Halloween, Head Injuries, and Happy Birthday!

OK, let’s take a quick break from the Disneyland re-cap and catch up with what we’ve been doing lately.

Abe has had a lot of injuries the past few weeks. It started just after our Disneyland trip, when Joel and Abe were playing with Joel’s Disneyland souvenir--a TRON “Identity Disc” (basically a Frisbee)--in the backyard. Joel threw it to Abe and hit him directly between the eyes with the hard plastic toy. It immediately swelled up and turned blue, and Abe’s forehead looked more Klingon than human:



If that’s the damage a toy disc can do, imagine what the discs can do in the electronic world of TRON!

Not many days after, Abe was complaining about something “sharp” on his cheek when he was eating some Skittles. I figured a chunk of candy was stuck on his tooth, scraping against his cheek. I peeked into his mouth and noticed that the back HALF of one of his teeth was COMPLETELY GONE, and the broken remainder of tooth was scraping against his cheek.

Amanda took him to the dentist, where it was quickly filled and fixed. However, while Abe’s mouth/cheek was numb with Novocain, he was chewing on his lip, and it got swollen/infected. He wouldn’t let us take a good picture of it—here’s the best we got:



At that point he could’ve gone as Quasimodo for Halloween. Instead, he was Spider-man, Joel was Indiana Jones, and Maddy was Luna Lovegood (from Harry Potter):



Elliott was Dumbo, and wasn’t too thrilled with his costume:



Here he is heading upstairs, embarrassed, to find something else to wear:



Because Halloween was on Sunday this year, we went to the ward’s Trunk-or-Treat party. We’d never done a Trunk-or-Treat before, and Amanda and the kids were not happy with the results. Apparently going car-to-car getting candy is lame compared to running around neighborhoods. Personally, I much preferred standing by the trunk for 15 minutes handing out candy instead of going around to houses for an hour or more, and it was better than getting off the couch every few minutes for an entire evening.

Here’s our decorated trunk, which Amanda and kids were in charge of (though I was asked to draw the monster mouth):



Amanda also made the kids some Halloween pajama shorts:



In other news, Amanda’s clock collection has grown (due to her recent birthday):



The red clock on the lower left was a present from me; the clock in the lower middle was knitted by Amanda’s sister Molly; the tire clock on the bottom right was bought by Amanda at the swap meet, using birthday money from Judy (which I’m sure Judy never expected).

Joel’s birthday was this past weekend.



He chose roast beef, potatoes and gravy, and homemade macaroni and cheese for his birthday dinner (whatever happened to Little Caesar’s Pizza on birthdays?!):



For his cake, he wanted a TRON Light Cycle, but since that would’ve taken more time and talents than Amanda or I possess, Amanda made a TRON Identity Disc cake instead:



We did NOT throw this one at Abe.

We’ve been re-watching all the Harry Potter movies over the last couple weeks in preparation for the new one coming out this weekend. We’ve decided that since bringing Elliott would make it fun for NOBODY, we’re going to see it in shifts—Maddy and I will go see it while Amanda and the boys are at home, then Amanda and the boys will go see it while Maddy and I stay home with Elliott.

We’re also really excited to celebrate Thanksgiving soon—I get 2 days off from work—maybe I can watch some of the 344 movies on our Netflix Queue!!

Disneyland October 2010 Trip: Day 2

The weather during the trip was constantly bouncing between cold drizzle and bits of sunshine. Whenever we wore sweaters, we were too hot, and when we didn’t wear sweaters, it was cold and windy. Why can’t Disney control the weather in their parks?!

THURSDAY

A pretty straight-forward day, which we spent at Disney California Adventure Park. In case you didn’t know, DCA is undergoing a massive overhaul, and they’re spending a couple billion dollars or so to turn the park into the kind of detailed and charming theme park that deserves to be next to Disneyland. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve always enjoyed DCA, but I love that they’re re-theming it to California of the 20’s and 30’s, when Walt arrived in Hollywood. By the time 2012 rolls around, it’ll feel like a totally different park.

EDIT: Here's a link that gives the basics about the expansion, as well as having a photo gallery of artwork:

http://themeparks.about.com/od/disneyparks/a/DCAMakeover.htm

What that means for now, however, is that there are construction walls all over the place, especially in the back section of the park. But at least Disney has the sense to give us decorative construction walls, that we can still use for photos. Construction of the “Little Mermaid Ride” means big blue walls with fish all over them (sorry, didn’t get a photo of those ones). Construction of Cars Land means walls themed to roadside postcards:



The Paradise Pier eateries are being transformed into “Paradise Park” complete with period décor and themed restaurants. Those construction walls looked like this:






The big highlight of Thursday was that Maddy faced her fears and went on California Screamin' and ended up loving it! Anyway, here's the list of what we did, along with applicable photos.
[Oh, to answer Libby's question, while at Disneyland, I keep a folded up piece of paper in my pocket that I write notes on, including what rides we get on, time we get in line, time the ride is over, and any interesting info I feel like adding along the way. Maybe I'll scan in one of the pages for you to see in a future post!]

