My grandma was the life of the party. She was always the first one awake and last one asleep, and our theme park visits were her time to shine. One Christmas at Knott’s Berry Farm she set all 8 grandkids loose in the candy store at 10pm and sugared us up to our hearts’ content. I’m sure our parents were stoked about that, but hey, I was in heaven! She’d do anything to make her family happy, especially us kiddos.

Perhaps the best example of this was our visit to Disneyland the week the Indiana Jones Adventure opened.

The first thing that struck us when we arrived was the massive show building, now camouflaged by a jungle facade. This thing was HUGE. Snake statues lined the walkway from the tram station to the ticket booths, and we could hardly contain ourselves. We bought our tickets (because the internet didn’t exist), and walked through the turnstiles.

When we started making our way to Adventureland, we suddenly realized our error - the line for the new ride was already 4 hours long. F. O. U. R. Insanity. And we were kids! I mean, at the age of 10 I could barely stay still long enough to listen to my parents tell us we were going in the first place, let alone stand in a four hour line!

Unlike today, the entire interior queue was used - no cast members were waiting at the entrance to the temple to control the crowd entering. The line snaked out of the temple through the area next to the Jungle Cruise (you know you’ve waived to those sad folks waiting in line!), past the Dole Whip line, leaving Adventureland, and snaking around the hub MULTIPLE TIMES. It was bonkers. Cast members stood everywhere, holding ropes that would briefly stop the line at various points so folks could walk through it to get to Frontierland and Fantasyland.

So, Grandma, demanding the universe provide the perfect day for her grandkids, offered to stand in the line for us. Alone. For hours. Our parents took us to other rides, allowing us to have fun and enjoy an amazing day at the Magic Kingdom while my grandma stood in line alone to ensure we got to experience the latest, greatest thing. One of the adults would check in with her from time to time (that’s right, no cell phones back in those days!), and once she approached the temple - 3+ hours in - we joined her and entered the main ride queue.

We collected our translation cards and thanked her, passively as only kids who have no idea how the world works can do, and proceeded to have a wonderful time trying to translate phrases before the line moved ahead, pulling the little rope to hear the guy who fell down the shaft speak, and shedding more than a drop of sweat hoping we wouldn’t be trapped in the booby trapped spike room.

But that’s who Grandma was - a selfless, passionate, fiery woman who would do anything to ensure her family had an amazing experience, no matter where we were, what we wanted to do, or how our parents felt about it. If we wanted to ride Jurassic Park at Universal Studios and get soaked, she bought us sweatshirts. If we wanted Disney Dollars to buy toys, we had them. And the churros flowed like wine.

I’ll always cherish my memories of trips to theme parks with Grandma, and I can’t wait to carry on her legacy with my grandkids someday.

What are your favorite family memories at the parks? What ridiculous things did you do with them?