Solo day and family trip... two, two, two reports in ONE!

[bumbershoot]

No update on the trip today. Too weirded out by convo with my dad, who told me that my half sister, a freshman in high school, is going to be one of the (dreaded) cheerleaders there for a competition in March.

Twitch twitch twitch. Says the former Drama Geek who wanted all the cheerleaders at her high school to fall in dark holes and be QUIET.

And says the person who went to her 20 year HS reunion, which was organized by the former cheerleaders, and the organizers decided to SCREAM (as they did in HS to our apathetic crowd who was, despite not being noisy, AT all the football games) at us because they couldn't figure out that their sound system wasn't very good, and that people away from the bar area couldn't even hear that anyone was speaking into the system, let alone know that someone was screeching (with nasty swear words!) at them to be quiet and listen to them telling the guests to talk to old classmates and have a good time (which is what they were, in fact, doing at the time).

Twitch twitch twitch.


And it looks like it's going to be right around hubby's b'day, which means we will VERY likely be there at the parks, and might have to see my sister be the "flyer" in her squad.


Twitch twitch twitch.

 

[kaoden39]

We went one year in March during a cheer competition. I am not a cheerleader fan, sorry. I swore after that trip that I would NEVER go near the parks during that time again. I so wanted to cheerfully throttle myself some cheerleaders by the end of everyday. They were rude, and ill mannered as a general rule and loud oh my. I am so glad my girls are not cheerleaders.

 

[bumbershoot]

I know there are cheerleaders (well, former cheerleaders) around and I don't want to offend them, but I think they'd really have to have gone to my high school to understand why I have the feelings I have. Since they are the only cheerleaders I've dealt with (the ones in college were easily ignored and I did so) that's my only knowledge.

And I don't want to see my sis get thrown high into the air!

My dad says that he wants to contribute to a trip if we go during the cheer thing (looking at the convention center site, it's either usacamps or something called varsity), so it's hard to turn that down! And even though my dad's getting weirder and weirder (he's not actually mentally ill, he's just WEIRD and comes up with the strangest things...like he really needs to have both of his knees replaced, but he tells his orthopod that he only wants them replaced if the guy will put Frankenstein bolts coming out...I gave him a really good halfway ground there involving proper knee replacements then some elaborate piercings with magnets, LOL...that would be a kick to go to a piercer with my dad if he visits!) and my stepmom's an emotionless automaton, I do miss that part of my family, especially my half sibs.


Maybe I'll have to have my old Drama buds come out too, and if anyone starts cheering too loud, we can start doing our own old obnoxious things right back, LOL.

I was looking at the usacamps and varsity sites, and I do wish someone would explain the ribbon thing. The ribbons in the hair of these young women...shouldn't those corker ribbons be reserved for 3 year olds?????

 

[toocherie]

Food was paid for at 8:18. Rice picture was taken at 8:39.

Finished up dinner, got things re-organized, got DS in the stroller and all covered up since he was cold. Got out of Rancho (we did take the umbrella stroller into Rancho b/c it was SO quiet in there...normally we would have parked it outside the restaurant). Walked along the pathway.

We were thinking about going on Pirates before Fantasmic, and looked down at him to check with him, and he was...absolutely totally passed out. To the point where we both, at different times, checked to see if he was breathing, that's how asleep he was.

Okey dokey! There were tons of people already ready for Fantasmic, and it was getting close to being time for it, so we figured it was as good a time as any. We had NO idea where we would stand, and I never really got the concept of the secret good spot behind the bank of speakers.

So we were wandering along, and we noticed a big empty spot "inside" a roped off spot. We walked past and saw a CM, and I asked if that particular spot was a special spot, or if anyone was allowed to be there. He said it was for anyone if there was room! So we went back, asked the people inside the ropes if the empty spots were actually empty (but we didn't ask when the 3 o'clock parade was, LOL), they said YES, and so we ducked in there. Excellent!

We stood near a lovely family from BC, and it was fun to talk with them. They are HUGE fans of Fantasmic and were excited that we were seeing it for the first time.

And then it started. Good start, but then it got really really dark and scary. I wasn't really expecting that. We were VERY glad E was asleep (and he slept through ALL of Fantasmic, barely even moved) because he would have HATED it. And not that sort of "I hate it but I'll close my eyes" hatred, but "we have to go NOW hatred".

Hubby is telling me right now that along with it being too scary, it was TOO big and TOO extravagant. Too much, he said. I think I agree. I can't believe they show it often, when I think about it. But that's not my issue, my issue is that it was just scary. Why do we need an epic battle of good and evil at Disneyland, ya know?

