Six Faces of Disneyland

As noted earlier, we spent the weekend with our grandson at Disneyland. It was wonderful to watch through his eyes. But as you can see from these photos there are a lot of differing emotions and responses to the experiences of his visit. There is pensive, silly, thoughtful, fun and probably some other things going on in his head.

The pensive came from a couple of places. We took him to Space Mountain and he rode it but made it clear that he did not want to go through that noisy ride again. Surprisingly, he loved the small coaster in Toontown - we even rode it twice. In the second one I filmed the whole thing and there were screams of delight. When we took him on the night jungle cruise he did not like the animals and the noise of the boat we were on. We talked to him about it but he really did not like the experience - one wonders whether he would have liked it better in the day. In line on the second day, at Toontown, he wanted to climb everything. He is a bundle of energy. On the first day, we did not get him a stroller, so he walked several miles. But until the latter part of the afternoon he did not seem to be tired.

He took in a lot of things on this weekend. The picture of expectation from him watching the parade on Main Street was clearly beyond the things that young kids get from a parade. Mason is a thoughtful kid. So this parade was going to be something he wanted to see - but it was something he did not know about. He has an inquisitive mind. When we went to California Adventure and the Bear Camp - he rushed around looking that the animal footprints in the cement. He wanted to (and did) find all of the different kinds of prints. That was exciting to see him doing more than just experiencing the park.

But then there are a couple of silly pictures. Mason has a good sense of humor and enjoys people. His picture at breakfast shows his clear fun. The swing picture is of him riding something in Bear Camp. As we went up through the line he was a bit tentative, but when he got up there the first time - he was excited. As you can see from the picture, on the second ride he was positively joyful. It was something he could do and he liked that.

Finally, there are a couple of pictures of him with his family. Mason, like his dad, is a bit over shot with pictures. So he can become blasé about them. He will grimace if there are too many pictures taken. But he seems to enjoy looking at them after the fact.