Cottrell Family: DISNEYLAND 2013

DISNEYLAND 2013

We went to DISNEYLAND!!! The place where magic happens! I so turn into a kid coming here and rightly so. Our original plan was to for each family to pay our own way except for 2 tickets that my parents wanted to get for us. Little did we know that my Mom and Dad had plans of their own. whaaawwwhahaa...evil laugh. Once we all parked our cars together, Dad swooped in like a hawk and paid for our entire crew to go to DISNEYLAND!! WHAT?!? Our parents have hearts of GOLD!! They probably had to chip a piece of that gold off their hearts since Disney is EXPENSIVE!! How lucky we are to be in this family! We all made sure we bought any food or some of Disney's famous Dole Whips that Mom and Dad could want for the whole day! Which doesn't even come close to what they did for all of us, but we wanted to give our thanks in a small way still. Love Them!

Jessa and I showing off our entrance passes! She looks gorgeous and I have some sort of cheesy grin on my face like I am chewing too much gum or something! Oh well.

Before we left I made a few projects for our day at Disneyland. Some new t-shirts for my boys and autograph books I made for each grandkid in our crew. Super fun.

First character we saw was PLUTO! He was hilarious signing the kids autograph books with his paws over his eyes. Right after this picture with us posing next to PLUTO, Roman started whaling! I think he touched PLUTO'S fur and did not like it for some reason! ha ha ha

Next was MICKEY MOUSE! Sophie was saving us a spot with miss Quincy to see MICKEY and we ran on over! Hopefully everyone else knew we were all together and we that we weren't just crowding. The Awe of MICKEY MOUSE is FABULOUS!!

Aunt Sophie with Justin Ron. Justin was soaking up all Disney has to offer. His happy face when he met a new Disney Character was priceless. He loved the Peter Pan Ride and was not a fan of the wicked witch in the Snow White and seven dwarfs. She was a bit creepy, and popping out at you multiple times. He was ready for a good nice Dumbo ride after that one!

Waiting in line for the Peter Pan Ride.....We could Fly ....We could Fly....We Flew!!!

Look at this bunch of excited kids!!

Oh yeah, we're at Disney uhh huh!!

Peeps who are up up and away on Dumbo...Trent & Ryder...Clay & Eli ... Brooklyn & Hayden & Landon

STAR WARS!! Darth Maul came right up to Hayden pointing his finger and sneering! Hayden didn't even flinch...Bring it Dark Side

Princess AURORA

PRINCESS ARIEL
Roman cracks me up with his split legs!

PRINCESS CINDERELLA

PRINCESS RAPUNZEL

I have to say my absolute favorite ride is SPACE MOUNTAIN!! It was Hayden's favorite too! I literally had my arms up the entire ride laughing so hard my eyes were watering! Ahh good stuff!

Hayden is my roller coaster man! He wanted to go on everything. Here he is with my brother-in-law Joe, his kids, Landon, Eli and Brooklyn! Love all their faces!

The only hiccup we had all day was the many little discussions I had with my Clay. Clay has been on many rides, roller coasters, water park slides etc. in the past, but for some reason he has decided he does NOT like them now and will NOT go on any. I mean any substantial rides as in big roller coasters. Medium and small fun rides he has no problem like Dumbo or Peter Pan. It's the high ones and possibly fast ones that he starts to over think and makes things seem worse than they are. So he is not a fan of heights which is the main contributor to his reluctance. I overheard him talking to his Grandpa Ron the day before Disney asking him if he was afraid of anything. He told him he hated snakes and Clay told him he was scared of heights and those two had a nice heart to heart talk. I get that he might not want to go on any big big rides and I wouldn't force him too, but we went through topics like "these ones aren't even high", "They make these rides FOR KIDS", "You have to try it, we are at Disneyland" "I will be with you the whole way" etc. He didn't even fully hear the discussions. He kept saying "No, I'm not going" along with shaking his head to make sure his point was taken. I was frustrated. He would love these smaller rides if he would just try them. He had been on way bigger ones before and came off them like he was a superstar so his apprehension now had me confused. I finally got to a point where I said "Yes, you ARE going on Pirates of the Caribbean! They let me take Roman sitting on my lap so my 9 year old CAN and WILL go!" I was pulling the mean mom card for the moment. He had the worse face on ever, and the whole time we waited in line he was hounding me about the ride and how it was going to be. He needed to get through this on his own so I said "We' ll see in a bit huh" He didn't like me very much right then. While we were on the ride I watched as his face changed from that of a scare apprehensive boy to one who was loving being on a boat, surrounded by his cousins, pointing at all the pirates and treasure! He exited with a full beaming smile on his beautiful face! He went on the Indiana Jones ride after that and was needed to be coaxed a bit again for the Matterhorn Bobsled. "I will be with you the whole time, we will ride together" followed by Clays excuses, arguments, apprehensive silence, and my level of patience totally spent. The craziest part is that after he did in fact go on the Matterhorn Bobsled ride, he yelled from his seat behind me "That was too SHORT!! Landon, wasn't that awesome? It was so fast I loved it!" I was speechless and for a moment wanted to shake him out of frustration, but he went, found out he could love it, and by the end of the night we were best pals along with him admitting he should have tried them sooner and told me sorry. I wasn't looking for a apology I just wanted him to have a great time at Disneyland and not regret sitting on the sidelines. So proud he was able to overcome something that was hard for him, and in the end I was happy he was brave enough to do it for himself!