Holiday Happenings!

Looking for the figgy pudding...



Well, now that the Christmas season is almost over, I might as well give a Christmas-time update! It’s a long update, so get yourself a cup of eggnog and some cookies to sustain you during this installment!

WORK

This December has seemed at times to either be going really, really slowly or has been speeding by. And I’ve been too busy to even notice most of the time!

At work a few weeks ago, they printed out a spreadsheet for me (on 11”x17” paper, with my projects color-coded) which detailed all of my project timelines and due dates. Let’s just say, it was a giant rainbow, filled with many colors and extremely jam-packed with projects. Job security, they keep saying—and really, I’m good with it. So much of it has been animation, including some fun visual styles, and I can honestly say that I really love my job.

Last week, they made me an offer that if I spent the next couple months re-learning and improving my 3-D design/animation skills that I would be getting a pretty significant raise (they said how much, but that’s none of your business!) once my expertise level is sufficient for actual production work. I’m guessing it should only take a couple of months before that happens, and I’m actually pretty excited, not just because the raise will really help ease our monthly budgets and help pay off our debts, (and we can then start rebuilding our food storage--which is currently only a case of refried beans), but I also get to become more proficient in 3-D which I always had some interest in, but got frustrated with while at BYU.

On Dec. 4th, we had a company Christmas party at the house of one of my co-workers. We were hesitant about going, because we didn’t know whether the kids could babysit Elliott properly, and we weren’t comfortable asking anyone in the ward (plus it was Ward Temple night, so babysitters and adults would’ve been scarce). We also didn’t know if the party would be casual, or a wild, drunken Xerox-your-butt kind of party like you see on TV/movies.

In the end, we decided to let the kids babysit (after several test-runs letting them babysit while we ran some short errands). The party was fun—there was a White Elephant exchange. Amanda brought Sea Monkeys, and I brought 4 king-size candy bars. We ended up with a huge box of “fun-size” candy bars and a bag that contained do-it-yourself chopsticks (a Swiss Army Knife and 2 pieces of wood) and a Clapper remote control (a hand clapping toy that will control your Clapper--Clapper not included).

The final present of the White Elephant exchange (which was pulled out from a hiding place) was a big square package wrapped in brown paper. They had a hard time opening it (at one point stabbing it with scissors, which must’ve caused stress for the CEOs of the company, as you’ll see ). The person got it open and it was $1000 in $1 bills. That was not REALLY their present (though they got to keep $5 of it) but was a symbol from the heads of the company to show that we each got a Christmas bonus. Unfortunately (but thankfully) pretty much all of my bonus had to go to needs like car registration, drivers licenses, groceries, and a $230 HOA payment for the condo in UT (which we hopefully won’t have to keep paying, since it’s very close to being sold—hopefully by the end of Dec.), but we’re definitely glad we had it right at the time we needed it. It was truly an answered prayer, in a way that reminded me of the Brother of Jared asking the Lord to light the stones for their journey across the waters (meaning I brought a solution to the Lord and he chose to answer it in that form—doesn’t always happen, but it’s nice when it does.)

Meanwhile at home, the kids did a great job babysitting, and were so excited to tell us about how they worked together to change Elliott’s diaper. Joel gave instructions, while Maddy did the actual dirty work, then Abe threw the dirty diaper into the trash.

Besides my full-time job, I’ve also been working freelance, adding on some extra scenes to the “Chico” music video that you’re all familiar with. The client wanted to submit it to the SXSX Film Festival in Austin, and we got it finished and delivered right before the final deadline. It meant some long days and late nights, but it’s nice to have that off my plate (and to have some extra $ to pay for stuff).

CHRISTMAS BAKING
We’ve had some bad experience in the past with Gingerbread houses, so this year, we made a giant gingerbread man—and we used the Ginger Crème recipe, so it was soft and delicious instead of lame, crunchy gingerbread. Here are some photos of the event:





As well as the aftermath:



We’ve also done a lot of holiday baking for friends. We made ginger crèmes and Cinnabons for my co-workers, and we made Cinnabons for my home teaching families, though one family was never home the 5 times we tried to deliver them, so they missed out and we ate them ourselves! We also made some chocolate marshmallow pillow cookies (basically a chocolate chip cookie with a marshmallow embedded in the top, covered in a fudge topping) for Amanda’s visiting teaching families and for the home teaching family that missed out on Cinnabons (see, we’re still nice), and we also brought some to the family that gave us a dresser and desk for Maddy.

