Dream Vacation

I am sorry about the huge delay in blogging, but I was having way too much fun to slow down long enough to blog. And I was getting hardly any sleep. Every night we would come back to the Motel, flop in bed and start early the next morning. It was extremely fun. It makes me want to take my kids next year (well next month if I could afford it).
On the first day we went to Knott's Berry Farm and that was fun, but not what we expected. It has become much more of an Amusement Park with big rides and not as much kids stuff (or so it seemed to me). Their river-rapid ride wasn't that good anymore. They shut off the waterfalls because someone had stood up to avoid getting wet and had fallen in. So people, follow the rules, because one person can spoil it for everyone. However if you really want to get wet, there are other ways.

Timmy getting soaked

We found a fountain outside the park and it had frogs in it. I liked them, so we cooled our feet off while my parents shopped.

We had an okay time at Knott's, but we thought best to focus our time elsewhere....like Disneyland. We were only planning on going two days, but since our tickets were for three days, we naturally used all three days. There is so much now with both parks so close (Disneyland and California Adventure) that you can easily spend three days there. We had a relaxing first day just doing rides that the whole family wanted to do (my parents are not roller coaster people so I was saving those to do with Miranda.) I got a few pictures with characters, but most of the time the lines were so long and there were so many children wanting autographs that I didn't bother. Here are a couple we caught.



Day 2 was not what we expected. Miranda was not feeling well and so she stayed at the Motel with my mother while Timmy, Dad and I went back to Disneyland. We planned on meeting up with them but they didn't show up at any of the meeting times. We did get to see the parade twice and go on lots of fun rides. We saw the Tiki Room and the Electrical Parade, and some amazing fireworks. But the whole day was overshadowed by the absence of two people. Here are some pictures of the parade.



We finally met up at 10 o'clock in the evening and I was glad to see both of them. Apparently Miranda had just gotten out of the emergency room. I won't go into all the gory details, but she had good reason to be there. So Thursday was new because we took her around in a wheel-chair all day. And my partner for all the roller coasters was out of commission. So, I spent some time by myself going on rides, but it is well worth it for Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. The wheel chair wasn't so bad and it does help you get on some rides faster. We got to get on the new Nemo ride much faster. The wait for that ride was ridiculously long, sometimes lasting up to 4 hours. We only had to wait an hour (whew). I really enjoyed California Adventure.



The river rapid ride was great for cooling off and Soaring over California was neat. I even liked things like the Tower of Terror. We jumped back and forth between the parks to get a bit of everything. Toward the afternoon, I finally convinced Timmy to go on the Matterhorn with me (he is a little roller coaster shy), but he loved it. Later we made it to Big Thunder Mountain together and he was totally thrilled. I was happy to introduce him to the great world of roller coasters. So we had a pretty good day overall. I spent ridiculous amounts of money on stuff for my girls (pushed by my guilt that they weren't there with me). I had plenty of fun at Disneyland. I can't wait to take my whole family sometime.

We did spend the last day at Universal Studios (which I also love). Well, Timmy, Miranda and I went (Mom and Dad went back to shop at Disneyland). We had a really good time. We got thoroughly soaked on Jurassic Park, and we freaked out Timmy by going through the House of Horrors with him. I told Miranda that is just isn't as scary when you are pushing someone in a wheelchair. At one point, a hideous monster leaned over and said, "Over to your right." Seriously, the monsters were helping us through the passageways. It was funny to me. I apologize that I didn't take pictures. It was hard to think about that and push Miranda around. I didn't think the girls would appreciate things like Jaws as much as Princesses, so I didn't bother. Tyler told me that I would be disappointing my blogging audience, but most of you have probably stopped reading by now since I am blathering. The only picture I got was in the Mummy store.



Anyway, so much fun, everything. It was really nice to spend time with my parents and siblings. I apologize again for being a slow blogger. It has been hard to get back into a routine that includes the computer. I hope you all are doing well and I will be seeing you around cyberspace.