Disney Birthday Week, Day 1

For Ez's birthday the grandparents wanted to kidnap him and take him to Disneyland, but after Joe and I mentioned that maybe, just maybe, we'd like to spend his birthday with him as well they consented and brought us too. Ez is currently at an age where he actually remembers Disneyland, so when I told him we were going a little prematurely he would sit in his carseat chanting "I'm going to Disneyland!" and then throw a major fit when we arrived anywhere that wasn't Disneyland. 

Our trip started bright and early on Tuesday morning, when the grandparents, Ez, Declan, and I piled into the car and began our six hour drive. I was squished between the two carseats in charge of trying to keep Ez and Declan entertained. Declan slept a good portion of the trip, and Ez was fine as long as he was able to chain eat apples and circus cookies while playing with his steady supply of monster trucks and airplanes. There were a few meltdowns, but overall they both did really well on the drive.

We got to our hotel around 2ish, and it wasn't ready yet so we headed straight to Disneyland. Ez was so excited on the shuttle ride and kept saying "I'm on a bus! I'm going to Disneyland!" I still think that the shuttle ride was one of the top three moments of the trip for him. 

First on our Disney agenda was lunch, followed by a trip through Fantasyland for a ride on Small World, Teacups, and Casey Junior's Train. Then it was time to honor the birthday boy's request and go see the Disney Cars at California Adventure. They recently opened a new ride in Carsland that Ez can actually ride, so we were excited to take him on that, but it turns out all he really wanted to do was watch the race cars from the Cars ride drive past Flo's Cafe. That is literally his favorite thing in the world, and throughout the trip we resorted to many forms of bribery to drag him away from there. He managed to acquire three new Disney cars once he figured out how to manipulate the system (aka, me and the grandparents). 

Once he was on the new ride, which I think is called Rollicking Cars, he loved it. We followed that up with Mater's Tractors, which he also loved, and then ate the Disney dinner of champions: watermelon and cheetos. Balance. After that we headed back to the hotel and were lucky enough to see the fireworks from the shuttle. Ez was completely enthralled and I think it's safe to say his first day at Disneyland far exceeded his expectations. As for Declan, his favorite things seemed to be the lights in the sidewalk, Small World, and trying to adopt a new family. Ez has never been a wanderer, and doesn't really like strangers, but I can tell Declan is going to give me a run for my money. He loves staring down strangers and walking right up to them, grabbing their leg, and forcing his way into their group. Apparently he's still exploring his options and he thinks he can do better than us ;)

So that was Day 1 - we covered lots of ground, managed to squeeze in quite a few rides, and ended the day with overly excited and tired, but extremely happy kiddos. Basically it was everything a day at Disney should be. You're going to hear this a lot with these Disney posts, but thank you Gangy and Grampa! We all had an amazing time.