Every time that my children visit me, usually there's a "post-visit" effect of a lot of phone calls from my daughter, who, naturally, since she doesn't see her Daddy face-to-face as much as any of us would like right now, wants to talk. Even if all she does is read aloud the book(s) that she's reading at the moment while I listen and ask questions about the story.
The Disneyland trip was probably the most fun for my son, as he really enjoys amusement parks and rides. We ended up riding the California Screaming coaster 10x, including 4x in a row in the last day that we were went into the park. I held up fairly well except for the next-to-last ride; I got off the coaster wondering if I would hurl lunch onto the off-loading area, but the feeling quickly passed. It was almost a difficult visit in the sense that Davis really monopolized my time when we were at the park and Meredith, well... she doesn't like roller coasters at 8 yet.
I'm pretty sure that I can't find - at least in a Disney park - a ride Davis won't try... now some of the coasters you find at the Six Flags and Knott's Berry Farms of the world, as well as Busch Gardens, King's Dominion, and Cedar Point, are basically designed to see if they can make you throw up... whereas Disney tries to theme its coasters to be something besides a bare bones metal coaster that goes as fast and high and crazy as possible. I'm not sure from some of the stuff I've seen on You Tube that I could get Davis on some of those coaster - hell, I'm not sure I'd try 'em (at least on a full stomach).
Its somewhat surprising because she's the far more athletic and adventurous (as well as socially engaging) child of the two in public. We took her onto Space Mountain and she would not speak to any of us for about an hour afterwards. (It probably doesn't help that with the "re-imagineering" of SM recently that they seem to have cranked the music and effects WAY UP on the coaster and inside, and they'd added PG-13 scary images for Halloween to the ride.
Personally, I loved it, Davis loved it (though in the coaster ride picture he looked completely stunned). Meredith hated it. We tried to get her to do the Thunder Valley Railoard, nooooo... the Matterhorn was completely out of the question (Davis agreed with me that after California Screaming and Space Mountain that the Matterhorn is Super De Dooper Lame in comparison).
Meredith also did not like Indiana Jones but she was OK with Pirates of Caribbean... again its the speed and darkness that are issues, PoC goes way too slow to be scary and its not that dark except for the first two silly drops. She loved the Grizzly River Run water ride... that is the Grizzly Bear Mountain that you can see inside California Adventure, and to my surprise, when we checked into the Grand Californian, since I was such a good little consumer and had paid for the room well in advance, they'd upgraded us to a theme park side view, and we could see the Grizzly out our window.
Also adding to the coolness was bunk beds for the kids... with the lower bunk bed having a drawer you could pull out, Peter Pan like, that a small child could sleep in so you had beds for three kids. There was a queen for the adults with an extremely comfortable mattress.
Anyway, its clearly apparently that Meredith doesn't like wild rides, but she likes rides that go out into the open air (as long as they go in one direction and forward) such as the Ferris Wheel, the "bullets" (a zeppelin ride in California Adventure), she liked the teacups in Storybook Land but found most of the rides aimed at small children boring. She'll probably get a much huger charge out of Disneyland in a couple more years, although when I explained this to her she gave me that dubious No Smile Look that says "I Believe You Are Completely Full Of Shit Dad."
I'll also pimp the pools at the Grand Californian; they've got a little water slide and a big one in the main pool. Funny how kids change... when Meredith was really little, she'd go down the enclosed water slide at the YMCA in Mississippi if I was at the bottom to catch her. Davis, OTOH, had zero interest in the water slide, but that has completely changed now; he's a water slide freak. Meredith has suddenly gotten timid; I'm hoping that this is just a phase and that by next summer she'll be more willing to take chances (I point out that swinging upside down by her legs on the monkey bars, as she's wont to do, is far more dangerous than the water slide or the rides at Disney).
I coughed up the $$$ for Mickey's Halloween Party on Tuesday night. In retrospect, while the fireworks show was cool, it made for too long a day for the kids and the candy lines were long... if I'd not told them about the Halloween Party I think they would've been fine with skipping it, and instead spending more time in the parks the next day.
Wednesday - actually Tuesday - was complicated about an hour after we got into Disneyland on the early admission, Meredith lost the holder off her lanyard containing her five day Park Hopper pass. They gave us a one day ticket as a temp replacement and the next day they printed a new Park Hopper pass with the same numbers on it and we hung onto that one, but all told I probably spent about an hour with Disney customer service (and it was excellent customer service - as is the service at the hotel (get the valet parking, it is TOTALLY worth it versus screwing parking the car if you are staying at the Grand Californian)). After all that was said and done, Meredith really wasn't all that interested in spending time in the parks on Wed, Davis and I did CS and that was about it except for pool time.
I could not have done this trip nearly as easily had the Blonde not come with us, I'm hoping she enjoyed Disneyland as its not the same going with kids as it is going as adults, and she may have sprained her foot, because after the first day she was hobbling. She was a bit hesitant about going, thinking that it might be best for the children to spend the time one on one with me, but Meredith had repeatedly requested her presence as she really likes her, and the trip had been planned since shortly after the kids went back to Connecticut after their summer visit.
