Disneyland

I have been working on this Disneyland post for a couple of weeks and may actually finish it at some point. We have been so busy with Christmas that I haven't had time. I am glad that I tried to write down some stuff while we were on our trip so that when I ever get around to scrapbooking it, I have my journaling already done.

Day 1 (December 7, 2009): Destination = Las Vegas
Alex and I love Disneyland so when my brother, Jeff, his wife Audra, his three kids, and my mom and dad were going, we decided to tag along. They all flew but since we didn't really have the money to go in the first place, we were stuck with driving. We have never been to Disneyland in December and were very excited to see it all dressed up with Christmas decorations.

We of course picked the worst week in December to go. Prior to our week, the weather was sunny and 70's and even the week after the forecast was sunny and 70's but our week held a forecast of rain and high 50's. Ugh! After hearing on the news the night before we were leaving that you should avoid driving south if at all possible because there was going to be major snow, we attempted to move our departure time up a couple of hours to avoid the snow in the dark. However, we both got delayed at work, we still had to put the luggage in the car, print out directions, pick up a couple of last-minute items at the store and we ended up having to bandage a finger and comfort a little boy who we believe got his finger "caught" in our gineau pig, Shadow's, mouth. I got home at the tail-end of the first aid incident, after the bandage had been applied and the intial tears had been shed, but as soon as Tony saw me the tears started again and he had to "tell" me all about what happened (he kept holding his finger up and doing a combination of whining and crying in such a way that it really was as if he was trying to explain it all!).

We were officially on the road at 4:10 pm. At 4:20 pm, Katya asked if we were "all done". At 4:30 pm Katya asked again if we were "all done". This girl brings all new meaning to the phrase "Are we there yet?" Tony slept for the first three hours but woke up anxious to get out of his car seat and was hard to console for the next two hours. The snow wasn't really too bad until just after Cedar City. It was coming down pretty hard and despite Alex's attempt to impress the girls by turning on his "brights" so that the fast-moving white snow was more pronounced (Katya's response to this was disinterest - at least Allie gave him a courtesy half-laugh!), Katya at least seemed to recognize the danger in the situation and asked "Daddy, are you OK?" The snow turned to rain right before St. George, where we stopped for dinner at the In-and-Out, which was not quite the event for Alex that it would have been even a month ago - before the In-and-Out opened in Draper.

It was 11:30 pm when we arrived in Vegas. Katya was asleep and got pretty grumpy when we made her wake up to see the lights but hey! - this was the only chance she would get to see the lights of Vegas in the dark. And what did she think of it? She did seem impressed with all the lights and Alex drove down "The Strip" and narrated what all the places were. Katya didn't like the stale cigarette smoke smell in the casino, though (I found this funny since that is a very common smell in the Ukraine). Katya said that the casino was "dangerous". I think this was in part because of the smell but she also seemed to recognize the "aura" of Vegas - the drinking and gambling atmosphere - despite the fact that compared to the usual craziness of Vegas it was "dead". Vegas was cold, even the next day. I have never been to Vegas when it was cold; I guess I thought that it was always hot - hot like the depths of hell :)

Day 2 (December 8, 2009): Destination - Disneyland

We drove the rest of the way to Disneyland in the morning. We actually arrived there about 20 minutes before my parents and brother, who had missed there flight because of all the snow that had fallen back home. After checking in to the hotel, meeting up with my brother and his family and my parents for lunch, we made it to Disneyland at around 4 pm. It was cold and Katya didn't let us forget it, as she reminded us every couple of minutes about how cold she was. My brother and parents were heading back to the hotel room at about 6 pm and we were going to send the babies (Tony and Katya) with them so we could go over to California Adventure to ride some of the "big kid" rides. We gave Katya one last chance to stay and it might have been my statement that I was also cold but that we had driven a really long time to just go back to the hotel room and sit that made her decide to stay with us.

We took her on the Tower of Terror. She cried - not tears of joy but real tears of terror. We were actually surprised at that, seeing how she loves roller coasters. But I think it was the dark and the unknown of the ride that made it so terrifying to her. We told her that Allie had cried when she went on that ride the first time to but that later the same day Allie decided to go on it again and this was probably what contributed to the fact that Katya had to "save face" and make sure that she went on it three more times over the course of our trip.

Alex got some real mileage out of her being scared. He kept telling her that every ride was scary because it went "up and down". I can still see Katya nodding resigned on the Star Tours ride, after Alex had told her that the ride was scarey because it went "up and down", white-knuckled clenching the chair rests, ready for the worst. Of course, after this ride the whole "up and down" threat lost it's seriousness, since Star Tours is definately not scary in Katya's book! The next time that Alex tried to tell her a ride was scary, Katya replied, "Daddy, you're joking at me!"

Day 3 - 6: Disneyland
This is the point that I stopped writing stuff down so I will have to go off of memory. I'm still trying to decide whether I like Disneyland in December. Of course, I loved the decorations and the short lines but I really didn't love the cold. I know that it was 58 degrees in Anaheim and it was 9 degrees at home but when you come to California, you really want it to be warm enough that you can wear shorts. We made Katya and Allie wear a skirt one day, so that we could get a really cute Christmas picture but it was really too cold for the skirt and I am glad that they didn't complain too much. Allie was bound-and-determined to wear shorts the next day (which explains the goofy leggings-under-the-shorts look that I hate), although Katya sensibly opted to change into pants when I explained that if they wore shorts they couldn't complain about being cold. I think Alex and I have concluded that we will take the long lines, the better fireworks show, and the many more characters that are roaming about in the summer months to the December experience.
One of the nice thing about Disneyland is that there are a lot of rides that Tony can go on. Tony went on the astro-orbiter, Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Pirates of the Carribean, the Haunted Mansion, Winnie the Pooh, Roger Rabbit, and almost all the rides in "It's a Bug's Life". He also got to see "Honey I shrunk the Audience", the "Muppets Show", and the "It's Tough to be a Bug" show. And what did he think? He cried on some of them - when he had to get off. I guess that means that he is a Disneyland lover, too!

Overall, Katya did pretty well. Although there were times that I could have sworn that we had brought two babies along with us and she seemed to always be wanting to do something that we were NOT doing at the time, she took Alex's lectures about "not bumping into the people in front of you in line" and "not climbing on the rock and bars around the line that are not meant for climbing" pretty well. She would only pout for a couple of minutes and then move on. We did leave her sitting by the stroller because she seemed to think that would be funner than waiting in line for 20 minutes for the Nemo ride and then actually getting to ride it!

I have to say that Alex was more patient with her than I was. I was going to have no part of her little pouting episodes and Alex was more willing to play her game and cheer her up (or distract her) so that everybody was in a pretty good mood for most of the trip. I thought the trip was a success until the Sunday after we got home (we drove home on Saturday) when we asked Katya to do some chores. In response to her complaining about the unfairness of it all, we reminded her about how much money and time we had spent to take them to Disneyland and Katya told us that it was boring. Ahh! It makes it all worth it doesn't it? I told Alex that the next time we should take a trip without the kids since they don't appreciate it anyway.