Disneyland 2014 - Our Last Day

We had to catch the shuttle to the airport at 2:30p so we didn't buy a pass to the park for our final day. We had booked breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen for the morning and if we'd gone to the park in between we probably would have only made it on a few rides so it just wasn't worth it. Goofy's kitchen has become a bit of a tradition for us. Breakfast is best and it's a great spot to get pictures with the characters as they come around your table every few minutes making it much easier to get pictures taken.

Breakfast consists of the usual breakfast faire with pancakes, waffles and french toast in Disney shapes but there are also a few fun foods like peanut butter and jelly pizza. I'm always amazed that one of the more popular items is chicken fingers. They're good but I wouldn't want to fill up on them for breakfast. We were already pretty worn out so we didn't stay too long. We managed to get pictures with Baloo, Sleeping Beauty and Dale. We were also pretty done with eating so I kept it to simple breakfast foods, a few treats and of course a breakfast Sunday.

We took some time to wander around the grounds at the Disneyland Hotel which is where Goofy's kitchen is. We were surprised to find that some of our favourite spots from our previous stay there were all gone. The Lost pool was filled in with grass and there used to be a great walkway through some waterfalls that had also disappeared. We figure they were replaced when they enlarged the main pool. We did find the gazebo still there. We've watched some rather elaborate wedding parties getting their picture taken there.

We checked out of the hotel at 11:00p and left our bags with the hotel while we went for one final dip in the pool. One last opportunity for Callie and Carter to not try out the water slide. I'm still not sure what their problem is. This was even a great water slide to get used to using because didn't empty out into a pool. It just ended in a shallow sitting area and then the water recycled back to start all over again. Maybe next time.

Out shuttle was a bit late but dropped us off at the airport in plenty of time. Kerry had heard about other options for airports and we were flying out of Long Beach. It was a great airport that felt like it probably did in the 1950's. Much of it open to the air and there were some older looking hangers in the back ground. It was really nice going through a smaller airport as the baggage screeners were much friendlier. I found it amusing though that Carter got randomly picked for secondary screening which meant they had to do a bomb test on his flip flops.

Our flight home was uneventful except for the fact that the Bellingham Airport had two flights come in from Hawaii at the same time as us which mean it was jam packed making it very difficult get get out. It was still a good airport because it too had friendly baggage screeners and it was very easy to get through security.

Kerry got in her 1/2 marathon and we had another great trip to Disneyland.

Disneyland 2014 - Race Day

Day three was race day and it started early. Unfortunately for Kerry she didn't exactly get a good nights sleep. She apparently over did it the day before and was suffering from heat stroke. She had a fever and threw up four times. In hind-sight perhaps eating the kitchen sink the night before was not a good idea. (In her defense she didn't have very much of it and did make every effort to prepare herself for the day ahead.) The race started at 5:00a and she was up at 3:45a to get ready giving her a grand total of 2 hours sleep. Not a good start.

They made it down and based on the automatic e-mails we got on their progress they started around 5:30a. Rather than having to constantly log in and check their progress, the Disney race was much better with automatic e-mails every 5k. This meant we knew how far along they were and it even gave us an ETA on when they would arrive. This allowed the kids and I to time things perfectly for their arrival. When we got there it was very busy but we found a good spot and cheered them on as they went by.

They finished in a time of 2 hours and 57 minutes. Slower then Kerry was planning however with the early start, bad night and constant distraction of taking pictures along the way it was a very respectable time. Apparently they saw the guy with the 3 hour sign as they were running and picked up the pace to make sure they finished ahead of him. The race was a colourful affair with characters from across the Disney landscape. (A heavy emphasis on Tinkerbell.) It was amazing how close everyone was at the finish line after 21 km. It was a big race.

After the race was over and the kids had finished stealing all of the food and drinks they had provided for Mommy we went back to the room so that Melissa could get ready to go. It was a very short trip for her especially since she had arrived late. Her shuttle was scheduled to pick her up around 10:30a and after a tearful goodbye the family got ready to go back to the park for our final day.

Not surprisingly, Kerry wasn't exactly 100%. We wandered very slowly over to the park and stopped for a snack in New Orleans square. We wanted to go to Toon Town but it seemed very far away. I had the bright idea to catch the train and we managed to get on at the very last second. We didn't stay in Toon Town for long though. Everyone was still quite slow and when we tried to go on the Gadget Roller Coaster, Callie decided she didn't want to go even though she'd been on it twice before. It's often difficult to understand exactly what they are thinking when this sort of thing happens. Carter loved it.

