Thanksgiving part III

Day three of Disneyland was almost our breaking point. That many days of insufficient sleep for the kids, coupled with over stimulation and more walking than any of us had done in our whole lives made for a less than ideal day at the park, but by no means a wash. We got all ready to go and headed over to the park the latest we had so far, arriving about 10 am. This meant that Disneyland was pretty packed already, so we got fast passes for Star Tours and then wadded through the lines for a few rides. Alice in wonderland, Matterhorn, Pinocchio's boat ride, and Dumbo's train. After those lines, we decided we'd had enough of the lines and stopped for our picnic lunch we packed. Evelynn has already been warned several times about her behavior, so I wasn't ready for Eloise's melt down at lunch. I don't even know why it happened, but she started screaming about something so I buckled her in timeout in the stroller. After a minute or so she started to get very anxious and screaming again. I told her she couldn't get out until her time was up and she calmed down, but she wouldn't calm down. Finally, mid tantrum, she screamed "I HAVE TO GO POTTY!!" and then peed all over the stroller. It was then that I realized that we had left the hotel without her going to the bathroom that morning, which means she hadn't used the bathroom since sometime yesterday at dinner. I felt so bad, but I was also hopping mad and mortally embarrassed. Luckily I brought spare clothes (though no spare underwear) and we got her cleaned up and the stroller mopped up and lined with a trusty poncho, and I firmly told Eloise that she had to take a nap, to which she meekly obeyed. She slept for almost two hours in the stroller. Meanwhile Evelynn was enjoying more princess time. Cinderella had wandered over again, and Evelynn got to meet her. I didn't witness it, but I was told that she and Evelynn are now best friends forever, pinky promise. Evelynn also met with the fairy god-mother, but I have no idea what she said to her. Then we watched Mary Poppins and Burt do a dance with the back-up band, and I was extremely disappointed that Burt did not sing his songs, but the band leader did. My only disappointment with Disney. We spent the rest of the day at California adventure, checking out shows and whatnot. We saw Phineas and Ferb, which I thought would be the highlight for Evelynn since she loves that show, but she refused to dance or sing along, probably because she had reached her park limit as well. But her bad mood was mostly solved when we went over to the animation studio. For those of you who don't know, Evelynn loves to draw, and so her learning how to draw Tigger was really cool. And I must say, for a five year old she did a very respectable job. Eloise woke up at this time, so we went over to Bug's Life land. I must say that this part of the park is lame. It's for babies and small children who are not cool like my kids and don't want to go on the cool rides. But the bumper cars were a huge hit. I choose to sit that one out, on account of it being my turn to be extremely tired and grumpy. :) Luckily the park sells Diet Coke. Grandma and Grandpa then took the kids to go get ice cream, and the rest of us met up to go ride the Tower of Terror. Ok, some background. I don't like those rides that drop you straight down, or shoot you up high and then drop you, or even roller coasters that have too steep of a hill. It sets something off in my brain that makes me TERRIFIED. There is a fine line for me between fun and exciting and a near death experience. Tower of Terror crossed that line. At the time I didn't want the picture they took on the ride, but now I do because it shows my absolute terror on that ride, with Doug sitting next to me trying to reassure me as the ride is dropping. It seems like a funny picture now, not so then. I had to physically clamp down so I didn't start sobbing "I don't like this! I WANT TO GET OFF!!" repeatedly throughout the ride. Poor Doug felt so bad. He wanted us to ride this one so badly because it was one of his favorites. I will not be riding on it again anytime soon.

That evening we were planning on cutting things short to go back to the hotel to play some of the games we drove down from Utah together as a family, but after getting the kids to bed we all zoned out watching the TV and fell asleep! So no games, but a decent bed time, thank goodness. The next day was Saturday and we decided we wanted to go to the beach, which was great because it was the warmest day yet (75 degrees). Mom and Dad's plane didn't leave until later that evening, and we were planning on stopping off in Vegas for the night so we were in no rush to check out. We packed up our room and lazed about watching Saturday morning cartoons (which FYI are so amazingly stupid. We finally switched to Tom and Jerry to get some quality television).Suddenly, the power went out. Then back on, along with the fire alarm, then out again, and stayed out. We were all like "Uh, is there a fire?" We looked outside and couldn't see smoke, and the cleaning staff seemed completely unconcerned (in fact they didn't miss a beat and kept right on with their jobs, so maybe this happens often) so we remained calm. Then someone told us we had to leave the building and they weren't letting people back. So our check out time got moved up to right now. Unfortunately, because there was no power, there was no elevator, and we had 3 bags, games, a cooler with food, coats, hats, umbrellas, and umbrella stroller, backpack and three kids to tote down 6 flights of stairs. Luckily, we had B.O.B. We literally loaded B.O.B. up with all our gear minus the children and pillows and backed it down 6 flights of stairs. It was intense, I didn't know if our stroller would be able to handle that kind of stress, but amazingly it came out without any damage, sturdy and amazing as ever. Doug's hand sustained minor injury because of unforgiving cement walls and corners, but we made it. The front desk was unavailable so we dropped off our keys and just left because we were not going to wait around for things to get sorted out. We were headed to the OCEAN!

