All That and a Bag of Chips on My Shoulder: August 2012

We went to Disneyland this week! It was so much fun!! Joel's brother and his wife had extra days on their park passes so they gave them to to use for the last day, so we got in for free. The only catch was they had names on them already so Joel was Karen and I was Sherry, the people letting us in didn't care because they were too busy looking at Oskar. One of the many reasons why having a baby is awesome, they are a great distraction when we are breaking rules.

Here we are in line for Splash Mountain. When I went to Disneyland when I was in high school this ride was closed down so this was my first time. And I loved it. I love rollercoasters, the bigger the drop the better. What I don't love is things that are not real that pretend to be real, like taxidermy or ... animatronics. Before getting on the ride Joel told me to make sure and keep my eyes open the entire time, he made me promise that I would because knew that I didn't know there were TONS of creepy animatronics on this ride. So that was a shock for me. And I definitely did close my eyes, but just for a little bit. I got used to it after a while and wasn't scared anymore.

Another nice thing about having a baby at Disneyland is they let you do a Baby Swap. Basically one person waits in line and goes on the ride while the other person stays with the baby. Then when the first person is done they switch and the second person doesn't have to wait in line, they just get to go right away. It was awesome. And if you're riding by yourself some rides have a separate line for single riders and that line is super fast as well. But we went on Splash Mountain before we knew all this and I ended up waiting in line for about an hour and then we swapped and Joel got right on.

Doesn't the guy behind them in this picture look a lot like Dad?! Creepy.

Oskar was getting sad about being left out so when I was waiting in line Joel took him on Winnie the Pooh. I think he threw up (not because the ride was bumpy or anything) and then started crying. So I don't think he loved it.

It was SOO hot there, probably around 100 degrees. So in the middle of the day we did things that would keep Oskar cool. We went in a a lot of shops and got ice cream and watched the parade from inside. Last time I was at Disneyland I didn't do all the calm rides so it was nice to do them this time. Here is the Mark Twain. It takes you on a 15 minute ride around the island. It was really nice!

Oskar's first Disneyland trip. He's so spoiled. I didn't get to go until I was 17. He gets to go at 7 months.

They let babies go on some surprising rides. They let us take him on both Pirates of the Caribbean the Haunted Mansion, both of which are kind of creepy. But he completely slept through the Haunted Mansion and was asleep at the beginning of Pirates but woke up when the boat takes a little drop. We did get to take him on some other rides like The Bug's Life and The Little Mermaid. I LOVED The Little Mermaid, it was my favorite kid ride.

Yet another awesome thing about having a baby is the Baby Center. It was awesome! It looked like the nursery from Peter Pan. There were old ladies working there that had old fashioned nanny outfits on that helped us. They had stalls for women who nursed their babies, a room for changing baby's diapers, a place for people to lay down, a kitchen to prepare and warm bottle food, extra diapers, wipes, etc., and high chairs for feeding. Plus it had AC and was sooo nice and cool. We spent a fair amount of time in the Baby Center. I loved it.