CarpeAcum

Disneyland, continued

We left for Disneyland on April 5, and came back on April 11. I succombed to my typical cold as a result of having to deal with air conditioning for more than a couple of days, and I am just now getting over it. I still feel like I've been run over by a truck, but I hope to get back to regular walking this week sometime.

I had great hopes of writing blog entries in the afternoons while we were on vacation, but I usually dropped off for a quick nap while The Beard and Punkin took a trip to the hotel pool. Dark, quiet, alone. . .snore. Every day my feet hurt a lot, and getting to put them up for an hour or so in the middle of the day really helped.

Saturday: (Fellow sewing enthusiasts will appreciate that on Saturday morning, I was hammering snaps onto my new jacket so I could wear it on the plane. I finished it the weekend before, at the sewing retreat, but I hadn't done buttons and buttonholes yet. I searched through my stash of snaps and found the perfect copper-colored ones. Yay!)

Our flight out of Seattle was 1.5 hours late. Luckily, we hadn't intended to go into the park on the first day, or that could have been a catastrophe. Instead, when we got there, we caught the arranged shuttle (messed the driver's schedule up, too, since Alaska kept posting that our flight was on time) and headed from Long Beach to the Ramada Inn Maingate. The kids all headed for the pool, and the adults got things situated in the rooms. Then we headed off to Downtown Disney. We stopped in at IHOP for dinner (kids eat free!). We only did that the one time. Then we continued on to Downtown D and looked around at stuff, did a little shopping, felt tired and walked back to the hotel. We decided to get up and open the park the next day, since it was an early opening day, Sunday.

Sunday: We met the group for breakfast at the hotel at 7:00-ish (this is a good group to travel with. 7:00 means "as close as you can get to 7:00 without being all stressed about it). We had breakfast and got in line at the entrance, and were in the park at 8:00--no stress (not much sleep, either!).

Here we are, entering Disneyland! The triplets and Punkin. Punkin has on a brown jacket and is in front of the AE-77 shirt.

We headed for Splash Mountain first. I thought we had talked Punkin into trying it, but when we got there, she decided that it was a no-go. She never did go on it the whole week. She tried other new rides, though, so kudos to her. I'm not much of a ride rider either, so she comes by it naturally.

She does like Dumbo, however, and made the Beard and I sick when we tried to ride it with her--she likes to make the elephant jerk up and down really quickly, much more nausea-inducing than most of the rides she wouldn't go on. Blech! Dumbo is an incredibly difficult ride to get a good picture of, and despite that, I had to search for a properly bad picture--one that doesn't show Punkin's mysterious face. I give you: Dumbo!

After that, we grabbed a quick (but expensive!) burger in Tomorrowland, and we girls headed off to see the High School Musical show in California Adventure.

When you go to Disneyland with 2 11YO girls, the HSM show is pretty much a must. It was only playing for a couple of the days we were there, so we had to make sure and be there for the first one, in case we wanted to be there every day. I have some great pictures of the show and of Punkin's friend participating (but not Punkin :-( ), but you'll have to use your imagination! I even got a video of the limbo.

After HSM, we grabbed a quick snack (mocha--blech! I sure wish Starbucks would figure out how to get into Disneyland) and wandered around California Adventure for a while. We totally missed it when we were in CA 2 years ago, so it was all new to us.  There's a Pixar parade in the afternoon, so after watching our friends on California Screamin, we watched the parade.

There was Lightning:

Roz and Boo:

The Incredibles and Frozone:

This guy, who makes these stilt things look like a lot of fun, and not a dangerous way to break some precious part of your skeletal system:

Crush:

A pufferfishmobile! What a cool way to do this. In this picture, he's unpuffed, but the body opened up like umbrellas--very effective.

Ratatouille:

Tinkertoy guy. The guyin the cart, complete with helmet (you've never seen so many safety precautions) is making Tinkertoy guy move.

Green army men and ZEALOTS!

Woody, Jessie, Rex and a barrel of monkeys!

And who's bringing up the rear? Well, Mater, of course!

 

Then there was more walking about in the sun. Sun! And we watched people get wet in the Grizzly river inner tube run. I got some good pictures, and I got to stay dry!

After dinner, we watched Fantasmic (we actually saw a bunch of it this time--Punkin is taller, and we weren't trying to hold her up to see it). Then we went and stood in line for the rocket ride. After that, Punkin got some mouse ears (yay!).

And thus ended the first day.

Whew!    

Disneyland, Part 1

Veni, vidi, I got really tired.

Disneyland was great! We had oodles of fun. I kept thinking I would keep a daily blog about it, but we got up early so we could be at the gate when the park opened, and then we would watch fireworks at the end of the day and close the park down, then start all over the next day. Lots of fun; not much sleep. And no time for blogging. Bummer.