It was a lovely day at the beach. Not very warm, but warm enough to be fine in our swimsuits. After seeing the surfers out catching some pretty good waves, we rented some boogie boards and caught our own. The water was cold, but not as cold as the pacific can get. This wasn't the "It's so cold it hurts!" cold, it was more "AAAAHHHIIIEEEEE! It's DANG cold, but I'll live." We all took turns until the tide went way out and the waves died down. All my kids had a ton of fun at the beach, but I think my hubby might have had the most fun. It was so funny to see the natives in their pants and jackets and shoes saying "My what a chilly day!"  You could tell which people were vacationing because they had shorts, t-shirts or just swimsuits on like we did. :) Michael was pretty cute to watch on the beach. There was this hill of sand that lead down to the water, and he spent most of the 3 hours we were there trying to climb up it. I couldn't figure out why until I helped him to the top one time, and then he proceeded to chase the seagulls around, barking at them and laughing when they flew away. That's my boy. :) I was going to get pictures of Evelynn and Eloise, but they were mostly running up and down the beach collecting as many shells as they could. We came home with quite a big bag of them.

After about 3 hours we got showered, de-sanded ourselves, de-sanded our stuff, and de-sanded the kids like 5 times each (for some reason, once completely free of sand, each of my kids would then proceed to walk back out into the sand and then stare at me in confusion when I yelled at them to get OUT of the sand and wash off, again.) Then it was goodbyes until Christmas and an easy car ride to Vegas. That was a minor catastrophe in itself though. I booked us a hotel online on my phone while we were driving, and I put Doug's name and my sister-in-laws name on the rooms, but then I put my name on the credit card because that's the one I was using. Well when I went to get our keys at the lovely (not) Circus Circus, they told me that only the people who the rooms names were in had check in with photo ID. That caused a huge problem because Doug had parked in the parking garage forever away, and Kristen was not in his car either. So it took like an hour to check in. But the room was pretty nice for $35 each. Better than our hotel at Disneyland, but the walls were paper thin. We heard everything, including an extremely rowdy bunch that came in about 3 am. The contrast between Disneyland and Vegas was also jarring. It was crowded and had lots of lights and distractions like Disneyland did, but it was dirty, loud, lots of semi-naked men and women and so sleazy-adult verses magical little children stuff. But it was only for like 9 hours, and then we were off again, soon to be home.

Thank you so much Mom and Dad Jacobson for treating us to Disneyland. It was so much fun and I hope we can do it again some day!

Here's the picture of our Christmas tree this year. We decorated it soon after we got home. Please notice that all the ornaments are in the top half of the tree. What you can't see is the back of the tree, where there are no ornaments at all. :) Got to love the family tree.

Thanksgiving part II

Day two of our Disneyland adventure dawned overcast and a little cooler, which was fine by us because "a little cooler" for us meant that is was about 50-55 degrees that morning, or jacket weather. No problem. All the workers at the park were in their heavy coats and gloves, and one worker urged me to cover Michael up with my extra sweater so "the poor boy won't freeze!" Californian's are so funny. It was also nice to feel fully rested and ready to start the day, even if I couldn't face the hotel breakfast again. Not that it was bad, it was actually very good. Pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes fruit, mini-muffins and some pastries. But we had it for breakfast the morning before, then had Denny's the night before for dinner, where we got breakfast, so by then I was pancake, egg, and potato-ed out. So we packed up and went to downtown Disney and got steel cut oatmeal and smoothies at Jamba Juice. Yummo. :) Then it was into the park. We started out on the Disneyland side again, but only did one ride (the Buzz Lightyear laser shooting ride, which was one of my favorites. Doug got the highest score of 121,000, but I had Michael on my lap, so that's my excuse for doing poorly) and then headed over to California Adventure. This side was much less crowded in general, and we stopped off at Grizzly Bear rapids to get out World of Color tickets, and while we were there we noticed that the ride was running, but only a few people were in each boat. Meaning.... NO LINE! :) Turns out my favorite rides are ones that have no lines. We broke out our rain ponchos and loaded up the boats and rode 3 or 4 times. It was awesome. Our next stop was actually Santa Claus. We were walking towards California Screaming and saw him in a gazebo with only two families in line to see him, so we jumped in. It was so sweet. The Santa did an amazing job, and the girls, although shy, loved him. Michael on the other hand.... Well, I wasn't going to subject him to sitting on Santa's lap, especially since he had just woken up from his morning nap, but Santa was willing and so we decided to try for a few pictures. Michael sat on his lap for a few seconds, and then realized that I was standing over THERE and he was over HERE, so he looked up, and made then biggest boo face and started to cry. Instead of freaking out or saying "Oh here Mom!" to me, the Santa took that opportunity to create a photo memory. There was one picture of Michael crying, then Santa leaning over him "crying" with him. It's a priceless photo, and even though it's going to cost me $14.95 to buy it from Disneyland, I'm going to get it.