We had good spots, they seemed to be behind the reserved seating area, or maybe the handicap accessible seating if they have a roped off section for that for Fantasmic. We saw Mickey and everything really well.

We just didn't like it.

Of course we said we loved it, to the excited Canadian family, because we didn't want to make them sad. And it was amazing. Just...not good. To us.

That said, we DID like the part when the ships came out. I like how they have Mickey in black and white. I'd like to see that costume up close, b/c it doesn't just look like black and white, but some sort of special black and white. I can't describe it at all.

And the PP vs Hook battle was cool!

After F! was over, we went against the crowd by going up towards HM. Although I didn't need to ride it, since I had just been there in November, I knew that Robert needed to go. So sleeping boy and I hung out while Robert went on the no-wait HMH!

I was standing facing the river, back to the entrance of HM. And I noticed the fireworks. OK so I'll tell you this, my sense of direction is absolutely blasted to pieces at Disney. People post these pictures that show you can see Maliboomer from the Mark Twain and I get confused. They say this attraction is one way when I thought it was the other. So the idea of seeing the fireworks when looking towards the river is massively confusing to me. I would have thought you'd need to look back towards the entrance of Frontierland.

But I was wrong.

So just in case anyone ever gets it into their heads to watch while in NOS facing the river, this is an example of your view. Hint: it's not so good. So at least stay over closer to Pirates instead of towards HM.

Molly--I don't get Fantasmic either. It's --ok--but I wouldn't sit on the ground for three hours waiting to see it. And I could see it would be totally scary for little kids.

 

[toocherie]

No update on the trip today. Too weirded out by convo with my dad, who told me that my half sister, a freshman in high school, is going to be one of the (dreaded) cheerleaders there for a competition in March.

Twitch twitch twitch. Says the former Drama Geek who wanted all the cheerleaders at her high school to fall in dark holes and be QUIET.

And says the person who went to her 20 year HS reunion, which was organized by the former cheerleaders, and the organizers decided to SCREAM (as they did in HS to our apathetic crowd who was, despite not being noisy, AT all the football games) at us because they couldn't figure out that their sound system wasn't very good, and that people away from the bar area couldn't even hear that anyone was speaking into the system, let alone know that someone was screeching (with nasty swear words!) at them to be quiet and listen to them telling the guests to talk to old classmates and have a good time (which is what they were, in fact, doing at the time).

Twitch twitch twitch.


And it looks like it's going to be right around hubby's b'day, which means we will VERY likely be there at the parks, and might have to see my sister be the "flyer" in her squad.


Twitch twitch twitch.

Oh drat--when is the cheerleader convention? (so I can avoid it?)

 

[bumbershoot]

There's one March 20-22 and another the next weekend, it seems.



I want it to either snow heavily again or just melt. Walking in this "don't know when it will be slippery or not" gunk on the ground is getting difficult.

And I'm tired of the doofuses who think the "road closed" sign doesn't apply to them, and risk their lives, the digger halfway down the hill, and gosh if they got up enough speed, those of us living at the condo building at the bottom of that hill, by trying to get up it. Wonder if I have a picture so I can share their idiocy....

 

[prettyprincessbelle]

My grandparents came over for Christmas morning and them and my Dad were talking about when they used to live in Cincinnati when my Dad was a kid and how snowy it used to get and how nobody would drive slow with the icy roads. Well, I guess they lived on the top of a hill and when you would get to the bottom of the hill there was a turn and people wouldn't slow down at the turn and the icy roads would made them swerve into the neighbors yard all the time running over their plants and trees. They said that the people who lived there were lucky their house wasn't any closer to the road or it would have been smashed by a car. How scary.

The mountains (hills?) behind my house were so pretty the past couple of days covered in snow, but it's been starting to melt.

How's Robert doing with his fall, Molly?

 

[kaoden39]

My husband rides his bicycle to work most days and I cannot count the times her has been run off the road even in the dryest of weather. I will never understand how people can drive so irratically. Yes, how is Robert? And I wasn't trying to offend any ex-cheerleaders in my past post either but they were way too perky at the end of the day for me.

 

[bumbershoot]

Robert is sore and isn't feeling well. Poor dude. I'm feeling fine though my knees are a bit twingy from my own falls last week.



Digger on the hill last week.

***********

Ok! Monday the 8th. Our last day. Waaaaah.

It wasn't a MM day so we got to sleep in.

On our way out, who was in the lobby?

The little girl before E had Santa sign her autograph book, so E did the same. Only at Disneyland does Santa get asked for his autograph.


From there, we headed...to Autopia. E had been asking to ride it, but every time he brought it up the line was tremendous. Having waited in a long Autopia line with him once before, I wasn't keen to do it again. Interestingly, despite it being very early, there were people coming in with FPs for it. They did weird FP things, too, but I can't even describe it. Autopia and FPs...confusing combination.

