Nathaniel Thompson's Photography Blog: tell me can you feel the thunder?

here's how the story goes...

we entered the park the first day at 9:30 am, and didn't leave until 11:00pm that night. the last time we went to disneyland, the boys (noah and micah) were 3 and kaitlyn was 2. I was was stoked because the boys were tall enough to ride the matterhorn - and they loved it, but for the most part we went on all the "kiddie" rides. so this time, a year later - i was almost as anxious to get into disneyland as they were (i had checked online to see the height requirements - 40"). that meant that the boys were half an inch taller than the required height for most of the rides in the park! i started thinking along the lines of space mountain instead of dumbo. our disneyland experience was so much more enjoyable as my sweet mom (a.k.a. "nana") came with us. this way we could have a 1:1 kid to adult ratio.

the first ride the kids wanted to go on was "the rockets" - which just so happened to be in tomorrowland - next to "star tours". in line for star tours with the boys they became totally convinced they were in a real spaceport with real robots. so when they strapped on their seat belts and and we "took off" - micah turned to my wife (jenny) and asked,"are we still at disneyland?" the boys absolutely loved the ride, so convincing them to try "space mountain" was easy. of course my mom was upset that i would actually take my 4 year olds on space mountain! she may have been right, because when they got off, micah said,"i don't want to go on that again until i'm 5." to which noah said,"i don't want to go on that again until i'm a grown up." after mellowing out with nemo, autopia, toon town, and the train, we finally came across the most epic ride of the day for the boys..."big thunder mountain." i thought i had ruined roller coasters for them with the space mountain experience, but they were eager to try it. and after the first time through, they were convinced that it was the best ride ever. they were able to ride it 4 times each, and probably would have been content just doing that for the rest of the weekend. other highlights included splash mountain, pirates of the caribbean, and soaring over california.

just before we entered