one major disney disaster

so...yeah.  the teen and i had such grand plans to take advantage of disneyland being open all night on leap day (which they were billing as "one more disney day" - hence my bitter take on that title).  we'd snuck in some naptime, set our alarms to wake us up with enough time to get ready for the chilly night temps, and looked forward to it all day long.

but when i got up at 11:30 to start assembling the layers of clothing i'd thought out, the hub stopped me cold.  "you'd better take a look at what they just showed on the news," he said.  uh-oh.

and sure enough, a live overhead view from a newschopper hovering over disneyland resort showed one horrific ass nightmare.  the reporter even said "i've been doing this for 18 years, and i've never seen it like THIS."  yikes.  brake lights could be seen for miles around the area, backing up the freeway and all of the surrounding surface streets.  even worse was the marquees posted near the mickey & friends parking structure that said "disneyland is full."  folks were stuck in their cars, with all parking lots completely full (that structure holds 10,000 cars! holy shit) and the park at maximum capacity.  google told me that the rumored headcount limit for the land of the mouse is 85,000.

good god.  and i was so disappointed.  not to mention, a little afraid of the teen's reaction as i trudged over and knocked on her door.  i could tell she was super pissed, but what could i do?  no way were we going to drive all the way to anaheim at freaking midnight, knowing that it would be a futile mission.  so instead, i scrubbed off my makeup, took my sullen ass to bed, and tortured myself with the gazillion tweets with the hashtag #disney24.

actually, i was torn between being miserable over missing the fun and rejoicing in the fact that i was in my warm, comfy bed and about to get a full night's sleep after all.  but damn, i sure would've sacrificed that shuteye for hours of bonding time with my girl at our favorite place on earth, taking advantage of the freedom to ride rides that the bean would blanch at the mere mention of.  gah.  maybe one saturday night soon, the hub can hang out with the bean while the teen and i go off to enjoy a few late hours at the park. they're usually open till midnight, so if we took off at around 6...we could still recapture some of that late-night glory.  at least we're annual passholders and can go pretty much whenever we want.

so since i have no fun disney leap day pictures to share (bah!), here are some of my favorite shots from other visits to the house of the mouse over the last few months.  you'll notice that most of them are of me and the bean - we manage to sneak out there every other week on the one day of the week we have open. i'm not so lucky with the teen, but maybe the summer will bring more opportunities for us to go together.

one drizzly day, we actually sat and waited for a parade - which was cancelled in favor of "mickey's rainy day cavalcade," deemed safer for the performers so that they wouldn't slip and fall.  meh.  but the bean thought it was cool to march along behind the last character-laden trolley, as if she were part of the parade herself.

watching the "disney junior" stage show...for the 47th time.  i can damn near recite all of the lines and do the little dances and hand gestures.  seriously.  the teen is also not a fan of this show.  i just can't imagine why.

in a deep conversation with rapunzel about the meaning of life.  or, more accurately, the reasons why macaroni & cheese is far superior to a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

after watching the lineup visit after visit, the teen finally decided to give the famous dole whip a shot (she wasn't too impressed).

the bean loves her some characters.

i hopped into this shot only because i hadn't taken one with tinkerbell during her very own half marathon.  i think she needs new tights.  pixie dust apparently doesn't fix everything.

i love watching these two on rides together.

yeah, we've been here together a few times.

it ain't a proper visit to disneyland without snacks.

according to disneyland's annual passholder website, i've been to the parks exactly 30 times since september.  pretty stinking awesome.  i wonder what the number will be by the time it expires...