The Happiest Place on Earth

There are a lot of happy places: my home (sometimes), my bed (all the time), Pinkberry, the Farmer's Market . . . but our family took a vacation to Disneyland in May - and I must say, it is quite a happy place!

We had so much fun, there is no way I can recount the whole wonderful vacation here, but I'll elaborate on a few memorable moments:

The morning of our first day of Disneyland, we had reservations to eat breakfast with the princesses at Ariel's Grotto at 9:40. I need to mention that we went on this vacation with our dear friends, the Woolfs. Before we left on this trip, Matt and Brandon did a lot of strategizing about how to save money. One of their concerns was the exorbitant (in their minds) parking fees. To make a long story short, (I could make this story very long if I wanted to), we were running late as a result of their attempts to save money. When we finally parked the car it was already 9:40 and we had to make a mad dash to the restaurant-- a mad dash through crowds of people with five kids, two double strollers, and an eight months pregnant girl (me). It was absolutely crazy. Those of you who have been to Disneyland know that there is a LONG walk to enter the park from the parking lot - long enough that they have trams to transport people. We skipped the trams and ran and ran and ran some more. I thought I was going to collapse or go into labor or something. We were frantically running into Disneyland instead of savoring the magical moment. And amidst all of this stress, I looked over at Sophie, and she was just taking in the happy surroundings, laughing, and having the time of her life. And there were Emmy and Kali, marveling at the sparkly sidewalks. I had to laugh. And with that, the mood was lifted. Emmy and I skipped the rest of the way to the breakfast. I figured everything would turn out - and it did.

Sophie is such a sweetie! Whenever a ride was little frightening or scary, instead of crying or refusing to go on another ride, she would just snuggle in really close to Matt or I and hide her face. Then afterward, she would say, "That ride scares me."

Both girls LOVED "It's a small world." Sophie was enraptured with all of the happy, singing children; and Emmy was fascinated by all of the different countries that were represented.

Cotton candy: The first day of Disneyland, Emmy was very aware of the cotton candy stands on every corner and would occasionally ask for some. We had brought other fun treats, and we'd usually use those to defer her requests. On the second day, Jennilyn and I decided it would be fun to treat the kids to cotton candy when they were least expecting it. So while we were waiting for the Tiki show, Matt and Brandon snuck off to get the cotton candy. When they came back and presented it to the kids, they were sooooo excited. It was fun to indulge in their fantasies and see how happy they were.

The parade. We went to the parade both days we were there and were fortunate enough to be front and center both nights. On the first night, both girls were fairly serious and just took everything in. But on the second night, they knew what to expect and got totally into it! Sophie danced the entire time and Emmy was brave enough to dance in the Congo line in the middle of the parade. The second night was seriously magical - Matt almost teared up at seeing how happy the girls were. As we all walked out of the part that night, Emmy said, "I wish we lived here."

There is so much more I could say about our trip to the beach, how much fun Disneyland was, how much fun we had with the Woolfs, how great the house we stayed in was, and how fabulously Jennilyn and I were treated on Mother's Day . . . but, that was all a month ago, so I will just end now by saying that we were truly treated to a WONDERFUL vacation - perfect timing, because our life is about to get more complicated.