June started on a Monday with high temps and high humidity (for Oregon). I picked up the girls from gymnastics on Monday and grilled dinner for them while Jada attended meetings all evening for school. Tuesday night piano practice was canceled due to the teacher's daughter giving birth. Thursday was a busy day. I worked from home in the morning so I'd be able to go to the school to see Ellen's class Coral Reef celebration. They've been studying the coral reef for several weeks, and this was when they were able to display all they'd done. Ellen was assigned the sea sponge as her creature to discover. She did research and created a report. She even did a writing assignment where she wrote a diary of a sea sponge in verse.
The class grouped itself and created little skits with different sea creatures on popsicle sticks that they used for their puppets. Ellen's characters included 2 crabs and a dead carcass. At the end of the skit, she actually stood up and said, "my name is Ellen, and I played 2 crabs and dead carcass." I wish I had remembered the video camera to preserve that. After the skits, we looked at the work the class had been doing. Late afternoon, a storm blew through with high winds, rain, and thunder knocking out power and stop lights. I mention this because Phoebe's Kindergarten program was that evening at the school. It had to start late because so many people were having trouble making it on time due to the weather. Phoebe's class did a song to the tune of the Adam's Family. Phoebe really put her all into the snaps (again, I wish I would have had the video camera).
Saturday was a going to be a little more busy, but the weather continued its rainy pattern. So we still went to the market to pick up a half flat of Hoods (those are the best strawberries on the planet. Don't believe me? Come on out in June to Oregon and give them a try) and to the grocery store. Then we spent time around the house the rest of the morning. Our friends came over to take the Burley Piccolo off our hands, so that's one more thing out of the garage. they brought along helmets and the bike it'll attach to so I could put the rack on for them and give them a quick tutorial. Then they went and tried it out. Nolan really enjoyed it, so I think they'll have a good time with it...and it's one more thing out of the garage. After that, we all napped except for Ellen whose purpose always seems to be to keep Jada awake. Afterwards, we attended a going away party for some friends who are moving away. Everyone there were families from our school, and most of the kids were in Ellen's class or soccer team (or both). It was hosted at her soccer coach's house. They have a beautiful house. We had loads of fun, and let the girls stay up late...we didn't get home until almost 9pm.
Sunday morning we had planned to bring Gramma out for breakfast and watching the girls ride their bikes, but she wasn't awake yet when I went to pick her up. We still ended up having breakfast, but just as the girls started riding their bikes afterwards, it started to rain...Hard. We had originally been planning to ride the quad up to the party we were going to in the West Hills (the same West Hills that the band Everclear sing about), but with the surprise rain shower and threatening conditions, I decided I didn't want to take the chance of rain slicked roads on the way home down from the hills. So we drove up and spent the afternoon there. This was a get to meet you party for a new-ish born baby. We'd already met him, but it was still fun to say hi to the family and friends we hadn't seen in a long time. The girls got to play the pieces they remembered on the grand piano in the living room, and they kept the older brother occupied while his baby brother was the center of attention. We eventually had to say our goodbyes and head for home.
This was the start of the final week of school. Monday evening was the last gymnastics class so Jada got to go sit in for the whole class and take pictures. Tuesday was a field trip for Phoebe to a dairy farm where she got to pet a cow. On Wednesday, Phoebe's kindergarten class had their carnival, and we attended Phoebe's day care's end of year program which started at 7:30pm. That was a little bit too late for all of us, but we made it through. Friday was the final day of school. Ellen had a full day, but all 4 Kindergarten sessions came for the morning so they could mix before being thrown together next year in first grade. Jada wasn't quite able to finish packing up her room before she had to leave. Nana and Bapa had decided to come out to visit us after all. We were so happy they decided to come out in June. Their flight was supposed to arrive at 7:15pm, but it ended up being 45 minutes late. We spent the time eating dinner in the concourse and browsing the shops before settling down near the place where they'd have to come out. When we saw them, we had to hold Phoebe back until they cleared the walk way that leads them out so as not to trigger TSA into action, but once we let her go, she ran to greet them with Ellen. Their luggage was already coming around when we got down to the carousel, so that was nice. We got everyone to bed by about 10:30pm (the girls got to bad around 9-ish).