I had decided than rather than flying down, renting a car, and flying the children back to Sacramento, and then flying them out non-revenue on Delta (for those of you not familiar, their mother works for Delta, so they fly free as non-revenue stand-by passengers if space is available), to rent a car, and ended up with what I consider an *extremely* tacky bright white Dodge Charger from Enterprise that, compared to my Civic, got shitty mileage going to LA and back. OTOH, I didn't put 1,000+ miles on my car, and the thing had plenty of power when needed for the LA freeways, and its bigger than a Civic so I knew I wouldn't get the "we're cramped in the back seat" complaints on the way back to Sacramento.
That, however, meant picking them up at an LA airport, and this is where I can get kind of frustrated with the Ex sometimes. In my view, there were PLENTY of flights to the Orange County airport near Anaheim vs. LAX, which is more than 40 miles from Disneyland, and is a lot smaller airport to get in and out of. LAX is a nightmare on steroids, it will still be under construction when the Sun enters its red giant phase in a billion years. I kept pleading "Please, do not fly them to LAX, Orange will be easier for everyone" but Sunday morning, she sent their luggage to LAX and them to LAX "I had to make a guess" and they flew unaccompanied from Minneapolis (minors can fly one leg on Delta unaccompanied < a certain age if parents/responsible adult is there to meet them on the other end - so she flew from Hartford to Minneapolis and put them on a connecting flight to LAX).
We just started flying them unaccompanied like this on the return leg this summer because seats were tight for their mother to come out and pick them up, and I actually prefer doing it this way, because the less time she and I actually have to be in eyeballing presence, the better, because, well, we pretty much hate each other and the tolerance level for interaction not deteriorating into a heated argument is about 7-10 minutes max. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be getting to LAX itself but the terminals are so huge and totally screwed up in terms of being tied together (Atlanta, Chicago, Denver are all mucho better), but I'm an Iowa farm boy at heart - well, not really, but Des Moines is not a big city ... Sacramento is the 2nd biggest metro I've lived in outside of the year I spent in the immediate vicinity of DC; when I moved to Fredericksburg in 92-95 you were 50 miles from DC off of the I-95 string city; so even though Fredericksburg can be technically considered part of the DC metro its not like living in a big city at all, the analog here in Sacramento would probably be living in Auburn or out in Placerville although neither are really a good match.
I've gotten used to Sacramento. DC used to make me feel, well, a bit ill driving around it, its more than my Iowa boy mind was able to easily wrap around. LA - freak out time. I didn't drive and outside of the hotel had a fairly heavy dose of paranoia riding in the car around LA. I just don't like being in a place where you have to drive so much... the eastern cities are a bit easier to take because you have options - i.e., transit, and things aren't nearly as spread out, but I never enjoyed riding metro in rush hour when I was in DC. I suppose you eventually get used to it and learn to suppress the urge to scream at ALL OF THESE PEOPLE THAT ARE CROWDING IN ON YOU.
Anyway, once I got my gate pass to pick up the kids - and we got to the airport wayyyy early - it was actually a good thing as the plane arrived about a half-hour early from MSP. It was a 757 - I think - and it took a long time to empty out; unaccompanied minors usually are the last off the plane although the Delta gate agent and I chatted for a while and when it became apparent this plane was going to have some stragglers, she went and collected them for me.
Anyway, if I do this a next time, I'm flying down on Southwest, and renting the car for just the time in LA, and flying everyone back to Sacramento after Disneyland is done, because its just too fricking long and stressful of a drive to LA and back. Leaving at 7:15 am on Thursday, we did not really start climbing out of LA until almost 9:30 in the morning. At least an hour was spent in stop and go traffic. For those of you that I know that live in SoCal, I don't see how you do it.
So, we puttered around Sacramento; I took them to a pumpkin patch/farm that's over in Dixon, east of Davis, bought pumpkins one day and came back on Saturday to play with the pumpkin gun - a contraption the farm owners had built in Louisiana that uses compressed air to hurt a 7" pumpkin at a target. Oh yeah, its great fun, Davis and I took a half-dozen shots each. I offered the opportunity to Meredith but she wasn't interested.
Sunday, I put them on the plane to Minneapolis as unaccompanied minors, and again, the professionalism of the gate agents here in Sacramento is just awesome (I suppose it helps that they may take it a little more seriously in that they are children of a Delta employee (but that should make no difference)).
So, this week, I've gotten a lot of calls, from Meredith, as she readjusts to being away from Dad (this time, as they laid down to sleep the night before leaving, both of them cried a bit. I know its hard for them... its hard for me too)... they had fun but mostly they just miss hanging out with me (my house and parenting approach is *very* different and much more laid back. I don't yell when I get frustrated, which I think they appreciate - their Mom's style is to fuss and scream when people don't comply (shuddering at the memories)...
No comments:
Post a Comment