Disneyland Rocks!

I'm slacking off on my updates. Actually I'm just now over my exhaustion from all of our travelling. We left Kelowna on December 27th enroute to Calgary where we would embark on our trip to Southern California. The roads were good until we hit the Rockies. After that they were pure hell. Cars in the ditch everywhere! However, we made it safe and sound and spent the night at the swanky Travelodge in Calgary South (so far from swanky, I can't begin to tell you! The bathtub would not drain, and I can't even begin to imagine what was plugging it up). We had a three hour flight to LAX and then waited another hour for our shuttle bus to take us to the hotel. By the time we checked in it was midnight. We were all starving and tired. Not a good mix. Not to mention that I had my last cigarettle ouside of the Los Angeles International Aiport. I thought it would be a great time to quit. Is there ever a good time to quit? So I was dying for a smoke as well. We ended up ordering mediocre pizza and chicken strips for J.

The hotel we stayed at was awesome. We stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn Maingate. They are 8-plex condos with full kitchens and your own private entrance. They even had a sepatate bedroom with two queen beds. Mike and I ended up on the hide-a-bed in the living room. That way we could watch what we wanted on TV and the kids could watch what they wanted on theirs. The only drawback was that there was only one bathroom, and one bathroom and six people does not always work so well. The hotel has an outdoor heated pool which the kids lived in and two hot tubs. One of which was right out our door. Mommy liked that! The hotel offered a full buffet breakfast every moring as well, so we filled our boots with eggs, bacon hashbrowns and french toast every morning! You would have thinked we would have gained weight on the trip but we walked out asses off every day. The first couple of days, me and the kids were so sore we had to rely on the magical qualities of Advil.

Disneyland was awesome. The kids went on all of the rides and even tricked me into going on Big Thunder Mountain. Big should have been my first clue, Thunder should have clinched it. I was had. It as rollercoaster! I don't do rollercoasters! I get motionsick so easy and as you all know, I have a phobia about vomiting, so needless to say, rollercoasters are not on my list of 100 things! After I got off, I thought my head was going to explode. No doubt from my bloodpressure going through the roof! Needless to say, I heeded all of the warnings about motionsickness from then on! I don't know how they do it, but it smells SO good there. I have a theory that they pipe in yummy odors, but I could be wrong. Needless to say, it really IS the happiest place on earth! My favorite part of the whole place was Pirates of the Carribean. It was so cool! We spend 3 full days there and I could have stayed longer.

We also spend 2 days at California Adventure. Pretty cool place, I must admit. The kids went on all of the rides there, even California Screamin and the Mali Boomer. Insane is what they are! Mike also went on the Mali Boomer and it said it scared the shit right out of him. They strap you into a seat and shoot you straight into the air, and then yo-yo you back down. Fun times!

We spend they other two days of our vacation at Sea World and Universal Sudios. I didn't care too much for Universal Studios. I admit that I did enjoy the backlot tour, but since I don't do rides, there is not much else for me to do there. The Waterworld show is pretty cool, though. Especially since it only involved me sitting in a stadium and watching a stunt show. Sea World on the other hand was very cool! I loved the Shamu show as well as seeing the walruses and dolphins perform. I also loved the polar bears and beluga whales. We had a bus driver on drugs that day though. On our way back to Anaheim he missed the entrance to the freeway TWICE! We were on the bus for about an hour and the kids were like "Where are we, are we almost home?" and I said "We just passed Sea World -AGAIN".

So we had an awesome time. The kids were at the perfect ages to take them (13, 12, 11 and 10). They will remember the trip for the rest of their lives! The crappy thing was how expensive everything in the parks were. A bottle of water - $3, a churro - $3, a pop - $3, a cookie - $3. You get the picture. I was 3 dollered to death. Easy to do with 4 kids all dying of hunger and thirst. Also, had we known, we would have picked a different time of the year to go. Apparently the days right before New Years are the busiest days the parks have ALL YEAR! They even sold out on New Year's Eve. We elected to bring in the New Year in California Adventure since it is typically less busy than Disneyland. I don't think it would have mattered where we went, since we were crushed by a crowd there too. AND the fireworks weren't nearly as good there compared to the once we saw over the trees at Disneyland.

We flew home on the 5th of January. Our flight was VERY turbulent for most of the way, especially as we made our desent into Calgary. Not my idea of fun at all. I hate turbulance. By the time we got our luggage, proceeded through customs and found the truck it was already 5 o'clock. Then we had to drive the boys home (on the other side of the city). We dropped them off at 6 and headed to Wetaskiwin to spend the night at my sister's. We finally got there at 9 pm. They waited supper for us, so we were all pretty hungy. My sister made her world famous lazagne, which was much appreciated as well as supplied me with liquor, which is also much appreciated. We left there in the morning and headed out on horrible roads. 15 hours later we made it home. The drive should only take 12.5! The first couple of days back, all I wanted to do was sleep!

Anyway, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat if I could have just one more day in the Magic Kingdom! Maybe that yummy smell is just a method of brainwashing people!