Sunday, July 03, 2005

Disneyland...

We just got back from our trip to Disneyland; all in all a great trip, though long. We left on the 25th of June and got back this evening. Here's the summary:

Saturday: flew down; Rachel did pretty well, slept part of the flight. United lost her bag, but I had a change of clothes, swimsuit, pajamas & toiletries for each of us in a carry-on. Went to the Angels/Dodger game at Angel Stadium. Concrete bowl, not bad inside, but VERY noisy and they run full commercials between innings at full volume. Oh, and they start their seat numbers at 20 and count down. Which means that 13/14 in one row are not actually directly in front of 13/14 in the next row. How stupid is that. Dawn, Rachel & I had to leave after the third because it was just too loud & late for Rachel.

Sunday: breakfast at IHOP and first day in Disneyland. Started with the Ferris Wheel in CA Adventures. Princess Heaven.

Monday: day off from Disneyland; Rachel and I went in the afternoon to see our friends Molly & Dave in Newport Beach; Rachel played with their daughter Emily (who'll be 2 this month), who is just learning how to share, very nicely. Had a great time with them & need to get back to Dave who wants me to do some programming for him.

Tuesday: second day in Disneyland; went to the princess character breakfast (more Princess Heaven) and saw (and took pictures with) Mary Poppins, Belle, Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine, Aladdin, Cinderella's Fairy Godmother. Cinderella was funny about being a Dodger fan (I was wearing a Giants hat).

Wednesday: third day in Disneyland, but started late, just in time for dinner at Ariel's Grotto where we saw various of the animal characters; Dawn & I got to go on Mulholland Madness; saw the electric light parade and then went over to Disneyland for the fireworks, which Rachel did OK with. Then decided to take a DL railroad ride, so we didn't get back to the hotel until after 11.

Thursday: day off from DL, went up to LA for brunch/lunch, spent some time at the Tar Pits and then met Dan & Karyn for dinner. Bumped into Jason & Tamara... went to Brandeis with them and haven't seen them, literally, in 13 years, but I recognized Jason's voice (didn't place it, only knew I'd heard it before) while they happened to be standing behind me as Rachel watched the animated fountain. Got back to the hotel late again; Rachel was so out I just carried her right up and put her in her bed.

Friday: last day in Disneyland; Dan and Karyn came down later in the day and we actually decided to buy them tickets to get in as well, so we could all go; went on Pirates of the Carribean which Rachel did OK with and then I went on Star Tours with Dan; fun but clearly an OLD ride. Rachel fell asleep on my shoulder during the fireworks and I was able to put her right in bed again when we got back to the hotel. We've been running her and Dawn's dad pretty hard.

Saturday: decided to check out and drive down to San Diego; we have 2 comped tickets to the Padres/Giants game that, originally, Dan and I were going to drive down for. Got a room at the Gas Lamp Marriott for the night, played with mileage plus tickets to be able to fly home from there without outrageous fees, and struggled with Budget to be able to return the car to the SD airport instead of Santa Ana where we got it. The hotel is literally 100 feet from the park.

Sunday: spent some time wandering around and having breakfast in SD, then off to the airport and, finally, home. Long trip. Lots of fun. Hundreds of pictures. Glad to be home.