The line was longish feeling, but ultimately pretty quick.

On Robert's request, this time we got the sticker pictures for Eamon's license. That's a weird little experience. Difficult to get his face framed just right, and they are TINY stickers! Not sure it's worth $5, but that's OK.

For any amorous couples who see those curtains, unless you're into exhibitionism, just walk away. The curtains are open towards the machines, so everyone can see what you're up to, at least everyone also inside a curtain.

omg I hope they take off the curtains for Grad Nights....



Just in case, I ran back to get FPs that of course we never used.

From there, it was very obvious we were going to have breakfast. So onto Tomorrowland Terrace it was! The guys got the seats while I got the food. French toast sticks and, hmm...something like the Sunrise b'fast but wihtout bacon. Two coffees (included with the meals) and a special chocolate milk for E (surprisingly, Nesquik is OK ingredient-wise for E).

We ate just outside of the Jedi Academy area, to watch the proceedings.


We saw a girl who almost HAD TO BE the daughter of a Dis'er. No one but dis'ers would do their kid up to be a double of one of the Jedi CMs, with funky side pigtail poofs, a perfect costume down to boots, and smiling BIG the whole time. Of course she got chosen.

Although I am normally against scared-looking children being chosen, there was one LITTLE boy who got chosen at the very last minute that I was glad for. He actually did just fine, even though he was close to tears when it looked like he wasn't going to be chosen.

Word to people with kids who might be like that? KEEP CHEERING, keep waving, keep SMILING. That's what this little boy did, and I think it made the difference! He had sadness in his eyes, but a smile and a wave (omg I'm telling people to be cheerleaders) and he was finally picked. Second to last, I think.


Again, it was fun to watch. Again, the dude was hilarious. Love him.

I don't remember if I wrote this before, but at one point this was said:

Darth Vader: "I find your lack of faith disturbing."

Jedi Master: "I find your BREATHING disturbing."

good times, good times.


Darth Maul, scaring the crud out of grown adults.

After that? What else? Star Tours. As usual, excellent despite Rex steering us wrong.

And then...the gift shop.

It was quickly decided that E wanted the light-up makes-noise blue Mickey-themed light saber. Good choice little dude.

They had the YOMD stuff on a 50% sale, so we got the dorky...license plate holder thing. Robert is very excited about it! That on our silver Grand Marquis...ooh...that's hot. ha ha. Just a couple years ago he was getting invites to race on the streets of Federal Way when he drove my golden Golf (the young men would ignore the babyseat in the back), and now he's in that car....

We also got two YOMD retractable "fast pass holders" for the price of one.

Thankfully we had cash, as their computers for cards were down!


But at long last, E had his proper souvenir, and didn't whine again. ONe might think that we should have gotten it at the beginning, but no, he still would have wanted the other things he got. We've tried it just about all ways now.

Next time? We're giving him x dollars (either real, voucher, disney dollar, or disney giftcard I don't know) and he can use that and that will be IT. Harumph.


He and Robert had lightsaber wars against the wall between Star Traders and the Star Tours entrance. I guess people were cracking up at them. They practice quite a bit at home, and their moves are good. E does a wrist-twisting move with his saber that he learned from Kenobi in Phantom Menace and it looks amazing, especially from a 4 year old.

While they did that, I ran over and got what ended up being a stocking stuffer for E, a Buzz Lightyear lanyard. He didn't have any "fun" lanyards...he had the costco travel one and the lanyard he won and was mailed from YOMD, but nothing cute.

And then, a cookie was calling Eamon, so we headed to the ranch... but were delayed by...

 

[bumbershoot]

Looking at that castle compared to real snow (which I rarely see), I'm thinkin' they did an OK job.


As we walked into Fantasyland, I remembered! The walkthrough! We must do it. I looked around...where is it, where is it? Aha, there's a door! With stairs! Come on guys, I have a surprise!


As I parked the stroller (why is there no stroller parking there?) a line was forming. And in front of us was a whole crowd of....Taiwanese Buddhist Monks. Female monks no less! It sounds really stupid, but they were really cute. Loved their robes, they looked incredibly comfortable. And they each had a matching messenger bag. I'm sure many people thought they were men because they had shaved heads, but later on we saw a group of matching male monks and you could tell, even though they were all very thin, the differences in facial features and body size. And of course we were right behind them so we could hear the women's voices. Robert likes listening in when people are speaking Chinese, because in general people don't expect those around them to speak it.