9:15—Left the hotel
9:30—Arrived at Disney California Adventure. They let people in at 9:30 even though the park doesn’t officially open until 10 so that people could get World of Color Fastpasses and ride Soarin’ Over California. So that’s what we did.
9:37—While Amanda and the 3 older kids rode Soarin’ [Which Abe HATED] (with a Baby-Switch Pass in-hand), I took Elliott with me to get Fastpasses for “World of Color.” World of Color is a huge water/lights/lasers/music/video presentation on the lake in the middle of DCA every night. To get a spot in the viewing area, you have to pick up Fastpasses for everyone in your group. Luckily it only took me about 10 minutes to get through the line.



9:55—Andy and Maddy rode Soarin’ (using the Baby Swap Pass).
10:30—Got Amanda and Maddy Fastpasses for California Screamin’ then got in line for Toy Story Midway Mania (our longest wait of the day, which doesn’t have Fastpass and you can’t use the Readmission Passes for).



11:20—Maddy and Amanda rode California Screamin’. Unfortunately, the music wasn’t working on their vehicle.
11:35—King Triton’s Carousel



11:55—Silly Symphony Swings (Amanda, Maddy, and Joel)
12:25—We had packed a sack lunch for everyone in our backpack so we sat on a bench in the Hollywood Pictures area and ate our sandwiches and Cheetos:



12:55—Rode the Monsters Inc. ride
1:10—Muppetvision 3-D
1:45—Maddy and I rode Grizzly River Run. It was a foolish decision on our part. The weather was cold and we didn’t have our ponchos. I love that ride but we got SOAKED, and my clothes were wet for the rest of the day. Also, my ride-notes paper got really wet along the creases of the paper, but not totally soaked.
2:15—Maddy and Amanda rode California Screamin’ AGAIN. And they got the same vehicle, with NO MUSIC playing.
2:30—Andy and the boys rode the King Triton’s Carousel AGAIN
2:40—Mickey’s Fun Wheel. Every time we go on this, Joel gets scared, thinking it’s going to be wild, instead of realizing it’s the really tame, slow ferris wheel.
3:35—Went through the Tortilla Factory tour for free tortillas.
3:40—Went through the Sourdough Factory tour for free sourdough bread.
4:00—Ate dinner at Taste Pilot’s Grill. Really mediocre burgers and fries. But Elliott loved it:



5:10—Rode every ride in the Bug’s Land area in a total of 35 minutes.
6:05—watched “It’s Tough to Be a Bug,” which Abe was actually NOT scared of.
6:30—Visited the Animation Building. The three older kids took quizzes to see which Disney character they were most like: Joel, Jiminy Cricket; Madison, Belle; Abe: Shan Yu, the villain from Mulan.
7:00—we just sat and relaxed for a while before getting a spot for World of Color.
7:45—Found a spot to stand for WOC. We should’ve gotten over there a few minutes earlier, so we could’ve stood against a railing. Instead, we were behind some people and the kids had to peek around/through the crowd, and we had to hold Abe up for some of the 30-minute show.
8:15—World of Color. Very fun to see once, but from now on, we’ll just go on rides while everyone else is watching the show!
8:45—headed back to the hotel.

Disneyland October 2010 Trip: Day 1

As usual, my Disneyland Trip Reports are long and detailed with lots of photos, so I'll be updating the blog every couple days with more stuff. Today is the re-cap of Day 1.

Let’s start the day BEFORE the trip on Tuesday Oct 20th. We had to rent a van for the trip, so we could all fit in one vehicle (and have room for luggage, snacks, etc.) So we drove over to the tiny airport in Gilbert. Who even USES that place?—it looks like it’s all Cessna’s over there! On the way out, Amanda turned right instead of left and we ended up taking the long way home—further proof that she needs me as a navigator.

We got the car all packed up that day so we could just head out first thing in the morning.

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Wednesday October 20th

We were curious to see how different it would feel driving only 6 hours to Disneyland instead of the 10-11 we usually drove from Utah. In a word: AWESOME. It went by SO FAST, and having no significant mountains to wind through was even better.

[Ignore the past/present tense shifts--I was too lazy to keep them consistent.]

