I thought the changes made to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland a few years ago were pretty good overall. The pirate ship battle scene area is particularly improved, with the thicker fog, improved lighting, and new audio track completely transforming the scene.

Everybody probably already knows about this, but you can apply what you paid for the tickets you’re currently using towards an Annual Pass if you buy it while you’re still in the park. This summer, Disneyland ran a deal where you could buy a three-day park-hopper pass for $99 that had no blackout dates but had to be used within a set time frame. On our third day we applied the full $99 to SoCal Select passes for only $50/pass additional cost. Not a bad deal, considering pretty much the whole summer is blacked out if you buy the SoCal Select passes up-front.

The Bug’s Life themed kids area at Disney’s California Adventure is about twenty-eight-thousand times better than the Toon-Town area at Disneyland. The giant plants that tower over you are eerily spectacular at night when they’re lit from below and cast a greenish glow over the area. Heimlich’s chew-chew train is easily the best ride I’ve been on at California Adventure.

Angie caused every young, childless couple within 100 meters to immediately decide to have children. She’s at her best when well-rested and surrounded by amusing things to look at. There are lots of amusing things to look at when you’re at Disneyland.

Disneyland is getting a whole load of people taking them up on their free birthday admission deal. There are birthday buttons all over the place there. If you go on your birthday using an annual pass, you can get a gift card worth $72 instead. Nice. Spend $149 for a year of amusement and if your birthday happens to be on a non-blackout day you get $72 of free merchandise in the deal.

Ana surprised me with her fearlessness, begging to go on Splash Mountain for the first time and being completely unfazed by the drop at the end. It’s now tied with Jungle Cruise for her favorite ride. Shortly after surprising me with her fearlessness she reverted to five-year-old form and stared wide-eyed during the entirety of Small World. I love this age.

The Grand Californian is a really pretty hotel. The design is amazing, I could sit in the lobby for hours. The beds are so comfortable it’s ridiculous. But sitting on the balcony, surrounded by the upper-reaches of pine trees having a late-night conversation and glass of wine with Julie while the kids slept inside was worth it all by itself. Just the thought of fighting our way out to the parking structure and driving home after a late night at the park has been enough to keep me from staying too late with the kids in the past. It was really nice to get to see Fantasmic and the fireworks show this time.

When we took the kids to Disneyland a couple times over the last few years, they were definitely less than thrilled. I think this was due to a number of factors, including overly-warm, overly-crowded days and too many itinerary concessions made to people who weren’t the same age as them. This time, I was delighted to see that they have completely changed their mind. I’ve missed being a Disney fan boy who goes multiple times per year. Looking forward to spending lots of Furlough Fridays (aka “F-days”) at the park this year.

Categories: entertainment, kids and parenting, los angeles, travel
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Boos

• dental assistants who don’t like kids
• ants invading the house, and it’s not even hot outside
• crazy drivers
• back problems

Yays

• being able to calm Ana down after she started panicking in the dentist’s chair
• writing buddies!
• Disneyland! annual passes even!
• the latest sneak peeks at Wizarding World of Harry Potter
• the ***AMAZING*** mattresses at Disney’s Grand California Hotel
• High School Musical 3 dance along for the Wii

Categories: entertainment, games, harry potter, kids and parenting, toys, travel
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Things that made me frown today:

• being disgustingly sick
• shivering because I’m disgustingly sick
• ouchy nose from blowing it so much
• an unjustified insult
• people not stepping up
• stupid (and I mean REALLY stupid) questions
• no time to breathe, and not just because I’m sick
• kids acting up, rare and therefore disconcerting

Things that made me smile today:

• lovely lunch
• listening to Kevin laugh at my jokes
• the Americano I brewed this morning, perfection!
• the 7 layer dip Kevin made for me (I’ll ask him to share his recipe, I promise!)
• good conversation with colleague
• my outfit

Things that made me smile yesterday:

• friends who visit! with news!
• writing! with friends!
• Doritos, nuff said
• Coffee by Kevin ™
• nice weather
• Pandora.com

Things that made me smile day before yesterday:

• a great parking space
• pictures of the kids
• The Pretenders
• a (slightly) cleaner office
• a cheap lunch
• pretty yet comfy shoes

Overall, I think I’m coming out positive.

