A few things you may already know...

Did you know Disneyland is expensive?

A slice of pizza costs over $6, a small bag of chips is $3, a popsicle is $4... even the t.p. in the bathroom stalls is in a coin-op dispenser!  (no, that last one is a joke... but given the Disney squeeze-'em-for-all-they-got credo, my guess is that it's not out of the realm of future possibilities... but of course the t.p. will probably be super cute with embossed Mickeys on it).  This doesn't even mention the cost of admission... we won't go there.

Did you know 8 hours is a LONG time to spend in a car with 4 kids?

Especially after only 4 hours of sleep for the grown ups.  Fortunately, I was smart enough to NOT tell the kids the night before so they actually slept well and long that night before.  The husband's need for a candy bar actually cost us about an hour.  Those 5 minutes spent getting that treat set us up perfectly in time to be part of a roadblock due to a fire on the side of the highway.  We were about 4 cars from the edge of the stoppage.  You can bet he SAVORED that Three Musketeers like no other!

Did you know a camera would be a really good thing to bring on a family trip to Disneyland?

Yeah, one of those "must-have" items.  We'll remember that next time ;-)   Sure, we did have a cell phone, but techno-idiot me cannot figure out how to get them off the phone and onto the computer to share with others.

Did you know they don't allow outside food or drink to be brought into Disneyland?

So if you have food sensitivities or other nutritional-type issues... like, I don't know, you want to eat healthfully.  Prefer to not consume sugar or hydrogenated oils.  Can't eat gluten.  Or dairy.  Or like your water free, cool and palatable.  If any of those describe YOU, well, my friend, you are S.O.L.  Or... you can smuggle.  This is very tricky because you need to pass Checkpoint Charley upon entering... and they are pretty thorough.  Sweatshirts with hoods and kangaroo pockets are excellent smuggling devices when used in conjunction with the storage basket of a stroller.  Yes, I let my kids eat the pricey pizza and fancy Mickey-head Eskimo pie things and all that.  I am actually not against junk food, per se.  It just does very BAD things to me.  Migraines.... baaaaaaad.  So I was able to eat "clean" from my stroller stash.  Shhhhhhhhh!  Please don't tell on me!

Did you know that trichiasis is quite painful and requires epilation with forceps?


And if you don't have your own forceps (i.e. tweezers), good lighting, and a steady hand then a trip to Urgent Care is in order.  Even though it sounds like an STD, trichiasis is when your eyelash grows in wrong and gouges into your eyeball.  (And epilation means "plucking").  Of course that happened on this trip!

Did you know that beginning a 7-hour road trip at 9:45 p.m. is smart?


Just think... you miss all the traffic.  And 7 hours magically becomes 5 hours and 31 minutes!  M&M's are better than coffee!  Thanks to my giveaway win from this sweet mommy blogger I was fueled for the night!  Oh, and my Driving Goddess status is best not divulged to the authorities.  Thanks!

Did you know that a Disney Blitz is like childbirth?

Why plan?  You never know how exactly it'll go anyway.  Whatever you threw in the bag probably won't be what you really need or want to use... but it'll do anyway.  Pain, yelling, more pain, more yelling, very little rest, not much relaxation no matter how hard you try, more pain, more yelling, fleeting thoughts of how amazing it all is, some tears of joy, some pain again, insistence that it is all wonderful, brief despair that you can't make it through, unmitigated laughter, face-splitting smiles, contentment, exhaustion.  And then all you can remember is how amazing it all was.

As soon as I can figure out the darn phone I'll put some pictures up along with a story of our adventures. It was a great time.  Truly insane spontaneity.  Kind of can't believe we did it.  Makin' memories ;-)

Of course the real fun began when I returned home to find out that my primary email account had been hacked.  Nice, eh?