I have lots of pictures, but here's one for today:

The Beard and I keeping the universe safe from Zurg and his minions (Are we geeks or what?). My favorite part of the ride was when all the Zealots would say, "He is a BAAAAD TOOOOY!" at the end. I am pretty thrilled that I got a ranking. A couple of times when we played early in the morning, I hoped that I might make it onto the high score screen for a couple minutes, but no. Just for comparison, the daily high score on this was over 2,000,000. There's a sharp drop-off, though.

Punkin insisted on being in her own car each ride.

We aren't big on roller coaster rides, so we spent more than average time at Astroblasters, Autopia, and Punkin's favorite: Dumbo. Her friends were all going on Tower of Terror and California Screamin, but she was having none of it. She wouldn't even be influenced into Splash Mountain (I thought she would cave in when the other kids pressured her--this bodes well for her refusal skills later in life). But we all had a great time. We got to see Billy Hill and the Hillbillies (highly recommended!) and The Beard got to be a bear in a little play in Frontierland.

I have lots more pictures and info, but air conditioning and I don't mix (thank goodness I live where I don't need it much!), and I've been trying to recover from a sinus thing since we got back. I had to cancel everything today, and my one trip to the store left me wheezing and needing a nap. I hate being sick. No one else got it, though, so I'm pretty sure it's my susceptibility to air-conditioned air.

So I'm off to bed for tonight, but I'll write more later. Hopefully, I'll get my taxes off tomorrow (that's what I was supposed to be working on Saturday and Sunday when I couldn't keep my eyes open), and then I'll have some time to post.

Coming Events. . .

I'm so excited! But I have so much to do. . .

200 in 2008

Maybe I should change that to 208 in 2008. What's 8 miles between friends?

I was looking back at some old posts to figure out how to get the ticker again, and when I started walking on the treadmill, it was killing me to walk .75 miles at a time. Now I'm walking 1.5 miles each time, and trying to get to 2 miles per walk. This week, I walked 3 days in a row. I dance tomorrow, so no walking, but hopefully I will again on Friday. I'm supposed to be averaging 16 miles per month, but January and February were really rotten. If I get up to 2 miles per walk, I should be able to make up for that bad start in a month or so.

Yes, I'm wearing a smaller size pants, but the fact that I've doubled my distance is way more exciting to me. I still hate every step, but it's nice to see some improvement. Another reason for posting on the blog. I wouldn't have remembered that without seeing the historical post.

More Hints

One more hint before we head off for our day. No knitting last night. When three people share a hotel room, and the small one needs lots of sleep, but is too excited to go to sleep, it gets dark early!

Can you guess where we landed?

Well, here's a shot of Punkin and her Daddy in the pool late last night. Swimming makes for good sleeping!

They're having a back floating race.

Later: more pictures, and the answer!

Oh, yeah. And it rained last night about midnight. In epic proportions. Rain like we seldom see in Seattle. Buckets of rain. I got up to see what all the noise was about, and there were a couple kids running across theparking lot (the one in the above picture). I'm sure they were as wet as if they'd jumped in the pool by the time they got across. Blue sky now, though. We're crossing our fingers and bringing our rain gear.

Germany Post, Part Zwei

After I got back from Ansbach, my SIL and I spent Saturday folding laundry and packing (no dryer--you have to plan ahead!). We both changed host homes after our week-long trip, so we had to have everything packed up before we left. Then we went to dinner at a friend's house. The son was a GAPP exchange student a few years ago, and his family is the NICEST group of people ever. The mom made us sauerbraten and dumplings. Completely wonderful. Then we hiked walked into town to have ice cream. I had been to their house before, so I knew that there would be extensive walking involved. I brought my tennis shoes--thank goodness! It was a wonderful evening, and I mentioned that I would love to tour the Cadolzburg castle. Lissi said she would set it up for after we got back from our trip. More about that later.

We got up Sunday a.m. and it was raining. Not just a nice little light Seattle rain, but the kind of rain that everyone imagines we get in Seattle. Hard, driving, relentless rain. The kind of rain that you don't want to be wandering around in, trying to appreciate beautiful castles. We decided to hole up for the night in the youth hostel, hope for better weather, and attempt to make the time up later.

Monday, we went castle hopping. We saw Neuschwannstein in the rain, Wieskirche (sorry--no rain pictures), and Linderhof. After the rainy castle day, the kids went swimming in a beautiful huge swimming complex. We practially had the place to ourselves. Although much of the complex was inside, no one else wanted to brave the weather and go swimming. More fun for our kids! They enjoyed the opportunity to *do* something.

Tuesday, we toured the Bavarian Film Studios and spent some time in Munich. Wednesday, we went to Dachau, and then traveled on to Salzburg. On Thursday, we toured the salt mines, then went on a summer luge run. They have these in various ski places around Germany and Austria. They use the ski lift to take you up the mountain, then you come down on a little cart that runs on a track. It was fun, even for me, and I don't particularly like speed things. We headed back toward Salzburg by way of Hellbrunn. My SIL and I went up to the castle on the hill. And saw this view. Wonderful. We were there 4 years ago and missed the last shuttle of the day. I was happy to get to see it this time. I was sad, however, that I didn't get to go on the Sound of Music tour. Maybe next time.

