happiest playdate on earth

what's better than a trip to disneyland?

well, not much.  heh.  but there is at least one way to improve on it - and that's scheduling lunch and a playdate with a friend at the happiest place on earth.  and as luck would have it, we were able to do just that with friends we don't get to see very often these days - kelley and her son, li'l d.  we met at the fire station just inside the gate at disneyland.

we made our way up main street and decided to eat at carnation cafe.  of course, there was a line of folks waiting to be seated, so we took a pager and wandered through a few shops.

it didn't take too long before the kids were happily coloring their kids' menu and kelley and i were sharing an order of deep-fried dill pickles.

i was pleasantly surprised by how delicious my grilled shrimp salad was.

and the bean went with her usual.

one of the greatest things about being annual passholders is being able to stroll through the parks at a leisurely pace, without having to worry about making sure we hit every last ride and attraction in one day.  and we did just that.  after lunch, we headed to the theater in fantasyland to catch a showing of "mickey and the magical map," and then decided to take the kids into neighboring toontown to let them loose in the playgrounds.  we ran into a couple of other friends while we were there:

i can't stop laughing at li'l d's face in this shot.  clearly, he was over having his picture taken.

so we rewarded them with a stop at the ice cream parlor.

okay, maybe we treated ourselves too.

across the way at california adventure, they had fun playing some games down by the pier.

after bidding our friends goodbye for the day, we stopped in at the animation academy to learn how to draw phineas & ferb.

this is my kid protesting that she wasn't tired nor ready to leave.  yet there she was, sitting on the tram on the way back to the parking structure.

and before we even got out of said parking structure:

taking her to disneyland is the best way to get her nice and tired so that she doesn't protest too much at bedtime.  it works every time.