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Saturday, April 1, 2017

disneyland {characters galore!}

We got up early the next morning for our second day, and headed straight to Disneyland.
Early magic hours are just the best because you get in before huge crowds and pictures in front of the castle with no people in the background!
These two couldn't wait to get on the Alice in Wonderland ride!
Even though she's a little scary- ha!  Off with their heads!
Riding with my girl
Disney rides are so amazing.  I love how they tell the story with such imagination, artistry and creativity!
This little Wonderland area of Disneyland is so quaint and fun!
Riding the Mad Hatter tea cups with my little man!
There's Daddy and Kerigan!
After that we hopped on the Storybookland canal boats.  We were getting ready to head into Monstro's mouth!
There are different scenes from popular Disney movies and this was Arendelle from Frozen!  This ride is another unique ride to Disneyland that they don't have at DW.
We couldn't leave without checking out the classic It's a Small World.  They have remodeled it and added more characters and I just loved it!
It is much more colorful now and there's so much to see!
Lilo and Stitch!
These two sat behind us
My girl just loved this ride!  We had to much fun talking about all the neat scenes together.
Love these two!
Another classic!  Dumbo always has a huge line so we were happy to hop on during our Extra magic hour with no wait!
Selfie on Dumbo!
We rode everything in Fantasyland and still had time to spare before our brunch so we headed over to Thunder Mountain Railroad- another favorite!
This girl was PUMPED she was tall enough to ride this year!
Our brunch at the Plaza Inn was probably my favorite character meal of all time.  It was brunch with Minnie & Friends, and let me tell you, there were more characters than I have ever seen, and many were very rare.  They just kept coming, and I eventually lost count!
Minnie greets your group outside for autographs and photos before you go in.
Every single one of them was so interactive and spent a ton of time with our kids.
It is a rare treat to meet Hook!  Andrew was so, so excited.
Peter Pan was always a favorite movie of Andrew's!
Dale!
The chipmunks are so lovable!
And Chip was there too!
We loved the mice from Cinderella!  Note the look on Kerigan's face!  Ha!
Happy girl!
Photo bomb by Chip!  You know there's a lot of characters when there's enough extra to photo bomb!
And Tigger.  An all time favorite.
I'll never forget when we took Andrew to Disneyworld for the first time and he could not wait to meet Tigger.  He kept saying "Tigger's coming!" after every character that came to our table.  He wasn't satisfied until Tigger came!

Rafikki making this girl giggle!

I have to pause the parade of characters for a moment and talk about this girl and how much she loved the food.  She was excited about the characters, but I'm telling you, I could barely get her to stop eating when they came by!
She would be chowing down (mainly on the delicious pineapple!) and I'm pretty sure got tired of being interrupted by characters.  Ha!  This girl loves her some pineapple!
They just keep coming!
I think we were here for almost 2 hours!
We always love Eeyore!
Rabbit is super rare and the kids were so excited!

The Mary Poppins penguin! (Told you they just keep coming!  Ha!)
The penguin made Kerigan want to meet Mary Poppins and after our brunch she and Bert just happened to be strolling by right outside!
They walked with her and chatted and she was so proud and happy!
Since we hadn't met enough characters, she decided she wanted to stand in a somewhat long line to meet Tinkerbell.

Sweet girl waited 30 minutes and we were next in line when she decided she couldn't wait and had to go potty.
So the sweet cast member letting people in told us to go, and come back through the exit and she would let us in.
Because a girl just has to be comfortable when meeting a fairy
#worththewait
So then this happened.  We headed toward the Indiana Jones ride and we realized she wasn't tall enough.  So we grabbed a rider swap so I could ride later and I got this girl a Dole whip!
I had been wanting to get her one anyway since she is obsessed with pineapple.
It was a hit!  And when Daddy and Andrew got back, Andrew took me to ride Indiana Jones again and Daddy took his princess to Fairytale Hall where there was supposed to be a surprise princess...
We knew they had Snow White and I had to get a picture with her mini me.
And we knew Ariel was there.  We had just met her the day before so we didn't need her autograph.

Then... the best.surprise.ever...
As Kerigan walked around the corner she saw Princess Elena of Avalor!
Look at that face!  She had been wishing and hoping she'd meet Elena and was so mesmerized.
This was such a special memory.
Elena was one of our favorite meet and greets- she was so sweet and spent so much time with Kerigan.  She danced with her, and talked to her and made her feel so special.
This right here.  This is what Disney is all about.  There's just nothing like watching their joy and living those moments with them.
After our early morning and long afternoon at the park, we decided it was time for a break and headed back to our hotel to swim and relax!  And we had some special visitors that were coming to join us for dinner at Downtown Disney!

More to come soon!