We left the cold and snowy weather in Colorado on Saturday (our plane had to be de-iced) and arrived at the nice and mild SoCal weather. The weather wasn't hot, mostly in the 60s and 70s, and mostly cloudy. We didn't mind the cloudy weather while standing in lines at the parks.
On Sunday, Bill and I had signed up for a 5K run in Newport beach. It was a nice run, which we both did well (Bill 27:09, Cecilia 28:36). We hope to do a few more races to build up for the 1/2 marathon in Oct. Post race, we had a great lunch with Diana's parents and Diana and I went to the spa for a massage, while John and Bill took the kids to see the Muppets movie.
Just like last year, we planned to go to Disneyland for 2 days (both California Adventure and Magic Kingdom). We did Cal Adventure with Diana and John, and John's friend Mike and his twin 4-yr old daughters (they are season pass holders). It as just as busy as last year, and the fast pass tickets for Radiator Springs we got at 9:30 am were for 7:20 pm! But the kids lasted the whole day, had fun in the park and the many rides we went on. Mason did California Screaming twice, and was planning to go again before the ride broke down. Audrey is still too short for that ride. Mason did the Tower of Terror with Diana and Bill. Before the ride, we made sure he knew it was dark and he said he still wanted to go. We forgot to mention the ghosts and the lightning, and he didn't like that so much. The ride attendant said at the end "Drop in again", and he turned to Bill and said "I will never ever ever ever drop in again..." :-)
After 11 hours at the park and 8 miles of walking (we didn't bring a stroller for Audrey this year, so the kids walked as much as we did), we were finally done and the kids passed out in the car. They both did great, there were no tears, and the only meltdown came from me, not the kids. :-)
Instead of doing Disneyland in 2 consecutive days like last year, we built in 2 break days in between. I don't know why we didn't think to do that last year. Tuesday was our lazy/recovery day. On Wednesday, we went down to San Diego's Safari Zoo and met our friends the Finks (Mathew and April, and their 6-year old Izzy). Unlike traditional zoos, the animals have a lot of space to roam, and it was a great visit.
We tackled Disneyland on Thursday, expecting a very busy park and long lines. We arrived a little before the park open at 8:45 am and got most of the popular rides done in the morning. Mason's favorite is still Space Mountain, and Audrey rode on it twice as well. They both enjoyed Big Thunder Mountain, but didn't care much for the Matterhorn for different reasons (Mason thought it was boring, while Audrey didn't like the surprise appearance of the yeti). After those rides and Autopia, Star Tours, Buzz Lightyear, and visits to Minnie, Goofy, Mickey and 3 princesses later, it was 4 pm and we had walked about 9 miles. I am not a big fan of Disneyland, but for Mason and Audrey's age group, it was worth it and we had a lot of fun.
On Friday, we planned a visit to DreamWorks Animation, where a friend of mine from college and her husband works. It was perhaps Bill's most anticipated part of the trip, being the geek he is. We had lunch on campus (DreamWorks provides free breakfast and lunch daily) and it was very good food, and then we got a tour through their buildings, saw different animation teams working on different movies, and studio. Sandy showed us on the her coworker's office, who was a Star Wars collector. He had 2 full size storm trooper suits. Bill asked if he could try on the storm trooper helmet, and here he is!
We had planned to see Karen and her boys, but unfortunately Ryan got hand/foot/mouth disease from a play date earlier in the week. So we went to the Griffith Observatory since it is not far from DreamWorks, for a short visit to try to avoid some traffic back to OC. However, by the time we left, around 3 pm, all the highways were showing solid red traffic on our map! It took us 2 hours to get back, and a reminder why I don't live in LA any more!
On Friday night, after the kids went to sleep at around 9 pm, Bill experienced his first earthquake. I jumped up and quickly got under the doorframe of the front door. Everyone else didn't move at all until I said something like "should we get the kids?", since the earthquake lasted longer than normal (about 20 seconds). It turned out to be a 5.1 quake centered in La Habra 20 miles North of where we were.
Fun Spring Break! One day to recover before we are back to school and work!
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