Meet Bear

We got a new addition to our family -- a 4-month-old Husky puppy! The kids named him Bear.

We have been thinking about getting another dog for quite a while (Courtney of course has been begging and pleading since our dog, Molly, died over the summer). But this all happened rather quickly, so I'm still kind of surprised we have a dog sitting outside right now.

I stopped by Courtney's classroom last Tuesday and Courtney came over and asked me "Can we get a puppy?" This is a very common question from her, so I didn't think much of it. But then her teacher said, "I've been telling Courtney I have her puppy when she's ready." I asked her, "You have puppies?" She told me that they have had one dog for quite a while and recently got two husky puppies. But their yard is very tiny and the huskies are already quite large, so they had decided they just couldn't keep all three dogs and were looking for a good home for at least one of them. I told her we might be interested and talked it over with Brian that evening. He agreed that this might be our opportunity to get another dog. So we told her teacher we would come and pick him up on Saturday (today).

Her teacher had named the dog Benny, but we decided to change his name to Bear. He seems to be very playful and the kids just love him. He could probably benefit from some training as well, but we have pretty much zero experience as dog trainers, so we'll see how that goes.

I hope he is able to adjust to our family and to being an "only dog". It was kind of sad to take him away from the other dogs. Her teacher told us that he has never been separated from the other husky (they were from the same litter) and when we tried to take him out of the yard, he didn't want to go. She said he had never even left their yard at all and she ended up carrying him out to our van (poor boy!). You could tell he was so nervous and scared in the back of the van. I had to carry him back to our dog yard when we got here, but then he seemed excited to play with the kids. I have heard him whining/crying quite a bit tonight since the kids came inside -- and of course the dog yard is right outside our bedroom window. He has been an outside dog all along (never went in the house), but now he is all by himself. So we'll see what the night brings!

He is a cute puppy and we hope he enjoys it in his new home!

And in other pet news, we will also probably be getting a cat in a couple of months. While Courtney has been the one begging for a dog, Hannah has been begging for a cat. Our friend's cat just had kittens and told us we had first pick, so I told Hannah she could choose one (she has already decided she wants the white one). We won't get the kitten for a couple of months still until it is old enough to leave its mama.

Disneyland, Day #3

On our last day at the parks, we decided to start out at California Adventure. This was a totally new park to us and although we'd spent a little bit of time over there, we hadn't seen several of the big rides. Friday turned out to definitely be the most crowded day -- lots and lots of people!

We started off at "Soarin Over California" which was one of my favorites! Everyone else liked it too (especially Hannah- yay!), except for Hayley, who got a little scared and told me she closed her eyes during a lot of it. But she was willing to go on it again later in the day (with a Fastpass), even though I think she closed her eyes again. :-)

This is another simulator ride (maybe that's why Hannah liked it) that makes you feel like you're hang gliding over scenic California landscapes. It uses a huge IMAX-type screen and lifts you up off the floor so your feet are dangling the whole time. It even has little fans that blow air to make you feel like you're flying. Very cool! Hannah declared that this ride and Star Tours were her two overall favorites.

From there, we went to the Grizzly River Run, which is a white water raft ride. No surprise that Hannah refused to ride it (especially after she saw that it had a drop in it). So we left her sitting on a bench at the exit and the rest of us got on. We had read that you're practically guaranteed to get wet on this ride, so we came prepared with cheap plastic ponchos. (And yes, we probably looked kind of like dorks, but we stayed mostly dry and we did see several other people wearing ponchos too!)

Later in the day, Brian, McKay and Courtney rode it again -- I tried taking a picture of them as they went past (you can see McKay & Brian on the left, but not Courtney).

Next we went to the Toy Story Midway Mania ride. Another favorite! I thought this one was so clever and so much fun. Everybody else apparently thought so too, because the line was already very long and they didn't offer Fastpasses, so we were only able to ride it once. I would have liked to have ridden this one several times. As you wait in line, you are greeting by a giant Mr. Potato Head who tells jokes (his arms move and his eyes are computer animated so they move around).

This ride is similar to the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride at Disneyland where you get to shoot at targets through the ride, but the thing that makes this ride unique is that it is all 3D. You put on the 3D glasses and get ready with your pull-string cannon.