Saturday morning, we went to the market to pick up some strawberries, and we also did our grocery shopping while we were out. We didn't do much the rest of the day other than hang out around the house and nap. After dinner, and putting the girls to bed, Nana and Bapa went out to go for a short walk, but almost as soon as they got up around the corner, the sky opened up and just poured on them. I went out looking for them in the car, but I missed them. By the time I came back down the hill, they were already running back to the house.
Sunday morning, we brought Gram out to breakfast finally. It was still a little rainy, so we didn't take her out to watch the bike riding. After I dropped her back at her facility, we came back home before driving off to the Woodburn company stores to use some coupons. We were able to pick up some more clothes for Ellen that actually fit. Jada also picked me up a Father's Day gift at the Pearl Izumi store - a Slipstream Chipotle team jersey and Garmin Slipstream socks. Garmin is the sponsor now, but prior to the Tour de France in 2008, they were known as the Slipstream Chipotle team. The jersey was marked down, and it was in a size that fit me better. The socks are the Garmin version though. In the afternoon, Nana and Bapa took the girls to the library and to the park while Jada and I stayed home. I made pizza for dinner while Jada rested. We didn't do much else the rest of the day.
The week was a busy one for Jada again with lots of visits over to Gramma because she was quite ill again. Monday morning, the girls had a piano lesson to make up for one that the teacher had to cancel earlier in the month. Jada was able to finish up her classroom cleanup on Monday. While she was busy in the class room, the girls got to play out on the playground and ride their bikes with Nana and Bapa. They took care of the girls, taking them to the library, out to ride bikes, and play at the park while Jada spent all week over at her mom's taking care of her.
Thursday afternoon was Phoebe's first guitar lesson. She's in a group class with 11 other kids, though there were only 8 there that day. The instructor seems nice. I'm glad that I tuned Phoebe's guitar ahead of time since the instructor went through everyone's guitars to make sure they were close enough to make some progress. She learned the names of the different parts of the guitar, the strings, and the G and C chords.
Saturday, we took our morning trip to the market and grocery stores and got some piano practice done. In the afternoon we did another bunch of errands. Not really an exciting day. The weather kept going from sunshine to rain all day, so we didn't get out to do much other than the shopping. Nana and Bapa went to the mall in the evening to do some walking and window shopping. Sunday was fathers day, so we went out for breakfast, and followed that up with a trip to the Oregon Zoo. We rode the train out to the Washington Park Rose Test Garden to walk around there and look at the flowers. We were able to stroll for about 30 minutes before we needed to get back up to the train. Even though the sky was cloudy, the roses were vibrant with color. The walk in the fresh air of the park made us sleepy as usual. Since we were still full from breakfast, we had a light snunch (part snack, part lunch) and put Phoebe, Jada, and me to bed. Bapa had to stay up and help Ellen finish the saddle of a horse model she has. We visited with Gramma in the late afternoon and had dinner at Red Robin for our Nana and Bapa's last night in town. We were worried when 2 full buses showed up after we had ordered already, but our food still came quickly. Once home, Phoebe finished both her piano and guitar practice. The guitar practice was much easier for her this night. It just takes some time to get her fingers used to the different movements.
Monday morning, I dialed into one of my meetings before getting ready to leave for the airport. Unfortunately, the girls weren't on their best behavior, but we still managed to get out the door on time. As we were approaching the airport we saw a large, billowing cloud of black smoke rising from somewhere behind the airport. However, since we didn't' see any police, fire departments, or news crews around, we assumed that we could continue on. We found out while we ate lunch in the food court that it looked like the fire crews were practicing out in one of the fields between the runways. We had a tearful farewell at the security checkpoint, but I had to get back home to work so we bid our farewells there this time instead of watching them all the way through. It was a nice visit, and we were happy to have them for the 10 days. After we got home, I got on the bridge, and the girls headed off to Gramma's. They all enjoyed a walk out to a duck pond, especially Gramma as it was her first time outside in over a week!