We’re still planning to make some more Cinnabons for Jana’s family (and for ourselves on Christmas), and we’re going to make Peanut Butter Truffles, too.

Yeah, you wish you were here.

THE KIDS

Speaking of treats (and marshmallows), let me tell you about Abe’s afternoon ritual. During his daily “rest time,” he sits in the front room watching a movie, and has with him a bowl of miniature marshmallows and a toothpick. He uses the toothpick to poke each marshmallow, putting it into his mouth like some sort of fancy hors d’oeuvres. (Yes, I’m guessing that’s the one and only time I’ll be using hors d’oeuvres on my blog.)

In his spare time, he’s also been dressing as Batman:



And drawing pictures of Hitler (ok, probably not intentionally):



And when unsupervised, he’s been using the cord from the blinds to swing around on (and wrapping it around his neck with dangerous results):



Last week, Madison had her first band concert. She did a great job (or at least we think she did—all we could see was her forehead behind her music stand, and her clarinet sort of blends in with all the other instruments). But there was some drama before the concert—we walked to the school, since parking is a nightmare and it’s only ½ mile down the street, but when we got to the school, Maddy suddenly screamed, “I FORGOT MY MUSIC BOOK!!!” So while she had a panic attack and hyperventilated, I ran/jogged back to the house to get her book. I drove the car back to the school and I just had to park in a residential side street. 0.02322222222 (That’s Elliott’s contribution, thought I’d leave it there for you).

Elliott’s also been helping pull his weight around the house:



He now has one tooth on his lower jaw, which is very funny looking (sorry, no picture—hard to keep his mouth open on-cue).

He’s also walking everywhere now,



which is awesome and annoying at the same time (especially when you don’t know he’s there and knock him into the refrigerator or something).

Joel’s now a Bear in cub scouts, and when I asked him what else he’s been doing lately, he replied, “Just chillin’ and playin’ games!” That about sums it up, I guess.

Amanda’s been feverishly baking (as you know) and also knitting, sewing, and crafting some of the kids’ Christmas presents. She’s also been gritting her teeth while enduring her new calling at church: Relief Society Activity Leader. She’d never even BEEN to a RS Activity before, and never really wanted to, and now she’s in charge of planning them. Luckily there are only a couple of big activities during the year, with smaller activities consisting of temple trips and Stake activities. This month’s activity was a Progressive Dinner, which was already mostly planned before she came on-board, but she still had a lot to do. Who thinks a Progressive Dinner is a good idea? The whole thing seems like a waste of time and effort. I guess it’s a ward tradition, but Amanda has declared that the progressive dinner, with its fancy water pitchers and cinnamon sticks, will be the FIRST thing to go, if she has it her way. She wants things to be scaled back across the board—though hopefully without alienating too many of the “classy” folks in the ward.

Finally, let’s discuss the pendulum swing of this past Friday and Saturday.

FRIDAY:
I took the day off, since I still had a couple vacation days to use up for the year, and I’d been in need of a break.

That morning, we took the kids to school in their pajamas (it was “Pajama Day” at school), then went to get our car registered. The weather was cool and foggy and awesome. We’d forgotten a screwdriver to remove our UT license plates, so we had to use the metal clasp on Elliott’s pacifier clip. The DMV wasn’t crowded and were out of there with new plates in ½ hour or less. Of course now it’s harder to find our car amid all the other AZ cars.

Then I put a check in the bank and we headed to Costco and Wal-mart to get groceries. When I got home, I picked up the kids from school and (leaving Amanda and Elliott at home) the kids and I went to see Tron: Legacy on the IMAX 3-D screen (our one splurge from my bonus). It was awesome—yeah, the story was plain, (though not terrible) but the effects and action sequences were great, and the actors really seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Meanwhile at home, Amanda put Elliott for a nap and just got to do whatever she wanted for several hours—including getting a bunch of packages in the mail—she LOVES getting packages!!

After the movie, Maddy went to a birthday party for a friend, which was also a sleepover party. She initially didn’t want to stay for the sleepover, but called later requesting that we bring her a pillow, sleeping bag, etc.

Amanda and the boys and I got some Taco Bell for dinner, then headed to Goodwill. The Friday night before “½ price Saturday” is THE time to go, since everything’s out and ready, but no one’s shopping there, because they want to go on Saturday instead. We got a brand new barbeque (seems like a store display model—it still had instructions inside!) and a bike for Amanda. We had a 20% off coupon, so they were each only $20!

