3 reports + links to more- 8 days since May + conversations galore

The only problem with riding GRR next trip is I am planning it for December but I am going to give it the old college try.

You earrings are adorable.
 
...(which begs the question...WHY did I buy them back then?...

Because it was the 80s or 90s! As a female, especially in CA, you had to get huge earrings. :) I still have so many of the earrings I bought from Nordstrom in the 80s...I might be able to make a small "killing" if I were willing to part with them!

I went to Target and bought a pair of clearance dangly earrings that had the backings on them...the earrings turned out to be kinda cute (and very 80s'ish), so it's a double score for only 1.98. :) They (the mickey earrings) aren't going to match what I plan to wear tomorrow, but oh well! Hmm, maybe I'll run in and get a different color...if memory serves they had blue, red, and one other color...

And yes I finally found them at the DLH giftshop (Fantasia, I believe). I'm sure they are elsewhere, but I really only looked in DCA for them. Though I did scour WOD and didn't find them at all.

Hey Molly! I hope your plans work out. Do you think they'd like the Animation building? If so, that could be a great place to drop them off for a bit.

I sure hope they want to hang out in there! I'm sure they'll like some parts of it...hoping they want to draw.


I am sure they will be flexible with the plans you set forth. I mean, they are willing to go in the first place.:goodvibes I know what it is like to make plans for others...it is stressful.

Good point!

They are so sweet about it, too. They see it as a day spending time with their nephew while he has a great time, and they like that. They are in a wonderful position where the money for a day's ticket (they refuse to buy an AP or even the summer pass unless we promise we'll be back in time to use it...hmm, maybe I'll make that promise!) is not anything to even blink at, and that's a little bit less pressure, but it is one of my SIL's precious days off and she wants it to be a good day, which adds the pressure back, LOL. She's coming up on make-or-break *will I be offered a partnership* time so you can just imagine how hard she's working!

The only problem with riding GRR next trip is I am planning it for December but I am going to give it the old college try.

FWIW, it was during our December '07 trip that I first tried it. At night! Well, after dark...not really *nighttime*. And it was drizzly (which was why my guys went back to the hotel, b/c they were unhappy).

I would just be sure to lug a warm sweatshirt or something with you, and maybe some wool blend socks to change into, just in case your socks get wet (the wool blend can protect your feet from possibly wet shoes, if you don't want to bring extra shoes), and try to wear something quick-drying on your bottom half. If you are a poncho-type, wear that, and put everything into the free lockers! On that first GRR ride, I couldn't find the lockers, and carried my bag-with-camera with me, but put my poncho around the bag, which exposed my entire leg to the "open" side of the raft (there are two openings where you step in, and sitting at that opening can cause you to get more wet than sitting on the "inside"), and so that whole leg was wet and COLD. Whoops! So just take yourself (and your locker ticket, LOL, in some protected spot like a lanyard pouch) on the ride and have fun! If you're not a poncho person, you might want to bring more clothes, but you can still have fun even if you get momentarily cold. :goodvibes


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This trip has been so good for me! I have already dropped a good amount of squish, it's great. And E is learning to swim which is so great. His arm floaties developed leaks so I bought him a Speedo swim vest at Target yesterday, oh the freedom for his arms is amazing! My brother and I were just looking at each other in amazement at the improvement from the first swimming day when we got here... I took video to show Robert, speaking of which I need to find my cable to send that off to him!

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Robert has started the drug to help his pituitary thing, and will be taking another hormone to help the other problems caused by the pituitary thing. I mentioned on the Divas thread that he'll be injecting HCG, which causes him amusement since it's a "performance enhancing" drug that Manny Ramirez is currently in trouble for.


And while we've been gone, most excellent things have happened with his job. First his contract has been extended. Next, he got a call from a recruiter from his old job. They couldn't schedule interviews during times he wasn't working, so he decided to NOT be sneaky, and went immediately to his supervisors, letting them know about the recruiter call. They went into *action*, working out plans to get Robert stability, more money (b/c they found out the tech placement company isn't following their contract with what they are paying R), and getting a future plan together for him. INCREDIBLE! It was a fine line, telling them without having an offer, but they adore him and want him to stay. One said "oh that isn't good" and the other said "oh that's BAD", when he told them about the recruiter call.

He loves being loved by his employers! He's so worth it, but it's hard for him to believe.

Things are looking up. :goodvibes
 
Good point!

