UtahMama
Wakey, wakey, Eggs and Bakey<br><img src=http://ww
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2006
- Messages
- 9,743
Still February 25th
Goofy’s Kitchen had been a disaster. But from our minor disasters came magic in the form of a new fancy lanyard for the birthday boy loaded with “traders.” This from the goodness of a few CM’s at the Disneyland Hotel Guest Relations office. Riley had a perma-grin smile for the rest of the day, believe you me.
Riley is a tough cookie to make happy. Let’s just say he leans towards the dramatic side of things. This is his birthday, and in our family, it makes him “the boss of all of us” (within reason). The Boss says we’re going to ride California Screamin’ first. Fabulous! Perfect ride for our recently full bellies! Distraction-for-Digestion is my mama-strategy.
Oh my, it’s pretty nippy. Utah-Daddy needs a new hoodie to keep warm! “Go pick one out, honey, but take your sweet time” while the rest of us pause to watch a pretty nifty street performance full of peppy cheerleaders promoting High School Musical. It is worth the pause, I tell you what!
Utah-Daddy picked out a navy blue fleece hoodie featuring the word “GOOFY” sprawled across it. I love new fleece! It looked cute, er, handsome on him.
On to Paradise Pier! It’s a short hike across the bridge, avoiding eye contact with the free Tortilla and free sourdough bread, on we trek! (By the way, don't ask them if they have butter to go with your free sourdough bread and free tortilla. Or you will get a confused "look"
from the 16 year old hander-outer CM's. Who are easily made to cry in my experience)
Paradise Pier is a few notches up on the universal classy scale (or UCS) from Dinoland USA in Animal Kingdom. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who LOVES the tacky carnival vibe! It reminds me of various beach-side carnivals I frequented in my southern California girlhood. The theming is of a seaside carnival around the turn of the century through the early 1950’s. There’s serious food to be had. Leave it to me to note the food! There’s cotton candy as big as your head. There’s hand dipped corn dogs that would easily feed a couple hungry people. There’s deep-fried food items at every turn! The background music is a repetitive loop of maybe 6 California based songs like Beach Boys “California Girl” the Twisted-Calliope-Version.
But our primary focus is following “the Boss”, Riley as he marches his family to the short line of California Screamin’. I martyr-out with Norah while the males ride. As you may have guessed, The Boss of All of Us wants to ride again.
MY TURN!
(find the Utahans...)
(there they are!)
I know I like this ride but it had been a while since I had ridden it. About six years to be approximately precise. I remember I thought it was smooth for a rollercoaster. There are plenty of twists and drops and the loop rocks! Add you some Red Hot Chili Peppers blasting in your ears and you have a sensory experience like none other! Don’t ask me the song. It was a Disnified version from what I remember. Probably 90% of RHCP lyrics are x-rated, or at least PG-13.
This picture doesn't really fit, story wise, but I thought she looked so cute with her kitty leash. It was taken just before the Sun Wheel so maybe it sort of fits?
(meow)
I swear, the Boss of All of Us rode that ride a dozen times and only 3 or 4 included me. This is the former scardy-cat of all fast rides! After properly rocking the socks of my 7, and 8, and 46 year old boys, it was time to ride the Sun Wheel! Ferris wheels freak me out a little. When I was little, I rode a cheap, nasty ferris wheel, and the pin holding my seat on grabbed a hold of my pony tail and ripped a bunch of my hair out by the roots. The drunken toothless gypsy running it apologized to my parents and that was that! No lawsuits or ugly scenes. Just a crying daughter with a bloody bald spot and a wad of hair waving in the breeze still attached to the seat pin.
But I digest.
The Sun Wheel has two options.
Option 1: The scenic, relaxing, cozy ride. *OR*
Option 2 : The screaming, bloody murder, swinging and swaying and spinning ride-of-horrors.
Two lines! My line, option 1, with Norah my frail, timid, sweet, toddler was miles shorter than the boys line-of-doom. I’m relieved it’s a cage more than hanging-by-a-thread bench. No, I would not take my DD on the spinning side! The Matterhorn yes. I have my priorities. She cuddled up in her mama’s lap and fell sound asleep for the duration of the ride. You can see all of California from the apex! It’s breathtaking.