Then the ride takes you to different screens where you stop briefly for a different midway game, such as shooting darts to pop balloons, or throwing balls to break plates. You pull the string on your cannon and the 3D glasses let you see your balls/darts/rings, etc. hitting the different targets. You can keep track of your score in the carts you're in (comparing with your partner) and at the end, you get to compare scores with up to 8 people, plus see the day's high scores (which were unbelievably high). Like I said, this was definitely a favorite!

Brian and McKay went off to ride a couple of the more adventuresome rides -- the California Screamin' roller coaster (which has a loop, so Courtney decided she didn't want to try it) and the Maliboomer drop ride (one of those tall towers that lifts you up and drops you for a couple of bounces).

I didn't get any pictures of the California Screamin' coaster (darn it) because I was off taking the girls on a couple of smaller rides. One of the rides we went on was the Jellyfish Jump, which is a kid-version of a drop ride.

Even though she doesn't look it above, Hannah was extremely nervous to go on this one (even after watching how it didn't go very high and was a very gentle drop) and she almost chickened out when we got to the front of the line. But she did go on it and decided it wasn't so bad after all.

Hannah and Hayley sat out for the Mullholland Madness ride -- they waited in line with us and then just stood at the exit point until we got off. This is one of those little jerky coaster-type rides with very fast, tight corners (I think it's often done as a "wild mouse" ride at other amusement parks). Brian and I didn't particularly like this one -- we felt totally crammed in the little car and it was just a little too jerky for my taste.

We went back over to the Bug's Life area and decided to see the 3D show "It's Tough to be a Bug."

We had to get a special picture of just Hayley since her nickname is Bug. :-)

We had seen the Muppet 3D vision movie the night before (when it was almost closing and there were no lines) and enjoyed that, so we gave this one a try. I thought that overall it was pretty cute, but it sure had some parts in that could (and did) scare kids. I did think it was clever how interactive it was -- not just looking at things with the 3D glasses on. For example, in one part the mean grasshopper shows up (he is actually one of those big animatronic creatures on the side of the stage) and talks about how bugs don't like people. The lights go off and you hear bees buzzing and he says something like "Sting them!" All of a sudden you feel a big poke in your back through the bench you're sitting on. It didn't hurt, but if you're not expecting it (which we weren't) it is quite startling! I don't think the girls really liked this show overall -- a little bit too scary for them in parts.

Here is the grasshopper statue outside the theater:

We found a place to eat some lunch (only our second time to actually eat inside the park) and then decided to check out a couple of exhibits/shows while we were waiting to use our Fastpasses to ride Soarin' Over California again (then we were planning to leave and start our long journey home).

We saw Pluto on our way, so we had to stop for a picture!

One building had several exhibits about animation. We had read that one of these -- "Turtle Talk with Crush" -- was really neat so we went to see that one. We waited a few minutes and then went into the auditorium (shows ran every half hour). The kids got to sit up on the floor in front of the big screen. It started out with the Disney cast member talking on a microphone and then Crush (the turtle from "Finding Nemo") came on the screen and talked to him for a minute. You're thinking, "Okay, this is all part of a script" when all of a sudden Crush says, "I want to talk to the little blonde girl in the white shirt on the front row." As soon as I realized he meant Hayley, I whipped out the video camera.

Wow! What amazing technology! Crush talked to Hayley, asked her questions, responded to her, all in real time. Here is the video clip of what I managed to record:

He nicknamed her "Hang-Ten Hayley" and as I was looking back through our pictures after we got home, I saw this one from our very first evening there:

I don't know where she even learned this from! Funny!

You notice at the end Crush starts to say he wants to talk to Hayley's mom and dad (this is when I turned off the video camera). We had to raise our hands and then the cast member with the microphone came over so Crush could talk to me. He asked my name and called me "Groovy Gayle" then asked me how many offspring we had (after my answer of 4, he told me we were just getting started because he had 65).

Then they let other people in the audience ask Crush questions (he would always identify them by what they were wearing and give them a nickname). It was really neat!

After Turtle Talk, we decided to go see another little outdoor show just down the street (called "Drawn to the Magic". We weren't sure what to expect -- it turned out to be three cast members talking about the different types of characters (princesses, heroes, etc.) and doing a little montage with various songs from Disney movies. At the end, three characters came out on stage (Cinderella, Mickey and Woody).

