Judge Mickey was kind to us

Bruder and Lucy seemed strangely enthusiastic as they skipped off to their mom's court appearance. Rose wasn't sure what all the excitement was about, but ran to keep up.

Rose is a smart little girl and a good reader to boot. As we got closer to Disneyland and the spotting of mouse ears increased and the word DISNEY was clearly splashed across almost every passing bus, Rose shyly asked, "Mom, is Disneyland in California?" I told her it was and she took a deep breath, squeezed my hand, and studied the sidewalk as we strolled closer to the "courthouse". She fell uncharacteristically silent. I think she was praying.

In this photo, we'd all just yelled, "Surprise!!! We're at Disneyland!" (As if the "WELCOME TO DISNEYLAND" sign hadn't given it away.) She was so thrilled. And true to form for our kids, she was still a little unsure about our plans for the day. "So do we go to Disneyland and you go see the judge?"

We had only one day at Disney, so we arrived before they opened and were literally running the whole time. We stopped for this two second obligatory picture in front of the castle. We used Ridemax, computer software that plans out your day based on which rides you've selected and then chooses the times when the lines will be shortest. It was so worth the $15 we paid. During Spring Break, we literally walked onto several rides and were able to hit everything we wanted to do in Disney and California Adventure.

The only painfully long line was at Small World. Both times we've been at Disney (Land and World), the Small World ride has been closed. Ridemax predicted this would be our longest line and it certainly was. Here's Lucy checking out the crowd and wondering if it'll be worth it.

Finally, here we go! The girls loved it.

Bruder's thinking, "I can't believe I waited in line for this."

All three girls wanted to pose with Sully, but only Madeline had the courage to actually do it. Cholita absolutely loved the Monsters Inc ride. She was hilarious on all of the rides. She kept up a pretty continuous commentary, "Oh, there's Randall. Oh, what he gonna' do? Poor, poor Boo...."

Cholita definitely noticed the increased diversity in southern California (and I don't just mean green army men in the parade). During the wait in one line, there was a large Asian family behind us. Cholita was playing with the girls and she looked up at me with a huge smile and said, "Mom, look! We're a match!"

It was a fantastic, tiring, exhilarating day. Cholita turns 8 in 2013--see you then, Judge Mickey!