Correction, I got it. :)

The girls asked for princess stuff and a new "fighting game" (aka, Smash Brothers. Our disk is broken.) and then got candy canes and were off on their merry way. After that the girls did the merry-go-round and Doug and I did the Screaming, then we did Woody's Shooting gallery, and then.... well we did a lot of rides. I can't remember them all. I DO remember going on the Ferris wheel and almost dying of fright. We went on the moving cars that swing backwards and forwards as you go around, and that was just a little too intense for me to handle without a seat belt. I had Michael on my lap, and he was squeezed in pretty dang tight to me with one arm and the other hand was clenching Doug's pants rather fiercely. Although I didn't like that ride, Eloise thought it was the greatest thing ever. She was with Grandma Sue and Papa, and apparently she was laughing so hard every time it moved. To her it must have felt like the biggest swing ever. We also saw the Aladdin show, the Incredible's show, and we saw Sully. Eloise did not want to get near Sully. He was a bit too big for her in real life.

After several more rides, we left the park to get dinner. Since it was Thanksgiving day proper, we wanted to do something a bit nicer, and so we decided on an Indian restaurant that was in the Ramada Inn. It was a pretty sparse crowd when we got there, and everyone in there was Indian, which I guess would make sense on Thanksgiving night. Anyway, we were all so hungry by that time that we didn't really care how good the food was, but to our delight the food was AMAZING. I'm not kidding. I've eaten at a few Indian places over the years, and here in Utah I really like the Bombay House in Provo. This blew them out of the water. Their chicken korma was to die for. I want to go back to Anaheim just to eat there again. Once again, so so so good. Oh man, now I'm craving it.

After dinner we rushed back to the park to watch World of Color. We got front row seats because we were willing to sit in the "splash zone" because we had our handy dandy rain ponchos. That was a really cool show. Everything in Disneyland was more elaborate than I was expecting. There is no half*$$-ing it in Disneyland. :) About 1/2 way through this, Michael fell asleep with me holding him, and Evelynn was on her last leg. Eloise had retreated to the stroller with her umbrella to block out the spray and hide from the fire (that stuff got HOT in the front row!) and so grandma and papa took the kids back to the hotel to sleep while us older ones went out to ride some more rides. Apparently Disneyland is open until 12 am everyday. And people stay until 12 am everyday. I thought the park would start to thin out, but it never really did. We did Indiana Jones in the single rider line, and then did splash mountain like five times in a row. They just let us stay on again and again. It was lots of fun, but those singing geese and chickens get pretty freaky looking and annoying after a while. In the end we ended up riding the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was a mistake. Firstly, the ride kept breaking down while we were in line, so we were in line for a while. Then because the ride was backed up, it was sooooo slow through the ride, so by the time we got off we had been sitting for quite a while and we all realized how flipping tired we were. :) So we went back the hotel. Got there about 12:30, crashed, and braced ourselves for day three at the park.

How was your Thanksgiving? part I

How was your Thanksgiving?
Great!
What did you do?
We went to Disneyland.
Oh wow! Was it crowded?

This is the conversation I've had at least 8 times since coming home from our vacation. It seems so funny to me that people always want to know what the crowds were like, not if we had fun, if the girls were thrilled, how we managed to go three days in a row, what the weather was like, etc etc. All they want to know is about all the other people. I answer them "Wednesday and Thursday were ok, but Friday was packed," and then they nod all sage like, as if saying, "We thought it would be like that. Too bad you didn't ask me before you went." Just for the record, I'm not angry at these random people, I just think it's funny that they all say the same thing.

So, in case you need a recap:
We went to Disneyland over Thanksgiving break with my in-laws.
Yes, we drove there in one shot with the kids.
We stayed three days at the park.
It wasn't too bad on Wednesday and Thursday, but Friday was a little crazy.
Yes, the girls loved it.
Saturday we went to the beach.
Yes I did swim in the ocean.
No I am not crazy.
Yes it was cold.
Again, no I am not crazy.

There, that should cover the basics.
What, you need more? Ok ok.