We left the outdoor stuff until Friday, hoping for clear weather. We went to the highest point in Germany, the Zugspitze. It's 2964M high. We took a cable car way, way, waaaaaaay up the mountain. And when we got there, there were minstrels! Someone was getting married, and the minstrels were their entertainment, but we were entertained, too.

And here I am at the highest point in Germany. Proof that I was really there. And I wore my sweatshirt. Not because it was that cold, but because I had dragged that thing all the way to Germany, and actually got to wear it once. The rest of the time we were there, I don't think it dropped below 75F, even in the rain.

After the trip up the mountain, we had lunch, then came back down and headed back toward Langenzenn by way of Munich. Lots of knitting time!

Germany Tour 2005

Since last I posted (except for early this morning), I've traveled the world! My sister-in-law teaches German at our local high school, and she needed a chaperone for her trip to Germany with 17 students. She and another German teacher from a neighboring HS teamed up so that they would have enough kids to make the trip feasible. I was the tagalong chaperone, my suitability hanging on my (somewhat rusty) ability to speak German and my (less rusty) ability to count and herd children in an effective manner.

During the 3-1/2 week tour, I managed to visit 4 countries, stay in four family homes with people I had mostly never met, see lots of sights and send lots of postcards home, and generally have a rollicking good time.

I visited my sister-in-law's cousin in Eich, Switzerland. She took us on a tour of Sempach and Luzern. It's an absolutely beautiful country. We quipped that you could just hold your camera up anywhere without looking and come up with a postcard-perfect picture. Greti was a wonderful hostess and tour guide with a lovely family and home.

I visited "our" former exchange student, Philip, and his wonderful family in Rees, Germany, near the Dutch border, and he drove us into the little town across the border, making the Netherlands the fourth country in my trip. I was there for a little less than half an hour, but I was there! Incidentally, the windmill is in Germany. It was great to see Philip in his natural habitat, with his brother and sister and very friendly parents. We ended up having a game of "who can think of the word first" in German or English, assigning points somewhat at random. Philip's dad got out his atlas and we looked places they had traveled and lived (what a well-traveled bunch they are!), and ended up with a long discussion of Mount St. Helens.

The next day, we got to tour Rees, which is a lovely little town right on the Rhein. They are subject to regular flooding, so there are dikes all around the town, and they have gate-type things built in where they can put walls with sandbags in between when the water gets too high. This sign reminds people not to drive off the pier into the water. My SIL and I got a big laugh out of this, which was totally lost on our hosts.

A few miles away is the town of Xanten, which was built from the ruins of a Roman fort. They have reconstructed parts of the Roman fort and village. I thought it was fascinating. This picture would be better without the gate, but what can you do. Maybe I'll digitally remove it <g>. And what would a trip to Rees/Holland be without a picture of a windmill? We had a hard time finding a really pretty old-fashioned one, although the new streamlined ones are easy to see.

After we got back from our long trip to Switzerland and Holland, we took the American students on a tour of Nurnberg, where they saw the Lorenzkirche, the Marienkirche, and things like this. I love to see all the beautiful colors in the fruit and vegetable stands. They got the chance to really tour the castle on the hill above Nurnberg. We had a great tour guide who took us in to see places like the well and the chapel, and we got to climb up in the tower, where I took this picture.

The following day, Friday, I visited Jean in Ansbach (hi, Jean!), where she introduced me to a wonderful yarn store. By the time I got to Ansbach, I had been traveling for six days straight. I'm afraid I was a little grumpy and not as friendly as could have been hoped. Jean was wonderful, though, and gave me stitch markers with cute little sheep. They are in a couple different projects, and I haven't gotten pictures of projects yet. I snapped the yarn, but not the projects. Anyway, I spent a lovely day in Ansbach, had lunch with Jean and her friend and then we wandered around the hot shopping spots in Ansbach. I got to tour the castle and the grounds, and then I went back to the yarn shop and spent quite a bit of time enjoying the yarn and mulling over projects.

That was just the first week! More later. Punkin is clambering for lunch, and she has a swimming test to take today. I think she needs carbs <g>.

More later, and I'll try to get some pictures of WIP, including the sleeve of my Color Your Own sweater. I knit while DH reads Little House books at night to the family. I'm really not enjoying the tiny circular needles I'm using for the sleeve. I'm looking forward to having them done and getting to work on the longer needles. Then I remember that there are *two* sleeves <sigh>.

So I've gotten a little behind. . .

. . .but I have a great excuse! Since last I blogged, I've been here, and here, and here! And I bought this!

However, I have now spent two hours just getting the pictures ready, so I'll have to put in the captions tomorrow. . .well, later today <g>.

Later!