Disneyland 2010

For my sake, because I can't figure out how to move pictures, please scroll to the bottom first and read my story, then find the corresponding pictures so you'll understand what's going on. And, since I can't move the pictures, they are not in chronological order. Sorry.

James not caring about being wet.

Our one and only picture with a character, and you can't even see it. Taken with my phone.

Splash mountain. Taken with my phone again. Love the green.

California Screamin! Peace, Janna.

We started out dry! Day one heading into the park on the tram.

Suzee attempting the dumb bells in Toon Town.

Even a poncho over the stroller couldn't keep her dry.

Pooh Corner. Soaking wet.

The end of the first half of day one. Soaking wet in the parking garage waiting for Jay to get back from returning his scooter.

Bob and James playing slip 'n slide on the wet tile.

What we do to entertain ourselves while waiting in the car for 3 hours.

Rain, rain. Go away!

Bored in the car hoping Jay is finding rain gear.

Still bored waiting.

And some more waiting.

More.

A Minnie Mouse caramel apple I got just in case we didn't make it back.

Waiting for the nice workers at Guest Relations to sort out our ticket mess and print new ones for us. In the rain, of course.

Bug's Land on the Chew Chew train.

Suzee on the carousel. I spent lots of time here and on the one at California Adventure since the little kids could ride it.

Brook on the carousel.

Suzee and me.

Brook on the rocking ferris wheel before she told me she didn't want this ride.

Brook closing her eyes and telling me that she was still going to smile even though the rocking ferris wheel freaked her out.

Eating chocolate chip cookies at the WRONG hotel.

Lilly waiting on the couch at the WRONG hotel, wishing she was in bed.

Suzee enjoying her cookie too.

Christmas Tree in Mickey's Toon Town.

Bob on a pumpkin in Goofy's back yard.

Janna and Suzee playing Goofy's piano .

Do you know how many people were staring at us while we took this picture over in Pooh's Corner?

Suzee getting a rare ride. She was in the stroller most of the time.

This is everyone after the Christmas parade in front of the castle. Can you see it?

See the row of green in the back? Matching jackets came in handy except when you're looking at everyone from the back and don't know whose name to call out. Love Tower of Terror.

In front of the "C".

Sisters (minus Karen who had already left) at Riverview Park where we took family pictures.

The front section of my van. 8 batteries here, plus the one in the front seat and the one under the hood for a total of 10. Hey, we made it home in time for Jay's surgery. That's all that matters.

A car in Toon Town.

Bug's Life 3D show. Suzee watched it 3 times with Jay.

We did Disneyland for Christmas this year. Let's just say the trip didn't go as planned.

Day 1:
We drove and drove and drove. I drove the whole way to Anaheim- approx. 9 hours plus stops. It could have been worse, but most of the drive was through rain and wind storms. I was happy to get to the hotel and we were greeted with warm chocolate chip cookies all the way around.

Day 2:
We got up late, had breakfast and headed to a nearby sports store to look for rain jackets. They were sold out, so we got waterproofing spray and coated all our jackets and shoes, and smeared our shoes with beeswax. We finally headed to the happiest place on earth. It was wet and rainy, but not too cold. None of us had rain gear so we got ponchos to try to stay dry. Fat chance. After a couple of hours, and only 3 rides, we left the park. I was done. Ready to call it quits. I bought caramel apples, not knowing if we would come back, and we headed to the parking garage. I got out the camera since we were finally under cover, and took a bunch of pictures of wet, cold kids slipping and sliding across the tiles. I was ready to either find something else to do for 2 days, or head home and attempt Disneyland during more favorable weather conditions. Jay, on the other hand, didn't give up. We got lunch, then drove all over the greater Anaheim area checking sports stores for gear to help us out. After 5 stores and several hours of me sitting in the car with the little kids, we finally found pants, jackets and boots for all but Suzee and James. While waiting in the car, I felt a hole in my ring and realized the peridot stone had fallen out. Good thing I don't have a baby in August yet. It was after 7 pm, but we decided to head back and try it again. With few people left at the park, we went on lots of rides in a little amount of time, and stayed relatively dry. We stayed late and had fun.

Day 3:
Sleep! We slept in and it was heavenly. It was still raining, and nothing was dry from the day before. When there's so much moisture in the air, nothing drys on it's own. We got dressed in full rain gear and stopped by Walmart to see if they had any pants to fit Suzee since every time we set her in the stroller she got soaked. While Jay was in there, I drove farther into the plaza to get sandwiches for lunch. I got Subway and got back to the car and tried to pull out and the car died. I got all the kids out except James because he was asleep. We walked to the outside tables and chairs to eat, and Jay walked over from Walmart. He went straight to the van to jump start it (we had brought an extra battery and jumper cables since the battery had died before we left). He found a nearly hysterical James outside the van in the parking lot with a lady who had her cell phone in hand and had already dialed 911. When Jay walked up, she hung up the phone and said "I hope they don't show up anyway." Oops. We finished eating, Jay got the van started, and James chewed me out for leaving him in the car. We knew the alternator wasbad, but hoped it would last until we got home. Off to the happiest place on earth. We got to the parking garage, and Jay realized that he had separated all the tickets on the table at the hotel so they could dry, and left them there. We had Kyla forward the e-mail with our ticket confirmation from the office to my phone, and headed to guest services for some assistance. We thought they could reprint them and we'd be on our way. Over an hour later, waiting in the drizzling rain, them thinking we had already used 2 days on our 3-day passes, and finding out the kind old gentleman who first admitted us to Disneyland the day before only gave us 8 of the 9 tickets we gave him, we were on our way.

