Disneyland 2017
Finally!!! It's my Disneyland blog! I have had a lot of people asking when I'm going to write it. I've made them wait way too long!! I can't believe it's already been three months since we went. I miss it already! Good thing our next trip is in the works. Haha, we get asked all of the time why we don't go anywhere else. My answer is always the same. We have gone to other places: Mexico and Vegas numerous times, and we always have a great time, but in the end Disneyland is just our favourite place to go! I completely understand why people don't get it. They tend to think it's all about the rides. But for us it's really not. I mean, of course we enjoy the rides, but we love so much more. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love love LOVE that it's a place that you can just completely let go and be a kid. I love getting to wear Minnie ears everyday, love eating ice cream and treats everyday, and love walking down Main Street and feeling the joy and excitement resonating from every single person there.
If you follow my photography pages and my blog, you would know that family is very important to us, especially our nieces and nephews. When we were planning our trip we made the decision that we would take turns taking our numerous nieces and nephews to Disneyland with us. This year we took our 14 year old niece, Haley. Her and our oldest, Mikail, are only 7 months apart and have always been extremely close. Haley often teases us about what nerds we are when it comes to Disney. We weren't too sure if she would get into it as much as we do when we got there, but low and behold, when we arrived, she immediately got sucked into the magic of Disney! :) :) It was amazing!! You will see from the photos though, that she is never too into getting her photo taken. A lot of glares and hands in front of her face. Oh, Haley.
I always find that when we go to Disneyland there often seems to be themes of our trips. Last year was lots of riding Tower of Terror (both mine and Jaeden's favourite rides) because it was the last year it was going to be there. There was also lots of pin trading. It was the first year that Mikail really got into it. This year I would have to say that it was food (we all had checked out numerous Disney food blogs and Instagram accounts and made lists of foods we wanted to try), the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride (it was AWESOME!! Not even mad anymore that they changed it), and some major pin trading.
If you have not tried pin trading yet, you really need to!! I've always been a bit of a collector in general: Minnie ears, Minnie stuffies, Lego Disney mini figures, Disney ornament shoes, shoes in general (haha). Hmm...now that I type this out I realize that my collections seem to have a bit of a common denominator. Good ol' Disney and their money grabs. Ok, ok, back to pin trading. I've had numerous people ask me about it, what it is, how it works. What you do is start with a lanyard and a set of pins. There are tons of stores all around Disney that you can buy them in. There are pins you can buy strictly to trade, or ones that you can buy because you love them and want to keep them. Once you have a set you are good to go. You then go in numerous stores and look for pin boards, or look at cast members to see if they have pins on them. If you find something you like you can trade them for one of your pins. What we like to do is try to find certain sets to collect. It is so exciting, especially for the kids, when they find a certain pin they were looking for!
This year was different for pin trading because we not only traded with other cast members, we actually traded with numerous other pin traders around the parks, just random strangers. We learned so much more than we had known about the world of Disney pin traders. There was one woman who had waited overnight at the Disney convention to get a full set of a limited edition set of pins that were only available for people at the convention. We talked to a man who was retired and would hang outside of the pin traders store, with his jean jacket that was FULL of limited edition pins, waiting for fellow hardcore pin traders to come and trade with. Another group of traders told us how to tell if the pins we found were real or fake.
As I write all of this I realize how much of a nerd I've become. Hahaha. But it's so fun! And I think it's so good for the kids! It's super fun, plus now it's teaching them about others in the world. They have the chance to talk to other people and learn all of their stories. When we asked Haley and Mikail what was there favourite part of the trip they both said pin trading, hands down. Jaeden said his favourite part was the Guardians ride. I think I would have to agree with him ;)
Well, another trip done and finally blogged about. I can't wait for our next adventure!
