Adventures in Disneyland: part 2

So how does a family entertain themselves in line at Disneyland? By day three the park was pretty crowded and the lines were a bit longer. We would collect our fast pass for a ride but still had to wait in line at other rides without fast passes. First of all, Matt discovered the coolest app for the iphone. It would tell us how long the wait is at each ride! There was only one time that by the time we got to the ride the wait time had dramatically increased. But this was a very helpful app as we chose which rides to hit nearby. Most of our wait time involved deciding who was going to sit beside whom for the ride. A decision would be made, people would be informed as to where to sit, and then somebody would change their mind and we’d start over on the decision making. A couple of times, I was assigned to each person in the family before a final decision was made. Once in awhile, I even got to sit beside my sweet Matthew, though this was pretty rare as we often were assigned to sit beside a younger child in order to comfort them if needed.

We are a very musical family and I knew the kids would eventually miss their practice time and instruments. For example, during one particularly long line, which of course was also a noisy wait, Sara decided to do her vocal warm ups. Not quietly, either. I don’t blame her. I think she should have broken into song after her 40 minutes of warm ups were done. She’s got tons of music she’s working on and heaven knows she sings like an angel. We totally could have done full fledged performances while in line. I will admit we got some weird looks. Zack, our drummer, beats on everything and everybody as he constantly hears rhythms in his head. One of our very favorite parts of Disneyland is the Innoventions Center. SO cool we could spend days in there. In the basement they have a dream home tour of futuristic technology we might like to have in our homes. One of which was a beautiful player piano with a computer monitor showing the guy playing exactly what was being play on the piano, as it was being played. I was very intrigued by this. Zack figured out how to pause the player piano so that he could have a turn and of course he played a very difficult piece by Jon Schmidt that he’s been working on this month.

At one point in line, the kids broke into a game of rock, paper, scissors. But of course that’s not enough of a challenge so they add in the “lizard, Spock” part as seen on The Big Bang Theory. And they played it very loudly. I wasn’t going to stop them, it was entertaining me, but they sure got some funny looks. Obviously not everyone at Disneyland is caught up with the seasons of The Big Bang Theory. That’s serious business at our house.

My youngest child is Joshua, who is seven years old. He’s a big kid for only being seven, but this was his first experience on roller coasters. He declined the opportunity to ride CA Screamin’ even though he’s tall enough. Holy Cow that ride is fast. Elijah loved that roller coaster. So Joshua’s very first roller coaster was Space Mountain. Not necessarily a good one for his first, as most of the ride is in the dark and you don’t know if you’re going up, down, or sideways. He was sitting beside me and I could tell he had reached a point of anxiety. I couldn’t see him at all to see how he was doing, so I reached over and touched his hand during the ride. When we got off the ride everyone asked him what he thought of it and he said very exuberantly, “That was awesome!” I was a bit surprised by this, and then we saw the picture of our family on the ride. Five of us have our heads up, our eyes wide open and our mouths wide open, probably screaming. Joshua had his head tucked down and you can’t see him at all. I thought this was so funny I decided I had to buy the photo.

Josh thoroughly enjoyed other roller coaster rides, but there was one more that put him to the test. But I have to tell you that background story. About five years ago, Sara was on a competition dance team in Tooele and we went to Disneyland as a dance group to dance in the parade. Just Sara and I took the trip. To avoid the lines we did several of the single passenger lines that gets you on the ride pretty quickly. We decided to do this on Splash Mountain. Sara was going first and climbed onto the log with a family of five. Their youngest freaked out and they all got off the ride and the log left with just Sara on it. I bought that picture all those years ago because it was a priceless expression on her face as she’s alone, on the back of the log, going down this huge water slide. So, knowing how Sara had reacted, I figured I’d want to buy the picture again, this time with the whole family. But for it to be a good picture, we placed everyone shortest to tallest. Unfairly, this puts Joshua on the front of the roller coaster ride to get soaked and shocked as he sees what is to come. As I suspected, the picture is hilarious. I posted it on my FB page last week and if I ever get on the ball, I’ll post it here as well. Everyone voted we do this ride again on day 3 and Josh begged to be at the front of the ride again. Apparently he had a good time.