Today began our family vacation with a huge surprise for Alex as we showed up at Disneyland to go Trick or Treating!
We had been planning this vacation for months, even years, as we prepare to celebrate my mom and dad’s 50th wedding anniversary on November 3rd. They had been talking about a family cruise through the Panama Canal to mark this amazing achievement and so began the plans. Since I was to be in Vancouver at a Pediatric Health Centres conference until the 31st, we thought Laurina and Alex would meet me there then continue on to Los Angeles where we would surprise Alex by taking him to Disneyland to go trick or treating on Halloween night! We managed to keep it a secret from him for almost a year!
We arrived in LA and as soon as he got out of airport Alex said “Weren’t we here before? To go to Disneyland?” …. Sheesh, what a memory. We managed to get to our hotel without anyone mentioning it. The hotel however, was right across the street from the Disney Resorts. We even managed to have a quick lunch without him having any clue. Laurina, as Princess Leia and Alex as the menacing mini Darth Vadar, began our 8 minute walk to the front gates. See the link below for a video of the big surprise!
As one would expect, Disney does an amazing job on Halloween. The special “party” began at 6:00 pm but we were allowed in at 3:00. On one of my smarter days, I booked these tickets to this sold out event a month ago. The characters were all dressed in great costumes. The Haunted Mansion was transformed in to “A Nightmare Before Christmas”. You couldn’t walk 200 metres without running into another “Treat Trail”. These trails had treat stations every 100 metres or so where handfuls of candies, chocolate bars and, for the children who have Dieticians for moms, packaged apples, carrots and cranberries! All three of us made quite the haul!
The Halloween special Disney parade was only beaten by the spooky and ear popping fireworks display. I carried a satisfied and sugar crashed Alex the 20 minutes back to the hotel thinking how much easier it would have been to carry his 1 lb 13 oz frame the day he was born! …. At least the back pain masked the sever pressure on my bladder.
Laurina and Alex return to the Disney parks on Thursday when I go back to the airport to pick up Baba and Geegee and Auntie Laurie. All six of us make a return trip to Disneyland on Friday. For my mom and dad, me and my sister, this will be a family holiday Disneyland reunion of 35 years when last we went to Disneyland together!
