Traffic? More Like GRIDLOCK

Traffic in CA sucks ass. I think it took us 3 hours to go 4 miles after leaving Disney. That does not make for a carload of happy people. And I was hungry. I am not really all that nice when I am hungry and I was really hungry and ready to EAT. After leaving the stopped freeway to make our way to the Chik Fil A, I was better. I had food and drink and I was happy. All was good, except that we weren’t moving and our good trip time was wasting away by the second. Watching the arrival time on the GPS go from 9:01 PM to 11: 30 PM was a bit disappointing.

Then Sweet Girl has to go to the bathroom. And she’s crying because she REALLY has to go. We are stuck in traffic that’s not moving and there is a closure on the ramp we need and a detour coming up too. It’s like the bad things that happen in threes. Finally we find somewhere to get off, go in and she is still crying but there bathroom is out of order. Do you have another one we can use we have a child emergency. “NO, you can go down the street and turn right to the Circle K”. Gee thanks buddy. I hope you and all your co workers standing around with you crap your pants in public. Karma works you know.
We head over to the Circle K, we all get out again which is a pain in itself because we’re crammed in there with all our luggage, food, strollers, and assorted shit. And Little Man is not the quickest kid in the west. His nickname is Pokey. So we all go in and are informed they do not have public restrooms.
OMG seriously, I think Leo or I said how about she goes in the yard? The clerk kind of just stares at us. Obviously she’s not the sharpest tool in the west. Back in the car, I know the feeling Sweet Girl has. No one wants to crap their pants. Except I do want the clerks at the first place to crap their pants because they deserve it for being such jerks.

Finally we find somewhere, everyone is relieved. No one has peed or pooped their pants. At least to my knowledge. And our trip continues smoothly. We get home late, hit the sack and wake up fir Christmas Eve. And that is the end of our Disney Adventure. Overall a good one. Except for my souvenir cold but oh well, I think we all had fun anyway!

Disneyland is SO MUCH FUN in the rain!

It’s Day 2 at Disneyland, and guess what it’s still raining. And umbrellas should be banned from the park. I got poked in the face, arm, etc with the points. It is seriously annoying. And really in driving rain, an umbrella doesn’t help much. I was jealous of the rain boots though, I have to admit that. And there were people in FULL rain gear: jackets, pants, shoes and hats. That would have been nice too. But all we had were the ponchos. They helped yes, but not that much. Add in some wind and poncho effectiveness is decreased. And ponchos don’t keep your butt dry.

We ride some more rides, we ride some rides multiple times. Like the Haunted Mansion. Little Man, obsessed with Jack Skellington and that ride. I think we rode that ride 8 times. Pirates multiple times too. In a hard driving rain Big Thunder Mt is fun but damn that rain stings.

That night I don’t think I had a dry spot from my boobs down to my toes. We had to find a launder mat to dry our shoes. I had to peel my jeans off me. Good Times.

We catch a small break from the rain on Tuesday and we actually have a full 12 hour day where we are mostly dry. Same with Wednesday, this was surprising because that was the day it was forecasted with EXCESSIVE rainfall, another 6-12 inches. Although Wednesday we had planned to go to the movies because we trusted the weather man. Should have known better, we saw a little sliver of blue sky and sun and we pretty much ran to park abandoning all reasoning because IT’S THE SUN for God's sake and we haven't seen that yet in "sunny" California. It did work out for us though, thankfully. We were able to go to California Adventure and got to see the World of Color. An amazing show all on sprays and jets of water. AMAZING. And we even get to catch the fireworks at Disneyland as we’re walking out of CA Adventure. They had been cancelled every night before. And some of the parks even closed early because of the weather.

Despite our grumblings at the start of our trip, I think we all feel the rain was actually a blessing.
Sometimes prayers are answered in a weird way. The rain actually kept a lot of the crowds away. We were able to get on and off rides without a wait. We rarely waited more than 10-15 minutes for a ride. And from what I understand that is extremely abnormal during Christmas at Disney. This was evident on Thursday when we decided to go back to the park before heading back home to AZ. The sun was out and holy crap so were the people. The wait times were more than tripled. It was difficult to walk around. Yes we may have been wet but we were able to do so much more. I would gladly go back to Disney in the rain again. But I would go with full rain gear, jackets AND pants AND boots.
And because of the rain we didn't take the strollers in the park because I wasn't going to push around that thing in the rain. And much to my surprise, my children never, not once, complain about having to walk. Shocking I know...

We rode only two rides I think on Thursday before heading home. And that was the beginning of
another adventure in itself. I will save that for the next post.

CURB!! PUDDLE!! Where’s My Poncho?

So it’s barely raining now, this was after our making it to the hotel in torrential rain. God bless Leonard and his mad driving skills. We’re going to Disneyland because we can’t check into our hotel yet. And because yes it’s barely raining. But we stop and prepare ourselves with ponchos. Disneyland themed ponchos at that! We’re set.

