Day 296 - 1st Theme Park Trip!

Some may call us crazy. Others stupid. But this past Sunday we did something that many other parents would never do: we went to a Disney theme park.

Lisa & I actually enjoy going to theme parks. Lisa loves rollercoasters, and I love the technology of amusement park rides. I loved amusement parks so much when I was a kid, I actually spent many hours drawing blueprints for my own park that I called...drumroll...Scottland!

From what I remember, I did some pretty detailed drawings of my amusement park. I did one gigantic birds-eye view of the park with the many lands, and then did detailed illustrations of each individual ride. I can't recall much about my park, but I believe some of the rides and lands were called: It-Doesn't-Matter-You-Don't-Have-Friends ferris wheel, I-Don't-Like-To-Go-Outside-Because-I-Get-Beat-Up bumper cars, and The-More-I-Draw-The-Less-Likely-I'll-Have-To-Socialize log ride. Boy...does that bring back memories!

Our friend, Bernard, works for ABC so he is able to invite up to 3 guests to the Disney parks as long as it's not a blackout day. On this particular Sunday, we could not enter Disneyland for free, but California Adventure was a-ok. So we packed up our stroller and backpack, and off we went!

The first thing we noticed when we arrived at California Adventure was the large number of strollers. We've been to Disneyland & California Adventure many times, but we've never noticed how many babies, infants, and lazy teenagers there are in strollers. It's also a weird feeling just leaving your stroller unattended while going on rides, but every time we returned the twins were still strapped inside tired and dehydrated.

We stayed at the park for about 4-5 hours. Obviously there isn't too much to do when you have babies, but we did take the kids on two rides: a merry-go-round and a little train ride. Thankfully there was no wait for these rides because...well...they're pretty boring and crappy. I'm not too sure what Emma & Andrew thought about their first trip on the merry-go-round. They didn't cry at all, but it did seem as if they were deep in thought. Andrew might've been thinking, "Where is all this music coming from and why are we going around in circles?" Emma might've been thinking, "I would love to eat this mystical animal we're sitting on."

The coolest thing I saw at the park was this gigantic zoetrope. If you don't know what a zoetrope is, here's a picture of one:



It's basically a rotating drum that creates a sense of motion with drawn or painted pictures. But what made this zoetrope unique was that instead of illustrations, this zoetrope created the illusion of motion with sculptures of various Toy Story characters. The diameter of this zoetrope was probably 5-6 feet so it was huge! I took this little video of it with my digital camera:



Pretty cool, right?

Overall, our day at the park wasn't that bad at all. The kids didn't cry or fuss...until the end of the day when Emma wanted to be held. Both Lisa and I think that taking babies to a theme park is relatively easy. You just push them around all day in the stroller. You feed them and change them. And when they're tired, they'll fall asleep in the stroller. But what I think will be difficult is taking the twins to Disneyland when they're old enough to run and speak their mind. So the Happiest Place on Earth can be the happiest place on Earth with patience, humor, and lots and lots of weed.

Here are a few pictures from our little trip!