SATURDAY:

Saturday started out troublesome at 3am, with Elliott screaming like crazy. We fed him like 8 oz of formula and tried to put him back to bed to no avail. At 3:45 I changed his diaper and sat with him in the rocking chair and he eventually fell asleep.

At around 9, Amanda was trying to fix the seat height of her bike, but the bolts were so stripped and rusted that it wouldn’t unscrew.



While looking online for videos on repairing the bike, she went to a site that must’ve had some spyware embedded in the flash video, because when I went back over to the computer, I was getting constant (fake) spyware popups and my desktop had been taken over by a warning screen and my anti-virus software and web browsers were disabled.

I was able to use Amanda’s account on the computer to run the virus scan program (which didn’t do any good—McAfee sucks!) and look for other solutions. The entire day was spent trying to figure out how to get rid of it. Meanwhile, we gave up on trying to make the bike usable and returned it to Goodwill.

Maddy had only gotten an hour of sleep at her sleepover (apparently she and another girl were up all night because everyone else fell asleep and neither of them could figure out how to turn the TV/DVD player off so they had to see/hear “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” movie all night over and over again) so she was very tired and cranky the whole day.

Saturday evening, after trying everything I could do, we called Amanda’s brother Danny, who was able to login to our computer remotely and get the spyware removed. I’ve made some changes to our security settings (including getting rid of the idiotic Internet Explorer Beta—Google Chrome and Firefox seem much better). Amanda made cookies and we watched “A Christmas Story” and the evening ended up OK.

Well, I think that about sums things up for our pre-Christmas adventures! I’ll be doing another entry after Christmas (I should have plenty of time then, since I get work off from December 24th through January 2nd. So get ready to hear about our Christmas Eve fun (including homemade Chinese food) and Christmas Day adventures, including our new AZ tradition of a Christmas Day Barbeque (on our own grill!!!)

A Second Helping of Blog: Thanksgiving

Well, there’s already a new blog entry below about our final day at Disneyland, but with the 4-day holiday, I actually have had time to relax a little and catch up on some things around the house, like dishes and laundry and…oh wait, I mean, like some of my freelance animation, watching a few movies on Netflix, and of course writing blog entries!

The most exciting thing this week was that Elliott officially started walking. It’s mostly in short spurts, but he’s gradually been walking further and further, and now he usually chooses to walk instead of crawl. He also loves dancing, and shakes his butt up and down whenever he hears music playing. Sometimes he gets really fancy and performs musical numbers. Here he is doing his version of “Puttin’ on the Ritz”:



Of course this week was Thanksgiving, and although I was REALLY excited for 2 paid days off of work, the big excitement was for the FOOD. Oh, and not having to visit relatives. We love our family, but we are very glad we didn’t have to drive over to people’s houses with pots and bowls of stuff then sit around with plates in our laps and wait for people who arrive late or decide to make their food when they GOT to the house or other things like that. Not that we’ve had any Thanksgivings like that…

This year we brined the turkey:



That basically means that we soaked it overnight in salt water and spices to make it tender, juicy and more flavorful. And it was freaking DELICIOUS. We will be brining it EVERY year. The turkey tasted great, and it was so moist—we tried to cut off the turkey legs for the kids and the meat just fell off the bone!

The kids helped make the food. Abe helped make pies on Wednesday (including putting the lattice on the berry pie) and Joel helped grate cheese for the mac and cheese:



Maddy helped peel and slice the potatoes:



While things were cooking, we also assembled the Christmas tree:



Here’s Abe pretending to get a present out from behind the tree:



Here are the kids, all ready for dinner:



Here’s my plate, in case you forgot what Thanksgiving dinner looked like:



Elliott wanted soda, but this was as close as he got to drinking any:



We also had berry pie, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin streusel pie (sorry, no pictures, we ate them too fast!)

Thanksgiving night we also put up the Christmas decorations around the house.



Amanda was most excited to put out her Santa nesting dolls that she got at the swap meet:




Believe it or not, there are still 2 more dolls hidden in the small one!

Maddy also created a new fashion, sure to be all the rage among nerds everywhere:



On Friday, I took the 3 older kids to see “Tangled” in 3-D while Amanda and Elliott went grocery shopping. We really wanted Amanda to come, but were worried that Elliott would be totally annoying during the movie (especially since he’s teething AND has a cold).

We really loved the movie—definitely Disney’s best in a LONG time. Those of you who have seen it probably didn’t watch it from an animator’s perspective, but the character animation in the movie was very much a CGI version of classic Disney animation techniques, even out-doing a lot of Pixar’s character animation in terms of performance and fundamental animation principles like “squash and stretch” and “overlapping action.”