We took the monorail back to the hotel and had a good nap before going to the pool while Kerry had a hot bath. This invigorated everyone again and we were ready to head back to the park. We stopped off at Paradise Pier for dinner where Kerry wanted to get the Clam Chowder Soup Bread Bowl. Who knew this would suddenly be one of Callie's favourite meals. I had the Chicken Teryaki Rice bowl. The Pacific Wharf is a good place for dinner as it has much better food then popcorn and corn dogs.

We were intending to go back to Disneyland but got side tracked by a third time on Soaring over California for Callie and I and a tour of Bugs Land for Carter and Kerry. We also did King Triton's Carousel and Jumpin Jellyfish before we got back to Disneyland. Our first stop was Storybook Canal though this was another one that Callie decided she didn't want to do for some strange reason. We stayed in line long enough to watch the fireworks and then Carter and I went on while Kerry and Callie did the Tea Cups again. We finished up the day with the Pooh Bear ride and then Carter and I walked back to the hotel while the girls checked out Mister Toad's wild ride. We didn't get out of the park until about 11:00 when it closed. A very long last day.

Disneyland 2014 - A California Adventure

Day two at Disneyland started early again but this morning we had to get up earlier since the kids races were scheduled for today. The 10k was scheduled for early in the morning and it's right outside our window so the hotel got an early wake up call. We went down to breakfast at our hotel as we wanted to make sure we got a good breakfast into Callie. We lucked out because she wanted eggs and they were willing to make up a plate for her even though it wasn't officially on the menu. After breakfast we went straight to the kids run.

Callie's race was up first and she had a great costume. She'd been working on it for several weeks. The shirt was from a previous trip to Disneyland, they wings were Kerry's and she made up elastic band hair ties, bracelets and necklaces. She even added Kerry's socks to finish up the ensemble. They started with the 400m race, letting the kids go in waves and then did Carter's 200m and finished up with the 100m. There was apparently a diaper race as well but I think that must have been elsewhere because the kids race area was very chaotic.

Carter did great. He ran the whole way and he got to high five goofy at the finish line. Callie ran the whole way too. The races started at different spots so Kerry went with Callie and I went with Carter. It wasn't easy for any single parents with multiple kids since they pretty much had to take both kids to one of the distances and run from there because once you reached the finish line one time there was no turning around unless you wanted to get trampled by the next wave of kids. Each kid got a granola bar a water and a medal at the end.

After that we went straight to the park again. We got to go through the Grand California entrance into California Adventure Park because we were staying at a Disney hotel. This was very convenient and much shorter. A definite perk. When we got in I took everyone's passes and went to the fast pass line for Radiator Springs Racers. A good thing too because even though it was only about 10:00a the fast pass was almost done for the whole day. We got the 5:50p to 6:50p time slot. While I was gone the kids went on the Arial ride. I'm sure Carter was thrilled.

Melissa and I went on the Grizzly River Run together because we couldn't convince Carter that it was like Splash Mountain and Callie had no interest in it at all. It worked out okay though as the kids got their pictures taken with Doug the dog from Up. When we were done there the boys headed to Cars Land to catch a few rides and the girls went on Soaring Over California. I'm glad Callie made it on because now it's her favourite ride. Carter and I had a good time as well because we got to get our pictures taken with Mater.

We met up as a group again to go on Luigi's bumper cars. They are giant tires that float on air. It's a terrible bumper car ride. Virtually no chance of getting whip lash. I miss the bumper cars of old. The kids and I then headed back to the hotel for another swim while Melissa and Kerry stayed behind to catch a few rides since it was Melissa's last park day. I still had no luck getting Callie on the water slide though she did give it another try.

For dinner we had booked a table at our hotel. It was a simple menu but Callie wanted to get desert there. They advertised something called the Kitchen sink and it lived up to it's name. It had a ton of treats and even came in a kitchen sink. It was okay but there was a lot of filler with ice cream and whipping cream. You needed about 8 people to finish it. For dinner they had a pasta meal for racers which worked out great. We were pretty much the first group for dinner and Melissa's meal was cold. They gave her a free soup while they warmed it up. (The soup was cold too. :))

After dinner it was finally time for our Cars ride. It was nice that Carter was well above the height restriction. Last time it took 5 minutes for them to measure him. After a quick trip on Monsters Inc. Carter, Kerry and Melissa all headed back to the hotel so that they could get a good nights rest for the race while Callie and I stayed behind to go on Soaring over California again. We finished up the day with a couple of salted caramel Churros. Another great day.

