the happiest place on earth

we did it. we took cashel to disney...land....not world...that's too far away for us...but, fortunately, disneyland is only about 45 minutes away!  yahoo!  i was a little concerned about how a 2 year old would react to the eye candy that is disney.  i thought it would be too overwhelming, creating more of a little monster who would be to stimulated, to overtired after it all to console...leaving exhausted parents more exhausted...but...it was great!  jason was really the advocate of the trip (as usual).  he's thinking it would be a great tradition that would someday lead to cashel inviting a friend or two along the way to celebrate his birthday.  in hindsight we treated this like a business trip.  what's the parking situation like, how overwhelming will it be, the food, etc.  although jason and i had both been there once each, separately, him - before i rocked his world and me - 4 years ago for a science teacher conference (cue the dork comments here).  we were there for only about 4 hours (expensive, yes, but we got a deal - call me for details).

bottom line - cashel l - o - v - e - d it!  i mean, he didn't run up to the characters or anything...as you can see....he was still a bit nervous about them, but he loved the eye candy that is disney.  we rode only one ride (the casey train) while we were there for a couple of reasons.  1.  i was told which ones to avoid for his age which really limited us and 2.  the lines were ridiculously long and we weren't about to wait in a line for even 20 minutes with a 2 year old!  next time we'll be more prepared.  it was a ton of fun for all of us.  there's nothing like seeing disney through your child's eyes. 

warning:  $7.00 balloons pop just as easily as much, much, much cheaper ones...

one last note...part of the reason we left after only about 4 hours is because it was cashel's nap and anyone who knows me knows how nutso i am about his nap.  so...it was his nap time...we succeeded in getting him to stay in his stroller and strolled around and after a chat decided to head home.  cashel wakes up as we are putting him in the car and proceeds to scream "more!  more!  more!"  he is obviously upset we have taken him from his new bff, disney, and proceeds to scream this for about 30 minutes.  

in the background you see the $7.00 balloon that cashel popped as soon as we got home.

all in all, a great day...