Day 3: Once we actually got there.
We spent day 3 (our 2nd day there) at California Adventure. Lots of rides, lots of rain, brief moments of dryness, and hot soup in sourdough bread bowls. Yum! Most of the time we split with me taking the little kids and Jay taking the bigger kids so they'd all be able to go on rides they liked and were tall enough for. With so few people there, comparitively speaking, it was common for us to run into each other, and even end up in the same lines without knowing it. I got very few pictures because of the rain, but we were too busy to stop for pictures anyway. James needed to go to the bathroom, so I took him in. He got into the restroom, and I was out holding Suzee. He came out soaking wet. He couldn't reach the toilet. Dang it. It was getting late, so I took Lilly, Brook, James and Suzee and headed for the buses to get back to our hotel. Jay was staying with the older 4 to go on more rides. I was carrying Suzee and holding James' hand, with the other 2 dragging behind. I asked a nice young man working at Disneyland which bus to get to the Doubletree. He told me number 3. So we waited and waited and waited. The bus finally came so we rushed in to get a seat. When we got to the Doubletree I woke up 3 of the 4 who were asleep and we got out. As soon as we walked into the lobby of the hotel I knew something was wrong. I asked the concierge if there were 2 Doubletree hotels, and indeed, there were. I asked if there was another shuttle that would come by, then go to the other hotel, and they said they would call my correct hotel and find out what we could do. They contaced the shuttle who promised to come up into the hotel driveway to pick us up, since it was still raining. They weren't going to make us wait outside. We settled in for our 45 minute wait on their comfy couches in front of the huge Chrismas tree in the lobby. We might have done okay if the nice front desk worker hadn't handed out warm gooey chocolate chip cookies to 4 young, tired children. They smeared those melted chocolate chips everywhere. Then tried to unwrap gifts under the tree. Then climbed like monkeys all over the furniture. Then took ornaments off the tree and threw them into the tree. How we didn't get thrown out, I'll never know. I saw that 45 minutes had come and gone, so gathered up the now sleepy again kids and went to the front entryway to wait for our bus. The front desk guy saw us waiting outside and came to tell me the shuttle should have been there by now, and he was going to contact the other hotel to find out where they were. Brook was bored waiting, and decided to turn the automatic doors into manual doors that you have to force open. Still can't figure out how she did that. Every time someone walked up to the doors and stared at them because they weren't opening, I had to tell them the doors were broken and you had to push them apart with your hands. By the time the maintenance man got there to fix them, they were working again. Just like magic. The front desk man came to give me the bad news. He apologized profusely for the misunderstanding, but the shuttle had come to the street bus stop, didn't see us, and continued on. We were stuck again. I asked him to call me a taxi. A fast one. 5 minutes later a taxi mini-van showed up and the nice driver rushed us to our correct destination. I gave him a big tip. 50%. I was happy to be at the place I was going to lay my head for the night. 20 minutes later, Jay and the rest of the kids got to the hotel. Fun. Slight sarcasm there. Could you tell? Guess it would have been worse if they beat us there.

Day 4:
Our last day on vacation. We slept in again, and got to the park around lunch. We had a few brief periods of dryness, and enjoyed more rides with short lines or no lines at all. I got a few pictures and was happy that the kids had endured the rain as well as they did. The little kids, especially, didn't cry about being wet and never drying out. We stayed late enough to watch part of the World of Color water/lights/music show, then headed out and saw some of the fireworks from the main entrance. We had timed everything to leave with enough time to drive back to Mesa and get to the hospital there just in time for Jay to check in for wrist surgery. I thought he was crazy for wanting to drive through the night, especially since he couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight to help him stay awake. We got to the van, stripped off all the wet clothes, and headed to a gas station. We got gas, and got on the road. A few minutes later, alarms went off, and the van was shutting down. Jay yelled at me to grab the wires he had running to the battery, and apparently I pulled something I shouldn't have. The van died again. Jay was able to manuever to the side of the road, and once again, jump start the van with the extra battery we had with us. It was 11 pm and no auto stores were open. We were short on time, and what's open 24 hours? Walmart. Jay went in while we froze in the car. Well, everyone but me was asleep. I started texting my family and had my sister check for flights from LAX to Sky Harbor because I was sure there was no way we would get back in time for Jay's surgery. There were no red-eye flights, and the earliest morning flight wouldn't have gotten him there in time. That option was out. Shauna asked what they could do and I said "Say a prayer." I prayed too, and soon after, I got a text from Jay telling me to clear out the front of the van. He came running out pushing a cart full of batteries. 8 to be exact. He cut the clamps off the jumper cables and ran the wires through the door hinges. He made it so there was always one battery connected- a "constant" then ran another set of cables to another battery that we would move from battery to battery as the power got low. With the back up battery going, we could continue driving while we switched to a new battery with more power. It took us 3 batteries to get home. We drove home through rain and fog, and made it to the hospital just 20 minutes after Jay's original check-in time. He had called ahead and let them know we were running a little behind. Because of the wind and fog, I didn't sleep on the drive home either. We dropped Jay off and headed to my parents house. I had hoped the kids would go back to sleep, but they were too excited to be there. I crashed on my brother's bed with Suzee for about an hour, then the hospital called to tell me Jay was out of surgery. I picked him up and he was SO funny on anesthesia. All kinds of comments came out of his mouth. We got his prescription, and went back to my parents house so he could rest. We had semi-surprised my mom with getting ALL of my family together for pictures. We had tried at Thanksgiving, and things didn't work out. This time all 8 of us with our whole families, plus our parents, were in the presence of each other for a total of about 15 minutes. Just long enough to take the pictures, then we went our separate ways.

More on Christmas and New Year's to come... I'll add pictures and correct any grammatical errors tomorrow. It's late.