Who says teenagers don't have their priorities straight?

Ah, October. The anticipation of fall is in the air, and the excitement of the upcoming holidays start to buzz around. Then there's Costco, busy as bees setting up their Valentine's Day display.

It's also homecoming time at the high school, and my girls were getting ready. They were both performing at the game and going to the dance the next day. To quote Katy Perry, they were livin' a teenage dream! To add to our festive mood, we received an invitation to check out HalloweenTime at Disneyland, which kicks off their holiday season in the park. But guess what – it happened to be on the very same day of the dance. If there was an emoticon to symbolize feelings of teenage conflict and angst, I'd insert it here.

Actually Kiyomi was pretty relieved – she'd been waffling about going for awhile, and finally reluctantly decided to go with a group of friends. This may have been because I sort of 'strongly suggested' she go in order to have a true 'high school experience.' I get like that a lot, trying to force my teenage memories on my kids. Someday I'll tell you about the time I made her get a perm, put on leg warmers and get disappointed by a cute boy. It was epic.

She wasted no time in cancelling her homecoming plans and whipping out the face paint. Something tells me she wasn't planning on going to that dance in the first place.

But Kira on the other hand was in full homecoming mode. Ironically, their theme was Disney, and she and some of her friends were going together and basing their outfits on Disney Princesses.

I need to just pause right here and address all of you out there with young girls who are hoping their daughters will someday outgrow their 'princess phase,' who might be dreaming of a time when you can stop buying those candy-colored puffy dresses: Sorry, but that day may never come, you'll just have to start buying them in bigger sizes and with lower necklines.

Kira found a billowy yellow dress, a pair of yellow shoes and some accessories shaped like red roses to put together her Belle-derivative outfit. (It all came from Forever 21, which is somewhere you know the Disney princesses would shop if they lived near a mall and had a fondness for knockoff dresses and dollar nail-polish.)

She was looking forward to an evening of mild-debauchery with her friends sullying the Disney Princess image, so you can imagine the conflict when I told her we'd been invited to Disneyland on the same day as the dance. Honestly, I thought she would have a flicker of disappointment, wish us a fun time and then go back to pondering lip glosses. She is 16, after all, and what could be more important than the homecoming soiree?

But apparently a trip to the Magic Kingdom is just more magical than a night in an overheated gymnasium pretending you're in the Magic Kingdom, and after a quick query with her friends on Facebook (who almost unanimously said, "Are you crazy, DISNEYLAND OF COURSE") she decided to blow off the dance. Anyone who thinks that teens have outgrown Disney would be mistaken – within hours of her decision she had sold her ticket and replaced her tiara with a pair of mouse ears.

But she's nothing if not resourceful – she wore her homecoming dress to Disneyland that day.

Find out more about HalloweenTime and our day at the park here.

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