i LOVE disneyland.

without fail, even with crowds, even when i was angry about the whole passport thing last year.. i still love it. that's what they are so good at... making you follow them in a cult like manner almost. getting thousands of people sitting around, waiting on the ground, through cold, and rain.. just to see some fireworks?! but they aren't just any fireworks, they are disney fireworks, and that makes it alllll worth it. they have people taking off work, ditching school, traveling far distances to celebrate their 50th anniversary, on a date that's not really even their actual anniversary, but you go anyways.

it's like cki convention almost, you come away feeling re-energized, and refreshed for your love of whatever it was. after conventions you always come away with this feeling of purpose or excitement and renewed sense of how you want to do good in the world. in the past month or so that i haven't gone to disneyland since i've renewed my pass, i was always "eh.." about the fact that i hadn't been in a while. but after going yesterday i am like "i want to go every weekend forever!!" which i'm sure will fade off in a few. but seriously.. it was awesome :P

wtf am i talking about? as if you didn't know. hahah.. yesterday beth, jimmy, sakura and i all took the days of work .. called in sick.. whatever to trek out to disneyland for "the happiest homecoming on earth" their 50th anniversary, which all the disney freaks who know waaaaay too much about the park for their own good (referred to as "the crazies") are quick to point out that may 5th is not the actual day the park opened, but it was actually in july. waking up and leaving earlier than i usually do for work (just a tad) and hoisting beth out of bed way earlier than she's used to, we were off to disneyland. thank goodness for the carpool lane because we made excellent time. where we were not making excellent time was the parking structure, the entrance to the park, and main street. beth is excellent for yelling obscenities at other cars who don't know how to merge (in the privacy of our own car of course). the park was PACKED... and trying to get through main street to where jimmy and sakura and his aunt were.. was impossible. i was all set to shove through the crowd.. but beth was not for being as rude as i was okay with. we finally got some sort of spot where we could somewhat hear, entertained ourselves with people watching, complained about how hungry we were, and they finally started. we saw little tiny leann rimes, and listened to some boring boring speeches and left as michael eisner was being introduced and booed. beth had to go to the bathroom and i was over it. but of course.. in that park your patience will always pay off (most of the time) and i left before christina aguilera and then julie andrews came on stage. not a huge deal because i couldn't really see them from the original position anyways.. so i traded being able to hear what was going on, for a partial view of the screen projections. i couldn't have both.. i had to pick one. they showed the commercials that have been airing where all the characters are racing to get to the park (which i was giddy to see since our company made them) and then ended it with the characters, and the little boy from the commercial, coming out and having this celebration on the stage. it was cute. fireworks shooting up from the castle.. the whole shebang. totally cute.

afterwards, beth and i rode on the new buzz lightyear ride.. (since we are smart and got fastpasses when we couldn't cram ourselves in at first), *insert picture of beth and jean on buzz lightyear ride here*.. guess what too bad i can't. because when i cut and paste the code it says it can't find it. dang it. oh well.. the picture is nasty and beth totally schooled me.. so i don't mind that no one will see it. hah. after that we ate some lunch.. FINALLY! and roved around the park doing things beth hasn't really done yet and trying to find special 50th stuff (including the 50 smashed pennies...!!! i was in penny heaven!!!) autopia, the disney train, mark twain riverboat, jungle cruise. it was neat.. they added a lot of stuff to some of the rides and it's definitely more spiffy. i love what they did to the jungle cruise. we got to watch this kid pull the sword out of the stone and looked at the different mosaics in the park (disney pictures consisting of pictures of people at disneyland throughout the years). we finally met up with jimmy, sakura and his aunt. looked for his cousin in the mosaics, rode matterhorn (which i think they definitely made faster!) and discovered that those turkey legs they sell are super yummy. later sakura, beth and i were off to search for the 50 mickey 50th logos hidden around the park, look at mosaics, penny machines, and souvenirs. while walking through the castle we saw people starting to camp out for the fireworks show and i decided i want to too. based on the warnings from nicole about wanting to be able to see the castle... i figured that right in front was the best place. everyone though i was nutso, and one of the crazies, but they are too.. so they didn't completely mind waiting with me. plus we were a little tired too. wanna know what time we started waiting? guess...

5pm :P and the fireworks started at 9:25pm... if it didn't rain... which it had been sporadically in the morning and was forecasted to in the evening. i wanted to wait anyways. beth, sakura and i waited, took turns going to get food, and it started raining at like 7pm or so... and people were miserable and wet, but still sat there. beth and i huddled until my umbrella and after awhile it stopped raining.. and people were judging the skies, seeing where the clouds were coming from... seeing if it was going to rain some more... sakura came back from getting food and jimmy joined us and we had an entertaining wait for a while... it was nice. we heard fantasmic going off and we were pretty sure that we were going to see the fireworks, that the perseverence had paid off :) and it did. we saw the new fireworks.. it was awesome.. so cute, and it was funny how into it everyone was. especially the people who waited 4 hours.... but hey.. if you're willing to wait that long, you'd better be into it right? it was good.. thought.. definitely worth the wait :P

afterwards we were going to leave, but spent some time doing penny searching and looking at more souvenirs. there's this photo album that i adore.... but the whole "retro disneyland" style of products they came up with are totally adorable. and i think i'll have to get it.. but i couldn't get it just yet. who pays $18 for a photo album?! i guess i will.. especially since i already paid $18 for my umbrella :P

trying to get out of the parking lot was a little bit of a mad house, but not too bad.. and finally we were on our way home. totally exhausted. i wanted to fall asleep so bad while i was driving home.. i hope beth didn't notice. it's okay that she knows now because we home safe and sound. :P the exhaustion has carried over to today.. and i am just plain tired. but i loved it.. i wish i could have seen some of the footage and what they showed on the news. my boss said he was thinking about me while he was watching the news. hah.. so he knows i'm a total slacker.. but that's what vacation days are for huh? :P

*and you thought you were rid of my long "this is what i did and ate today" posts huh. hah!