Our attention turned toward preparing for our trip to San Diego next week. Since we'll be gone during the change over to July, I'll be posting this late so as not to tip off the entire interweb community that we are out of town. In addition to that, Jada's working on clearing out some time so that play dates can be made for the girls. Jada did lots to get us ready to leave and still managed to get the girls to playdates and make daily visits with her mom. She's like a super woman or something. On Phoebe's 2nd guitar class, we learned a new chord (d) as well as a pick slide and 2 note blues walk. At the end of class, we let the teacher know that she wasn't going to be in class the next week and picked up the handouts for that class. She'll be learning 2 new chords and potentially the minor counterparts. Friday I worked like a dog all day trying to make sure that everything was covered as well as it could be. I'm sure something will come up, but I left my cell phone with my coverage. Even still the day I come back, I'm planning on just staying home and getting caught up on all my email... or as much as possible. I was able to finish my status report by 8pm, and we were packed and ready to go by 10pm. It felt like a short night.
Saturday, we were up early to try to leave by 6am. We missed it by 10 minutes, but we were still doing ok. It was a beautiful morning with clear skies and cool temperatures in the low 50's. Jada decided that she'd be ok taking the first leg of the drive through Oregon, but she didn't want to drive at all in California. I was ok with that since I like to drive. We made our first stop for ~10 minutes at 7:40am just south of Eugene at a Shell station. The rest rooms were clean. The girls had been having fun finding all the fun things that Jada had put together for them in their travel bags. The second stop was at 9:40am at a rest stop for about 8 minutes. The rest rooms weren't as nice, but it was nice to get out and walk around. We were making good time even though the Garmin Nuvi we had purchased for our trip kept having us losing time throughout the morning from its original estimated time of arrival in Mountain View, CA. We crossed the border at 11am. For some reason, there is a check point just over the border where they are trying to make sure that no one is bringing fruit into the state. Not sure what that is all about, but it held us up for a little while. At that point we started looking for somewhere to eat using the Nuvi. I never thought I'd want one for the car, but the navigation system is fun and useful. We stopped at a Subway in Yreka, CA. The fun thing is that this is one of the places that we'll be staying for Cycle Oregon this year, but you'll hear all about that in September's journal. I also filled up the tank. I didn't think to record the miles, but we were getting about 29mpg according to the car. We were on cruise control the whole way, and the temperatures were decent. The next leg, however, wasn't so much. We pushed on all the way to Mountain View, but the temperatures as we drove through the central Valley past Shasta hit 106. It was back down to ~80 at Pete's. We only hit one slow down due to an accident, but other than that, we had good luck with the traffic. We pulled into Pete's apartment complex at 5:40pm. We got to walk downtown for dinner to a Mexican restaurant. The walk was nice and needed. The downtown of Mountain View, CA is vibrant, pleasant, and clean. We stopped off at a used book store to look for the first Harry Potter book because we had started listening to it in the car on the way down as an audio book ,but Jada left the 4th disc in the CD player at home that she had traveled with last, so we needed to have it to read through those 3 chapters so we could start off again where we left off. At Pete's, the girls got to sleep in their own room on an inflatable mattress (with an unfortunate slow leak) while Jada and I displaced Pete from his room. He got the sleep in the living room on the floor which, regrettably, left him in the cross hairs of our very early rising children. We felt even worse when we had to turn in for bed by 9pm because we were so tired from the trip.
The next morning, the girls were up early and giggling because the air mattress had almost fully deflated. They were up before 6am again. Pete was trying to entertain them. We had breakfast, and prepared to leave. The girls did a quick practice on the keyboard we had purchased for the trip before we left for downtown San Francisco. We left at 8am since it is about an hour drive north to the city. Filled up again before leaving since I was near E from the trip the previous day. Didn't notice the MPG before filling, so it reset. I think it was still around 27mpg. We went straight for the Golden Gate bridge. We made it there without much trouble. We crossed and stopped at the vista park on the opposite side to take pictures and enjoy the day. We got a nice one. No fog at all and a perfect clear day. On the return trip, you have to pay a toll ($6 for a car) to get back into the city because there are so many more people living in Oakland to the north than there are in the city. We went next to the Exploratorium which is housed in the Palace of Fine Arts which has been restored to it's original glory for the 1915 Pan American Exhibition (which Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about) and it's all on the edge of the Presidio. The grounds were beautiful. I took a ton of pictures just of the big Roman influenced buildings. The Exploratorium itself is a big science playground like OMSI. We got in free since it has a reciprocal agreement with OMSI, but we paid for Pete. I think he had as much fun as we did. We spent 4 hours there including lunch which wasn't too bad, if expensive. After that, we decided to go find Lombard Street - the "crookedest street in the world". Man, the streets in San Francisco are steep. It really feels like you're driving straight up. The stop signs were always right at the top too, and there is no visibility to the right or left when you get there, you just have to hope for the best. We found the street, and we were able to drive down it. Pete took lots of pictures, so hopefully something turned out. From there, Pete needed to go see some people about getting on a hockey team, so we dropped him off near down town because we were sitting in traffic on one of the main arteries - the only real traffic we had to sit in all day other than heading out of town on the other main exit from the city. We went to find a park we had seen on a map which ended up being in a dodgy edge of town, but the playground was nice. We didn't have any trouble, and the other folks at the playground didn't give us any trouble. Pete was able to walk back to us in about 20 minutes, and then we had to fight the traffic out of town. Pete had saved us some time by looking up the route of the gay pride parade that also happened to be going on that day so we could try to avoid the delays due to backups along the route so that was nice. Everyone fell asleep in the car on the way home...except me since that wouldn't be safe. We walked downtown in Mountain View again for dinner, this time for Chinese. We were able to get to dinner earlier that night which gave us a little bit of time to let the girls go swimming. Unfortunately again, for our kindness, we were rewarded with another tantrum from both girls. We're just lucky Pete didn't kick us out early. Pete and I also searched for the source of the leak in the air mattress, thought that we found it, and Pete covered it with some duct tape. We were once again ready for bed by 9pm after Pete treated us to some ice cream sandwiches.
The impromptu patching job had not held, and the mattress was once again pretty flat in the morning. However, the girls were a little better in the morning. Pete was off to work early since it was Monday, after all. We were on the road roughly an hour later at 7:15pm. We didn't make our first stop until 8:45am at some random roadside gas station near absolutely nothing not too long after we got back to I-5. There was a fruit stand adjacent, but it wasn't open yet. That was our luck all through this little fruit loop area. Hopefully we'll have better luck on the way back through. Jada finished reading the next 3 chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and then we were able to get back on the CD from there. The next stop was at 11:40am at a Shell gas station/Quiznos subs somewhere north of Pasadena. There were lots of these little towns through here. This was super convenient since it also gave me the opportunity to top off the gas tank before hitting LA so we wouldn't have to worry about stopping anywhere there. Gas mileage still seemed to be around 27mpg as it had been windy and already over 100 degrees for that leg of the trip through the central valley. Surprisingly, our journey through LA was pretty non-eventful. I only had one near miss with an exit. It's interesting how run-down and industrial the highway looks through the northern suburbs and LA itself until you get within 5 or so miles of Disney Land. Then suddenly the side walls are spotless and white concrete with elegantly arching bridges and landscaped embankments. The exit is really right there off the highway, but we couldn't actually see the park itself. The girls didn't notice anyway since they were enthralled in the book on CD. We finally reached San Diego around 3:30pm. The sun went behind the clouds as we reached around the Carlsbad area and in sight of the Pacific Ocean. It even rained briefly as we got off I-5 for a more direct spur to our hotel area. I found the main failing of the Garmin is my ability to know where we are going since it can't keep up with the multiple exits within exits down here. I need it to tell me more quickly what the next one is, so I drove around the area a few times riding the different clover leafs until I finally found the right one. That's where the Garmin is really useful. If you over shoot, it recalculates to help you get back to where you need to go. Unfortunately, I had plugged the wrong address into the Garmin, so we turned right instead of left on the hotel drive and went to the Hilton instead of the Sheraton. After checking in and getting the room setup, we went out to the Outback steakhouse which we could see from the hotel. Plus they had seafood and steak which was good for Ellen. Somewhere along the way, I managed to misplace our room key card. I went back over to the restaurant to look for it, but they couldn't find it either. Luckily, the hotel was nice about it and gave me another one without mentioning any charge for it. We amazingly still got the kids to bed on time, and I went across the hall to the gym to unwind for about 30 minutes. The girls were asleep by the time I got back, and Jada and I went to bed by 8pm. It was 1:40am when the first yell of "you're on my side!" came from the other bed, and it continued all the way until morning. Phoebe was asleep when she did it the first time, but it went back and forth all night. Not a good way to start our week in cloudy San Diego, CA.