We didn't stay after to meet the characters because it was time to use our last Fastpass and then head for home. But we did have time for one more picture -- this time with some of the Cars characters.

One our way out of the park, I took a picture of Hannah by this Golden Gate bridge replica because she has been learning about bridges this year in 3rd grade.

We ended up leaving about 4:00pm and of course, traffic headed out of Anaheim/Los Angeles on a Friday afternoon was horrendous. It made us very grateful we don't have to deal with traffic like that all the time. Initially, we were going to only go as far as Victorville, CA for the night (about 2 hours) because I wasn't sure how long we would want to stay at the parks. But after we learned of the big winter storm, we wanted to get a further "head start" so we wouldn't have as far to drive on Saturday. We changed our hotel reservations to Kingman, AZ where I was able to eventually find a hotel that could sleep 6. (And it turned out to be a really nice one -- a 1-bedroom suite with 4 queen beds -- wish we could have had that in Anaheim! Plus they had a really nice hot breakfast buffet.)

We were a little worried about the roads on Saturday, but we were behind the storm enough that the roads were clear all the way home (until we got to our dirt road). We did see snow along the sides of the freeway, but we were grateful it didn't impact our travel. We got home about 10:30pm Saturday night (going across two time zones) to find our house was really cold. We turned the heaters back on, piled on the blankets and climbed into bed. Hannah realized she left her favorite pillow at the hotel in Kingman, so she had to make do with another one. (They are supposed to be mailing it back to us -- really like this hotel!)

So there you have it. Disneyland (and California Adventure) in approximately 3 days! We wore ourselves out, but we had a great time together as a family. I don't know when we'll ever make it back, but we made some wonderful memories!!)

A quick summary of everyone's favorites:

McKay: Space Mountain; California Screamin'

Hannah: Soarin' Over California; Star Tours; Dumbo

Courtney: All the "mountain" rides (Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Madderhorn)

Hayley: Monsters, Inc.; Jungle Cruise; Dumbo

Gayle: Toy Story Midway Mania; Soarin' Over California; Aladdin

Brian: ? (He's not here to ask at the moment...)

Disneyland, Day #2

Lots more pictures and descriptions!

The second day of our Disneyland visit was what they call "Magic Morning" or "Early Entry." That basically means guests with a certain ticket can enter Disneyland an hour before it opens to the general public -- meaning 7:00-8:00am. Since we had 3-day passes, we were eligible for Early Entry. (They have it on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.) Apparently, so were a lot of other people!

I wondered how many people would show up at 7:00am and was surprised at how many there were. So it kind of threw off our guidebook "touring plan" and by the time we got to the Madderhorn bobsleds about 8:00am the line was quite long, but I suppose the extra hour was worth the loss of sleep. :-)

We went to Space Mountain first thing and I rode it with Courtney & McKay, while Brian took Hannah and Hayley to the nearby Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters. Space Mountain was fun, but I must be getting old because it seemed to jar me more than I remembered. As you get off the ride, they have the display of pictures (hoping you'll buy one) and Brian told me that tons of people were taking pictures of their picture. So I did too. :-)

Then we switched so Brian could ride again (and McKay & Courtney were more than willing to go again) and I took the other two on Buzz Lightyear again.

The Buzz Lightyear ride is a lot of fun. As you go through the ride, you get to shoot these laser guns at targets and see how high of a score you can get. They also take your picture and let you e-mail it to yourself after the ride. We rode this several times, but here are the pictures from our last time through.

Courtney had been begging since the previous night to ride the Madderhorn Boblseds and it was finally time! Only the line was already quite long, so I left the three adventurers there and took the other two girls over to Fantasyland. They both had been waiting for their chance to ride Dumbo. (Courtney would have ridden, too, but she was more excited about the Madderhorn.)

Hannah was SO excited for this ride -- that tells you a little about her personality and taste in amusement park rides! Check out her cheesy grin:

And Hayley was pretty excited as well to be in charge of the Dumbo we would be riding in.

I love this picture of Hannah flying her Dumbo:

After Dumbo, we saw a short line for the Casey Junior Circus Train. Not a very exciting ride, but the girls were excited to be put in the "Wild Animals" cage.

We met back up with the 3 from the Madderhorn and all went on Peter Pan's Flight together. I think it's one of the better Fantasyland rides and had one of the longer lines. Here we are waiting in line.