OK, enough with the Animator nerd-speak.

After the movie, we put the ornaments on the tree:



On Saturday, we watched Christmas home videos. Even Elliott sat and watched:



Well, now you’re caught up on the life of the Petersons. 4 weeks ‘til Christmas—let’s end with an Arizona sunset:

Disneyland October 2010: Day 4

OK, let’s wrap up this Disneyland re-cap and get on with our lives, shall we?!?!?!?

We knew when planning the Disneyland trip that Saturday would be crowded. If we hadn’t been concerned about me using too many of my vacation days, we wouldn’t have used Saturday at all, except maybe to travel home. And if we hadn’t already been down there with room paid for, we’d probably have skipped the day anyway, since it was basically a wasted day, Disneyland-wise.

Don’t get me wrong—it was fun, and it was nice to have that “buffer” day to catch those last things we wanted to do or rides we wanted to re-do, but the crowds were so much WORSE than the rest of the week that we’d gotten spoiled. “What? The wait is 20 minutes?! That’s WAY too long!”

The day started out a little rough—it was the rainiest of all the mornings, so we got everyone dressed in sweaters and rain ponchos before heading out the door. That extra step distracted me from the usual process, and I left the hotel without our park tickets (I didn’t realize until we were about to cross Harbor Blvd. into the Esplanade, and I had to hurry back to the hotel and get them).

Here are the boys waiting on a bench in the Esplanade:



But we still got into the park by 8:15, and headed over to Splash Mountain so Maddy could ride on it again. Unfortunately, the ride wasn’t ready to open, so we headed over to the Adventures of Pooh. At 8:25, we got kicked out of the park. Apparently “The Adventures of Pooh” is NOT a fancy, Disney-themed restroom. Geez, like I KNEW!

OK, but for reals, we rode the Winnie the Pooh ride twice without getting off the ride. They asked us if we wanted to go around again, but we said “No, get us off this thing!!!”

At 8:45, Splash Mountain was STILL down, so we rode Haunted Mansion Holiday again:



Splash Mountain was STILL closed, so we gave up on that and headed over to Disney California Adventure.

We got to DCA at 9:30, and after visiting the toy store, we went over to wait with the crowd gathered by the entrance to Paradise Pier. We waited there from 9:40 til 10:00, then hurried over to Toy Story Mania, where we only had to wait 10 minutes to get on the ride. So, in other words, while we were excited that it was a short wait for the ride, the waiting BEFORE the waiting meant we really waited 30 minutes for the ride…It’s funny how your brain works when you’re at Disneyland.

At 10:20, Amanda and Maddy went on California Screamin’ AGAIN (but Amanda didn’t break the sound system on the ride this time) while I took the boys on the King Triton Carousel twice.

10:55 - Maddy and I went on the Tower of Terror, which had practically no wait (BTW, they list a 13-minute wait on the ride whenever there’s no wait). Meanwhile, Amanda took the boys on Flik’s Flyers and Francis’s Ladybug Boogie. Apparently, the Cast Member running the ride was being very annoying, yelling over and over at Amanda to “keep small children seated at all times” (Elliott was supposed to sit on the seat instead of a lap, but he kept trying to stand during the teacup-type ride). As if she wasn’t TRYING to.

11:15 – Amanda and Maddy rode Tower of Terror while I took the boys on Flik’s Flyers and Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train.
11:40 – We took a quick walk through the Blue Sky Cellar to get a preview of some of the things they’re working on in the DCA expansion/overhaul.
11:50 – Amanda and Maddy rode Grizzly River Run, then we headed back to the hotel.

After lunch and a rest, we headed down to the HOJO’s water play area, Castaway Cove. Here are some pics of the kids playing:





At 3:15 we headed back over to Disneyland, and we went to see “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.” I always enjoy this one, and they recently revised/upgraded it with a state-of-the-art Lincoln animatronic as well as a new movie beforehand (and got rid of the 3-D headphones). They’ve also changed the lobby area to include historical Disneyland artwork and models--very cool stuff that I want in my living room.

The kids, thoroughly bored by Lincoln, decided to go off on their own into the park and (wouldn’t you know it?) got LOST:



OK, that was just a joke. They posed for the picture while Amanda was in the Baby Center with Elliott. As if my kids would do that. And as if they could get lost at Disneyland—their dad has maps of the park all over the place!