We park, ride the tram to the entrance. And go in. And we are not in that park five minutes, not even down Main Street yet when my Mom trips over the curb and falls. She was so captivated by the giant ass Christmas tree and all its 1200 ornaments that she failed to see the curb transitioning up. I turn around and there is she on the ground. Yep this is definitely one of our trips now. If Little Man had turned around and puked on the curb it would not have shocked me. But thankfully he didn’t.

So after getting her to a bench and getting a ring of cast members surrounding her to save her from gawkers we head on down to first aid. She rides in style down Main Street in a wheelchair. She stays at first aid for a while and props her leg up to help swelling. And I am really impressed with her; the fall didn’t slow her down. She kept up with us the rest of the trip. I think she even surprised herself. And every time we got close
to a curb someone would yell “CURB!!!!!”

We rode ONE ride.

And then it starts raining. And the ponchos, pointless. Pants? Soaking WET. Shoes? Wet.

“PUDDLE” was yelled when a giant puddle was seen, one that would cover your shoe. I still walked in a few of them they were unavoidable and everywhere. My shoes have a large amount of mesh. Water and mesh? Not a good combo.

But we stay for a while longer in the rain, because damnit we paid to get in this place. And as we all know Disney ain’t cheap.

We head back to the hotel we’ve had enough for one day. We complain how much this sucks that it’s raining so much. And we are despaired at the forecast.

We dry our shoes with the blow-dryer that night.

And we sleep. And I’m sure we’re all praying that the rain lets up so we can enjoy the park. At least I know I am praying!

Stay tuned for Day 2 because my stories are long winded you know...

Don’t Touch ANYTHING and Keep your socks ON!

Well Happy New Year! It's still January so that's a plus! So it’s been a while, I really am sucking lately. And I find that I am starting every blog post like this. I guess we all know by now that I am a SLACKER. So anyway now that we’ve established that, I’ve admitted it and we’re all good let’s talk about our trip to Disneyland.

But first, I hope everyone had a great holiday time with your family and friends. I hope Santa was good to you and you got what you wanted.

We had a good Christmas, despite the fact I ended up wicked sick and really to be honest don’t
remember much of Christmas Day or the day after. But anyway, I do remember the week leading up to Christmas. Oh yes. And with most of our trips it included an injury. Let me set the stage for you.

We’re going to sunny California to Disneyland. We surprise the kids. And let me tell you we probably wouldn’t have been chosen for those commercials where parents surprise their kids with that news. “Guess what kids? After the Polar Express in Flagstaff we’re not coming home, we’re going to Disneyland!” My kids just stared at us like we had 500 heads. Like we spoke gibberish. Like we told them we were going to the mall. That was their reaction. Until I guess it set in that we really were going to the land of Disney. Then they got excited. They are so weird.

We set off with a stop at the North Pole via the Polar Express, where my children, well more Sweet Girl, belted or rather shrieked out some Christmas carols. Wow, that was one loud train ride. We got our bell that we all heard jingle so I guess we all believe in Santa still. Until I get so nuts from hearing the jingle that I pry that sucker open and rip out the bearing. Luckily that didn’t happen. At least not yet. I should put those away until next year. Build up some tolerance.

Now we’re on our way to CA, we stop in a little town in Arizona. It made such an impression that I forgot its name. But I didn’t forget the Motel 6 we stayed at. They really should have turned their light “off” for us, so we had to go somewhere else. Wow. That place was GROSS. I actually wanted to sleep with my shoes on.
Don’t touch anything kids.
For the love of all that is holy PLEASE don’t put your face on the comforter.
Don’t touch the remote.
OMG the phone is STICKY.

I immediately itch, not because there are bed bugs (I checked…and lifted up the mattress and proceeded to wash my hands in bleach) but because it just seems like there are. I don’t sleep. Little Man is coughing. And they are PROUD to let you know that the Santa Fe train line comes through hourly and blows their horn at EVERY crossing. Really that’s the sign in the office. I know why they are so proud…

We leave the next morning but not before disinfecting ALL our stuff with Lysol before putting in the Yukon. No joke. I’m serious.

And on to sunny California, except yeah not that week. That week they had the worst rain storm they’ve had in like 20 years. There were states of emergency declared, mud slides, floods. And A LOT of rain. And not just a nice drizzle I mean a hard driving rain. The kind where you can’t see anything. I’m checking the forecast every five seconds on my phone (because I can now, I got a new one with Internet access and all that fancy shit). The forecast is not looking good. Rain EVERY day we are there. Red Alerts with EXCESSIVE rain warnings. Rain INCREASING AND Thunderstorms. I’m thinking, this is just great. All this damn rain. Maybe they are wrong, they are weather forecasters they are always wrong. I look at the radar; I pretend I’m color blind when all I see is a huge mass of green and red. And apparently they were right that time, those bastards.

But we go anyway. And more about that in the next post.