So we slowly went up the stairs and saw the Sleeping Beauty stuff. The story doesn't seem to be in any good order. I kept reading things ahead of other stuff because their idea and my idea of where a person goes first were opposite.

Got this one picture!

I'm glad it's open again, but it's definitely NOT a "must see over and over" for us.


And from there it was finally off to the Big Thunder Ranch. Robert was in charge of finding a proper cookie, and he strangely chose a gingerbread one. They did have the ingredients for the cookie on the box, but NOT for the frosting. I was shocked. Thankfully we knew not to touch it.

I had brought Nutella and sunspire "m&ms" for decoration purpose. Yes the red white and green frosting looked cute (and yummy) and yes sprinkles are lovely. But not at the expense of DS's mental and physical health.

So he had loads of fun decorating his guy!

Here's the cookie, almost finished.

And here it is, totally finished.

What's that you say? Can't tell the difference? Look down at the leg area. See a yellow and orange candy that isn't in the second picture? Ayep, he added a "bottom" and a, um, boy part. Which he said. Loudly.


The combo of gingerbread cookie and Nutella is surprisingly good. Well, that's if you like the cookie to begin with, which I didn't. So I smiled and said "mmm" and moved on with my day.

Oh look, those are cool decorations!

And then some fun began. E ran over to the stage area and I followed while Robert cleared out stuff.

They were having a little game, sort of like hot potato but with Pluto's bone. So they got a bunch of kids up there and started.


If the other kids belong to anyone else, let me know if it bothers you and I'll take the pictures down. I don't have photo editing software.

The lady leaning over was really funny and learned the kids' names fairly quickly, but towards the end she started seriously messing up E's name. "aaaaaay-mun" is his name. NOT Amen. Ugh.

Nervous, and with a good haircut but his father's hair growth pattern. The bowl look, no matter what, unless you nearly shave it.

Notice the way his lanyard is. Pirate-style. Or cowboy style. The musician noticed it right away and that made E happy.

Playing the game. The girl passing it to E seriously did NOT want to give it to him. She was absolutely adorable, and when E had to pass it to her he had the same problem. They really wanted to keep ahold of it!

The game was getting frustrating for E, because he never had it in his hand when the music stopped! But then, a cool thing happened...he was the LAST one!


So the lady called "Amen" the "Big Winner". He got exactly what everyone else got, a sticker and a hug with Pluto-as-reindeer, but he was the very last one.

Remember, we are homeschoolers and I'm a hermit, so his times of playing with other kids like this aren't common. He loves them, and I'm an awful person b/c I let my own fear of other mothers (they always want to talk about their births and that's a HUGE trigger of sadness and grief for me...at 4.5 if they only have the one they don't talk about it anymore, but really, most people have more than one if their oldest is almost 5, so it can still be "up" for the women) keep him from more interaction. BUT it's amazing because he can just jump in and play a game like this, even though he has never heard of it!

And this was cool because, of course, it looks like a preschool class picture with a few elementary school kids thrown in.

They had everyone look at their OWN parent's camera, so that's why everyone is looking in different places.

Reindeer.

And that was that for the RoundUp.

 

[prettyprincessbelle]

What's that you say? Can't tell the difference? Look down at the leg area. See a yellow and orange candy that isn't in the second picture? Ayep, he added a "bottom" and a, um, boy part. Which he said. Loudly.

How funny funny funny. Kids are just funny.

Yay for Nutella! I would have never paid attention to Nutella if I didn't go to Italy after I graduated high school. They eat that stuff like crazy over there. Here, they sell it at the regular grocery stores, but I never noticed. That was a smart idea of you guys using that for frosting than you making your own in the hotel room, I know you mentioned you thinking of doing that.

Yay for 'Amen' winning hot Pluto's bone! That's too funny. I think that lady's name is Miss Kriss? We saw her earlier this month and she walked by us and wished Jesus a Happy Birthday and I looked at her name tag (I have a habit of constantly looking at CM's names and their locations). When you read Eamon's name I automatically think it's pronounced Eeeee-mon. But, I remember in school that in EA E is usually silent.

The reindeer's eye looks all crazy.. Eeee!

 

[bumbershoot]

Well, after that fun, we realized we had another thing we needed to do. Pirates!

So we headed over to NOS.

This is what the light-up, makes-noise, blue Mickey-accent lightsaber looks like in the dark part of the queue for POTC>

That was at just after 1.

Had a great ride. Missed the pirate with the cats, and I hear he is still missing. Yo ho yo ho.... At some point during the trip E realized that Santa says "ho ho" and pirates say "yo ho" and he started saying them together.


I have here a receipt from 1:32 showing that *someone*, someone who is a nightmare fan and who didn't yet have these gloves, got matching gloves to his son.

