A Taste of Disney!!

As you know, I am an absolute FANATIC about anything and everything Disney-related. And as you may also know, we live approximately 30 miles away from my home-away-from-home, Disneyland. What does this mean for me? Well, can I just say, it means that I am absolutely ecstatic to be living so close to my happiest place on earth!!!

This past weekend, we had the joy of having our first out-of-town visitors down here, Brant's parents. Dale was in Long Beach for a conference on Monday and Tuesday, so they flew down here on Sunday to see our place in Pasadena and explore the town a little bit. We had a great time. On Monday afternoon, we drove down to Long Beach to spend time exploring that area with them. As we were walking around Long Beach, prior to dinner, Brant casually asked me if it would be too difficult on me to visit Downtown Disney sometime, without going into the park. I told him that I didn't think it would be too hard, and it would fun to do sometime. Martha turned to him and asked if he meant "right now," which as it turns out, was not his intent at all. Long story short, in a matter of 5 minutes, we decided to gamble the traffic (it was pushing 5pm), and drive the 27 miles to get to Disneyland. Oh. My. Goodness. Can I even tell you how excited I was?!!

We made it in less than 40 minutes, with little traffic at all! It was meant to be. My heart and soul started to sing the moment I saw signs for Disney Way. Ahh...it was good to be back! We walked around Downtown Disney (which is an area between Disneyland and California Adventures, with restaurants and shops and live music, with no entrance fee), and had a marvelous time. We looked at some shops and ate a wonderful dinner, surrounded by the pure goodness of Disney. :)

Prior to dinner, I bolted straight to the main entrance plaza between the two parks, just to hear the Disney music and feel the energy that was pouring out from all around me. It was awesome!! I was thrilled to be able to share my love of Disney with Maddie, at just 1 year of age. As Martha said, "She doesn't stand a chance at not growing up, loving Disney." :) She's right! And I'm proud of it!

We didn't have our camera, but we did take some pictures with Brant's phone to capture the flavor of our spur-of-the-moment adventure. It was perfect! :)
It was extremely difficult for me to be on this side of the gates...but still worth it!
Dale and Martha were excited to be here, too!Yaaay!
We LOVE Disneyland!!!!