Now that it's almost time for Christmas, let's talk about Thanksgiving. I could say this late update is an effort to refocus on our abundant blessings in this season of high-pressure-super-commercialized-neverending-spending... But the real reason why I'm just getting around to discussing Thanksgiving is that we have been too busy, busy, busy!
Thanksgiving this year was different. Katie went camping with a neighbor's family, so we decided to have Thanksgiving dinner the Sunday before Thanksgiving so that we could still have turkey with her one last time before she goes off to college. And leaves us forever.
Since Kate ditched us, we decided to do something extra special so as to avoid falling into an abyss of self-pity over not spending the day together as a family... So, Mac and I took the younger kids to some theme parks!
We spent a few days in Disneyland the past summer, so Kate didn't feel like she missed out on too much by not going again. She is very much in an I-Love-Nature phase right now, so she says spending 4 days in the woods was so much better than SoCal anyway. Falling in a creek up to my neck *almost* destroying an iPhone 4 sounds lovely to me!
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The crowds were really not that bad.
These were the people just waiting for
the park to open! |
Disneyland on Thanksgiving Day was fairly crowded, but not as bad as it was during the summer. We managed to go on all the big rides we wanted, and we saw all the special Christmas themed rides and decorations. One of the BEST things about the day was that we happened to meet some of our very old friends back from the early Maryland days. We saw them in a switchback in line for the Indiana Jones ride, and met up with them after the ride at the exit. It was so much fun to see them all! Back in Maryland we connected because we both had large families, and I used to babysit their girls all the time. THIS meet up was a huge blessing and made my entire day.
Anyway, besides that really great surprise of meeting old friends among the crowds (really, there were tens of thousands of people in Disneyland that day!), we really enjoyed all of the Christmas theming. In true Disney style, More is always More! The decorations were over the top, and "It's a Small World" was really, really,
really special. There were over 40,000 extra lights covering the exterior, and even the inside of the ride was completely transformed. The music was even changed to a mixture of "Small World" and I think "Deck the Halls"... Many of the dolls in the various scenes were dressed up, and ornaments and decorations were found in all the "worlds". That transformation must have taken FOREVER.
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| It's a Small World... With a working cuckoo clock of sorts. |
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| An example of some of the decorations inside one of the "lands". |
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| Another land. Beeeautiful. The Giant Snowman is not normally in this land... |
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| See what I mean? 40,000 lights... "More is definitely More." |
Both parks were decorated (we popped over to California Adventure for the first part of the day, then on to Disneyland for the rest of the day.) There were Christmas trees, Christmas lights, characters in Christmas costumes... "The Haunted Mansion" was completely different, with a "The Nightmare Before Christmas" theme. There was a "North Pole" area too, and we were able to see Santa without even having to wait in line at all. And we didn't have to buy a photo. Score!
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| Decorations in CarsLand |
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| Gotta meet Daisy when you have a chance! She's one of the hardest characters to find... |
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| Look! Santa's flying behind us! |
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| Frozone was pretty fun. He set all the kids up in a superhero pose. |
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| And here are the little superheroes. |
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| Meeting Minnie... She's another tough-to-find character. |
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| Even TowMater dressed up for Christmas! |
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| Pluto is the best. |
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| "Really Luke? That's what you want for Christmas?" |
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| Everyone still believes... |
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| Dancing Snowmen... Now WHO could RESIST a Disney parade? |
I FORCED everyone to watch the special holiday parade as well. They all enjoyed it a lot. They wouldn't DREAM of admitting it if they did not!
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| Mickey... |
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| Pluto and Goofy making a Gingerbread house. |
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| Beautiful Sleeping Beauty and her handsome prince... |
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| "Santa!!!" |
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| Told you... |
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| When his reindeer don't pull the sleigh, they dance. |
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Luke rode this upside-down-ride several times.
He was scared of it this past summer, but now he just can't get enough... |
One of the best things about the day at Disney was that Luke was ready to conquer the flips and big drops on the big rides that he wasn't ready for last summer. He had so much fun riding the rides this time! Josie, as always, conquered all the rides she was tall enough for. She's a little thrill-seeker, with Space Mountain being one of her favorite rides. (That's because Space Mountain is the best ride ever.)
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| We all love Space Mountain. |
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| But Josie loves it the most! |
After an exhausting day, we watched the fireworks from in front of "It's A Small World". They had a light show synchronized to the fireworks show which covered the facade of "It's a Small World" (no really, they did), and at the end of the light show and the fireworks, fake snow fell down on us all (SoCal style... foam soap bubbles floating down on everyone from fans disguised as wreaths).
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| Izzy thought it would be REAL snow... |
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| Luke liked the snow, even if it was just soap bubbles. |
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| Castle at night... |
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| "Ahhhhhh!" Castle at night with the lights on! |
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ME: "Mac, let's stay for Fantasmic. It starts in 30 minutes!"
