Oh, THAT'S (gasp!) Disneyland!

Well, we survived a trip to Laguna Beach and Disneyland and all four of us returned home safe and sound, albeit totally exhausted. This was certainly not a relaxing vacation but one that I will not soon forget.

After many hours of Mickey, Minnie and the Mad Hatter.....rides of excitement, rides with ghosts and even a ride with Winnie the Pooh, we headed over to California Adventure to see what was going on over there. We walked most of the park and decided on one last ride before heading back to Disneyland for the fireworks show. The last ride was going to be 'Soaring over California,' a nice airplane ride over parts of California, including San Francisco, Yosemite, the high desert, the orange groves, several beaches and of course Los Angeles ending up in Disneyland for the fireworks show.

What could be more perfect! We all took our seats and buckled up for our adventure. As the ride started to lift us up off the ground I got a little 'gasp' from Ines....not unusual..:) We started our flight and as we broke through the clouds over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and Ines was saying "Oh my gosh Mom, look....look over there, of it's so beautiful" as each scene changed she became more excited.

When we flew over the orange groves she said "Mom, can we see Sanger from here?" At one point when I looked over to her, she was wiping away tears, happy tears, emotional tears. When the journey was over she told us how wonderful it was, how great California was and how she was so thankful to us for bringing her here. At that point we made a mass exodus with 10,000 of our newest close friends to go to Disneyland and watch the spectacular fireworks show. We lined up on main street, cameras at the ready. Well, Dad's camera was at the ready, (the girls cards were full or had dead batteries from all the pictures they had already taken) as we watched the fireworks we heard squeals of excitement from our girls....dad, did you get that one....dad, can you take a movie,,,,oh dad, did you get that one it was so pretty and so close.....WOW!

After the fireworks were over we all moved over to watch Fantasmic with another 10,000 people. Ines asked if I would guide her through the crowd so that she could send a text message on her phone. I asked her if she could do it later, since there were so many people and she said....Mom, I really need to write my dad, in Portugal, and tell him thank you for sending me here....it's the greatest experience of my life. How could I resist leading her through the crowd with blurred vision from my own tears?