Our weekend at Disneyland was a lot of fun, although by day two I was feeling pretty tired. I didn't know at the time that I was coming down with the flu...I just thought sleep deprivation was taking its toll. Anyway, Clint and I arrived in Anaheim on Friday night. His family and the kids were at California Adventure, so we went out to dinner. Originally we were planning to go to House of Blues, but on our way to Downtown Disney (we walked from our hotel) we passed Bubba Gumps, and we couldn't resist. We both love seafood. Our dinner was awesome, but way too expensive. We did cocktails and dessert too, which added to the exorbiant cost...I still cringe at how much we paid for one meal.
Friday night was a rough night of sleep. Clint is a naturally restless sleeper, but you put that boy on a hard bouncy hotel mattress and he's about as relaxed as a pissed off humming bird.
Saturday morning we all woke up at 7:00 a.m. and headed to California Adventure for the races. Once Trin was in her starting area, Disney TV came up to her with all of their cameras and asked if she minded being interviewed. This was so exciting for her! Of course she agreed, and they asked her questions such as "How are you feeling about the race?" and "What place are you going to come in at?" For that second question, she immediately replied "23." The reporter laughed and said, "Wow, that's awfully specific!" Once her race started, Trin was off like a bullet, and she stayed right near the front for the entire race. Her and another boy crossed the finish line at the same time, and we discovered later that they were #22 and #23. Trinity had correctly guessed her position across the finish line...it was crazy. There were 323 kids total in Trin's race, so #23 put her in the top 7% of her group. I am SO proud of her, especially considering she's an eleven year-old who was racing against thirteen year-olds, and she hadn't trained for the event. Next year she hopes to actually prepare herself better.
Elijah's race was next, and he, too, did an awesome job, staying near the front for the entire race. The only thing that annoyed the hell out of me was the fact that Disney didn't track his group. Apparently for seven and eight year olds, they don't think it's a good idea to have winners. So everyone in his race participated just for fun. Thankfully next year he'll be eligible to run in Trin's race, where the kids can actually experience the feeling of reaching for something, possibly failing, and actually surviving the experience no worse for the wear. Gee, imagine that. Remember in our generation, we could actually fall on our asses and it was just a part of growing up and building this little thing called character and perserverance?
After the races, we left California Adventure and spent the rest of the day at Disneyland, where every ride we walked up to broke down and had to be shut down temporarily for maintenance. Went to ride Space Mountain; it broke. Next was Thunder Mountain; it broke. Next was Pirates of the Caribbean; it broke. That one really had me perplexed because how do you break a ride that's nothing more than a bunch of floating boats? In addition, Small World and Matterhorn were both closed all day for maintenance. Ultimately, with the exception of the last two, we were able to get on all of those rides (we were very determined), but wow was it giving us a complex. At one point of the day we climbed on the Tom Sawyer raft to go to his respective island (now renamed "Pirates Cove" or something like that), and some other passengers overheard us talking about the bad luck we were having with rides. This lead to a verbal mutiny as passengers threatened to kick us off the raft before we broke THAT too.
Despite all of the ride issues, we still had a great time. My favorite part was seeing Elijah ride Space Mountain for the first time. He was so nervous but tried hard to not let it show. When he lowered himself into the ride, he got real quiet but kept smiling as much as possible. It was really cute. Once the ride was over, he was bouncing around with adrenaline and excitement that he had actually conquered the ride.
That night, on the ride home from Disneyland, I started to feel sick. Once home, I had a fever and felt a bit woozy. The next day (Sunday), I spent the entire day sick on the couch. I only bring this up because last Thursday, I wrote the following sentence in my blog:
"On Sunday, I will be laying comatose on my couch, physically ravaged from two amusement parks and possibly sick with the flu."Next time I'll leave the predictions to Trin--hers are much more fun than mine.
It's nice that y'all had a good time. I think I'd have thrown a fit after finding all the rides broken! Congrats to both of your little ones for doing so well in their races. I hope you feel better soon!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Feeling MUCH better now. Luckily it was only a 24 hour thing.
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