As you can see from the pictures, it was a grey, cloudy day. Those same grey clouds if located anywhere near Walt Disney World Florida, would have opened up torrential rains. In California, however, those sweet clouds only misted. A fine mist comparable to Florida’s natural humidity. No, that wasn’t a WDW slam. I love WDW. Just not the humitity (or the love bugs).
I noted it would be lovely to return to Paradise Pier after dark to ride these 2 rides again when illuminated with tiny carnival lights. The males agreed.
We needed to make way to the Rainforest Café to meet my little sister, my new baby niece, Emma, my 5 year old niece Reice, my mama, and my uber-cool BIL, Jeff. Dinner was a BLAST! I wish I would have thought to take pictures, but I truly was having way too much fun! There are a few with the birthday boy and the new baby, but that’s it. My sister, for lack of picture, looks nothing like me. Is brunette with tan skin, big brown eyes and the body of someone who’s never had kids, and isn’t on maternity leave. I’m pretty sure one of us must have been adopted.
Here is a really bad picture of me and my rose-bud niece! Believe me, she smells heavenly!
And the really cool birthday surprise for Riley from Rainforest Cafe:
After dinner, the females went to Libby Lu. Don’t make the HUGE faux-pas of saying Lucy-Lou like I did. For those of you not in-the-know, Libby Lu is a glittery, glossy, girlie, pink-feather-boa’d heaven. We made our own glittery lip gloss and bath salts and body scrubs. We joined the “Club Libby Lu” and haven’t been the same since!
We hung out around Down Town Disney with my family and watched Norah and Reise play around the planters. What fun the kitty leash was for them!
Reise and Norah. Cute how Reise is all big-cousinish to Norah who is only 10 pounds lighter!
After several hours, and a wonderful visit, my family went home and the Utahanians invaded Paradise Pier one more time!!!!
We were right to go there after dark! It's just beautiful!
See the similarities to MGM? It really is a wonderful place to spend a day. Especially if you were born and raised in California and later moved out of state and miss it dearly!
Goofy’s Kitchen had been a disaster. But from our minor disasters came magic in the form of a new fancy lanyard for the birthday boy loaded with “traders.” This from the goodness of a few CM’s at the Disneyland Hotel Guest Relations office. Riley had a perma-grin smile for the rest of the day, believe you me.
Riley is a tough cookie to make happy. Let’s just say he leans towards the dramatic side of things. This is his birthday, and in our family, it makes him “the boss of all of us” (within reason). The Boss says we’re going to ride California Screamin’ first. Fabulous! Perfect ride for our recently full bellies! Distraction-for-Digestion is my mama-strategy.
Oh my, it’s pretty nippy. Utah-Daddy needs a new hoodie to keep warm! “Go pick one out, honey, but take your sweet time” while the rest of us pause to watch a pretty nifty street performance full of peppy cheerleaders promoting High School Musical. It is worth the pause, I tell you what!
Utah-Daddy picked out a navy blue fleece hoodie featuring the word “GOOFY” sprawled across it. I love new fleece! It looked cute, er, handsome on him.
On to Paradise Pier! It’s a short hike across the bridge, avoiding eye contact with the free Tortilla and free sourdough bread, on we trek! (By the way, don't ask them if they have butter to go with your free sourdough bread and free tortilla. Or you will get a confused "look"
from the 16 year old hander-outer CM's. Who are easily made to cry in my experience)
Paradise Pier is a few notches up on the universal classy scale (or UCS) from Dinoland USA in Animal Kingdom. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who LOVES the tacky carnival vibe! It reminds me of various beach-side carnivals I frequented in my southern California girlhood. The theming is of a seaside carnival around the turn of the century through the early 1950’s. There’s serious food to be had. Leave it to me to note the food! There’s cotton candy as big as your head. There’s hand dipped corn dogs that would easily feed a couple hungry people. There’s deep-fried food items at every turn! The background music is a repetitive loop of maybe 6 California based songs like Beach Boys “California Girl” the Twisted-Calliope-Version.
