Ethan Pierre Lund: My First Disneyland Trip

So with a new addition to the family coming soon I thought one last trip was in order before the craziness starts. I am creeping closer to the age of four and Disneyland seemed like an obvious and super fun choice. Plus, who doesn't love Mickey and his friends? Here's a brief recap:

This is our hotel. It's the Alpine Inn. Kind of cheesy:

Also cheesy was the hotel's claim that Disneyland could be seen from the room. Does the bathroom count?

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A lovely pregnant woman somehow worked her way into our group so we couldn't do the 20 minute walk from the hotel to the park. I'll call this woman, "mommy." It was the bus for us:

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Our first ride of the day was the Finding Nemo Submarine. I couldn't get enough of Finding Nemo when I was a little younger. In fact, don't tell anyone, but there was a six month period in which I referred to myself and everyone else as a clown fish. Needless to say, this ride was one of my favorites:

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Tired already? Wait until the end of the day:

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One of the coolest rides at Disneyland has to be the Buzz Lightyear ride. You get to shoot a raygun and score points by hitting targets. I have my own raygun at home so I was a pro on this one. I'm pretty sure I was so good that I got the highest score in the history of the ride. I know mommy and daddy have a picture of the scoreboard somewhere around here. Hmmm, where did it go? Must have deleted it. Guess you'll have to take my word for it:

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Enough said:

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One of my favorite movies of all time (if three years old counts toward all time) is Aladdin. How fortunate were we to come across Jasmine and Aladdin himself:

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Next up was a trip to the land of the Seven Dwarfs. By this time we had been at it for a few hours. Can you tell I am getting tired? I'll give you a hint...take thumb, put in mouth:

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As you may know, I love trains and Disneyland has a pretty sweet one. We ended up on that thing a couple of times. Didn't get a pic of the train but while on the train we did grab a shot of the cool view of the entrance with California Adventure in the background:

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Here is a picture of "It's A Small World." You'll notice that this picture is of the outside of the ride and not the inside. Mommy and daddy say there's a reason for that and it has to do with not wanting to get "that miserable song" stuck in their heads for the next two weeks. I don't know what that means. I tried to pressure them by giving them my "sad face" but they wouldn't budge. Their response to me went something like this: "Now, now, before you go on about how this ride is a classic and you need to experience it, we point out that when you were 18 months old we went on it at DisneyWorld in Orlando. That's good enough for us and it will have to be good enough for you until we buy some ear plugs." Seems kind of fishy to me:

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We decided to end our day by checking out the Disneyland parade. I had been asking to see Mickey Mouse and Snow White all day. We couldn't find Snow White, but Mickey, of course, is the star of the parade so we knew we were guaranteed a little action with the big guy. So enjoy the pics. But first, a little popcorn:

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And this ends the first day of our version of "Vacation." No wacky Wally World issues, but we were definitely pooped. Sure seemed like Chevy Chase was leading us in every possible direction. We finally got around to eating dinner at about 8:30pm and I was chomping down on some chicken nuggets with my eyes half closed. Mommy and daddy swear that I fell asleep for a few moments with a piece hanging out of my mouth: