Disneyland

Sunday Evening, December 14, 2008
Lorraine's Report

I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since I last wrote for the blog. But what a two week period it has been. Last time I wrote, we hadn’t been to Disneyland with Susy and Kaitlyn. Well, we made it there on Thursday, December 4th and 5th. The fourth, it was less crowded, it wasn’t hot and we all had a great time. Susy, Kaitlyn, Yami, and I all went. Chuck was catching my cold and was under the weather, so he stayed home, watching the dogs. We rode all of Kaitlyn’s favorite rides, did lots of looking and had a lot of fun just being together and hanging out. We saw them light Small World, and the main Disney Castle. Of course all the decorations around the park are beautiful, and the large tree on Main Street is a sight to behold. That is part of the wonder of Disney.

Friday was an entirely different day. Chuck had to take the motor home to Soledad Canyon to store it while we were on the trip to Mexico. He was still feeling pretty bad, but it had to be stored. So, off we go in Yami’s rented car, Susy, Kaitlyn, Yami and I.

It was really crowded and the afternoon was hot. We did make reservations to have lunch with the Princesses of Disneyland, which is a favorite of ours, especially Kaitlyn. We had lunch in the Grotto with the various Princesses coming to each table to let you take pictures with them. Of course, this is a favorite of many people, and seating is sometimes hard to get, this is at California Adventure. After lunch, we stayed in C. A. and went to ride our favorite rides. About halfway through the afternoon, I noticed one of Kaitlyn’s shoes was missing. She kicks off her shoes when she is tired and no one noticed, so one of NaNa’s shoes went missing (so named because I had just bought them for her). Well, Auntie Yami came to the rescue, she went and found and bought another pair of shoes for her to wear to finish off the afternoon. By then, all of us were tired so we decided to head for the hotel we were staying in for the night. We hadn’t checked in yet. We arrived back at the hotel just about the time Chuck was getting back from stowing the motor home.

By then, it was dinner time, so we all decided to stay in and order pizza, a great move for all of us. Susy and Kaitlyn have their own room for the night because Mark was driving down to spend the rest of the weekend with Susy, Kaitlyn, and Yami. He got in around 2 am. We all decide to go to bed early, even Kaitlyn. That was the first night away from them, because when they stayed in the motor home, Daddy gave us the king bed and he slept on the sofa, so us three gals were together for a week; great fun for all.

Saturday we all got up and Chuck took us all to breakfast before we had to leave for the ship.

I have to say I really enjoyed our time with Susy and Kaitlyn, and I loved seeing Yami again. What a great Christmas present. Thank you all. So bye for now until next time.

.

12/7/08 Actually written on 12/14/08
Chuck's report

This will be a week in review as we didn’t get a report out last week. Our original plans had us leaving the Bay area on Monday and heading towards Los Angles. Last May we were in La Grange, Missouri, at a casino where Lorraine had her name drawn and she won a week’s cruise out of Las Angles, leaving on Saturday 12/6/08. We intended to be in the area a few days early and just do some sightseeing.

Susy said if we waited until Tuesday to leave, she and Kaitlyn could go and spend the week with us. A quick change of plans and we decided to leave on Tuesday and go to Disneyland for a couple of days. So Tuesday found us on the road headed South towards Las Angles. With the air card for internet service on the road, Susy was able to “work from home” as we traveled. The trip was a bit longer than we normally drive but except for the GPS leading us through the streets of Pasadena, it was a pretty un-eventful trip. We did get to drive through LA rush hour traffic but I can’t tell the difference between normal and rush hour, there are too many cars on the road at any time.

Susy had set up with Yami, her girlfriend from Florida, to fly out and meet with us on Wednesday and spend the weekend. Good to see you again, Yami. Unfortunately, Lorraine had caught a cold on her plane trip to Bellingham last week and she shared that with me. I started feeling the effects on Monday and by Thursday; I knew I couldn’t spend all day in Disneyland so I stayed at the motor home while they had fun at Disneyland. Lorraine wasn’t feeling too well either so they didn’t make a long day of it, returning home in the early afternoon.

On Friday, they again went to Disneyland while I took the motor home about 80 miles away to a campground where we would store it for a week. Once again, I got to drive the motor home through LA traffic, lucky me. For those who have driven the freeways in LA, you know how sometimes the upcoming exit can be either on the left or right. Of course, one time I needed to go to a freeway on the left and I was in the far right hand lane, about 8 lanes away. I didn’t make it and got to do some unexpected sight seeing but finally got to the campground and put the motor home to sleep for a week.

We had plans to stay at a hotel on Friday night then drive to the docks at Long Beach to get on the ship Saturday morning. I got to travel back through LA to the hotel, arriving just about the time they were finishing up with Disneyland. We were all tired so we just ordered in a pizza and stayed close for the rest of evening. Our son-in-law, Mark, was driving down on Friday night to spend the remaining weekend with Susy, Kaitlyn and Yami; he got in about 2:00 AM. We were able to go to breakfast with them before we headed for the dock on Saturday morning. Even though we will be back with them in about two weeks, it still was rough to leave them.

We found the ship, unloaded our luggage and parked the car. We couldn’t go to our stateroom until late afternoon so we just explored the ship, trying to find our way around. There are really four main decks for food, casino, theater, swimming, etc. Our stateroom was on deck 9; most of the restaurants were on deck 7 or 12. The casino and theater were on deck 6; swimming, track and gym were on 13/14. By the time our stateroom was ready, the ship was underway heading towards Mexico.

We went to the room, changed for dinner and had an early bedtime; we were tired and not feeling too well yet. That was our Saturday, real exciting, huh?

As I usually try to have this posted on Sunday morning, guess I’ll stop here and make this a post for one week. Hope you had a good week and you don’t get this cold, it’s a bad one.

Kaitlyn in her car seat on the way to LA.


Some of the road conditions in California, that's LA smog in the distance.

Sun settting behind some clouds.


I don't know how to rotate this picture but it's Loraine with her favorite character, Goofy.

Maybe I should have gone to Disneyland and kept her from kissing this guy.

Lorraine, Susy and Kaitlyn in front of the big Christmas tree in Disneyland.

Susy and Kaitlyn waiting in line for a ride.

The magic kingdom all lit up at night.

More Christmas lights, this is at Small World.

Christmas decorations in the street.

Kaitlyn with one of the princesses.

Yami with one of the princessess.

Just a bunch of flowers.

So that is another week in review. Hope this finds you and your's well. I hear there is some bad weather across the US, stay warm if you can. Until next week, (actually hope to get this week's done today) ---- Chuck