You're dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway. --Walt Disney--

“To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past...and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America...with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”

--Walt Disney, Disneyland dedication speech, July 17, 1955

What Mark and I didn't know on Saturday was that it was Disneyland's 55th anniversary, which attributed to the busyness of the place, although I don't know how different it was from any other Saturday. There were a lot of people though! We went to the park around 9, left around 12:30 for a break (Auntie Denise and her fam/friends were having a bowling b-day celebration for one of the other little girls so we met up with them so she could meet Mark and also so Evelyn could have a break from her stroller), then we came back and stayed at the park til 10pm!

Right as we were leaving for our lunch time break we noticed a big crowd at the beginning of Main Street. The President of Disneyland was rededicating the park or something like that for the 55th anniversary. This is a pic of him below.

They also had one of their top security guys come speak because he also happened to be one of the first kids to run across the bridge at Sleeping Beauty's Castle on that first day. It was neat to hear him relate his experience from that. We didn't stay for the whole ceremony so I don't really know what the president had to say.

Here's a few pics of us by the opening gate and Sleeping Beauty's Castle. I do have to apologize for the lengthiness of this post...I knew it would be long starting out but didn't realize it was gonna be this big!

These two were actually taken when we were waiting for the bus at the hotel. Evelyn and Mark were blowing raspberries and seeing who could do it better :) It was just funny

We of course, had to go on Pirates again, this is us waiting in line. Evelyn did fairly good, still didn't like that mist part but never cried so that was good. I loved seeing all the pirates on the ride though, especially Captain Jack. They did such a wonderful job on him, he looked so lifelike!

We tried to go on rides where Evelyn could ride too and the good thing about Disneyland is that there are a lot of them! We took her next on the Toy Story ride. It was an interactive ride where you use a laser gun and try to get points by shooting Zurg's enemy targets. I was holding Evelyn so it was hard for me to get very many of them so Mark totally kicked my butt pointwise (see pic below).

This was taken while we were waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion, which Evelyn also went on. I think she was a little spooked on that one, mostly because it was so dark but she still did good, just tensed up a bit. It was a fun ride though!

We didn't catch the main parade but we did get to see the Dance Celebration one. It had a lot of characters and lots of dancing so it was fun to watch. We did see a lot of characters that day but unfortunately didn't get to have any pictures taken with them :(

For dinner we had made a reservation at the Blue Bayou, which is in the New Orleans part of the park and also right inside the Pirates ride! It was such a cool atmosphere and I really enjoyed it. The food was a bit expensive but was really good and it was just something fun and out of the ordinary to do and probably won't have many chances to go there so what the heck! :)

We had them take a pic before we left but you can't really see the cool background cuz it's so dark.

One of the shows was the Enchanted Tiki Room, which was also a lot of fun. The best part was watching Evelyn, she just loved it! She was fascinated by the birds and flowers and everything and just stared the whole time.

Another ride Evelyn LOVED was the "It's a Small World". She doesn't look too happy in this pic below but she did really like it. She just kept looking around at all the little people and was enthralled. I thought it was neat with all the different nationalities and such but it was so looong! Got a bit annoying after a bit but still fun to go through and look at.

That night we found a spot in New Orleans to watch the night show, Fantastmic. It's a show in Mickey's dream where the evil witch from Sleeping Beauty tries to take over but of course, good conquers evil and all is well. It was a fun show with lots of characters, fireworks, water effects, and lots of other things. They even had a pirate ship come through with Hook and Peter Pan fighting. Very cool.

We were gonna watch the fireworks but unfortunately "prevailing high winds" ruined that for us. We were disappointed though cuz they have an awesome firework show! We saw a little bit the night before when we were driving back from the train station but didn't stay out to watch it cuz we thought we would see it Saturday but oh well! Guess we'll just have to go back another time :)

We had a wonderful weekend though and I'm so glad we got to do it before we left and I'm really glad Mark was able to enjoy it with us! Evelyn was such a trooper and did so well for being cooped up in a stroller most of the time! I really do look forward to going again when she's older. Hopefully we'll be able to go to Disney World next time to mix it up a bit!