Some women dress like their daughters. I have a husband who gets all matchy matchy with his son.

After we were done at Le Bat en Rouge, Robert went to get us some Veggie Gumbo in a bread bowl, while I basically forced E to head to the bathrooms. There was much hesitance, despite my knowing that soon he would need need NEED a bathroom, and aside from the "you must go with me" there was also a bit of "but Pirate Eamon, I'm a damsel and I need you to protect me" in there.


We met back up and ate over looking the river. Ahhh, veggie gumbo. By the way, we shared. All that bread isn't good for one of us, and with half the bread and half the gumbo, it's quite filling! E had more of his cookie, as the gumbo looked funny to him. Had some sourdough too, the parts not sullied by funny looking soup.


And so it was time to run over to DCA. We were approximately two hours behind my little schedule, and I was kinda of really trying to hide how stressed I was. We were sauntering through Adventureland when E saw Jungle Cruise. Now don't get me wrong, I adore the cruise! But we've gone on it several times in the last couple years, and it really doesn't change, and I thought we could get away with skipping it.

Ah, E really wanted to go. All of you family types here say that we really shouldn't do the commando thing and make our kids upset, so we checked the board. It said 5 minutes, though it looked longer. We said "if it's really 5 minutes in line, we'll do it". It was agreed upon.

In front of us, we saw...

And so we moved a little bit, perhaps made one turn. And then we stopped. Stopped. Stopped....no moving. No moving no moving. Just as it hit about 5 minutes in line, they announced that the ride was closed, and we should turn around and head back the way we came.

Well, we said, it certainly was only a 5 minute line!



And so we hopped.


This was a very short jump to DCA. I had pretty much one thing on my mind, now that I knew bug's land was NOT going to happen (no time!). And that was the Muppets AP hunt doohickey. I had to find the rest of my answers (I'd done some number sequence thing over in the Golden State area already), and those answers were in Hollywood. So off we went.

I don't even remember where the bulk of the questions were, all I remember was that one bunch was in the Muppets waiting area, and the other bunch was in the Animation/Crush building.


Forgive me but I don't know the order here. At some point, this was taken, after playing hide and seek with E (who was absolutely rejecting my need for speed):

And after that I have a blurry picture taken in Monsters Inc, so I suppose we went on that!


I also know that Robert went on TOT, which was probably while E and I rode Monsters. OK it's coming back to me. IF I haven't mentioned this already, IF E and I hadn't already been on monsters 18 million times, then that is the time we went on it. Many many times. If I've already mentioned that, then it's a false memory and ignore it, because it obviously happened earlier in our trip.

Regardless, R did go on TOT and E and I must have done something.


Although I meant to watch Muppets, we got there just as it was starting. So R and E went on in, and I hung back, doing the little answers I was supposed to do for it. It involved looking in the 'box office' after the CM/turnstile area, and then comparing that to something in the waiting area. There were 3 of us working on it.

After that, I waited outside. Finally got bored and waaaay too antsy, text Robert where I was going, and went to the animation building.

I saw the zoeotrope! It was very very cool. At first I really didn't get it, but then it slowed and stopped and I could really get the coolness of it all. I went in to the area where more questions could be answered, and that's where my guys met me. With more of E's help than I care to admit, I got my questions answered, texted it all one by one, and was finished with that and could relax.

Showed them the zoeotrope, went into the Belle's library area. The guys figured out which character they were...I didn't want to. Too antsy. Had to carry E through Ursula's Grotto. Too scary.

As we got to the main area, the Animation Academy was starting! That was VERY fun.

E was having troubles following the instructions, and instead of asking us (he refused our offers) he popped his hand up and told them he needed help. Actually I think he asked a detailed question about how to do what he was trying to do, or explained why he coudln't do it, but ultimately asking for help is asking for help, and Bryant (?) came over and helped and encouraged him. Yay for Bryant.

We all finished up, and a family below us went up to Bryant to talk to him. OK actually we were first, but they jumped in. Their little one, younger than E, had made noise throughout, moved around, paid little attention. But then somehow knew to ask the animator for his picture of Mickey. Sorry if you're a Dis'er, but dude, uncool. The kid didn't know what he was asking for, and also, you cut in front of us.

At last everyone else cleared out and Eamon wanted to thank Bryant. Totally on his own, without being asked, B gave E a drawing he had made. That was very cool. Way better than if we'd asked for it. And he appreciated E's thanks. We were all very proud of our pictures of Mickey Mouse.

We headed over to Crush, but I could tell that Robert didn't want to do it. He wanted to draw some more! So E and I went to Crush and we went Robert, the wannabe animator, back to the academy. Because of that we now have 3 pictures of Mickey, one picture of Goofy, and one professional's sketch of Mickey on our wall.