Disneyland 2014 - Day One At the Park

Considering we didn't get to bed until 2:00a the night before, I was not exactly happy when the kids were awake by 7:30a the next morning but once the curtains were pulled back and the sun was shining in it was pretty hard to go back to sleep. Kerry purchased her tickets as part of the race package and unfortunately that meant we couldn't pick them up until 10:00a so That gave us plenty of time go find a spot for breakfast and enjoy the early morning heat. It was over 20 degrees before 9:00a.

They had cordoned off a portion of the underground parking lot for the pick-up and we saw quite a few people coming out with their race packets so we decided to head down early. I think they opened things up early because there was already quite a line-up at 9:30. It was a bit of a production to get everything we needed. The kids had race packets to get, Kerry had a race packet to get with a separate stop for shirts and there was a different line up for the tickets. We got everything and after a forced walk through the fitness expo we were ready for the day.

Melissa was still on her flight so we headed straight to Disneyland. We were lucky enough to get the front seat of the monorail and our conductor Alfred was very good at his job. (The people part. The driving part just involves pushing go.) His standard line as you get off is "Don't forget to write!". I'm thinking of writing just to surprise him. Our first stop was a classic. The Pooh Bear ride. It unfortunately didn't go over very well because Callie ended up in the middle seat when she wanted the back. Turns out only feeding her fruit loops in the morning doesn't work out very well for her blood sugar.

Before we got on Pooh Bear we had fast passed Splash mountain and there was still some time before we could go on so we got on Pirates of the Caribbean. The plan was to take the whole family on Splash Mountain. Carter had been physching himself up for it for months and we thought Callie might do it it Carter did but no such luck. Kerry and Carter went first and he absolutely loved it. So much so that him and I went on it again right away. Where I close my eyes on the steep hill, he's looking to see what's at the bottom. Mommy and Callie used this time to do Pooh Bear again and get a few character pictures.

By this time, Meliisa's flight had finally arrived and she'd taken the shuttle to the hotel. We headed back to let her in the room, get a quick nap and head down to the pool. The pool is great as it has three life guards and a water slide. The water slide is a couple stories high but it's not very steep so it's perfect for the kids. Unfortunately they don't feel the same way. Callie tried about 6 times but chickened out each time. I've now got a deal where if she goes on the water slide, I'll go on my least favourite ride the teacups. So far it looks like I won't have to go.

For dinner, Kerry had booked us a table at the Rainforest cafe. It's always busy so you pretty much have to book it six months in advance. A table of six tried to get in without a reservation at 5:00p and there wasn't room until 8:00p. The atmosphere is great with mechanical animals and aquariums everywhere. The food was not quite so good and has gone down hill since I was there last. They don't even have the crinkle cut waffle fries anymore. They do however still have the Volcanoe. A plate full of brownies and ice cream that was too much for five people. This too wasn't as exciting as it didn't have sparklers. Still tasty though and we got free mugs for being runners so maybe we'll go again.

After dinner, I dropped off a few things at our room while everyone headed back to Disneyland. We fast passed star tours and Callie and I went on Buzz Light Year while Kerry attempted to get Carter on the rockets. Apparently we needed to phsyche him up for more than just Splash Mountain as he's not been too adventurous beyond that. It's too bad because Splash Mountain is about as bad as it gets. (Except for those damn tea cups.) We were still early for Star Tours so we went on Autopia. We got lucky and the fireworks went off as we were on the ride. Made it much more exciting.

We managed to get everyone onto Star Tours by convincing them that it was just a movie. Callie got a bit suspicious when we had to put seat belts on. "Why do we have to wear a seat belt for a movie?" Callie loved it but Carter was getting a bit tired so Kerry and Melissa walked us to the monorail and they stayed in the park until it closed. We had to take a short nap at the monorail since it was broken down for 20 minutes but we made it back to our hotel in time to see the end of "World of Color" from the hall way of our hotel. Much nicer than trying to see it from the crowd. A great way to end our first day.

