Happy Fourth!

We were invited to my sister's house for the Fourth of July. Marina has been excited all week. Why? She wants to have sparklers! There are always fireworks over at Aunt Ann's house, so I was sure she'd get her wish. She also got to spend some time with her cousin Cameron which always makes her happy. Along with sparkers, she found Snaps and Champagne Poppers are also fun.


And when it came time for fireworks, she loved watching them. My daughter who thinks the toilet flushing is too loud had no problem with the sound of the fireworks. Go figure!


I hope you all had a great holiday as well!

Ballet Recital

I've had Marina enrolled in ballet class for the past two years. This year, she was in Pre Ballet with Miss Shila. She's loved ballet but didn't always participate in rehearsal. However, she has always enjoyed performing for an audience. The girls had the most adorable Southern Belle costumes and they danced to "Georgia On My Mind." Marina was very excited about performing on the "Big Stage." Like last year, having a lot of people watch her didn't phase her at all.

Here's the video of the dress rehearsal, Marina is the farthest dancer on the left in the back row:




I ordered the DVD of the actual performance. Hopefully the quality will be better. :-)

Disneyland - Day Five

So today we got a chance to say "Goodbye" to Disneyland. I still think the 5-Day Park Hopper was a great idea, but it was a lot of Disney. I expected Marina to be sick of it all. During the day she said she wanted to go home. Then she'd say she never wanted to leave. Go figure.

It was great timing for Marina to have her princess makeover, or so I thought. She wouldn't even go into the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique with me. So I wondered if we should forget it. But eventually, she stopped sulking and followed me in. They were running a bit behind, so Marina picked out the Jasmine costume while we waited. It was so cute, it even jingled when she walked. When it was finally her turn, she put the costume on and sat in the stylist's chair. She chose everything in blue to go with her costume - even the hair extension. The stylist we had, Kathy, seemed spend a long time brushing her hair, something Marina hates. But she endured it like a princess should. While her hair was being arranged, another stylist, Danielle, put make up and nail polish on her. She loved that! All the time, everyone called her "Princess." She looked so cute when she was done. She even got a mini photo session where she posed with a carriage. She often calls our car a "carriage," so I'm sure a real one was exciting.

We were both starving after that, so I picked up a turkey leg on Main Street for us to split. Marina really loved that. (In fact, she wanted one for dinner as well.) We hadn't been to Adventureland for a few days, so we went back there. We visited the Enchanted Tiki Room and the Jungle Cruise again. On the Jungle Cruise, we met a mother with her two year-old. She told me her daughter was very excited because she thought Marina was Jasmine. So cute!

Marina told me she wanted a drink with ice cream in it. I finally figured out she wanted a milkshake. Turns out, you can't get a milkshake at Disneyland. We checked California Adventure with no luck. So Marina settled for chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. While we were there, we checked out the Playhouse Disney show. Marina really enjoyed it.

Marina wanted to ride It's A Small World again, so we went back to Disneyland. We went through Fantasyland riding all of her favorite rides: Dumbo, King Arthur's Carousel, the Storybook Boats. When Marina said she was ready to leave, I had her say goodbye to everything including Sleeping Beauty's Castle, the rides, her favorite display windows. I hoped it would help her understand that our vacation was over.

At the hotel, she wanted to go swimming again. A good way to relax and get ready to go home tomorrow.

Disneyland - Day Four

My goal today was for Marina to meet Mulan. Mulan is the only princess we had not met at Disneyland. I had learned enough about the schedule at the Princess Fantasy Faire to know that Mulan was only there Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This was our last chance to meet her on this trip. We waited in line for an hour and a half - our longest wait of the three trips. But when would we have this chance again? When we got to the front of the line, I learned Mulan was not in the Faire at that moment. I was willing to wait for her (the princess shifts were only 10-20 minutes long). The "page" told me I couldn't do that. After traveling over 1,000 miles and waiting for 90 minutes? I don't think so. The only thing that save a scene was Mulan stepping in just as it was our turn. Oh, the magic of Disneyland! We also met Belle, Jasmine and Ariel again. Belle remembered Marina this time (without the help of a page!), I guess three days in a row will do that!

