Riley's 1st Trip to Disneyland

(Sorry this post has taken so long to get up. It took me a while to coordinate all the photos)

Disney was a blast. We left on a Friday morning from DFW.

Riley was equipped on the plane with Disney movies to keep him happy.

As soon as we landed we dropped our bags off at our hotel and went straight to the park. Riley and Chad got fruit to snack on while we checked out the castle.

Riley's first order of business was to ride the carousel. Before that we stopped off at Disneyland City Hall to get Riley his 1st Visit button.


Then we had to try our hand at the Sword in the Stone. (this series of photos is one of my favorites from the trip!)






Then we headed over to Tomorrowland, where we rode the Finding Nemo submarine ride. Riley was not really that into it. While we were waiting in line, a kid fell and hurt himself and they had to have paramedics come. It made me a much more nervous mother watching Riley climb while waiting in line...

Riley saw cotton candy while waiting in line for Nemo, so we got some to eat while waiting in line for the Matterhorn. Riley also HATED the Matterhorn. It had an Abominable Snowman in it that growled and Riley covered his eyes and ears for most of the ride.

After the Matterhorn, we headed to ride the rocketships in Tomorrowland. I love Riley's smile in this picture! He just realized that his daddy was in a rocketship across from him!

We then made our way to watch the Sounds Parade. This was the first time Riley saw Donald Duck and he was really excited about that. He waved to a lot of the characters and he pushed his way to the front of the crowd as much as he could!

That night we had reserved seating tickets for the 9pm showing of Fantasmic. I waited in line to hold our seats and Chad took Riley to ride the Winnie The Pooh ride (which turned out to be one of his favorites!) but by the time the show was about to start, Riley was cranky and REALLY tired. It felt two hours later to us and he was doing his best to keep his eyes open. Then the real bummer of the night came when Murphy the Dragon did NOT show his face in the Fantasmic show. Both Riley and Chad were about reduced to tears. We left the park and I had two really sad guys on my hands. Thankfully, as soon as we got to our hotel room and Riley realized there was a bunkbed in the room for him to sleep on, he was a lot happier!

The next morning we woke up bright and early and after breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the park. The park was already decorated for Halloween, which was neat.




The Disney photographers took the picture and superimposed Minnie in it.

Then we headed back to ride the carousel again and then we rode this circus train.




Next up was the Dumbo ride and Riley checked out the Disneyland map while we waited in line.

Then we headed up to Toontown and had som fun goofing around.

This was where Riley discovered Goofy's house and Donald Duck's boathouse and he fell in LOVE with both!

There was also Mickey's house and we were so excited to discover that after going through the house, we got to meet Mickey in the end!

We then made our way to Tom Sawyer's island and we rode the pirate ship first.

Riley loved Tom Sayer's island as much as Chad used to as a kid. He didn't even want to leave this treehouse to go explore the rest of the island!

But eventually we convinced him to go exploring!

Riley played on this pile of treasure for about half an hour. At one point he had a whole slew of kids playing and imagining with him. He was quite the bossy pirate to them all!

We then went back to the hotel to nap and after naps, we headed to California Adventure to see the Aladdin show. We then made our way through some rides over there and Riley had a lot of fun riding the tandem swings with Chad.

We went back to see Fantasmic that night and were really happy to finally see Murphy the Dragon. Riley and Chad were so happy after that!

The next morning we were back at he park for our last day at Disney. First up, we went to Tomorrowland and drove the Autotopia cars. Riley refused to drive, but afterwards seemed to think that he had driven, even though Chad actually did.




Then we headed to ride the monorail. Riley was so obsessed with the monorail and so we were really excited when the conductor invited us to ride up in the engine cab with him! What a cool treat!

We rode around and then got off and made our way to Frontier Land where we rode Winnie The Pooh some more and Riley finally got to buy the monorail train he had been obsessing over. We also got to meet Winnie and Eeyore, which was fun!




Of course, Riley managed to break his train not long after I snapped this picture, but he was still excited to have it and it fit in my bag better broken anyway!

We then headed to ride the Jungle Ride, where Chad got in trouble for moving to take this picture! (Sorry Chad!) It was my fault, cause I asked him to move.

We then went back to CA Adventure, where we rode the Monsters Inc ride twice in a row.

We then rode other rides, like the Ferris wheel and these jellyfish rides.

But then it was hot and time for a nap so we went back to the hotel to rest. After naps, we headed back to Disney and Chad's cousin Bryan met us there with his girlfriend
Beatrice. We all went and rode the Storybook boats together and our boat was so packed that Riley and another kid got to ride on the front of the boats!

Before that we also spent some time at Toontown playing in Donald's house before Toontown closed for the night.

And before heading to see the fireworks, we rode the teacups.

We rode the rocketships, just as the fireworks were going off and it was so cool! I tried to get pictures, but the rockets moved to fast and all the photos were blurry!

We made our way back to see Fantasmic and again got premium front row seats for the 10:30pm show. It was such a blast to see this show every night!

We has such a fun time at Disney and were really sad to go home on Monday. We can't wait to go back in about 3 years for Carter's first visit.