They are so sweet about it, too. They see it as a day spending time with their nephew while he has a great time, and they like that. They are in a wonderful position where the money for a day's ticket (they refuse to buy an AP or even the summer pass unless we promise we'll be back in time to use it...hmm, maybe I'll make that promise!) is not anything to even blink at, and that's a little bit less pressure, but it is one of my SIL's precious days off and she wants it to be a good day, which adds the pressure back, LOL. She's coming up on make-or-break *will I be offered a partnership* time so you can just imagine how hard she's working!

I am sure they will have a blast! Eamon is worth taking a day off! He is so precious. :goodvibes


I have already dropped a good amount of squish, it's great.

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Good job on Eamon for having swimming skilllz!:thumbsup2
 
Molly--have a great day tomorrow--I'm sure things will go great with the in-laws!
 


There were a few blips (mainly involving me almost having heatstroke, and brother's pulled muscle being aggravated while on the Ladybug Boogie), but otherwise it was a terrific day!

I think I'm a little sunburned, probably b/c I was sweating from 9:40am on, and likely didn't have sunscreen on 3 minutes after I applied and re applied and re applied and so on.

I'll write later on, I'm tired.
 
Oh, those hot days at DL. I have spent a few of those and it is difficult to keep protected. The one benefit is that regardless of how much you drink, you seldom have to use the facilities because all you body fluids are exiting through your pores! Glad you had a great day despite the challenges!
 
What you described, Molly, is exactly what I endure during summer heat. I have always overheated fast - no matter what age or size I was, or how thin or thick I was, or what level of health. I am super senstive to heat and I burn in 5 minutes and sweat throughout the day (fair Irish skin). Then, I get nauseous and feel faint and then extremely exhausted. I even get ill sitting INSIDE my apartment during really hot days! This is exactly why I am not jumping for joy at having to get my Fun Card in the peak of July, so I think my DLR day trip will be super fast next month. People who don't have that problem don't understand why it is a problem for others!

But your near-heatstroke aside, I am glad you had yet another great trip (albeit, a quickie) and I can't wait to hear about it! Someone started a thread yesterday about wanting info on DLH Concierge (I think it was Boo Bear), and I quickly jumped on to post the link to your Trip Report (I love to pimp out my DIS-friends' great Trip Reports!!:lmao:) as well as the link to Pycees312's great conciege pictures from all 3 hotels. But make sure to look for that thread in case you want to add something to it.
 


The strange thing was that I started sweating at 9:40, almost exactly, and didn't stop for hours and hours. Not normal sweat. This was where my head was sweating while we were inside the Soarin' building...where it's nice and cool. It was freaky and really worried my Sis in law especially! I remember when it started...I'd told the fam to continue along up towards GCH as I jumped over to get everyone FPs for Soarin', then couldn't find them and went up the hill while calling them...they were down "cooling their jets" at that big water mister thing, and as I walked back *down* the hill to meet them, it started.

So weird.

And even though I have 4 blisters from my Crocs Athens, my bones were happy all day and today, and that is all that matters for me. :)
 
Gosh Molly! You poor thing. I was so hoping that you would have a great time.
 
Ooo, too bad about the being hot.

I am sure the sweating in AC comes from you just being overheated.

I cannot wait to hear about your trip and see some pics!:3dglasses
 
Okey dokey. I didn't take notes and didn't take anywhere near as many pictures as I normally do, so this might be text-heavy and not much fun. But I said I'd do a report, and a report I shall do.

While the kiddo watches the Best of Both Worlds concert on one of the 18 million channels at the brother's house.

Hmm. Don't celebrities believe in seatbelts? Do they think that their vehicles will magically protect them from death and injury? Why don't they wear seatbelts????? (Billy Ray and Miley, being interviewed while being driven to rehearsal)


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I did tell them that we should be there BEFORE 9, so we could be already at the gates at 9:30. For some reason...we left at 7:30, and they live not right in downtown San Diego, and, well, we were at the parking lot at 9:22. Oh well. It's better than getting to DL at 10 and having to buy tickets, right?

Then again, we were directed to Garden Walk to park. Why, I don't know, but there we were, at GW! They have special disney parking tickets, I guess, when that happens. It seems that normally they charge by the hour, but with the ticket you PREpay (like at the disney lots), so KEEP that ticket!

There was an option to take a shuttle, and we tried to follow the signs for that, but the line was long and seemed obnoxious (though they were using HUGE buses). So we asked how to walk.

You go to the 1st floor, go out past the ticket center area they have (you can buy single day single park tickets there, but with a fee attached, was what I gleaned from the sign), and out to the Valet area. Leave that area, go right on the sidewalk. Cross the parking lot's driveway, and you notice that you are on Disney Way. None of that whole being on Katella nonsense you might think, when you find yourself surprisingly being parked at Garden Walk! :)

IMG_0558.jpg




The walk was FAST. Go up the Way to Harbor. Cross Harbor and you will of course see the big Disney signs, but you do have to go up to the proper entrance. (OK you could also cross Disney Way, then cross Harbor...we just went with the walk/don't walk lights, whichever went green first, LOL) So then we crossed Disney Way.