Crush was good. I sat in the front row of seats while E sat on the lily pads. Completely against what I had JUST told him AND what the CM had just said, E popped a piece of chocolate in his mouth.

The adults next to me had kids near E. For some reason the dad was talked to by Crush, and Crush of course was saying how few kids they had. At the time and even now I have NO idea what exactly the dad said, but he basically told Crush that he'd had a vasectomy. Something about his coral being snipped? I dunno. Crush got the most hilarious look on his face and basically just said "duuuuude, TMI".

E really wanted to be called on, but he wasn't. When Crush came out with the bikini top and asks what it is, E was saying clear as day "a bra! a bra! A. Bra.!" Kid isn't an extended nurser for nothin'. He knows his female undergarments well. But Crush officially asked someone else.

For some reason I was having a huge reaction to E asking for help in the Animation Academy and wanting to talk in Crush. During the AA I went bright red, as though I were asking the question myself. (I'm very shy and I blotch easily and school was an absolute nightmare for me) I need to disconnect in that way, and boy oh boy was that shown to me! He's a kid, a person of his own, he's not ME, and his asking a question in "class" shouldn't embarrass me. Whew. Personal growth AT DCA! Who knew?

He enjoyed Crush, but will enjoy it more when he gets called on some day. Perhaps we should work on some good questions to ask, so when he does get called he doesn't just "um, um, um, um" like I'm afraid he's going to do.

omg I just won't quit! It's OK Molly, you'd think it was cute if another kid did that. Seriously woman.

After that we all met back up!


It was getting seriously late. Really late. Badly late. We really really needed to go.

 

[bumbershoot]

How funny funny funny. Kids are just funny.


Yay for 'Amen' winning hot Pluto's bone! That's too funny. I think that lady's name is Miss Kriss? We saw her earlier this month and she walked by us and wished Jesus a Happy Birthday and I looked at her name tag (I have a habit of constantly looking at CM's names and their locations). When you read Eamon's name I automatically think it's pronounced Eeeee-mon. But, I remember in school that in EA E is usually silent.

The reindeer's eye looks all crazy.. Eeee!

Yes he's very much into talking about "parts".

Miss Kriss, that's totally right. Definitely. Someday we have to go to Ireland so I can have them say his name so I can get it totally right. Our pronunciation book I think write it more as "eh" and "mon" more than the way I wrote it earlier. But it's certainly not like what you say after a prayer! Though that's not the first time we've had that reaction to it.

Yes, crazy reindeer eye. Someone else caught a pic of a reindeer peeing in the background, so at least it wasn't doing THAT! Though I'm sure E would have piped up if he'd seen that.

 

[toocherie]

I love the Ms. Kriss and Pluto Bone game--I'm not even a Mom and I find it so fun! The fiddler's name is Farley and he is really really good--actually they both are! And how she remembers all those names I'll never know. She must have some trick she uses.

Did you get to see the magician too? Usually between sets of Ms. Kriss/Farley there is a magician who performs too.

 

[bumbershoot]

The magician was doing his thing while E was decorating the cookie. We weren't really paying attention though.


Just thinking about the end of the trip brings my shoulders up to my ears, it was so stressful. So I'm going to wait a tiny bit longer, at least until my headache goes away.

 

[bumbershoot]

Here is our wall with our pictures on it.

This is E's, which of course is crazy, but for a 4 year old following instructions and doing his best to make a picture come out, it's quite good! The helper CM only gave him encouragement and showed him where to make the eyes darker, so really all of that is his work.

As a kid I wouldn't have even attempted it unless forced to by grades, so I think it's marvelous.

And here's Robert's version:

And mine!

As long as they keep it open, I can see this becoming a long-standing tradition for every trip. It was VERY fun.

 

[bumbershoot]

When I left off last night, I was done with the Muppets hunt, we knew we couldn't go on anything more or see anything more, we really needed to GO.

But I did need to get the little prize for finishing the Muppets hunt! So I sent the guys to WWS to get some chicken-free nachos to hit the road with while I rushed over to the Blue Sky Cellar. That's where I had been directed to go after I sent the last answer in.

I got there fast, but I had problems figuring out how to get in! Finally I found the entrance, then I found a CM. He was VERY into the whole thing. The premise is that some Muppets are lost, and professor honeydew asks you to help find them. They have hints for before you get to the park. You answer the online questions, and then you are sent a series of questions. Once you figure those out, it gives you a location. So when I got there, the CM acted like he only vaguely knew what I was talking about, and went off to look at the letter he received a few days ago letting him know that someone would come to him for something. If I hadn't been so pressed for time it would have been wonderful, but as it was I just got more tense. I tried to not let that show, though. He gave me the prize which was nice (I don't know if we're allowed to tell people what it was! I think they might be doing this for non-AP holders so I don't want to ruin it for people).