Categories: food, kids and parenting, work-life balance
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It’s been a week now since the kids went back to school. Not enough time to catch up with the flurry of activity that accompanies this time of year, but enough time to get a few thoughts together.

The budget crackdown in CA is really hurting our schools. It was kind of a given that education would be a big target since it accounts for roughly half of the general fund expenditures, but the reality on the ground really sucks. Ana’s kindergarten teacher was doing reading recovery the last few years to help ensure that the lowest-achieving first graders could catch up before it was too late. This year funding was cut so she’s back in the classroom. Quite a few teachers are in different grades from last year, some of them covering for those who were laid off. Class sizes are up school-wide. Our school’s Community Club, which was already responsible for donating much of the school’s computer equipment, chairs for the multi-purpose room, and emergency supplies over just the last few years, is asking for even more donations this year to cover further cutbacks.

Angie gets ready to go back to school

Angie is back in daycare after two idyllic months home with mama. She’s very advanced for her age, having started her Terrible Twos(tm) weeks ago. Her preferred method of ending a sip of any liquid is to hurl the container as far as she can. It turns out that those covered sippy cups either leak horribly when upside-down and/or their lids come off entirely when dropped. We’ve tried a few different kinds but for the moment we’re stuck sitting next to her and playing shortstop to avoid having to clean up massive milk puddles.

Her latest tricks are saying “uh uh” and nodding for yes and “unh” and shaking her head for no. She’s a climber, though thankfully not quite as much as her big sister. She can get on and off the sofa safely, but tends to avoid scary things like standing on tables, arms of chairs, etc. We’ve caught her with little Lego parts in her mouth once or twice but to be fair, I think she was hungry at the time.

See Daddy? I can do it myself.

Julie goes back to work tomorrow. She probably has 1.5 months of work to catch up on that built up during her 2 months ‘off’ during the summer. We’ve spent the last few days before she heads back pondering things like: How can we streamline bathing the kids? Do we really care if the cars aren’t washed until next July? and When exactly are we going to fit in grocery trips?

This promises to be an extra busy year as we’re both headed back to school as well. I’m looking forward to my MPA classes, as well as the interdisciplinary coursework I’ll be taking in Education. We spent yesterday getting an old desk back down from the rafters in the garage and assembling it in the study for Alex. We now have full-time work space for everybody but Angie, and I’m building a second computer for the kids. It’s not going to be practical having them share one any more as Alex is being expected to do more online research and type up his papers.

OK, bye!

Categories: angie, kids and parenting, school, work-life balance
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In the Disney movie, Lilo and Stitch, when the social worker Cobra Bubbles asks Lilo, “Are you… happy?”, the little girl responds with an awkward open-mouthed smile. Lately, baby Angie and I have been enjoying a private joke in which one of us smiles like awkward Lilo, and the other responds in kind. Sometimes we stand in front of the mirror and make the face together. It’s our secret handshake.

For months, the fish tank in the kids’ room has been empty except for a Golden Mystery Snail, which has grown alarmingly large. The other day I bought 2 Red Clawed Crabs to keep the snail company. Little animal lover Ana has been faithfully feeding them each one shrimp pellet every night. I think the snail wishes they would just go away, but I’m sure it can take care of itself.

Alex and I have been watching episodes of Gilmore Girls together on DVD. He finds Lorelei Gilmore hilarious and runs out of the room during the makeout scenes. I wish I were a Lorelei, but unfortunately I’m more of a Paris Gellar.

Have you seen the order form for Star Trek t-shirts on select boxes of cereal and cracker products at the grocery store? I’ve got enough tokens to order Kevin and Alex each a shirt. They both want blue.

With only 1 week left until I return to the office, I’m finally making some headway on the work I brought home with me at the start of summer. I would allow myself to exhale, but with the amount of knocking on wood I’d have to do, I’d rub my knuckles bloody.

Categories: TV, angie, kids and parenting, pets, work-life balance
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