At that point, there are two ways to go, it seemed. One way took you along the sidewalk right next to the street. The other way involved going "through" the big sign, the purple-with-diamond-shapes bit you see to the right in the above picture.

So we went through, b/c it seemed it would shave some time. And it seemed to! We didn't meet up with the hordes whohad *just* crossed Harbor at Captain Kidd's, but got onto that part of the entrance a bit further in towards the bag check. The walk was very short. My brother, who is nursing an injury, had no problems with, and compared to the trek we have dealt with on trips with him in the past, when we parked in the Mickey/Friends structure, well, he wants to park at Garden Walk whenever he/we go in the future.

Since we were heading to DCA, we went through the MUCH shorter bag check line as far left as we could find, and they went right up to a ticket booth where a helpful CM was pointing people to empty spots. And there were MANY empty spots on the Harbor side at around 9:42am. I talked with the CM as SIL bought their tix, and he said that shortly they would be going over to the DTD side to get people to come over to the Harbor side. I bet there are a ton of people who refuse that, not being brave enough to leave the line they're in!

My brother got a little defensive of the time we got there, and we did fine, but ultimately, we could have done *better* if we'd gotten there earlier.


There was a need for a bathroom break, and a need for a rental stroller (do not ask me why I left our stroller at home...or why I thought E would be just fine on a commando, long, day...I'm just silly I suppose), so those were done at the same time by different people. I should have gotten a locker then, but I was being silly.


OK this is funny, but normally a big part of why I remember "what happened next" is b/c of the big stack of unused FPs I bring home! I didn't bring home any, we used them all! Oh dear. :)


Back in a moment.
 
No wonder you got so overheated. Oh my goodness. What a mess that is.
 
Well, I survived watching the concert. Actually, thanks to the fact that most of her songs seem to be ripped directly off from many excellent 80s songs, it's not a surprised that us late 30s and early 40s people don't totally rip off our ears when we hear her. I mean, there was one that sounded exactly like the music for the lyric "I wear my sunglasses at night".

While putting pix on photobucket, I accidentally looked at 4 pictures my SIL took of me, with my camera, of me and E on tuck and roll...augh. And to think I know I've lost weight in these last 12 days...ugh ugh ugh.

E misses his aunt and uncle...they are both off on business trips right now. No epic lightsaber (glow sticks from the dollar store, actually) battles with auntie gets home from the trenches of law, and no whatever it is he does with my brother during brother's breaks from work (he works from home most of the time, only going to the office (in a different part of this state, or in a different state altogether) when necessary. Poor kid.

I'll come back after putting E to bed.
 
We did June last year...just me and Maddie. I am not sure what I was thinking. It was so blazing hot and towards the end of our trip it was so busy...I almost regretted going.

But now that I look back, I am glad we went...I just wish I had been more prepared for the heat. KWIM?
 
I hit send before I could comment on your tr so far...lol.

That is cool about the Garden Walk parking area. I will have to remember that for next time we drive.:thumbsup2

I hope your brother's knee is okay!

I would have not brought a stroller either. I think we tend to forget that 4 and 5 year olds still need a rest from walking.:goodvibes

I am looking forward to more!
 
What's weird is that wunderground said, beforehand, that the high would be 72, and when I got home, it said that the high that day in Anaheim was only 76...but there was something that was just not working well with me! I saw people wearing sweaters, thick ones on some, ALL day. SIL, who does run cold, wore her sweatshirt most of the day, and had it close at hand the rest of the day. E wasn't sweating (and he's like me in that department) at all, not even while running around the Redwood area.

Just odd.

But then, last year at R's (then) company's summer picnic, I took myself to the first aid tent, for a nice sitdown with water and ice packs, so it does seem I can overheat. I've GOT to get this weight off, b/c I'm sure that's what is causing it. Or at least, if it isn't the cause, take off the weight b/c I'd be happier without it!
 
Okey dokey! I'm basically alone (E is sleeping and the cats are avoiding me b/c I'm simply not their usual people) in this huge house and I'm a'skeered! Whimper.

Stroller rental, bathroom, accomplished.

I was telling them tidbits about the park, which they seemed to like, and I didn't want to rush rush through, I wanted them to see the place. I pointed out the bakery and ice cream place, and my SIL was so funny about it, taking note of the bakery. From her reaction to food, you would never guess that she's probably a size 0 or 2...she loves food, just can't eat large quantities of it, and shares *everything* with my brother. Even cookies.