We rode It's a Small World and were going through Fantasyland again. But Marina seemed burned out. Fortunately, I had made plans for us to spend some time with a work colleague of mine. So we left Disneyland, got lunch at McDonalds and took a drive. Marina fell asleep in the car. When I pulled up in front of the house, she woke up saying, "I had a great nap!" The visit was a nice break from Disneyland. Marina played with Nancy's eight and six year old sons in the pool while I watched. She admired all the flowers there too. A few hours later it was time for us to go. Marina was sad.


I was surprised when we got back to the hotel and Marina wanted to go back to Disneyland. We went back to It's A Small World. We also spent time around Fantasyland. We went on the Storybook Boats again and finally tried the Casey Jr. train. When Fantasyland closed for the fireworks, we staked out a spot in front of the castle to watch them from. Then came the announcement that due to high winds, the fireworks were delayed. Marina wanted to leave, so we started out trek down Main Street. As we were nearly to the gate, an announcement that the fireworks would start in a few minutes came. So we watched them from the train station. I'd heard that was a good spot anyway.

Disneyland - Day Three

We got a pretty slow start this morning. Marina was tired and took a while to wake up. The shuttle was late and it stopped at more places than usual. At the last stop before Disneyland, the driver ordered everyone off the shuttle. It was smoking. I contemplated carrying Marina to the Park when another shuttle showed up. Thank goodness!

Our first stop was a bakery on Main Street I had noticed yesterday. I bought a blueberry muffin for me and a chocolate chip one for Marina. We ate them on the train to Tomorrowland. Marina was excited to try out the cars - Autotopia. I was surprised that Marina didn't want to steer. Compared to this, driving real cars is easy. From there we went to the Finding Nemo submarine ride, It's notorious for long lines, so I was grateful we only had to wait half an hour. Marina seemed to really like it.

There wasn't much more Marina was interested in doing at Tomorrowland, so we went back to Fantasyland. Marina had been wanting to buy a Mulan Polly Pocket toy since Day One, so I let her get it today. As soon as we had it, she wanted to go home to play with it. But I convinced her to stay with another ride on It's A Small World. Since the Princess Fantasy Faire was next door, we went over. I knew Pocahontas would be there today. A page named Stephen got her schedule for us and we got into line. When we we second in line, Stephen pulled us out of line and took us to see Pocahontas just as she was leaving. She was so gracious. (And I loved Stephen for helping us!) Then we went through and saw Belle, Jasmine and Ariel again.

We spent more time on the Fantasyland rides and we looked around Sleeping Beauty's castle. Marina didn't like how dark the story tour of the castle was, so we didn't do that. There was a room with a throne that she liked as well as some window displays that she liked to look at. We also found Snow White's wishing well and fountain. She liked that too.

When we got back to the hotel, Marina wanted to go swimming. That does seem to relax us at night. She saw an older girl there who she immediately called her "friend." The other girl was a good sport about it. I hadn't realized Marina would miss playing with other kids so much. But she does seem to make friends everywhere we go.

Disneyland - Day Two

After yesterday, I expected Marina to be worn out, but she was ready to go to Disneyland again. She dressed as Snow White today. We started Day Two, much like Day One. We got on the train and went to Fantasyland. The line at the Disney Princess Faire was short and we found out that Jasmine and Mulan were visiting. Since Marina calls Mulan her "sister" we had to meet her! Unfortunately, after a half hour wait, Mulan was not there. We did meet Jasmine (who was gorgeous), Ariel and Belle. We also saw Tyler, the page. He had helped Belle remember that she had already met Marina yesterday. Marina was disappointed at not meeting Mulan. She actually cried. So I suggested we see Mulan in "It's a Small World." That perked her up.


