The Artificial Reward

Since there was no pot of gold at the end of our hike up Mount Fuji we decided that the boys needed an artificial reward and the girls for being drug along for the ride.  So we ended up at Tokyo Disney.  I had always planned on our first trip to Disney of doing something really cool to surprise the kids and film their reaction.  Well, I lost that mommy moment.  But, we had fun...

By the way this was Jason's first experience and he has graduated from kid to grumpy old man.

I am starting to think part of his dental decorations should consist of office signs.  Could be cool.

As we entered the park we caught a glimpse of Winnie the Pooh and Tennyson became immediately obsessed.  I don't think she has even  seen the cartoon.  So, Jason (in one of his many - not grumpy old man moods) decided to take her in the Pooh store and she went nuts.  She sleeps with Pooh every nap time and night.  I think you can see that Daddy likes making his girls happy!

In the morning we hung out as a family (that included our friends), we rode some rides.  Charlotte was tall enough for some of the big rides.  So I took her on Thunder Mountain.  She did pretty good until one of the dark parts when you get jerked around a bit.  It was a tad bit too intense for her.  I was proud of her, she did great.  We just need to get Jason into rides.

When you are at Tokyo Disney with  American kids, be careful where you feed them.  1.  It is expensive (I think lunch was $60), and 2. Some Japanese food is better than others.  We checked out a few and then thought we had found a decent one, but hamburger was really hamburger steak slathered in sauce.  No one was thrilled. 

After lunch our friends took the boys to do some of the more adventurous rides and we took the girls to the girly stuff.  It was so much fun.  I am looking forward to taking them again when Tennyson is a little older and maybe even doing the whole princess thing.

One of my favorites that we met was Mary Poppins.  All of the characters were very nice and stayed true to their character.  It was fun to watch the princesses arm movements.  I love how Mary Poppins keeps her heels together when she is standing.  We saw Mary Poppins twice and she remembered Charlotte and her name.

The girls loved the Merry Go Round, but then again our family has a thing for horses.

Tennyson has seen the Dumbo movie and had fun on the Dumbo ride.  We almost missed it because you have to be awake to ride the ride.  Tennyson had fallen asleep on my shoulder in line and didn't want to wake up.

A few of the other characters we saw.

Grahm wanted to go on the Teacups (he likes to get dizzy like his momma).  So we ran off and Charlotte decided to join us.  Neither one of them got sick and I had it going pretty fast, their heads were rolling.

We all met up for a few more rides and dinner.  For dinner I hunted down American food (I know boring, but I wanted my money eaten and not trashed).  Tomorrowland has yummy burgers and fries.  The burger has a different kind of sauce on it, but it was still yummy.  The girls loved the Mickey Mouse shaped chicken nuggets.

The boys loved Space Mountain and had to drag Jason back for one more ride.  I missed being with them to see them experience it all, but they didn't have to hang out with any princesses.

We watched 2 parades.  One during the day and the other at night.  It was fun to see and there was so much more to do.  It was super nice to be in Japan and not have to panic if I lost sight of one of them for a sec and to leave your bags in your stroller while you go on rides and no one is going to steal anything.  In fact they are always rearranging the strollers outside of rides to keep the parking nice and tight (valet parking for strollers).  One time our drinks ended up spilled and they were offering to get us another one.  Super nice, we didn't have them replace them - we left them on the foot rest of the stroller.

We had to tell Tennyson that Pooh and Tinker Bell (her other new obsession) had to go nu-nite so she would leave with out a fight