Disney, Pt. 3: Goofy's Kitchen

On Sunday, our final day at Disneyland before our 7+ hour drive home, my mom booked us brunch reservations at Goofy's Kitchen. Let me tell you, so much has changed from last year when Ez tried to leap over the table to escape Minnie. This time he just bashfully smiled down at the table when she said hi to him and was a little awestruck to be meeting his favorite Mickey Mouse Clubhouse characters in person. 

After brunch we headed to Disney California where the grandparents offered to wear Ez out in Bugs Land while my brother and I rode Tower of Terror and Cars (my first time!). We did the single rider pass which only took fifteen minutes and we wound up on the same car anyway. I'm a little sad the height requirement was so high for that ride. Ez would've loved it, and I think the target audience should've been younger kids. Hopefully he still likes that movie once he grows half a foot!

Since we're wrapping up the Disney trip, now is as good a time as any to talk about the long road trip with a toddler and a baby. In case you're wondering how the whole "wear 'em out before the car ride" tactic went, Ez was so worn out that he took a mini nap on the walk from Disney to our car, after which he was wide awake and completely revved up for the next four hours. He spent those four hours randomly screaming for no reason at all, and demanding that Uncle Brett sing the ABCs over and over while laughing maniacally in the backseat. 

For two kids that can't really communicate with each other, I have to give them props for being an amazing tag teaming duo. If one fell asleep, the other immediately woke up. No sooner would we get one of them content and quiet and happy than the other one would pick up the slack and start screaming. I think my brother said it best when he said he had two simultaneous headaches going on in different areas of his brain at once. 

What advice do I have for anyone attempting this? Don't!! Haha...just kidding. Kinda. If you're brave enough to attempt it, then just soak up each and every moment of silence. Don't ever try to fill silence up with words. Just enjoy it. Store those quiet moments in a little box hidden away in a corner of your mind, and when all chaos breaks loose go hide in that box. 

It's possible that you may have picked up on my ever so subtle hints that the car ride was traumatizing and awful. I don't want to give the wrong impression though. I loved all my road trip mates. Thank you Uncle Brett for coming along for the ride! And while there were several hours where Declan was distraught and the rest of us were deliriously hysterical, not to mention a pit stop at a bee-infested gas station and one sketchy nighttime detour through the town we dubbed Murderville (thanks Waze), we all survived, we all recovered, and if I had to do it over again I would, because our Disney trip was just that fun. Am I planning another trip for the near future? No. But I would go back and do it again that one time. 

And that wraps up our Halloween Disney trip. A very bittersweet one, because our annual passes expire in December and we won't be renewing them. In case you missed it, you can read about Mickey's Halloween Party here, and day 2 here. Until we meet again, Disneyland!

Cutest lil Goofy ever.

And just for fun, here's a little video of a delirious Ez cracking up for no reason at all toward the end of our first car trip: