Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

To settle up unfinished business regarding the Disneyland trip, here’s my re-cap of the drive home: It totally sucked, but was unavoidable—sometimes in life, the crappy, 40-hour detour is the only way to get to your intended destination.

Moving on with life, today I’m talking about Valentine’s Day. As you all know, I’m a romantic. My 10 Years of Magic blog last year proved that, I think (well, until life got too busy for regular updates, but I ain’t complaining!). So I love Valentine’s Day. This year, we celebrated on Thursday the 12th, because Amanda had the day off and we figured if we went on a date, we’d rather avoid the crowded weekend.

This year, Amanda and I had a gift-giving/presents theme of “The Seven Deadly Sins”. I like doing themes because it helps me come up with ideas for presents, but this one was really tricky--as Amanda will freely admit--and some of the results took some real creativity to fit in with the theme.
Here are the results:

Pride: Amanda got me a new button-up shirt, so I’ll take pride in my appearance. I made her a shirt based on Pride and Prejudice, coupled with the Wii, (which she should be proud of her expertise in). I present to you, Wii Pride and Prejudice:

Sloth: This was a pretty easy one—just gotta get ‘em something that encourages laziness. Amanda got me some episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on DVD and I got her the DVD of “You’ve Got Mail” and a wooded spa stool to sit on in the shower when she just wants to relax in there.
Envy: This was tricky. I had no idea what to get until Amanda mentioned that she wanted a houseplant and I thought “AHA—GREEN with Envy!” And she got a Best Buy giftcard for me because…ummm…envy?!? Amanda had some troubles with that one.
Gluttony: Another easy one—chocolates for all, and I also got Amanda a recipe book of curry dishes.
Greed: A Home Depot gift card for Amanda, and a CD for me (greedy since I already have so many CDs).
Anger: I got Amanda a soap dispenser/sponge holder for the kitchen sink, since I always get angry when she leaves the sponge at the bottom of the sink and dishes get piled on top of it. She got me an iTunes gift card—it was colored RED, like ANGER!!!!!!!!!!
Lust: None of your beeswax!

As it turns out, we didn’t go on a date, but we had a family Valentine’s celebration. Earlier in the week, there was a “Student of the Month” assembly at the kids’ school. Both Madison and Joel were chosen as students of the month. They were each given a certificate, a sports water bottle, and a coupon for a free meal at Mimi’s Café. Now, we’re not big fans of Mimi’s, but we figured with 2 kids getting free meals, we’d give it another chance. While our experience wasn’t as bad as TGIFriday’s a few years back (a place we’ll NEVER return to), our mediocre service, so-so and overpriced food, and the prevalence of senior citizens have all convinced us that Mimi’s is not for us.

Thursday was also Madison’s spelling bee. She was nervous, but did well in the first couple rounds with “smother” and “rabbit,” but got out in round 3 with “imply” which she spelled I-M-P-L-I-E. I think she was thinking it would be like “implied”, but she didn’t do too bad compared to a lot of the kids. And they were getting words like “loose,” choose” and “bullet” (which the kid spelled “bullit”). I’m glad she did it—I’m sure it was a real confidence-booster to get up onstage and tackle it, even with being nervous. You should’ve seen her shake her fists in victory after getting the first word right.

Well, that about does it for Valentine’s. To end with, here are a selection of Valentine E-cards I made (in conjunction with 8Fish) for the University of Utah. You can share/send these cards and a bunch of others I animated via the U’s e-card website: http://ecardsfromu.utah.edu/

December Trip: Last Day at Disneyland

We’ve got 2 videos for you today, so we’ll try to keep the text to a minimum. Tuesday was a little drizzly here and there, and we brought the ponchos with us just in case, but hardly used them (except on the Grizzly River Run whitewater rapids ride). As always, you can click on any of the images to see a larger version.

7:45: Left our hotel
8:05: Entered Disneyland. It was another Early Entry Day. Here’s a view you don’t usually see: The crowd waiting to enter Disneyland from the OTHER SIDE of the rope!

8:10: Alice in Wonderland
8:15: It’s a Small World
8:45: Buzz Lightyear
9:00: Haunted Mansion Holiday
9:25: Amanda and Joel rode the Indiana Jones ride while Maddy, Abe and I climbed Tarzan’s Treehouse.

Here’s a Hidden Mickey we found in the treehouse, on a wooden chest:

9:45: We ate breakfast at the River Belle Terrace in Frontierland—delicious:

10:15: We headed over to California Adventure
10:40: Toy Story Midway Mania (which we again rode twice within 20 minutes—gotta love light crowds!)
11:15: We rode King Triton’s Carousel

11:35: Maddy and Joel rode the Orange Stinger, a spinning ride.
11:50: Maddy, Joel and I rode the Grizzly River Run
12:15: We got Fastpasses for the Tower of Terror, though we ended up not going on it.

12:20: We headed over to A Bug’s Land and rode Heimlich’s Chew-chew Train
12:30: Amanda and the kids rode Tuck and Roll’s Drive ‘em Buggies (Bumper Cars)
Now is a good time to show you the first video for today. This video shows:
**holiday décor on Main Street
**a couple minutes from the Holiday Version of Small World (I especially loved the Mexico section, and Maddy loved the mermaids, who sang “Jingle Shells")
**a couple minutes from Haunted Mansion Holiday (The ballroom was awesome--and smelled like gingerbread, and the gingerbread coffin and corpse is really made of gingerbread—with some robotic enhancements—and I love the snowy graveyard covered with jack o’lanterns. )**Abe (and the rest of us) on King Triton’s Carousel
**Amanda and the kids on the bumper cars—you’ve gotta watch that part and see Joel’s devilish laughter.
**The snowfall near It’s a Small World
**The video ends with the Peter Pan Bedroom in Innoventions. Inside Innoventions (in Tomorrowland) there is a “house of the future” which has a kitchen, living room, and some bedrooms. The boy’s bedroom has a Peter Pan theme. We were looking around in there and one of the cast members cam it to show off the room. Abe was sitting on the pirate ship bed at the time, and was recruited to helm the cannon. The room interacted with the book as the cast member told the story. Be sure to watch—it’s pretty cool, and Abe loved shooting the cannon.
Back to our schedule:
We did some shopping, then at 1:35 we left DCA and ate lunch at the Rainforest Café. The sat us near a creepy monkey:

Amanda was scared:

So was Abe:

But eventually, he got the courage to defend us from the beast:

For dessert, we ate the “Volcano”:

We went back to the hotel until 4:30, then took the monorail back to Disneyland. We did some more shopping, then waited around for the snowfall near Small World (see video above).
5:40: Autopia—note, the kids were horrible drivers.
6:15: We headed into Innoventions, exploring the House of the Future. See above for video of the Peter Pan Bedroom. You’ll notice I kept turning the camera to look at the wall where Abe had shot the cannon. Cannonball holes were projected on the wall, but I couldn’t capture them on camera.
Upstairs at Innoventions, we played some of the games and looked at some of the Healthy Living exhibits, including this display of fat amounts:

7:15: We took turns riding Star Tours and did some shopping.
8:00: We rode Pirates AGAIN
8:25: Winnie the Pooh ride
8:45: Haunted Mansion Holiday
9:15: We watched the Holiday Fireworks, enjoyed the snow on Main Street, then headed back to the hotel.

Despite the rainy start on our second day, we had a really great time at Disneyland, and were so happy to be able to visit it at Christmastime. We’ll never drive there during December, unless we maybe live in AZ or something. And while the Holiday Small World was fun, it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the Haunted Mansion Holiday, which runs from October-December. So next time, we’re planning for an October visit, especially since this year, Abe and Amanda can get in free on their birthday as part of the What Will You Celebrate promotion—plus, by October, Amanda will have racked up even more free passes from her job at the Disney Store!
We’ll end here with the last video, which features the Castle at night, a little of Pirates, the Haunted Mansion building at night, and a couple minutes of the Fireworks display (as well as snow on Main Street.)


Next time, we’ll re-cap the trip home…if I feel I can confront that ghost from my recent past…

Monday, Dec. 15th2008: Rainy Day at Disneyland

Alright, our second day at the parks. We woke up to a whole lot of rain coming down outside. At 8:45 we left the hotel, all wearing our supposedly-waterproof coats. We got to the monorail station and discovered that the monorail was temporarily closed (due to the rain, I assume). So we kept walking. We saw lots of sensible people turning back or wearing rain ponchos. We forged on, and by the time we got to the ticket booths, the kids were shivering and crying and we were all totally soaked to the bone. We stood under the monorail beam to get out of the rain a little and discuss options (though I unknowingly placed Abe—in his stroller—right under a heavy drip from the monorail beam). By 9:30, we were back in our hotel room, changing into dry clothes and trying to figure out what to do.
Amanda went down to one of the stores in the hotel and bought us all ponchos, and by 10:30, the rain had let up enough that we felt like braving the weather again, better-prepared and in better spirits. However, we left the cameras back at the hotel, since I was worried they’d get soaked. Therefore, photos and video today are all focused on our hotel room. So before re-capping the rest of the day, let’s look at the hotel:

We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel’s Wonder Tower, which is the southern-most building at the hotel. While the hotel room was good, and the hotel itself was very cool-looking with some fun perks, it was definitely NOT worth the money. The room had 2 balconies we could look out from, which was nice. And the hotel elevator had some serious gut-wrenching g-forces.
The beds all had Sleeping Beauty Castle on the headboard:

And the bedspreads were decorated with images of Disneyland attractions:

Art on the walls were also of Disneyland rides:

The dresser/TV stand had the original concept of Disneyland etched into it:

The bathroom lamps were held by Mickey hands:

Things I didn’t get pictures of: The top of the room is circled with pixie dust and an image of Tinkerbell. When we turned off the lights at night, the pixie dust glowed in the dark. The design of the wallpaper in the bathrooms included drawings of topiary plants which looked like Disney Characters.
Outside our building was a collection of waterfalls, which you could walk around. I’ve included some video of them below. There was also an old-time, British-looking telephone booth, which Maddy got in, hoping it was an entrance to the Ministry of Magic (that’s a Harry Potter reference for you Muggles out there).

In the lobby of the Wonder Tower was a Christmas tree:

And out by the pool they have miniature Jungle Cruise boats that you can pilot if you buy tokens (We chose not to spend the $ on it):

OK, so really, except for some light sprinkles, the rest of the day wasn’t so bad, and we put the ponchos away later in the afternoon. But it sure did scare away the crowds. On Sunday, we spent almost 45 minutes waiting in line for and riding Toy Story Midway Mania; On Monday, we rode it twice within half an hour! We then rode King Triton’s Carousel three times while Amanda rode California Screamin’ twice within 15 minutes!
At noon we visited the Blue Sky Cellar, where they have displays showing the changes/new rides coming to California Adventure in the next few years. Then we headed over to Disneyland.
We had made Priority Seating reservations at the Carnation Café on Main Street a few weeks before the trip. We’d been wanting to eat there for a while (since we’d never been before and they supposedly have an awesome chicken pot pie). However, when we got there for our reservation, we found that the restaurant was closed due to the rain. Something about an open-air eatery not wanting to serve people at wet tables…oh well. So we went over to the Plaza Inn, where we enjoyed their delicious Fried Chicken meal. Here’s a picture I got off the internet of the meal (since we didn’t have our camera, remember?):

At 1:20, we walked through the re-done Sleeping Beauty Castle Diorama Walkthrough. It was alright—a minor diversion, to be sure. And the new Goons Corridor scared the kids, which is always fun.
1:50: It’s A Small World. Not only is the outside of the building decorated, as you saw in the previous post; the whole ride is decorated in native decor and costumes from the various countries, and the characters sing “Jingle Bells” along with singing the original Small World song. I’ll have video of some of that in the next post.
2:15: Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin
2:40: We took the train from ToonTown to New Orleans Square
3:05: Haunted Mansion Holiday
3:20: Pirates (again)
4:00: We got some snacks from the bakery—I got a giant cinnamon roll; Maddy got a pumpkin muffin; Abe and Joel each got a snowman cookie; I can’t remember what Amanda got, but the kids are thinking it was a brownie…
4:30: Amanda and Maddy rode Space Mountain while I took the boys on Buzz Lightyear twice.
5:05: We rode the Storybookland Canal Boats. Here again, they’ve decorated a few of the little houses with lights and Christmas trees, as well as a few poinsettias here and there.
At 5:30, we were near Small World and suddenly the lights went down and they projected snowflakes on the Small World building. Then it began to snow all around us. Now, this is Disneyland snow, made of finely-chopped soap bubbles, but it was so fun and spontaneous. (Again, we’ll have video of that next time—since we did it again on Tuesday). You’d think, coming from Utah, a snowfall wouldn’t be that cool, but it felt magical and Christmassy there at Disneyland.
5:35: Casey Jr. Circus Train
5:45: King Arthur Carousel
5:50: Snow White’s Scary Adventures
6:05: Maddy and Amanda rode Thunder Mt. while the boys and I rode—you guessed it—Pirates!
6:40: The Jungle Cruise. Let me tell you, I never thought the Jungle Cruise at night could be fun, but it really was. With it being dark, the skipper has to point a spotlight into the jungle to show the different sights, and it made it feel more like an adventure into the deepest regions of the jungle. I recommend it.
7:15: We got some chimichangas from a food cart, and ate them over at the Plaza Pavilion, next to Sleeping Beauty Castle. While there, we got to watch the castle light up, icicle lights draped all over the castle.
7:45: We took the monorail back to the hotel and went to bed.
Well, that does it for the 2nd day at the parks. Here’s a video of the rainy morning (and its results); then some video of the hotel waterfalls, lobby, and hotel room. Enjoy (and forgive my sniffling—it was cold and wet, ok?) , and we’ll be back next time with lots more Disneyland video, photos, and adventures!