We looked into Toon Town next. We visited the houses of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Marina was excited to meet each one of them. We checked out the homes of Donald Duck and Goofy as well. Toon Town had a small roller coaster, so we tried that out. Marina didn't like it. That told me some of the wilder rides were out of the question on this trip! After lunch we ran into Pluto, who licked her, and Goofy, who twirled her around a few times then bowed to her. When he did, he hit her on the head with his hat. She got a bit fussy, so I decided it was time for lunch.


Since Toon Town hadn't been a big hit, we headed back to Fantasyland. We tried out the Alice in Wonderland ride (which she didn't like) and the Teacups (which she loved). We also found Pixie Hollow where we got to meet Tinkerbell and her friend Silvermist (Marina knew who she was, I didn't). In the Pixie Hollow gift shop, Marina had a complete meltdown until I let her buy a Tinkerbell doll. Aunt Ann had given her some money to spend on our trip, so I let her use that.


We were both tired, so we went back to the hotel for a while. After lying down for a while and having a snack, we went back to Disneyland. This time, we checked out Adventureland. We started at the Enchanted Tiki Room. I had no idea what we were in for, but we both enjoyed it. I was unsure how Marina would react to the Jungle Cruise, but she seemed to like it. We took a ride on the Mark Twain steam boat. That might have been the dullest 15 minutes I've spent at an amusement park.

After watching a bit of the Celebration Parade, we went back to Fantasyland. We got our first chance to try the Dumbo ride. I let her take the control which she had fun with. Marina didn't want to ride the Storybook Boats because it starts by going into a whale's mouth. But once we were past that part, she loved it. Fantasyland started to shut down for the fireworks, so we found a spot to watch them from with a pretzel to watch. We couldn't see the fireworks well, but we could see Tinkerbell fly over Sleeping Beauty's castle. That was cool.

It took a while to get back to the hotel. Marina fell asleep quickly once we did. We did so much today, it's hard to imagine what we'll do tomorrow.

Disneyland - Day One

We arrived in Los Angeles last night and started our Disneyland "celebration" today. Marina was so excited she could hardly stand it. She chose to wear her Belle dress today. At the ticket window I got more than just our Park Hopper, I was given a button for Marina that said "It's My First Visit." She wore it happily.

When we entered at the gates, Marina saw the train and wanted to ride it. So we took a trip to Fantasyland. Then we tried "It's a Small World." She loved finding all the Disney characters inside. We wandered a bit around Fantasyland and took a ride on King Arthur's Carousel. She picked out a horse with a pink saddle and roses. The attendant took the time to stop and tell Marina she was on the lead horse whose name was Jingles. She felt so special!

We headed over to California Adventure for a very important lunch. We went to Ariel's Grotto for lunch with the Princesses. As we entered the dining room, each child had their picture taken with Ariel. Marina was so excited because Ariel is her favorite princess. We were seated and we ordered our lunch. It was pretty fancy - complete with antipasto appetizers! As we ate, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Belle were introduced into the dining room. Marina was so excited to meet each of them, especially Belle whose dress she wore. A page named Tyler talked with us a bit and agreed to take pictures with me in them too.After lunch we stayed around California Adventure. Marina wanted to ride the large Ferris Wheel. It was a long line, but she was willing to wait for it. Then we found King Triton's Carousel. There was no line, so we got on it quickly. She was even happier to hear we could stay on it for another ride. So we did. We found Bug Land and Marina found lots to do there. She got soaking wet in the water park. Fortunately, the Belle dress dried quickly. The lines were long for the Bug Land rides, but she enjoyed her turns on them.

Our last stop of the day was the Aladdin show on the Hollywood Backlot. That was something I wanted to do. The show was fantastic. Marina especially loved the magic carpet scene where it flew over the audience.

By the time that was over, we were both pretty tired and decided to call it a day. We went back to the hotel and swam in the pool. She made a new friend named Zoe. We all watched the Disney fireworks together from the hotel balcony. Too bad they leave tomorrow.