As we got to Soarin', I said "you guys just keep going up the hill, I'm going to get a FP, I'll meet you". I accomplished my part, but...it turns out SIL was taking E through the "cool your jets" water mister thing that looks like a rocket taking off. And for whatever reason, I just didn't see them and they didn't see me, so I figured they'd gone up the hill. But really, I should have met up with them *right there*, so I was confused. I got close to Grizzly when brother called me after I called him, and they were still at the water thing. Harumph.

So I told them to come up the hill while I went down, and that's when the heat reaction started, even though it wasn't even 10am and no one else seemed to think it was hot. Weird weird weird. And gross. No one wants their hair to be wet like that for hours, you know? No one wants their face to do more than glisten, LOL. And no one wants to be near someone having that reaction!

Anyway, I showed them Grizzly and they verified that it wasn't something they were interested in. There's a back story to that...in '07, my brother came up for a day of our September trip, and we had a nice time. Ate at Blue Bayou, explored parts of Tom Sawyer Island, etc. But the part that sticks out in everyone's mind is the fact that my brother sat *behind* my husband (not a skinny guy), when hubby was seated at the very very FRONT of Splash. They.Got.Drenched. I mean, underwear was soaked, feet squelched, it was bad. They were literally dripping when they came off of Splash. E wasn't even 3.5, and he still remembers it!!!!

So brother has no interest in rides that might soak him. :)

They seemed to be interested in all the things you could see, and I had shown pictures of the construction walls, so I hope they weren't disappointed. I told them, over the day, what all was being changed and added, I was a tour guide. We got to TSMM in good time, and I got in the line that extended out towards the entrance of Screamin'. Augh.

But it moved fast, of course. I read someone's comment somewhere that TSMM is a slow loader, and I just cannot agree with that. Doesn't seem that different from Pirates, and that's a fast loading ride.

Well, that line was stated to be 45 minutes, but it was NOT. Before I've said that I've never been in the line when it was shorter than the stated time, but now I have. I was kinda focused on controlling the reaction I was having to perceived heat, and E was having fun with his aunt and uncle, and we all made it through. Brother actually noticed the building that the line goes into well before you go into it...I was telling them to admire the way the queue is created (they actually did see that it was brilliant), and that it's always best to not notice that building until later, LOL. Quite a bit of the line, however, seemed to be made up of space between groups, so you'd move up quite a bit every time someone would wake up and noticed that they needed to go.

Finally we were on the ride. E chose his aunt, so I sat with my brother. At first, he thought accuracy counted. I noticed the way he was pulling the string and by the third game told him that accuracy didn't count unless he wanted to do it that way, and he went from 20,000 to a finishing score of 99,000, with just half of the games. He would have blown us away, if he had known to just shoot shoot shoot the whole time. I got something like 150K, SIL got 103K, and E got 48,000, which is quite respectable for a 5 year old!

They both loved the ride. I was so happy. :goodvibes


For some reason, Screamin' wasn't working, and I never did figure out why, and didn't find out it WAS working until brother had already hurt himself and wouldn't go on anything else. We never went on it.

Even though I explained that FPs could be used later on, that just never happened. My companions wanted to get on rides, so we met each time-frame of the FP for each FP ride.

Therefore, we headed over to Soarin'. We went via the Pacific Wharf area, which was an odd choice, but oh well.

And Soarin' was a HUGE hit! Huge! As we left, SIL asked if we could get another FP for it. Why, yes, yes we can! So we did.



And now I need to ponder what we did next....g'night.
 
What's weird is that wunderground said, beforehand, that the high would be 72, and when I got home, it said that the high that day in Anaheim was only 76...but there was something that was just not working well with me! I saw people wearing sweaters, thick ones on some, ALL day. SIL, who does run cold, wore her sweatshirt most of the day, and had it close at hand the rest of the day. E wasn't sweating (and he's like me in that department) at all, not even while running around the Redwood area.

Just odd.

But then, last year at R's (then) company's summer picnic, I took myself to the first aid tent, for a nice sitdown with water and ice packs, so it does seem I can overheat. I've GOT to get this weight off, b/c I'm sure that's what is causing it. Or at least, if it isn't the cause, take off the weight b/c I'd be happier without it!

time to break out those Richard Simmons tapes or dvds and start that sweating. This is the voice of someone living it.:goodvibes
 
Yay Eamon!! That is a wonderful score for a five year old. I think that's great. Heck in a few years he'll dust all of the adults.:goodvibes
 

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