. If she doesn't know, she has various DLand numbers on speed-dial and will call to get you the answer within minutes. Go ahead and try her...

Laura and I pointing at the entrance of Disneyland. Laura is wearing her 50th Anniversary ears. Good thing too cause we looked for the golden ears whenever we got lost in a crowd. That and her hand sticking up straight signaling "follow me!"

Yay! Flowers are used to announce DLand's 50th anniversary. As you can see, there were already quite a few people there at 9:30AM. Note the sunny, blue Cali sky.

In case you didn't know, Aimee loves pirate stuff. She has a full size Jolly Roger flag and various other pirate booty. While in the Pirates of the Caribbean gift shop, she stocked up on a couple more items, including a hat and a new flag. She was waving it around and saying "Aaaargh" when a pirate happened by. They exchanged a few "Aaaarghs" and other comments and he continued on his way.

Speaking of exchanges, at one point in the day while we were waiting to get on a kiddy ride, Aimee's purity was brought into question. I don't remember how this happened or why, but I do remember there was an awful lot of finger stabbing and loud boisterous exclamations from Aimee. It doesn't take much to get her riled up though.

The Haunted Mansion decorations and interior are temporarily changed to The Nightmare Before Christmas. Mom actually went on this ride with us.

One of the displays inside; most of them were illuminated with black light effects.

Sorry, I haven't seen the movie yet so I'm not exactly sure who this guy is. I think it's Jack...correct me if I'm wrong.

Us "kids" went on several rides including Indiana Jones (awesome!!), Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain (story to be told later) etc. Help me out here Laura, you know the names! Mom didn't go on many rides, but she did go on and enjoy the Tea Cups! According to Laura, it's a "must do" for every newbie. In the photo above, Mom and Laura (golden ears) are running to get a tea cup.

Yeah, it's blurry but can still see Mom's mouth. :) She had a lot of fun. Of course, she didn't let go like Aimee and Laura did. Towards the end she started spinning the cup.

At the end of the ride, she was laughing a lot...a good sign. :) After the tea cups, she trusted us with more rides.

Me, Apollo, Aimee and Laura. I think if you click on the pic you'll see a larger image with all our names on the back of our hats. Though he refused to wear the traditional Mickey ears, Apollo got a Christmas hat with ears and his name embroidered on it. We were told that he wouldn't be able to get his name embroidered on his hat, but just at closing we found a shop that did the nice thick embroidery. I think it looks a lot nicer too.

I tried to lighten it up, but this is the best I could get. I love the silhouette of Aimee's ears against the Christmas tree.

More Disney photos to follow...