Princess Day at Disneyland

I've been wanting to take Raven and Amber to Disneyland for the longest time. Problem is, Disneyland is expensive if you don't have an annual pass. The price of admission just went up again. So you can understand that when Daniel offered to pay to take the girls with us to Disneyland, how could I say no? Plus the look on their faces when I told them he was taking us there was priceless. They were sooo excited.
Because the older one is almost 13 and the younger one just turned 6, I was worried that they would not want to do anything together, but Amber was a big brave girl and went on big girl rides like Big Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean and Splash Mountain. Raven also consented to going on little girl rides like Peter Pan, Mr. Toad, Winnie the Pooh, the Teacups and King Arthur's Carousel. Amber sat next to Daniel every ride we went on (I can't explain it - she was his shadow all day! I felt dissed! LOL) and sat behind him and in front of me on Splash Mountain. Then, as our log is pulling away from the loading area on Splash Mountain, Amber says to me "Holly, I'm scared." Oh crap.
Oh crap!! What have I done? She said she wanted to go on this ride!! Don't panic. Gotta calm the kid down. "Its OK sweetie. Just hold onto my arms. Nothing is going to happen. I'm right here and Daniel is right in front of you. You'll be OK." With my arms wrapped around her, I can feel her tiny heart palpitating faster. I think to myself what an awful person I am. I should have known better. She did great on the other rides, she had fun, she said she liked the water slides on Pirates, but this is different. The whole ride I was holding her and telling her it was going to be OK, trying to pretend that a 52.5 foot drop wasn't in our near future. Every little drop we went down made her heart speed up. Then, as we hit the ascent of the last drop, and the scary music plays, she starts to cry. "Just hold onto me and shut your eyes and it will be OK. I've got you." Daniel turns around and sees her little face. There is nothing we can do at this point, about her, about the 52.5 foot drop, about anything. I squeeze her extra tight and tell her to shut her eyes and we make it down the hill (at 10 feet per second) without her puking or peeing herself. As we get off the ride, I hand her over to Daniel and she buries her soggy face into his shoulder as we head back over to ride Winnie the Pooh for a second time to cheer her up. This time, and only this time, she sits with me. As we walk back past Splash Mountain, she won't even look at it. She is sooo done with that ride. But at least she stopped crying.
Daniel was Mr. Awesome for a day. He took care of everything. While the girls and I were taking a bathroom break, he got drinks and my mango slices. While we were in line for Peter Pan he ran and got Princess Mouse Ears for Amber. On the way out he got Raven a Tinkerbell picture holder (not a frame, a picture holder, its like a stand with a stick on it for the photo). He bought lunch and oh yeah, did I mention the girls' tickets? He was also our photographer for the day, which is hard when a certain teenager won't pose for pictures unless I make her. They got into a photo war in the car on the way home (Raven's Nintendo DS takes pictures). And what was his reward for his efforts? Being subjected to random tickle attacks from the Princesses and I while waiting in line. We ganged up on him all at once. Dude didn't have a chance. Raven accidentally clawed up his neck during one of these attacks. Then the 3 of them were joking around and all tried stepping on each other and he got kicked by both of them. I can't remember why but Raven inadvertantly smacked him at one point while joking around with him. LOL poor guy.
There was a moment on the drive home when all 3 of them fell asleep. I was so bummed I couldn't take pictures because I was driving. They were all so cute. Daniel ended up waking up first and getting pictures of the other 2 for me. Then he got a shot of Raven waking up and declared himself the winner of the photo war. Raven protested. I smell a rematch.