And I nearly ran out of there. Again I hit the pre-parade stuff so I got really nervous I would get stuck somewhere.

Thankfully I didn't get stuck and I made it to WWS. For some reason, our sense of time was WAY off, and instead of getting OUT and messily eating the nachos in the car, we sat and ate there. Oh what an error.

After that we still had to get to PPH, get the car, get the luggage, and get to LAX! OMG.

Traffic was, of course, not so great. We had no directions back to the rental place. I had to figure it out. We had to get gas and Robert, well, let's just say he's not generally good under pressure, and by that point even getting gas in an unfamiliar car was under pressure. It wasn't pretty. Finally found Avis, and we frantically got unpacked. Missed the first shuttle but as I was arranging things there another shuttle was. Which was good, but I wasn't ready.

Threw things on the shuttle and I was still rearranging things as we drove. Then E spilled his chocolate milk on his shirt and I had to pull out some clothes for that and be totally tacky by having his take off his shirt, if only for a brief second, in public.

We got there fast and I was still unsure where everything was. We got into the airport as FAST as possible, and I hadn't been able to print our boarding passes. So I was frantically doing that and trying to figure out what things should be checked and what shouldn't.

Our flight was SO close. Although we got there before the flight left, compared to how we usually travel we were late as we could be.

The checkin lady was SO nice. I don't know about for other airlines, but for Alaska at LAX you take your bags over to a different area to put them through the mega xray machines. She came out from the counter to help Robert take everything.

As they were on their way back, I found my pair of souvenir scrapbooking scissors. AUGH. The checkin lady knew that I had been looking for them, and her advice to me was to put them in and under things and hope TSA would overlook them. Yeek. But what else was I going to do, other than throw away something that really could not be used as a weapon (they cut Mickey heads into things and aren't sharp at the end)? So I put them in the TSMM popcorn bucket, surrounded by other safe things, and put them into one of the Disney shopping bags that I was using as carry-on (I hate doing that but oh well).

So we rushed to security, and the TSA people were basically great!

Robert had something making the machine go off so they took him away to be wanded. E went through and of course was fine. The guy had E stand just out of the way. I went through. Something on me made the machine beep. I did the "wallet watch spectacles *you know what*" check on myself and I had NO metal! Went through again and again, still beeping!

The TSA guy lost his brain for a second and wanted me to go be wanded too, and was going to move me away from DS, and I firmly told him that I knew they couldn't separate kid from adult.

Thank goodness right then the lady behind me reminded me of my barrette! My Goody brand, 1.5 inch tiny silvertone barrette in the back of my hair. Oh gracious.

I took it out, thanked her, went through the metal detector just fine. Robert joined us. Turned out it was the zipper on his shorts.

Might just be me, but I think those metal detectors are set a *little* too sensitive!

We went through the absolutely panicking frantic process of getting our stuff together, and the TSA agents helped us tremendously. After they helped us and while I was putting on my shoe, I heard one of them tell the other that his wife wanted to go ON xmas day, and I hope I was able to convince him that that would be a very busy time, and perhaps it wouldn't be the best time to do a one-day trip.

We went as fast as possible to the gate. By their estimates the plane should have been boarding by then. Oh we were stressed!

We made it. They weren't boarding, thank goodness. The gate agent was nice and gave me gate-check tickets for the stroller and carseat right there, instead of when they usually do it, as you're going down the ramp.

We got ourselves together...tried to calm down...started to laugh about it all...considered how a barrette nearly got me wanded, but I was going on board a plane with scissors (no matter how difficult it would be to harm anyone with them). Started to breathe again.

Very quickly they announced boarding, and we did so when it was our time.

Goodness gracious, never again if I can avoid it will we get to an airport so stupidly late! I am normally a "get there 1.5 hours ahead of time" person. I like to relax. I do not like to rush at airports! Especially now that some airports are doing the "face stress" monitoring, I don't want to be red and sweaty and frantic. Never again...


But we made it on, and just b/c we're us we waited until we were nearly the last to board. Especially with assigned seats we just don't see the point. Our carryons are generally small enough to get under our seats so we're not generally fighting for overhead space anyway.

As we got on board, the pilot was standing right there. E was wearing his Peter Pan hat, and the pilot liked that. He invited E into the, well i don't think the board is going to let me type the name of the area where the pilots sit so I'll say... area where the pilots sit and fly the plane. It was a bit tight in the front of the plane so I took much of our stuff and went to sit, to arrange what we would need for the flight. Robert came back to snag the camera, and then it took AGES for him to get back b/c he's a big guy and wasn't going all "not without my daughter" on people which means he didn't tell them that his son was at the front of the plane and he needed them to MOVE.

