Magic Kingdom, indeed!

It was so exciting to wake up this morning, we barely even noticed our Pop Tarts and Costco blueberry muffins.  The day only got better when we realized we were going to take a tram through the parking lot AND a ferry boat to get to Disney island!  Who needs rides?  The boys were thrilled and we weren’t even inside the park yet.

Eli was happy to see that several spiders were riding along with us on the ferry, and Jake kept saying “Welcome to Mickey’s Family!”  It was pretty cute.

After entering the gates and smearing ourselves with sunscreen, we started our day in Adventureland, where the boys were immediately swept up in the magic of the Swiss Family Treehouse.  Eli was in heaven with the water wheels.  You can imagine the conversations that followed.

Good choice, Matt, Eli, and Jake!  It’s just as cool as we remember.

Our next move, however, was not so smart.  Pirates of the Caribbean for 5-year-olds is not only dark and scary, but also a little lewd.  We did a lot of cuddling and hiding our eyes.  But we got back on track again with the Jungle Cruise, Aladdin’s Magic Carpet, and Tom Sawyer’s Island.  We can climb forts and shoot muskets from here!

It was so fun!  By that time we were ready to stop for some burgers and fries, and share stories with our cousins.  Our original plan to go back to the car for lunch was foiled by the tram and the ferry boat.  Those Disney planners are brilliant.

We then made our way to Fantasyland, where we watched the princesses dance in front of the castle, rode the Carousel (Jake believed the horses belonged to the princess), stood in line for over an hour to ride Peter Pan, and decided that It’s A Small World was our favorite, after all.  What an awesome ride!

By the time we arrived at the Tomorrowland Speedway, we had been through two thunderstorms, three sticky coats of sunscreen, a couple of softly swirled ice cream cones that dissolved over our fingers, and by that time I’d given up touching the camera.  It was just too gross.  We’d been getting our Disney on for the past 10 hours, and we were so impressed with how Jake and Eli were doing.  But even the best things are at some point not “fun” anymore, and the thought of staying for the fireworks and the electric parade would mean three more hours of sticky, tired, and “my legs hurt!”  I think even Walt Disney himself would agree that if it was magic we were looking for, we’d found it, and now it was time to take our little guys home.

I’m not sure how long it took for all of us to say so, but one by one, we emotional types (Mimi, Mike, Cris, Me) admitted that the whole Disney experience was so moving that more than once we found ourselves choking back tears.  The Dolphin Show at Sea World was the first culprit.  Even though we knew we were adults and shouldn’t be crying over dolphins, the choreography of the music and birds and water fountains, in the middle of a bunch of leaping dolphins and breaching whales, somehow converged to make the Universe and the power of existence irresistably beautiful.

What is that?  How do they do that?

The music, combined with the art, combined with doing the impossible.  Where does the dreamer even begin to dream that it can be done?  And how does expecting it to be possible suddenly make it so?  There is creativity that abounds in some souls that truly changes the world.  Not by logic or order or taking steps one at at time, but simply by jumping in with both feet and not caring whether they land.  Because somehow they seem to know they will always land.  And they do.

Thank you, Walt Disney!  Our little boys knew magic today.