Disneyland is an annual trip for us, it is our happy place as a family where we let go of electronics, work and focus on being present, laughing and enjoying each other. My goal is to make a photo book every year to celebrate these trips.

Here are some of things I make sure to capture in photos while at Disneyland:

• The hotel room
• My child’s excitement in line
• If I can, the look on my child’s face during the ride ( ex. Small World)
• “Selfies” throughout the day
• My child wearing ears – the ultimate essence of Disneyland
• My child participating in a show (ex. Jedi Training)
• Characters
• Playing with a new toy
• I always buy the photos of us on a ride
• Details of the Disneyparks (castle, small world ride, the Walt/ Mickey statue)
• “Selfies” with 3d glasses
• Scores on rides (Toy Story Mania, Astroblasters)
• Scenic shots at night with lights (castle, ferris wheel at California Adventure)
• Playing in the hotel room at night
• Playing in the character’s houses in Toontown
• Accomplishing tasks ( ex. at the Redwood Creek Wilderness Explorer Camp at California Adventure)
• Playing at the pool
• Traditional photos in front of the castle
• My child being just tall enough or not tall enough for a ride
• Eating meals and meal signs
• Balloons
• Mickey shaped food
• Parades
• Fireworks

I also make sure to scan or photograph the following:

• Certificates (Jedi Training)
• Drawings ( Animation Classes)
• Receipts
• My child’s writings about the trip

For this series of books, Blurb was the photo book printer of choice. A “10 x 8 standard landscape” using “standard paper” with the “hardcover image wrap”.

This book I organized chronologically. I usually chose two fonts for my photo books – one for titles and one for the journaling. Any more fonts and it gets too busy. I knew I would be doing a series of these books, so I splurged and bought the Kingdom font for titles and downloaded the Glasket medium font (free) for the journaling. I used Blurb’s simple layouts with a little adaptation here and there and white pages as a base.

Here is sampling of pages from our Disneyland “Summer 2011” photo book:

Capturing the Hotel Room Harry’s favorite ride – Star Tours and him trying on Mickey R2D2 ears Jedi Training and the battleI also scanned the Jedi Training certificate.

The lightsaber he bought and characters in Tomorrowland. A selfie and the Spacemountain ride. A scenic shot at night, a “selfie” with 3d glasses and Toy Story Mania scores. The Build-a-Bear experience. Meet “Disney” ( I know not very original, but he’ll always know where it came from). Harry’s new Build-a-Bear. The hotel room at night, playing light sabers with “Disney”. Character lovin’. Enjoying Minnie’s house with “Disney”. Harry trying to accomplish all the goals to be an official “Wilderness Explorer”. Harry kept enjoying the fact the “Disney” was a camoflauged bear so he would stick it next to anything green and ask ” Mom, can you find Disney?” All the details at the pool at the hotel – scenic, slides, fancy drinks, floating in the water, etc. The traditional photo in front of the castle. Harry finally was tall enough on this trip to ride “Indiana Jones”. Harry tried to teach me how to cross my eyes at the Rainforest Cafe and then we just had to stop at the Lego Store. Another Space Mountain ride shot and the Astroblasters ( I love that you can e-mail it to yourself). Playing at the pool some more.  Shots with the Cars characters and still not tall enough for California Screamin’. This trip we bought a book “Disneyland’s Hidden Mickey’s”. There is also an app of the same name. We found several but we could probably spend a lifetime finding them all. These were some of our favorites. No trip is complete without an animation class. Love watching Harry learn to draw and through the years he keeps getting better. Love the photo bomb as we were making our exit. After the trip Harry, was writing a journal, I scanned his journal page and included his version of the trip. More of Harry’s highlights. It is always fun to get everybody’s “favorite” part of the trip and include a little journaling about it. And the back cover.

Have a magical day!