6:10—we leave the house
8:25—while still in AZ (9miles from the CA/AZ border), Abe looks out the window and says, “I think I see the Monorail!!” He kept having trouble with the length of the drive, and kept thinking we were almost there or asking if we WERE there.
8:31—entered California, stopping at Blythe to get gas/take a bathroom break, etc. On the door of the men’s room was a printed sign that read exactly as follows, including the capitalization, punctuation, line breaks:

Please lift
(Handle up) –
Before leaving
To unlock door
Thank you.

Exactly the kind of sign I’d expect from people in Blythe—am I right?!?!

8:55—back on the road
10:30—we passed through the wind farms, which were awesome. Just when we thought we’d seen them all, we’d round a corner and see a whole bunch more:



10:50—we merged from I-10 to the CA-60, and as we passed the “Anaheim: 31 Miles” sign, Abe yells, “Anaheim is OURS!!!”
11:50—we arrive at the Howard Johnson Anaheim and do a pre-check-in so we can park our car and get our Disneyland tickets (though it was too early to go to our room).
12:25—we headed over to Disneyland


12:45—Entered Disneyland


1:00—we check the “wait times board” at the end of Main Street and immediately threw out my planned itinerary. Wait times for pretty much every ride were less than 10 minutes, including Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, and Space Mountain.
1:05—After grabbing Fastpasses for Indiana Jones (which we ended up not using because the lines stayed short), Amanda and the 3 older kids rode Splash Mountain, which the boys HATED.


12:25—Haunted Mansion Holiday


1:45—Andy, Maddy and Joel ride the Indiana Jones Adventure, then Amanda, Maddy and Joel ride it.
2:30—Pirates of the Caribbean, which Abe USED to love, but hated this time (“I don’t like the drops.”)
3:05—Got Space Mountain Fastpasses for Amanda and Maddy, then we went to see “Captain EO” (which, if you didn’t know, has returned to Disneyland as a “Tribute” to Michael Jackson.)


They’ve “enhanced” it by using the “bouncing floors” effect that had been used in “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. It was fun during the flying/action scenes at the start, but totally unnecessary and a little obnoxious during the musical numbers, when the floors bounced to the beat for like 8 minutes straight.
3:45—Amanda and Maddy went on Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy—this is a special version of Space Mountain that’s during Halloween Time where they have creepy ghosts and sound effects on the ride—Amanda said it was much scarier.

OH, I haven't been listing all the bathroom breaks for you, sorry. Here's a picture of the Men's room sign near Space Mountain, though:



4:00—Ate dinner at the Plaza Inn. I think we’ve agreed this is our favorite place to eat. Great food and huge portions (they game Amanda 3 big pieces of chicken and gave me 2 huge breasts, which I’m ALWAYS fine with!)





While we were there, we saw Cody, one of the guys I animated the “Chico” video for. He and his twin brother Toby live down there and work at the park (at least Toby does). It was nice to meet them in person during the trip, having only talked to them on the phone or via email. Cody gave us some “Attraction Readmission Passes” which allowed us to skip the lines on a couple rides (by going through the exit or Fastpass line) instead of waiting in the normal queue. More about that later.
4:55—Rode Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters. Here are some on-ride photos (note Joel’s “I will destroy you!” face:




5:15—We rode the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.


This was our longest line of the day. We were a little confused about how the Attraction Readmission passes worked and we didn’t use them on this, even though we should have.

Then we headed over to Fantasyland:



6:15—Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
6:25—King Arthur’s Carousel
6:40—After asking a cast member how to use the Readmission Passes, we rode Peter Pan’s Flight using one of the passes (skipping the 20-minute wait)
6:45—Pinnochio’s Daring Journey
6:50—Snow White’s Scary Adventures (which has a fun new effect where the Queen’s room transforms)
7:00—We saw Toby working in Fantasyland and he asked us what ride we wanted to go on. We chose Casey Jr. and he took us in through the exit and we got onto the next train. Yeah, pretty awesome.
7:20—Alice in Wonderland
7:45—left Disneyland and went to the hotel.

When we got into our room, we saw that the hotel staff had left us a huge goody bag for the kids with bananas, trail mix, stuffed animals, travel activity books, and a fun note:




The room and hotel were great, and we definitely will be staying there again. The room was cleaner and the beds were more comfortable than the Castle Inn or even the Disneyland Hotel. The shower had plenty of hot water (in fact, too much—there was like a millimeter difference between hot and cold.) We never had to turn the A/C on, and just check out the view from our balcony:



It didn’t hurt that our hotel stay was free!

OK, so that's Day 1. Day 2 will be coming soon!