So, we spent a while browsing/shopping on Main Street, and I took the kids to the Main Street Cinema:




At 5:00 we went to the Carnation Café, which we’d never been to. We’d had reservations there during our Dec. 2008 trip, but it was closed due to rain. So this time we tried again. It was a nice, pleasant place to eat, and the food was good, but I don’t think it was worth going to again. I got the chicken pot pie:



Amanda got a turkey sandwich:



Madison got the Peanut Butter Palette, where she could make her own sandwich using marshmallows, raisins, etc.:


The boys each got Mac and cheese:



The rest of the time was spent walking around looking around for any rides that weren’t totally crowded, as well as doing some final souvenir-shopping. While walking through Fantasyland, we came across some sort of “Tangled” press event, with Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi. Here was my best attempt at a photo:



At 7:25, we left Disneyland and headed over to the hotel. Before going to bed, we opened the curtains and watched the Disneyland fireworks from our hotel room—a relaxing end to a crowded day and a busy vacation.

The next morning we drove home and wondered if the ride would seem longer since the excitement of the trip had gone. Well, the ride was still short, and still awesome! We ate some of our Coconut Mickeys:



And once we got home, Abe finally got to eat his sucker:



All-in-all, it was a great trip. We got to see everything we wanted to, including the Halloween decorations. If we hadn’t had to rent a van, the whole trip would have cost $300 or less, thanks to our hotel prize and Disney tickets. I even got paid to be there, thanks to my vacation days at work! And that drive from AZ…that lovely, lovely drive…

We don’t know when we’ll go again. Right now, there are a lot more important things to do with our time and money. Ideally we’d like to go sometime next fall, at least a short trip to see the new Little Mermaid ride and the new version of Star Tours (both opening this May, I believe). But we might just hold off until 2012, when we can save up for a bigger trip, and by then the huge Cars Land area will be open, and most of the DCA renovations will be done. But I can almost guarantee that we’ll be staying at the Howard Johnson again.

Disneyland October 2010 Trip: Day 3

Back to the Disneyland trip re-cap. Amanda complained that the previous Disneyland entry was kind-of boring, so I’ll try to make this one more entertaining.

FRIDAY

Let’s start with a picture I took of the boys sleeping in their hotel bed:



The boys had one bed, Amanda and I had the other, Elliott slept in a pack-and-play crib, and Maddy slept on an air mattress. Considering our rocky history of sleeping in hotel rooms, I was pretty surprised at how well we all slept. I think the fact that Elliott didn’t get his usual naps and the fact that we were all doing a lot more walking than usual made it so we were all worn out and slept really well. Also, the nice temperatures (no A/C OR heater needed) made us sleep a lot more comfortably.

One of the mornings, Abe sat up in bed and I said, “Are you ready to wake up?” and he said, “No, I just want to get off the ride…” and plopped back into the bed. He never did tell me what ride he thought he was on.

On Friday, Disneyland held their “Mickey’s Trick-or-Treat Party” (which we didn’t attend). That meant that the park closed early so the party guests could have the park to themselves. To counteract that, they opened Disneyland earlier that morning (8:00), so we took advantage of that, knowing fewer people would be getting up that early, especially since people would also be going to the party in the evening.



Because all my planned Friday morning rides got done on Wednesday afternoon, we spent the first hour in Fantasyland—



From 8am to 8:55, we rode Dumbo, the Teacups, Maddy and I rode the Matterhorn while Amanda and the boys rode the Alice ride TWICE (they let them go again with no wait because the ride had no audio playing the first time through), and It’s a Small World.


9:15: We went to Toontown and the kids and I went on Gadget’s Go-Coaster (it was the first time for Abe and me). Abe was very scared to go on it, but afterword, he wanted to go again, so Amanda took them all again while I fed Elliott some applesauce.
9:25—The kids went into Chip and dale’s treehouse, which is the most boring treehouse EVER.
9:45—we took the train from Toontown over to New Orleans Square.
10:20—Amanda and Maddy went on Thunder Mountain, then Maddy and I went (first time for me—I sure was daring with the roller coasters this time around!)
Over in Frontierland, they had set up a Dia de los Muertos display, here are some pics:




There was also a Halloween Tree, based on a Ray Bradbury story:



11:00—We rode the Jungle Cruise.

11:20—we rode on Pirates again, then Maddy decided to get her souvenir, a caricature portrait:



Too bad she doesn’t have a family member that could draw this well—woulda saved us $16!