But our primary focus is following “the Boss”, Riley as he marches his family to the short line of California Screamin’. I martyr-out with Norah while the males ride. As you may have guessed, The Boss of All of Us wants to ride again.
MY TURN!
(find the Utahans...)
(there they are!)
I know I like this ride but it had been a while since I had ridden it. About six years to be approximately precise. I remember I thought it was smooth for a rollercoaster. There are plenty of twists and drops and the loop rocks! Add you some Red Hot Chili Peppers blasting in your ears and you have a sensory experience like none other! Don’t ask me the song. It was a Disnified version from what I remember. Probably 90% of RHCP lyrics are x-rated, or at least PG-13.
This picture doesn't really fit, story wise, but I thought she looked so cute with her kitty leash. It was taken just before the Sun Wheel so maybe it sort of fits?
(meow)
I swear, the Boss of All of Us rode that ride a dozen times and only 3 or 4 included me. This is the former scardy-cat of all fast rides! After properly rocking the socks of my 7, and 8, and 46 year old boys, it was time to ride the Sun Wheel! Ferris wheels freak me out a little. When I was little, I rode a cheap, nasty ferris wheel, and the pin holding my seat on grabbed a hold of my pony tail and ripped a bunch of my hair out by the roots. The drunken toothless gypsy running it apologized to my parents and that was that! No lawsuits or ugly scenes. Just a crying daughter with a bloody bald spot and a wad of hair waving in the breeze still attached to the seat pin.
But I digest.
The Sun Wheel has two options.
Option 1: The scenic, relaxing, cozy ride. *OR*
Option 2 : The screaming, bloody murder, swinging and swaying and spinning ride-of-horrors.
Two lines! My line, option 1, with Norah my frail, timid, sweet, toddler was miles shorter than the boys line-of-doom. I’m relieved it’s a cage more than hanging-by-a-thread bench. No, I would not take my DD on the spinning side! The Matterhorn yes. I have my priorities. She cuddled up in her mama’s lap and fell sound asleep for the duration of the ride. You can see all of California from the apex! It’s breathtaking.
As you can see from the pictures, it was a grey, cloudy day. Those same grey clouds if located anywhere near Walt Disney World Florida, would have opened up torrential rains. In California, however, those sweet clouds only misted. A fine mist comparable to Florida’s natural humidity. No, that wasn’t a WDW slam. I love WDW. Just not the humitity (or the love bugs).
I noted it would be lovely to return to Paradise Pier after dark to ride these 2 rides again when illuminated with tiny carnival lights. The males agreed.
We needed to make way to the Rainforest Café to meet my little sister, my new baby niece, Emma, my 5 year old niece Reice, my mama, and my uber-cool BIL, Jeff. Dinner was a BLAST! I wish I would have thought to take pictures, but I truly was having way too much fun! There are a few with the birthday boy and the new baby, but that’s it. My sister, for lack of picture, looks nothing like me. Is brunette with tan skin, big brown eyes and the body of someone who’s never had kids, and isn’t on maternity leave. I’m pretty sure one of us must have been adopted.
Here is a really bad picture of me and my rose-bud niece! Believe me, she smells heavenly!
And the really cool birthday surprise for Riley from Rainforest Cafe:
After dinner, the females went to Libby Lu. Don’t make the HUGE faux-pas of saying Lucy-Lou like I did. For those of you not in-the-know, Libby Lu is a glittery, glossy, girlie, pink-feather-boa’d heaven. We made our own glittery lip gloss and bath salts and body scrubs. We joined the “Club Libby Lu” and haven’t been the same since!
We hung out around Down Town Disney with my family and watched Norah and Reise play around the planters. What fun the kitty leash was for them!
Reise and Norah. Cute how Reise is all big-cousinish to Norah who is only 10 pounds lighter!
After several hours, and a wonderful visit, my family went home and the Utahanians invaded Paradise Pier one more time!!!!
We were right to go there after dark! It's just beautiful!
See the similarities to MGM? It really is a wonderful place to spend a day. Especially if you were born and raised in California and later moved out of state and miss it dearly!
so i hopped on over to this report and have been reading it very happily.
See this is post #901! 
They are cute in it at 7 or 8 but sleazy if they are much older. KWIM? 