Disneyland 2014 - The Journey

This year Kerry has a significant birthday and decided she wanted to run a half marathon before it happened and there just happens to be one in Disneyland. (I figured she could just as easily sign up for the Surrey one for $50.00 but she went another direction.) Her friend Melissa from Coldstream was coming as well and the two have been planning and training since the summer. It's January and Kerry had to take unpaid leave to come so we had to minimize the number of days off. That meant leaving right after school on a Thursday and returning on Monday night.

Flights were cheapest out of Bellingham which is about the same distance from our house and going through customs at the border is much easier.Things started out smoothly but when we got to the airport we found out that Melissa's plane from Kelowna was likely going to be cancelled due to fog and there wasn't going to be another flight until the next morning. That meant she would miss her connection from Vancouver to L.A. As it turned out there was a risk of fog in Bellingham as well but we got lucky and it didn't roll in until after our flight left.

Melissa wasn't so lucky and she ended up having to drive to Vancouver at night, stay at the airport and get a flight first thing in the morning. She figures she got about two hours of sleep. After our flight out of Bellingham left it was a 25 minute flight to Seattle where we had dinner before heading to LAX. Our flight landed after midnight and we didn't get to the hotel until 1:00a. A long day but since we couldn't pick up our tickets until 10:00a we could sleep in and get ready for our first day at Disneyland.

Sledding at Cypress

Finally, my first real post of 2014. I must say I got quite behind last year. I'll try to be more timely this year. I wanted to get caught up before our trip to Disneyland this coming weekend.

We took a trip up to Cypress mountain at the beginning of January. As you can see the hills aren't getting a lot of snow this year. Most of the runs at Cypress aren't even open and the sledding area was about 25% of what it was last year. We went in February last year so maybe things will be better by Family Day.

Carter's favourite sled is the flying saucer and based on the sleds I saw at the hill that day, still one of the most effective. He was making it to the end of the hill every time and sometimes I'd introduce a bit of spin at the top when I got him started. He was also getting pretty good at controlling his speed with his feet.

Callie had a blast with the crazy carpet. I think she likes that she can control where she's going yet still get up enough speed to make it fun. Most of the day she went down on her stomach which I think is the way it's designed, however one of the Cypress people stopped her for a few runs as he felt it wasn't 'safe'. I can sort of understand because she's going head first but she's so low to the ground I think it's almost safer. As soon as he was gone we went back to the old method.

This was another outing with Kristen and Ryan. Kristen had a flying saucer too and she squealed the entire way down every single time. We also had to be careful with her because she had no speed control and was going right to the net at the bottom unless someone stopped her. The funniest thing was her toque that would go down over her eyes on every run so she had no idea where she was going.

Public Skating at the Ice Palace

This year we found out about the Ice Palace in Coverdale. Apparently they've had it since the mid-nineties. They take one of the ice rinks, add Christmas Lights, trees and figurines and have public skating all day for most of the month of December and all of the Christmas holidays. We had a bit of trouble getting Callie on the ice. She didn't like how tight the skates had to be and we went through 4 different pairs and two helmets before we could get her on the ice.

Carter had no problem at all. I might have to see about signing him up for hockey in the next few years. He wasn't too stable but we still had fun with me pushing him around on the ice.

Once we got Callie on the ice she seemed to have a bit of fun though it didn't last very long. She's still using the skating helper thingy but she's pretty close to not needing it. Last year she managed to skate with just me holding her hand. Perhaps we'll go out skating a few more times this year and she'll feel more confident.

For anyone that  has checked the Ice Palace out it's a great public skate around Christmas time!

Christmas

Christmas started somewhat early this year with a trip to Science World on the first weekend of December. BC Hydro always has a Children's Christmas Party for BC Hydro staff with kids 12 and under. They book Science world for the first two hours of the morning before it opens to the public and you get refreshments and free run of the place. You can then stay for the rest of the day if you wish. For the first time we managed to get at least one of the kids to have their picture taken with Santa. Carter was not very interested though. He didn't even want to look at him. I guess it's too real when he's right in front of you.

I don't think Christmas is Wilson's favourite time of year. The kids always torment him by putting hats on him and we always forget, and wrap his present and place it under the tree. He knows it's something good but he can't get to it. He's especially not fond of the saxophone playing Santa.

Once the holidays rolled around we become the Christmas hub for both my family and Kerry's. Barb and Reg came down a few days before hand and we have Christmas #1. The kids get to open one present on Christmas eve but then they have to wait until Christmas morning. Unfortunately Callie figured this meant 4:45a. Kerry managed to keep her quite till about 6:00 but it was still a very early morning. Carter's favourite gift was his seat pet. He saw the commercial and had to have one. He would quote the commercial and tell us that "Then he wouldn't have to ask 'Are we there yet?'"