Hannah wasn't scared to go on Peter Pan, but she was scared to go on similar "dark" Fantasyland rides, like Pinocchio's Daring Journey, Alice in Wonderland, and Snow White's Scary Adventures. We never got her on Snow White, but she did eventually try out Pinocchio and wasn't traumatized but didn't particularly like it either.

One of the highlights of Fantasyland (and all of Disneyland) is Sleeping Beauty's castle. We didn't do the walk-through, but had to take some pictures. I only wish we could have gotten a picture of the whole family in front of the castle.

We went over to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster. For some reason, Courtney was hesitant to ride this one, so Brian and McKay went on while I waited with the girls. While we were waiting, Courtney decided she did want to ride it after all, so the two of us rode it after the boys got off. (And she decided that her favorite rides were all the "mountain" rides -- Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain and the Madderhorn.)

We decided to see the show in The Golden Horseshoe called "Billy Hill and the Hillbillies". While we were waiting for the show to start, Brian was checking out weather reports on his iPhone to see if a coming storm would affect our travel plans home.

I thought the show was really fun -- some amazing fiddling! (Although they don't have their fiddles out in this picture -- just the ukeleles, etc.)

McKay finally decided what he wanted to spend his money on -- a Space Mountain T-shirt. He rode this 3 times I think and declared it was his favorite!

Lunch time! We headed back to the hotel for a rest and picked up some lunch at the McDonald's down the street a bit. After lunch we wanted to try to take in some of the shows over at California Adventure. I left first and took the girls to the Playhouse Disney stage show. They have you sit on the floor (so the kids can get up and dance easier):

This was a cute show for the younger crowd with appearances from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse:

Handy Manny:

Little Einsteins:

and My Friends Tigger and Pooh:

Hayley jumping along with Tigger:

From that show we headed down to the big Hyperion Theater where Brian and McKay met us for the musical production of "Aladdin". We ended up sitting up in the balcony, but could still see pretty well.

I must say this was one of my favorite parts of our trip. I loved it! I thought they did a fabulous job with the production -- the sets were just amazing and they had some neat effects. Plus, the Genie was a hoot! He had so many pop-culture references (Twitter, Twilight, etc.) it was just hilarious. Here is a bad picture of the stage before the show started (I couldn't take any during the show).

I think everybody else liked the show as well -- I'm glad the kids got a chance to see a live musical theater production. (And on the drive home, I noticed the first movie they pulled out was Aladdin!)

After the show, we decided to explore California Adventure a bit, as we hadn't really seen any of it yet (except for the parade which we watched pretty much from the entrance area). We found the kid's "Bug's Life" area which has a bunch of kiddie rides. We tried out the ladybug spinners:

Then we went over to the pier and the kids got a ride on King Triton's Carousel:

The kids wanted to try out the big "Fun Wheel":

This ferris wheel has several "swinging" baskets that rock back and forth while the wheel turns around. Of course, with Hannah in the mix, we had to choose the line for the non-swinging baskets (which was good, because it was shorter).

Ferris wheels are a pretty slow ride, but we enjoyed the view if not the very chilly air at the top!

When we got off the Fun Wheel, Brian and McKay had to hurry, hurry over to the "Twlight Zone Tower of Terror" which they had Fastpasses for. Courtney opted not to try this one -- I think it must have had something to do with the name... We thought the park closed at 7:00pm and it was about 6:55pm at that point. While they hurried to the ride, I took the girls back to the Bug's Life area to see if we could get one some of the kiddie rides without too much waiting. That turned out to be the best time to be at the park!

First we tried out the bumper cars:

Then the caterpillar "Chew-Chew" train (which included scents as well as sights):

And then the flying baskets:

It was after 7pm by this point, but they were still running all the rides with basically no lines at all, so we kept riding! Brian and McKay rejoined us (and said the Tower of Terror was fun, although McKay said he didn't like the "creepy" crackling skeletons or something like that...). We walked back around towards the park entrance and the "Hollywood Backlot" area.

We noticed that the Monsters, Inc. ride was still running, so we all (except Hannah!) jumped right on that one as well and enjoyed a ride.

Then the park really was closing, so we went back across the plaza to Disneyland and got in a couple more rides before the kids were plain tuckered out (not to mention starving -- somehow with all the shows we forgot about dinner!).