This picture shows what the weather was like the whole trip, rainy/sunny:



12:25—I got us some Fastpasses for Autopia, then the kids and I walked through Sleeping Beauty Castle while Amanda went to the Baby Center to make a warm bottle for Elliott (all the bathroom faucets at the parks had cold or lukewarm water, but Elliott never drinks much when it’s not warm enough).

From 1:00 to 3:00 we had a rest/lunch at the hotel, then we headed into Disneyland at about 3:30. We ended up not needing the Autopia Fastpasses, but the kids (especially Joel) definitely needed driving lessons. Maddy and Joel each had their own cars, and Abe and I shared a car (he made me drive AND press the gas!!) They had Maddy and Joel go in the batch of cars before Abe and me, then we were in the front car of the next batch.

Abe and I started our journey, travelling fine through the miniature roadway, when we suddenly came upon a stalled car in front of us—it was Joel! He kept having problems pushing down the gas pedal. After several stops and starts, an Autopia worker showed up with a tow cable (assuming the car had broken down). While crossing in front of Joel, Joel pressed the gas and the guy had to quickly leap to the side to avoid getting run over. The worker got in the car with Joel and pressed the gas the rest of the way through the ride—pretty hilarious.

4:10—We rode the Nemo Submarines again—but THIS time, we used another of our magical readmission passes, so we only had to wait about 5 minutes instead of 20—we were off the ride by 4:35!
4:50—We rode Peter Pan’s Flight using our other readmission pass.
5:15—By this time, they were starting to let people in for the Halloween Party, and the crowds were getting worse, so we took the Monorail to Downtown Disney. The kids loved looking through the Lego store.
Around this time, Amanda started feeling really sick—she had an upset stomach that she blamed on eating too many Cheetos and Red Vines at the hotel.

At 6:15 we went into California Adventure, but we just sat on a bench for a while. I went and bought 3 Chimichangas for the 4 of us to eat (not Amanda)—I should’ve gotten 4, though, because the kids wolfed them down and hardly let me have ANY. Amanda and Elliott decided to go back to the hotel, but the 3 older kids and I stayed for ElecTRONica.

What is ElecTRONica, you ask?

It’s a nighttime party on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot area of DCA, themed to the new TRON movie coming to theatres in December. There’s a lot of techno music, dancing, and cool video projections on the buildings. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures, but it was pretty cool-looking. Here’s a video that Disney put together that gives a pretty good idea what it’s like:



The first thing we did was head over to the Muppetvision 3-D theater for an 8-minute 3-D preview of the TRON movie. The movie will be shown in 3-D in theaters, but this special sneak preview also included wind and lighting effects inside the theater—pretty cool. While sitting in our seats for the movie to start, I saw a guy enter the theater that looked a lot like the host of one of the Disney World Podcasts I listen to. I tried to keep my eye out for him during the rest of the evening to see if I could talk to him, but I was unable to. When we got back to Arizona I emailed him, and yes indeed, he had come out to CA for the weekend to report on some of the local Halloween events and also to see ElecTRONica!

After the preview we headed over to Flynn’s Arcade, a recreation of the arcade from the original TRON movie—they had 80’s music playing on the loudspeakers and all the classic games, like Pac-Man, Arkanoid, Centipede, Pole Position, Dig-dug, etc. And they only cost 25 cents each to play! Actually, you had to buy tokens (special Flynn’s Arcade ones that were cool—shoulda kept one for a cheap Disney souvenir!). Madison played Pac-Man, I played Arkanoid, Abe played Foozball, and Joel played a TRON-themed game called Space Paranoids. Joel would’ve stayed there all night if I’d let him and if it wasn’t so crowded.

After that, we were walking around and Joel was like, “Hey is that Cody and Toby?” I turned around and Toby was directing people along the walkways while Cody was hanging around by him. We chatted for a little bit, and I gave them a small gift we’d brought—a Christmas Tree-scented candle (they’ve been talking a lot on Facebook about the holiday candles they’ve been collecting).

At 8:15 we rode Monsters Inc., which made it so we were just in time to see Laser Man at 8:30. Who is Laser Man? Well, if you saw the video above, you got a quick glimpse—he’s a stage performer that does cool stuff with lasers (hence the name). It was totally awesome. Here’s a pretty good short clip of him doing his thing:



After that we headed home at about 8:45 to find Elliott asleep and Amanda feeling a little better. She’d had some juice and she even called the front desk to tell them our TV remote didn’t work—which they quickly came up and replaced.

So that was day 3 of 4—hope it was more interesting to read than the previous one!