Callie's favourite gifts were definitely all of her lego. One of the sets she got was over 1200 pieces. She still managed to have it done by the end of the day on Christmas day. The lego that they have designed for girls is called Lego Friends and she got Heart Lake High and Hear Lake Stables as well as a house boat. As you build the set it allows for a lot of imagination however she tends to keep everything in it's original configuration and doesn't take it apart so it's more about building the city. I had to make her a table just to hold it.

A continued Christmas tradition is for Santa to buy the kids pajamas. Kerry... I mean Santa.... has done it since Callie and Carter were born and the last couple of years he's been getting it for Kristen and Ryan as well. This year they looked like Christmas prison convicts and each had a different Christmas character on the front. We finally managed to get a picture with all of them together, even Ryan who is notoriously difficult to keep in pictures.

We finished Christmas and New Years with Mom and Dad coming down for Christmas #2. I think this year we opened presents the evening they came rather than waiting for Christmas morning. That's more in line with what our family used to do anyways so it felt like the right thing to do.

We also had Christmas Dinner, Two Fondus and a mini new years party at our house. A very busy holiday. It almost seemed like a vacation to go back to work.

Halloween

Carter finally got to wear his Spiderman costume on Halloween. We actually got it for him about a year and a half ago at a garage sale but he didn't wear it last year because he decided to be a horse again. He's been randomly wearing it whenever we have company over, at birthday parties and dinner parties. Pretty much anytime he wants to interact with people in a group setting. I think he likes having an alter ego for these occasions.

We got Callie's costume via mail order. She's Hermoine the witch from Harry Potter. The costume came with the robe and the scarf and she added in the white dress shirt and book. I got to try out my new lathe by turning her a wand. It was actually my first useful project off the new tool. Turned out to be a bit harder than I expected since it has to be so thin. She designed it and I somehow managed to meet her exact specifications.

As per usual, Kerry takes the kids over to Kristen and Ryan's to trick or treat at their house before coming back to our neighbourhood. Kristen was part of Lightning McQueen's pit crew and Ryan was a monkey. A very fitting costume for him since he's quite mischievous like Curious George. I always miss this since I stay home to great the Halloween trick or treaters. This year we had a new record with 86 kids.

I continue to add to our halloween decoration kit each year. I usually like to buy things the day before Halloween or right afterwards as by then they've marked everything down. This year I even got some halloween decorations as Christmas presents so. It only takes a couple of hours to set up and it makes our house more inviting for the neighbour hood kids. We're in a bit of a side street so anything we can do to entice them on to our street helps.

Pumpkin Patch

We went on our annual trip to the Aldor Acres Pumpkin patch. We've been going since Callie was 2 and it gets better every year. This was it's 25th anniversary. It's a nice family run operation and since they live on the farm, they pretty much give up all semblance of privacy during the day for the  month of October. It has an excellent variety of pumpkin sizes and you know they are popular when the price keeps going up each year. You pay to get everyone in the door and you still have to pay for your pumpkin.

The last couple of years we've been going with the cousins, Kristen and Ryan and Auntie Carmen and Uncle Corey. The kids really enjoy these outings. This year we went in the second week of October and the weather was still quite warm, as evidenced by Callie deciding to wear shorts. Everyone had on their gum boots but the fields were still quite dry as we hadn't had any significant rainfall yet.

One of Callie's favourite parts is of course the petting zoos. She's especially fond of the bunnies. In previous years I've had to protect the bunnies as she didn't quite understand what 'gentle' meant. This year though she knew exactly how to handle them. She also enjoyed the cows, goats, pigs and horses. I may have to try to convince Kerry that we should buy a bunny. There's plenty of room in the back yard.

I'm not too sure what Carter's favourite part is. He just seems to enjoy everything, from the petting zoos, to the picture taking to the hay ride out to the field. I guess if I had to pick something this year it seemed to be the popcorn and the pumpkin pie. He definitely loves his popcorn.

We got to go to the upper field this year. They have several fields and you don't really know where you will end up until you get there. I like the upper field because it has a great view of the farm and it's usually drier without being too dusty. We let the kids each pick out a pumpkin though we encourage them to get smaller ones. They charge based on the width so it's cheaper for us to get small ones here and then buy a bigger one at Superstore.