We left Provo about noon on Tuesday and caravaned with my in-laws BJ and Kristen and Kristen's roommate Audry all the way down to our hotel in Anaheim that day, and it took us about 10 hours, which included a dinner stop in Vegas and a few other random potty stops. Not too bad all in all. The kids had been asleep for about an hour when we arrived at the hotel at 9:45, so it took a while to haul our stuff up, greet Grandma Sue and Papa, have the kids unwrap their outfits for the next day (Evelynn's Cinderella dress and Eloise's Snow White dress and Michael's Mickey Mouse shirt, respectively), then wind down and get to bed, say around 11. They all slept tolerably well, but I did NOT. I have the unfortunate condition where I cannot sleep at all in a new bed the first night. Like not at all. So even though I was exhausted from not sleeping the night before because of cleaning/packing/worrying about unpacked/cleaned stuff, I still went to sleep around 12 am and woke up at 2 am.... and didn't get back to sleep. I finally read my scriptures at 5 am and then got up with Michael at 5:45. By then we were all getting up to start out first Disneyland day anyway, so I just sucked it up and sucked down a few cokes in the park to tide me over.

For the park experience, I brought along B.O.B. and the umbrella stroller. This way I had the potential of three seats for all three kids, plus the luggage space for all our gear. B.O.B. was amazing. I could never have done the trip without him... I mean it. :) Michael was in B.O.B. most of the time, and Evelynn and Eloise switched off in B.O.B. frequently for naps and to rest their tired little feet. I saw a lot of other B.O.B. owners at the park, and I also saw a lot of non-B.O.B. owners there, and I think we all felt a little sorry for them. Anyway, day one of the park was fun. Disneyland was not quite what I was expecting. It's almost perfect, except for the floods of people. It's super clean ALL the time, there is no smoking allowed, very little alcohol, the staff is almost scary nice and helpful and HAPPY to be working there (no matter what their job is. Even the bathroom cleaners were happy) and 70% of the rides are entire family friendly. I was expecting a lot of trading off with Michael, which I thought would be fine since we had 7 adults with us, but Michael came on most of the rides with us. He did great on them too. He held very still and was fascinated by all the bright colors and movement and music. I was more worried that he would be a little freaked out, but he was best behaved on the rides, so we went on as many as we could with him. Eloise could also ride all the rides except like 5 or 6, and she and Evelynn loved the roller coasters. I had a talk with the girls before we left, explaining to them that Daddy and uncle BJ and aunt Kristen were so excited to take them on rides, and these rides wouldn't be scary, they would be fun, and they had to be brave and try them all. And they did. Every single one. Evelynn even wanted to go on the Indiana Jones ride, which I went on before her and didn't want her to go because it's pretty intense, but she went with Grandma Sue and Papa and did awesome. She didn't want to do it again, but she DID go, without crying, and said it was fun but scary. Both girls did splash mountain a few times, and we saw several princesses that day. My favorite moment of that day was randomly finding Snow White when it was just me, Doug and Eloise. She went right up to her in her  own Snow White dress, and Snow White took her in her arms and talked to her for quite a while. Then I got some pictures, but Eloise was just star struck. She kept saying "Mom, we have the same dress on! She's just like me!" It was very tender.

We spent the whole first day on the Disneyland side, which was a great thing since that side got more and more crowded as the days went on. Disneyland had all their Christmas lights and stuff up, and Small World was all Christmas-y too, and it was pretty spectacular. That night we watched the Christmas parade on Main Street. Evelynn actually watched it twice (once at 5 and once at 7:30) and was mesmerized by it both times. It had everything, all the princes and princesses, Mrs. Claus, Santa Claus, several other characters and lots of music and dancing. As far as parades go it was a very good one, and I do not like parades. While we were waiting for it to start, I went walking with the poor couped up Michael. It was so funny to walk with him in the park, because everywhere he went there was a wave of "Awww!" following him. He is so different from my girls. When I would take him out of the stroller, we would just walk away, never looking back, and he would not stop unless I came and stopped him. He's a rover... I better be careful. But he's a cute rover, and luckily he can't rove too far yet. After the parade, I called it a night with my kids and we took them back to the hotel to sleep. Luckily for me Doug's mom had a sleeping pill with her, so I put the kids to bed, took one of those myself, and was out by 9:30. Doug went out with his sibblings to enjoy some Disney night life, but I was so grateful just to get 8 hours of sleep (meaning Michael was up at 5:30 again) that I didn't care. It made day two of Disneyland so much happier for me, although since Doug got in around midnight that night, he was the one who was tired the next day when it started dark and early again. :)

P.S. More picture will be added later. I didn't take any pictures except these because I didn't have a good camera (obviously), and I am terrible at remembering to take pictures anyway, so that responsibility was given to all my in-laws. I'll collect their pictures soon to share.