We went to Disneyland again this year. I had to admit that, while we love Disneyland, we also recognize that each trip is fairly different. There is usually one theme that we remember- the trip where we ran into that guy, Ben, over and over, the trip where Jude was a baby, the trip when the kids couldn’t stop talking about spending money, the trip we realized was too long for Jude, the trip when we were too tired- you get it.

This was the best trip we’ve ever had. That’s this trips theme- sheer awesomeness! I said it it was our best since before we had Jude, which makes it our default best because everything is better with a lil Judelbop added in. We were like a well- oiled machine this time. We knew what we wanted to do, we’re faster now and we know how to work the day (get there as the gates open and leave around 1:00 when it gets hot and crowded, play at the hotel pool lthen go back for the shows).

This was the first time we didn’t stand in all of the lines for the characters. It was close to 100 degrees for most of the time we were there, so we would see Mickey, get excited, then observe the line that wrapped around the corner and the kids decided to skip it. It was a little weird, a little less magical, but a lot less sweaty and we felt like we accomplished a lot while we were there.

Jude was super cute as a dancer while we were in Disneyland. When asked if he wanted to dance for the Mad Tea Party, he said, “Don’t mind if it do!” Then proceeded to school us all in the art of floor work and expert level moonwalking. Whenever Phinneas and Ferb’s dance parade would make its way past us, Jude would scurry through the crowd to score and up-close and centered spot where he would showcase his acumen of their dance steps. By the end of our trip, he had partied with Phinneas and Ferb enough that he knew all of their moves!

Gigi was a pleasure to watch as she un-grew up. She’s at that interesting age where at one moment, she is clearly a teenager- attitude, intelligence, sense of humor and all right there I my face, and the next moment she seems lie, she’s about four years old, a little mewling toddler with big eyes, wonder and a desire to purchase and wear a Jasmine princess outfit. In Disneyland she let her little girl out to play, wore a Jessie hat from Toy Story and it was so fun to play along with her and remember when…

Bradley got to be the rebel spy on the Star Tours ride. While this may not seem like too big a deal, to us it was tantamount to meeting a celebrity or something. We’ve been waiting for years for one of our brood to be chosen, then it was our kind who got it! How perfect! Afterwards, Jude was making some decisions about which Star Wars cars he should buy, and he used his own saved-up allowance to buy his dad a Wookie/Chewbacca car as a birthday gift. We were both blown away by his generosity.

As for me? I finally took Henrietta and the Lurid Giraffe on a real tour of Disneyland. Henrietta is an extremely appropriate English hippopotamus and the Lurid Giraffe is exactly the kind of character he sounds like. Anyhow, they have relatives that live at and work on the Small World ride and have stowed away before, but this time I photographed them all over Disneyland and it was a really fun ending to our trip. I felt foolish, at times, but the memory of taking them with us was pretty unforgettable!

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