He did get up there eventually, and got these shots.

Now how cool is that?



Finally they made their way back. In the meantime, I had to deal with cellphone guy who was sitting in one of our seats. He moved to where he was supposed to be (directly in front of me), and promptly put his seatback all the way back. And continued to talk. During the flight he moved directly behind us, into the furthest back row where he couldn't recline. Robert tried to get ME to recline, but I don't enjoy reclining and while the dude was rude (he was talking about us and Eamon who was being rather whiney and not really up to our normal standards of behaviour (though we were making massive efforts to STOP him from doing it)) I didn't think it was worth making MY experience more negative in order to 'get back' at him for it.

Anyway, they got back, we got seated, we took off, we flew. The lady across the aisle from us had a little girl who slept most of the trip in her mom's arms, and the lady had to do her best to do everything one handed. At one point I asked if her arm was asleep, and she said yes and we laughed.


Sleepy boy.

E's ears bothered him this flight, he was tired, cranky, and didn't, it turned out, have enough food at dinner. He was difficult. If any of you were on our flight, I apologize.

At last we landed. Got our luggage, found another abandoned smart carte, found the place to get the carpark shuttle. Found our car despite having temporarily lost our "ticket" they give you. Got everything in the car, got home.


Whew.

 

[Sherry E]

How cool that E got invited up to where the pilots sit! That must have been awesome for him!! The whole experience sounds like it was great and pretty well-rounded with everything you all did, including the Muppet hunt and all that, and I love the drawings you guys did at the Academy - yours came out particularly well! How do they work it there? Do they give you a pattern to trace over, or what happens? I used to be able to draw reasonably well when I was much younger, but now I think my Mickey Mouse would come out looking more like Kermit the Frog!

 

[bumbershoot]

The animation CM has his sheet of paper on an easel on stage, and it's projected onto a screen.

Then he first has you draw lines, the up and down lines you can probably see, and then each part of the character is described one at a time, and you do your best approximation of it. Each person has their own interpretation of it, which is how you can see such a difference between mine and Robert's. Both of us have parts that are good or correct, and we also have bad or incorrect parts, it's interesting.

When you have someone walking you through it, you can see how each part of the character is actually fairly easy and simple, instead of just intimidating to think of the "whole".

The hardest part for me was the light hand and how you're actually supposed to go over your lines and circles again and again. You don't just draw a circle and then you're done. They want you to lightly draw a circle then perfect it by drawing around and around. And so on, for each line, oval, arc, etc. Then at the very end you make a darker set of lines/circles/whatever. It makes sense, but it's HARD for me, since I want to do it perfectly one time and be done with it.

Oh and it's in a college science type of auditorium with each tier of seats raised up. Quite comfy actually. They have big plastic hand held easels on each seat with a very sharp pencil. The easels have three pegs on the bottom for the holes you can see in the pictures, and a clip at the top. There's one animation CM drawing on the stage, and one wandering to be of assistance (and encouragement!). At the end we each held ours up proudly (as they ask you to do), because we did the best we could and that's all that matters in such a situation.



The trip was a good one, there's no doubt about that.

But we kept getting into weird time sucks where the hours would just sail by. And for some reason, the feet of the adults HURT the whole trip! Robert is so much thinner than he was in May and especially since last December, and he has new shoes that actually fit (he had been squeezing his feet into 10.5s until our chiro sold him special orthotics which fit his feet exactly, and when we went to find new shoes, he realized he was very much not that size, and he's now much more comfy in a 12), so he shouldn't have hurt. I don't know why my feet hurt so much, since even though I'm definitely not in shape and waaaaay heavier than I should be (hence the utter lack of pix, unlike our Sept '07 trip), I am active and don't feel that pain in normal life even while walking around downtown. We also started at a severe sleep deficit which is never fun.

I am sad we missed bug's land, and I wish I had been in the mood to do the big DCA rides, but since I had just been on them in November I just wasn't interested.


And would you believe my shins are still recovering from the Grizzly water???? The weather has a lot to do with it, but this is above and beyond what normally happens to my shin skin in winter. Yucko. Still, we love the ride and it was great fun going 10 times (OK I went only 9) on Grizzly over the weekend.

 

[kaoden39]

Missing Bugland seems like a good reason for a return trip soon. When there is nice weather. And as far as separating you from Eamon. Are they nuts? Do they not realize that you don't do things like that? Jerks. Sorry I would have raised heck over that one too.