Disneyland Monstrous Summer All-Nighter

Shannon Kay1 Comment

Disneyland was open for 24 hours straight, from 6am to 6am. We didn’t even attempt to go all 24 hours, though there were many that did! We were most interested in the late night events. We let Guinevere nap late, and she woke up around 6pm. We were in the park by around 7pm. We went to DCA first for dinner and shared the exclusive macaroni & cheese pizza at Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta.
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After that we crossed over to Disneyland.
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I had read that there would be Storm Troopers in Tomorrowland but I didn’t see any, so Jerrod took Guinevere on Autopia.
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By the time we were done with that, it was almost time for the fireworks. After the fireworks we rode the Astro Orbiter. When we got to the Stage Door Cafe to have some exclusive Monte Cristo Bites, the 10:30 showing of Fantasmic started. We were able to mostly watch the whole show.
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Guinevere said she wanted to go on the Winnie the Pooh ride, so we headed to Critter Country. I changed her into her pajamas at the Hungry Bear restrooms, but when we got to the Winnie the Pooh ride she said she didn’t want to ride it.
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That was okay, we just headed back to Fantasyland and one of our most anticipated late night events, a 12:30am Soundsational Parade! Guinevere was happy to wait for the parade, and was so excited when it started.
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It was the most exciting Disneyland parade I’ve ever seen! I doubt there was anyone that wasn’t a huge fan, and it felt like a midnight premiere. The crowd was especially excited and responsive, and the performers really rose to the occasion.

By the time the parade was finished it was after 1am. Another late night event we wanted to experience was a pajama party in Toon Town after midnight. I’ve rarely seen so many people entering Toon Town! We gave Guinevere the choice of who to see first, and she chose Mickey Mouse.
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After greeting Mickey in his pajamas, Guinevere and Jerrod were getting tired and didn’t want to wait for more characters, so we started walking out. Guinevere fell asleep on the way to the car. We left at about 2am.
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Project Mouse: The Local Way

Shannon Kay3 Comments

Inspired by Britt of Britt-ish designs‘ “Project Mouse” stuff and of course the “Project Life” trend, I’ve been doing a Project Mouse that’s a bit more like Project Life. Since I’m a local, I don’t go to Disneyland on vacation, I go for a couple hours, sometimes weekly. I take lots of pictures but I never make a big vacation “album” or anything.

My idea is to do a page per visit, similar to the page per week I would do for project life. Some visits needed a two page spread. Actually, I found some visits, like my daughter’s birthday, needed a third page. I’ve found that if I was having trouble getting everything on the page sometimes I just need to add a page and it’s amazing how quickly I’m able to get it together.

One thing I’ve been doing is I try to make a psd file and put down a little journaling about what we did that day, and I’ll usually put the pictures in too. This is usually that night or the next day. Often I do it during Guinevere’s post-Disneyland nap! I don’t usually do anything else with it right away, but when I’m ready to create, everything is right there and I haven’t forgotten the details of the day.

Here are the pages I’ve made so far.

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^This is the first page I made for “Project Mouse”
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I’m hoping to be able to eventually backtrack to Guinevere’s first trip to Disneyland. I know she would love looking at a book of all of her days at Disneyland.