Over eight years ago, having just found out I was pregnant with Hannah, I joined a message board on AOL for women who were expecting in April 2000. It was on the message boards that I met a group of women who started an email loop outside of the message board. Most of our email loop has continued to email over the years and a few of us have even met several times. One of those women is Karen. If you can believe it, she's just as much as a Disney Freak as I am and the very first time we met was in August 2001, when her and her 17 month old daughter flew from Maryland to California to spend an extended weekend at Disneyland.
We have become very good friends and have seen each other several times over the years. Each time Karen has come to California she has brought a different child with her. This weekend Karen and her husband and their three children are visiting Southern California and staying at the Disneyland Resort. Today, for the first time, our entire two families spent the day together at Disneyland.
We met mid-morning, just as they were coming off the Finding Nemo ride. From the Finding Nemo ride, we went to Autopia since it was right there. Only six people could use Joe's "magical pass", and since we're at Disneyland all the time, we opted to sit out with Rachel and Hannah went. When they came off the ride, the Dream Squad greeted them with special Mickey Ears! Hannah was pretty jazzed because the last time we were greeted by the Squad, Hannah was not with us. She now has her very own set of special ears.
We had lunch, got soaked on Splash Mountain, and then headed over to the Pirates Lair on Tom's Sawyer Island, where the kids played, and played, and played. They were having so much fun!
The park was pretty busy so we spent the rest of the day taking advantage of Joe's Magical Pass and getting on some good rides. We did dinner and enjoyed the pretty Christmas lights and the beautiful new way the castle was decorated this year. 
We made it a point to go to Toontown and visit Minnie's house, where we took pictures the very first time we'd met and snapped a picture of the girls
We had such a great day together. The kids all got along very well together, Rachel did just with the big kids and acted like the age difference was no big deal. We parted our ways around 9:15 and we headed home and they headed to their hotel room. Rachel and I are heading back to Disneyland to spend one more day with our friends on Monday, and I'm seriously thinking about taking Hannah out of school for the day as well. It's not everyday we have friends come from the other side of the country that we can visit with and spend time with at The Happiest Place on Earth.
1 comment:
What is the "Dream Squad"?
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