We woke to clouds again the next morning. This was Jada's main free day, so we had planned our trip to Legoland California for that day. We were all cranky from lack of sleep, but since we were up any way, we got up at 6am to shower and get dressed. The bathroom doesn't have good (or any) ventilation to speak of, so when Jada opened the door after her shower, the fire alarm, which is right next to the bathroom door, started to chirp. When I tried to wave the steam away, it let out a short burst. Luckily it doesn't appear to control the sprinklers at all. We walked to Denny's for breakfast since it was just down the street. It was cloudy and cool that morning. It definitely didn't look like the Southern California you typically envision. I found out it had free WiFi, but I hadn't brought my iPod to check our home mail. Have to remember to do that later. We had a bit of a lecture for the girls about their behavior on this trip so far with all the arguing, fighting, disrespectful, and disobedient attitudes being exhibited. After breakfast, we didn't have to leave for about an hour since the park didn't open until 10am, and the Garmin estimated only a 30 minute drive. So we had Ellen practice her piano on the keyboard before we left. I wanted to leave around 9am just to be on the safe side. As it turns out, I was right to be worried. We still got there in plenty of time, but there wasn't much in the way of signage along the main roads. The Garmin found the route to Legoland's administrative offices. It was just by chance that I saw the tiny sign on the street as we were back tracking that pointed the way to the main public entrance. We paid to park, and we got a great parking space near the premium section (we didn't pull a Griswold and park at the back. The exit was actually right near where we parked, though).
It was still cloudy and looked like it might rain (it never did). We had about 15 minutes to wait by the time we got to the place where the exhibits started. I would have liked to plan things out a little better than I did in hindsight and ended where we began in Miniland USA with the Coast Cruise which was the only ride we didn't have to wait in a line for all day. It was a nice introduction to the park though. It displayed all the famous landmarks recreated with Legos such as the Eifel Tower, Taj Mahal, Sydney Opera House, Mt. Rushmore, New York harbor, etc. You could get a closer look at the different cityscapes from the land. They had a basic farm and town system with train, and moved on to the Las Vegas strip, New York, San Francisco (where we had the girls pose in front of the Lego Golden Gate Bridge), Washington DC, and Los Angeles. We also walked through their walk of fame where they had Lego busts of famous people like George Washington, Lincoln, Churchill, Einstein, Beethoven, and Shakespeare. From there, we regrouped to determine our next attack. In the end, we decided to back track across the main entrance and hit the park from the left of the gate and work clock-wise around the park starting in Dino Island/Explore Village zone. We passed on the first roller coaster we saw there because the girls had never been on one and the line was already long. Though instead we chose a pretty lame ride called the Safari Trek. We waited close to 45 minutes for one of those jeep on a track rides with Lego brick animals sprinkled throughout. The animals were really neat, it's just that the ride was really short for how long we waited. The Fairy Tale Brook ride didn't have a very long line, but was a lot more fun. You float around a water track on a leaf boat through scenes from fairy tales. By that time it was already pushing up to 12pm, so we went for lunch at the Explore Village's Ristorante Brickolini for pizza. The sun had finally started to poke through at this point so we started putting on some sun screen, though Jada and I didn't put much on ourselves...that was a mistake. The Duplo Playtown was part of the Explore Village, and there was a ride there called the Legoland Express which was a little train just for kids so we let the girls go stand in the short line all by themselves. Ellen especially liked the feeling of being a big kid getting to go on a ride all by herself with Phoebe.
Fun Town was next on the agenda with the ride Phoebe had been seeing all morning and wanted to ride - the Sky Cruiser. We waited in line for about 45 minutes again. The girls did really well waiting in lines all day. I was very surprised. Phoebe got into a little bit of the I'm bored games, but not nearly as much as I was expecting. They always seemed to find something to amuse themselves. It was a pedal ride, so the more you pedaled the faster the ride went. I let her do most of the pedaling. It was a pleasant enough ride with some nice views of the main entrance areas from over head. While we had been waiting in line for that one, the one right next to it caught our eyes called Sky Patrol. We went straight over there from the Sky Cruiser, and got right on. The object was to winch your 2 person team up a tower, then you could let yourself drop and do it again. Ellen and I were going against Jada and Phoebe. I'm not sure if we made it up first since we all look out away from the pole, so you can't really see who is next to you since it's a circle. When you're at the top of the pole, you're at the highest point in the park, so that was pretty cool. I didn't even feel all that much vertigo. Fun Town had a lot of cool stuff, because from there we went over to the Volvo Driving School where Ellen and Phoebe got to drive their own cars around a small scale model of city streets in their own little electric cars (also not a terribly long line surprisingly) They each got to drive their own. It was funny because they completely ran in different directions and got in cars on different sides of the area. They did a pretty good job stopping at the stop lights and stop signs. I didn't see them get in any accidents, and at the end they got their own driver's license. After this, I went out to the car to grab some snacks. I hadn't brought anything in since they said that it wasn't allowed, but we saw lots of other people with their own stuff. While I was out, they went to do the Fun Town Fire Academy. It was a tough one for Jada to do with the girls because it required a lot of coordination of moving the truck, pumping water into a window with a pretend fire, and moving the truck back to the start. We found a table to sit at to eat our snacks. The Lego Factory tour was in Fun Town, so we walked through that, but it wasn't nearly as cool as I was hoping it would be though I did learn that the block business is pretty cut-throat since they encase their discarded brick molds in foundations of their buildings instead of just throwing them away. It dumped out into a store that sells all the individual bricks. I didn't really have anything I was looking for, so I refrained from buying anything. Finally, we bid farewell to Fun Town and turned our feet boldly toward the Pirate Shores.
The first ride that we did in the Pirate Shores was a simple ship on a track that went up and back and spun clockwise, and then counter clockwise called Captain Cranky's Challenge. We weren't sure what the girls would think of it, but they both liked it. While I went to put my bag in a locker since pretty much everything in this section ended with you getting really wet, the girls got into line for the Treasure Falls log ride. It wasn't a very big drop, and we didn't get very wet, but the drop off was enough to make it fun for Ellen and Phoebe. There were lots of interesting Lego creations around that ride too like a full sized human skeleton wearing a Lego tiara next to a treasure chest of gold, a black leopard, a snake, a few butterflies, monkeys, and lizards. The sun had started getting less bright and more cloudy, but it was still warm enough that we relented and let the girls get into their swim suits to play in the Soak-N-Sail water play area which was a big ship with water pouring out of everywhere including 2 huge buckets suspended above the whole structure constantly filling with water and spilling over everyone when they got full and tipped. It was kind of a ticking time bomb scenario to watch it from the outside. One bucket tipped more frequently than the other, but when the bigger one went, it really got every one close wet. They got to play in there for 20 minutes before we went on to the next ride that would just get them more wet anyway, the Splash Battle. We were on boats floating around a track with 4 water cannons mounted at each of our seats, and we were seated 2 and 2 back to back in the boat so Ellen and Jada were facing forward, and Phoebe and I were facing backwards. Then once the ride started, you started cranking water out of the cannon at anyone within range whether they be other boaters on the ride or innocent bystanders outside the rails. There were water cannons around the ride facing in too that people could just walk up to and start hitting us as well. It was really fun. After that, we had the girls change back into their clothes while Jada tried to dry hers out. I had worn clothes that would dry quickly anyway, so I wasn't too concerned.
It was a little after 5pm by the time we entered Castle Hill looking for the Knight's Table BBQ. It was all you can eat ribs, chicken, salad, corn on the cob, deserts, and fruit-so of course we all had room only for one round-so I felt like I was wasting money. Needless to say, it was very filling. There was a kids ride nearby that the girls could go on by themselves called the Royal Joust where they rode aboard horse shaped steeds with jousting sticks on the side around a track. They each got to sit on their own horse, so that made them very happy. On a lark, Jada and I walked into the castle where the ride called the Dragon was departing, and much to our surprise, we found no line. We knew it was a roller coaster, but because they couldn't see it, we decided to try it anyway. As long as it didn't go upside down, Phoebe was in, and Ellen really wanted to try. It started out as a little ride through a castle with all manner of castle occupants and things partying in the castle until we went through the chamber where the dragon was guarding the gold. Then the cars shot out of the castle and up the first incline to give us some speed. It was a fun coaster, and Ellen even put her hands up in the air like other people were doing in front of us...And when we finished Phoebe said "that was great, I don't want to do it again." Ellen shouted "I want to do that again!" And, Phoebe then readily agreed that she, too, was in for another go round. Since there was still no line, so we ran down the stairs, and around the castle to the beginning. We knew the girls were excited when they passed on the opportunity to go get a picture taken with a princess in full gown to go back to the ride again. Luckily the princess was still there when we got off the second time so we could still get their picture with her.
The next area was called the Land of Adventure. In here, we did what turned out to be a pretty lame slide called Dune Raiders. For some reason THIS scared Phoebe because it was too high...not the roller coaster. I just don't understand that kid some times. There was a ride with airplanes called Cargo Ace that the girls went on by themselves. It was planes that traveled on an oval and flipped the planes up at the ends as it went around the corners. They liked that one too, but I don't know if it was more because we weren't with them, or if they really liked the ride. Probably a little of both. We skipped the ride that everyone recommended called Pharoah's Revenge mostly because it involved shooting laser guns at targets, but time was also running short, and we still had to get through the Imagination Zone and the Big Shop. While waiting for Ellen and Phoebe on the Cargo Ace, we had spotted a ride in the Imagination Zone that was based on the tea cups idea, but if the tea cups were made out of the Lego Connex system (The Bionicle Blaster) There was no line at all, so we were able to walk right on to our cup. That was a lot of fun, and we were all giggling like children. It was pretty hysterically funny to us at the time. Finally we raced across the entry area since it was already 7pm and the park closed at 8pm so we could ride the Coastersaurus that we had skipped at the beginning of the day because the line was too long. Surprisingly enough, there was a still a line for this one even though it was shorter than the Dragon. We waited 10 minutes, but the time passed quickly while we talked about different things to do while in town. It went through the circuit twice, but we only did the ride once. Ellen and I sat in the very back to get the whip effect. We went through the Big Shop at the worst possible time (right before closing time), but I was able to find a Lego watch for a souvenir.
We got back to the hotel at 8:30pm (a 10 hour day at the park) and put the kids straight to bed. When I asked them what their favorite part of the day was, they said everything. Then it only took a few minutes for them to fall asleep. They did a really good job for their first time in an amusement park...let alone in an amusement park for 10 hours. Not once do I remember them complaining that they were tired of walking. Phoebe may have mentioned it in passing, but I don't remember the constant complaining that I had been expecting. They bore the lines very well, and they were rewarded at the end of the day when we got to do at least as many rides as we had done all day up to dinner time as the crowds continued to thin.
And that does it for June. This will be posted a little late since I'll still be in San Diego for the first week of July. I hope you can forgive me.
Journal entry: July 5, 2009