Our Disneyland Adventure...
What fun we had!! (This will be long, for posterity's sake, feel free to skim it.)
It is hard to choose what to write about (could take hours) or which pictures are our favorites (we took about 350) but here is a random sampling.... (The pictures are on Kwint's computer so I will post them later.)
We set out for California with our two little boys and our niece Jaiden last Wednesday. The adventures began in the gorge (not 30 minutes away) when Brennan got car sick and peauked all over the backseat. (Sound familiar, Mom?) That was fun to smell for the next 7 hours.
When we got to the CA border we got stopped and had our car searched... for fruit. Yes, they took all the apples we had left from the Jenkin's apple tree. I was really mad. I asked why they do it and they said they can't risk getting worms from another state. We made fun of California for
hours after that. Of all the things we could have been smuggling in to CA, they were
seriously checking for fruit. Someone explain that to me! Drugs, booz, hookers, rare stolen diamonds: no problem. apple worms? Holy cow- don't let them in!
Moving on to the fun stuff....
We arrived at our hotel around 7:30pm, The Paradise Pier, a Disneyland resort hotel compliments of a super nice client of Kwint's who had extra points to share.... and WOW! It was the nicest place we have ever stayed! It was so roomy, with a kitchen table, fridge, micro, living room, two bathrooms and two big soft beds. We felt so lucky. It was on the 14th floor of a 15 story hotel with a rooftop pool. We took a walk around the other Disneyland resorts and Downtown Disney, where the boys played in the giant Lego store and Build-a-Bear, though they did not build a bear.
Breakfast in Disneyland is incredible. Thursday we ate at Goofy's kitchen and met Pluto, Goofy, and Chip. The waffles there are shaped like Mickey Mouse and they taste like cake. That was the moment we threw out all desire to be health conscious on this trip and gave in to the rarely nurtured sweet teeth we have. (It was a food bonanza which we extended through Sunday, even on the way home when we polished off several McDonald's ice cream cones. Somehow, my pants still buttoned today.)
Brennan was afraid of the characters at first, but soon became buddies with them. By Sunday morning he decided that Chip was his favorite because he let him pat his nose. Kaeleb was, as usual, too logical for this sort of playful banter-- he said "Mom, those are really just guys in costumes." Though unimpressed, he let himself enjoy it and even joked around with Brear Fox one morning, who teased him until Kaeleb couldn't help but tease him back. He even chased down Handy Manny to get his autograph.
We met up each day with Kris and Barbi's family and Grandpa and Grandma Kemp to ride rides and see the sights. Disneyland is incredible! Even for those people like me, who hate rides because we hate barfing, there is much to do and much to see. The whole park was decorated for Halloween with giant pumpkins made to look like the Disney characters, lights, flowers, ribbons, skeletons, candy corns and more. The attention to detail is amazing there and impossible to describe. They don't call it the Magic Kingdom for nothing, I suppose. I will shorten the duration of this blog by highlighting each person's favorite thing about Disneyland.
Kwint is an adventure junkie. His favorite thing is to run through the park as fast as possible riding as many rides as possible, which was not as many as he wanted due to the fact that there were hundreds of thousands of people there for the Halloween festivities. Not to place undue attention on myself, but I think his favorites were the ones I would actually ride with him. The ones that do not make me sick and/or terrified of dying, including and limited to: The Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Grizzly Rapids, Indiana Jones, Soaring over CA, and most, but not all of the kiddie rides. Kwint loved riding the crazy rides with his parents especially. They were a lot of fun to have with us and he loves that they are willing to do that kind of stuff.
Kwint also loved the fireworks on Friday night. The show was called "Halloween Screams" and we waited for a very long time (two hours)in an ocean of wall to wall people (they wouldn't let us sit down, we were smooshed like sardines)to see it, but it was sooo worth it. They projected the face of Jack Skellington (Nightmare Before Christmas) onto Sleeping Beauty's castle and images of ghosts and ghouls danced through the sky as fireworks and fire flares shot up into the air. It was the most impressive fireworks display we have ever seen, hands down. Forget the Stadium of Fire, this was amazing!!
One thing I love about Disneyland is the shopping. I know, I know, that is very unusual for me-- I am not your typical girl who loves to shop-- in fact, I hate shopping. I go alone so I can run in, get what I need and run out. I am not frivolous and I never go outside the budget just because I "had to have it". But at Disneyland, for some crazy reason, the shop-o-holic is unleashed and I can hardly contain myself. We took a set amount of dollars for each of us to spend on souvenirs and I had so much fun deciding what to buy and a VERY hard time staying within my budget. In fact, I didn't. I used some leftover food money twice. Oops. We all got hats and shirts, and I got earrings and a ring. Kwint got two shirts, the boys chose light sabers, pirate swords, flags, Mickey Mouse ears, and guns.
My most favorite thing we did was that we went to see Aladdin at the theater in CA Adventure. It was so well done! It was a free show but I would have paid 100 bucks to see it. The scenery, costumes and singing were Broadway material, if you ask me. The guy who played the Genie was downright hilarious and kept inserting current event jokes that made it even funnier, bringing up Beyonce, Twitter, ipods, and more, and then when he asked Jafar if he was wearing eyeliner and told him Cher needed her costume back, we all LOLed.
Kaeleb's favorite thing about Disneyland was hanging out with his favorite cousin, Talan. They had a serious blast. They rode Buzz Lightyear twice together and he says it is his favorite ride because he got to shoot bad guys. There are guns attached to the cars so the kids can blast targets and rack up points. (The boys were excited that they had around 5,000 points until Kris bragged that he got 141,000. They never grow up, do they?) His other favorite ride was Soaring over California, which is mine, as well, because it is so fun to see the scenery flying beneath our feet. His little feet dangling below us were doing a little happy dance at a mile a minute. He says he liked it because he got a sword and shield out of it--He was scared to go on it and Kwint had to bribe him by promising to buy him the same sword and shield Kris bribed Talan with to get him on the Tower of Terror. It is a really cool set, and quite sturdy. The shield has Maleficent on it (the dragon from Sleeping Beauty).
Brennan was too short for most of the cool rides, and while unimpressed with the kid rides at fantasy land, (except for the teacups, which he was very excited about)he loved the kid rides in California Adventure. He has fun no matter what he is doing, so he was bubbling over with glee most of the trip, no matter where we were. He really, really loved the shooting range in Frontierland, which he did with Grandpa while Kwint and I rode Indiana Jones. It was no surprise that he picked out a gun set for his souvenir, complete with a rifle, pistol, bandana, sheriff's badge and holster. The guns light up and make an electronic bang when they shoot. His other favorite was a Star Wars show where they did a kids Jedi training camp where Windu trained all the little kids and Darth Vader came out to fight them. We were too late to get in on the camp, but it was really fun to watch.
We were pooped every night as we trudged back to the hotel with aching feet and biceps a bursting (each of us carrying a child and bags of stuff) and the kids were up until at least 11pm each night. Brennan slept 14 hours straight when we got home and is still tired and grumpy. I am still tired, too, and ca't convince myself to clean the bathrooms or put all that folded laundry away. It took two days to wash all the laundry and unpack... and now the mad rush for Halloween begins!! What to wear, what to wear??