MAC: "No." |
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| Josie and Luke get their animals stuffed. |
The day after Thanksgiving, we planned to hang out in Downtown Disney and maybe go ice skating in their tiny little rink they set up for the Christmas season. Well, the day started out raining. I regretted not going to the parks on THAT day because the crowds would be kept away by the rain! Mac was just as happy to avoid the rain. We still went to Downtown Disney, where all the stores were magically unaffected by the rain, and the kids spent their souvenir money. (Mostly they bought stuffed animals... I have given up the fight against these little dust bunny creatures. They have taken over the house. They win. I lose.)
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| Izzy is not too old for stuffed animals. Apparently. |
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| After you stuff your bear, you must fluff it and brush it. So much WORK. |
After stuffing the bears, we had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, and then we saw the movie "Frozen" (really liked it!).
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| Josie has been learning how to pose for Instagram-like pictures from her big sister. Ah joy. A five year old teen. JUST what this family needs! |
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| We scored a seat next to the tropical fish! |
The main event for the day was the Medieval Times dinner show. Real horses, real "props" for "real" fighting scenes... The kids (and Mac) loved it. Mac still chants "Red, Red, Red" on occasion for no apparent reason. "Red" was our color flag, and our knight was dressed in red. (He was the BEST of them all even though he was killed off in round 4 or something- it was totally rigged.) I even caught a pink carnation our red knight threw out to the crowd. Sigh... I think he was probably aiming for Mac. The most enthusiastic fan in the crowd...
The horses were amazing, and the riders were talented. The plot was... well... The horses were really superb... There were many heavily scripted fights, including jousting matches which always ended in some type of combat to the
death. I had to reassure Luke and Josie SEVERAL times that no one was actually hurt, and that the swords and other various weapons were just props. Anyway, it was truly a fun time. I kept thinking that Guy and Grace would love the show, and it was a shame that we didn't go during the summer visit.
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| "Red! Red! Red!" |
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| The view from our table. |
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| "You want me to eat what?" |
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| No utensils. Totally Luke's style. |
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| Our noble knight. |
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| All the knights together. |
The next day we headed to Grinchmas at Universal Studios Hollywood. The kids and I have been to Universal three times in the past 6 months, so we really had no driving need to see anything in particular; however, there were many added attractions for Grinchmas, so we were kept amazed the whole time. The decorations were modeled after Dr. Seuss's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," complete with crooked trees and actors dressed up as "whos". We even got to meet the very funny, and very odd, Grinch himself. His dog was even there with him in the photo shoot-- an amazing little terrier mix that stayed in a sit for most of the day!
Besides meeting The Grinch and seeing all the decorations, the main event at Universal was the tram ride where we sort of got to see "whobilation", a reenactment of the "whos" celebration on the set they used in filming "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." We were in the last car of the tram, so we didn't really see the dancing and what not that well. I am pretty certain that we did get to see enough, though... Anyway, we managed to slip out of the park for a nice and relaxing lunch at a great Mexican place called "Camacho's Cantina". No discount for us, even though the place totally stole our name. When we came back to Universal, it was packed! So many people EVERYWHERE! People were arriving at 2 pm and buying tickets to get into that mess. We stuck to the area around the Grinch, where they had crafts, lots of whos, and a whobilation tree lighting on the half hour, capped off with more of that fluffy white SoCal soap-foam snow...
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| The kids met the mayor of Whoville |
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| Uh oh... Heed the warnings. |
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| Look at that amazing little terrier mix! |
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| The Grinch is actually very charming. |
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| The Whobilation show on the actual set they used in filming "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". |
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| You don't see a lot from the back of the tram... |
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| But you get a view that those in the first cars missed... |
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| The kids are so excited for the new Minion Mayhem ride. This is outside the construction area. |
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| Meeting more Whos. |
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| I don't know what this bike and buggy are from... But they are cute. |
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| Nice to see "Christmas" used in a theme park. After all the "Happy Holidays" and "Seasons Greetings" from Disney, it was refreshing to see Christmas actually proclaimed... |
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| Crafting keeps us busy as we wait for the SoCal snowstorm. |
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| A cast can't keep Luke from crafts. |
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| Oh yeah. They are cool. Quick-- someone post that pic on Instagram.. |
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| Beauuuuutiful! |
The next day we drove home, along with almost everyone else in California. We learned a valuable lesson: take "the 101", not "the I-5", no matter what your GPS says. Kate was home when we got there, and it was great to get back to reality after our weekend in tinseltown...
Since Thanksgiving weekend, it has been a flurry of swim meets, class parties, Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating, and all sorts of busyness... I think I'll post pictures from the swim meets in a future post...
Also, check out the kids' wish lists. Those are always fun to see! Isabel erased all of her previous years' lists (Oh Izzy!) and I tried with my limited computer skills to find the previous entries, but I could not. I even tried the cached page, which I did find, but it lacked the "page id" number that I needed to get the text... So... boo hoo... I guess we will just have to be satisfied with the current year's list! All the other kids have their previous lists. Katie just sent me a whole bunch of web links, and those aren't really useful... She wishes for sweaters and scarves and shoes. And money. Lots of money...
