Happy Camper

Uncle Ray had some surgery to improve his sight that left stitches where his eyebrows had been.  He forgot about this when he went to Costco.  He saw a small child crying on and giving his father a hard time.  Uncle Ray's response was to say to the father, "I'll give you 50 cents for him."  The small child was immediately terrified, stopped crying and ran to his father as his mother tried to contain her laughter in the next aisle over. 

 

The fam got back from Gen Con on Tuesday, flying on an airline that was sub-par.  After the complaints started to die down, Lucas said, "I'm just going to stop flying. I'm just going to row everywhere.  You know, next time I go to Europe.  Wait, that sounds exhausting."

We continued to catch up on the couch as Jordan and a German talked shop and Zach flitted in and out of the kitchen. 

Me: So, I packed all of my stuff up.

Lucas: Isn't this so exciting!?

Me: Um, not really.

Lucas: NEW BEGINNINGS!

Me: Yeah, I'm not really looking forward getting an apartment and dying alone.

Lucas: I knew a guy, his name was Jesus, and he died at 33.

Me: Oooh this WILL be a big year!

Lucas: This year I'm going to learn French real good.

Me (laughing): You should learn English well first. 

Lucas: That's the conversation I had with Mike, but and he said the same thing. Only he didn't think it was funny so I was just like "Ugh!" because he doesn't understand our jokes yet.

My mom was dog sitting the other day, when my sister's dog Bella got her leash all tangled up.

Momela: You know, if you had even a little bit of German in you, you could figure this out.

At which point, my nephew Kyle looked up at his grandmother in perplexed horror.

Momela: Don't worry, Kyle.  You have a little German in you.

Looking over at my dad struggling with some task in the yard.

Momela: Now that guy over there, he doesn't have a drop of German in him. 

Yeah, in case you didn't get the memo, I had been posting on FB for what might have been months, to just Shana.  I had accidentally set my posts to go to my "Wells Expeditions" group, only I think Shana was the one in that group.  Without any validation, I had thought I had lost my touch, so while I had wasted a lot of brain power, the good news is, I'm still funny. 

Oh! And I learned how to jump into the jeep from the back, SO much easier.   Just in time to put the roof up!  When we got back from dinner one night, Matty was watching the Expendables. 

Lucas: I'm not saying that this move is bad... but this movie has made me more interested in "girls camera". (Girls Camera is an app that Arda told Lucas about that is like Instagram only the filters also add leopard prints and glittery bits to the photos.)

Co-Worker, Ryan, as we were leaving the building for lunch, "I wonder what would happen if I pulled one of those breakers down."  I'll let you know, if he ever gives into the urge.

On Saturday morning, I flew to San Diego to meet Sean, Stacey and the girls.  As I was checking in, I was given an option to upgrade to first class.  I thought, hmm let's see, I could pay an extra 350 dollars to sit in a middle seat, or pay 390 to fly first class... Hello, Luxury.  Sean and the fam picked me up from the airport and took us immediately over to Midway to see the big Sailor and his Gal statue (I think that's the official name.)  The first thing Jackie did was pose under the heel of the Gal's shoe.  I love that girl!  Then we went shopping and Morgan found an antique:

And Stacey informed the group that we were not on a cruise ship, and we would not be getting ice cream twice a day.  I thought that was kind of harsh.  :) When we arrived at the Hotel Del Coronado, I looked up the story of the ghost in residence.  When Morgan, Jackie and I went to check out the room, we discovered that the room was also a handicapped room.  I still think it is super sweet how appalled and concerned Morgan was that this room was a handicapped room - which meant the hotel was putting guests that couldn't get away easily, in the room with the ghost. 

I delivered my belated birthday gift to Morgan.  I had Dawne wrap it, because I wanted to make sure that the dooney and burke Disneyland purse (to celebrate her first time at Disneyland) felt special.  That and I'm terrible at wrapping things.  I also got her a necklace with her name on it, which I think went over much better than the purse did.  Before Morgan opened anything, my brother said, "Hey, that looks like Fannie May!"

We put on our swim suits, dipped our toes in the Pacific Ocean and then lounged by the pool.  

Stacey: So what are we doing tomorrow?

Me: We're going to the zoo.

Stacey: Is it bigger than the Bronx Zoo?

Me: It's the world famous San Diego Zoo! You can't compare everything to home, you'll never enjoy anything!

Stacey: So... it is bigger than the Bronx Zoo.

Me: YES! Let me look it up.

Turns out that the SD Zoo is 100 Acres! And the Bronx Zoo is 250 Acres.  The Bronx zoo also has 300 more animals and 50+ more species.

Stacey: So we'll finish that up in an hour. 

Later that night we got to hang out with Uncle Jack and Aunt Shirley for dinner, which was lovely.  Before going to the zoo on Sunday we went to a bakery and Starbucks.

Sean: You wants some napkins?

Morgan, answered in a fashion, by dropping water and then her boxes cinnamon roll immediately after that.

Sean: Yeah, you do.

We got a little bit lost getting to the zoo, having to take a detour through some neighborhoods.

Sean: Would you look at this! These are amazing!  We never would have seen this if we didn't take the detour!

Stacey: They are bushes.

After the zoo, we went to see the seals, had lunch and then went back to the hotel for some more pool time.  For whatever reason, everyone had to get out of the pool for 5 minutes.  When they were allowed back in, Morgan jumped in first and egged Jackie on a bit calling her a chimp and a wimp.

Me: You gonna take that? She's pretty tiny to be talking to you that way.

Jackie: Sometimes the best weapon is to do nothing and wait for your mother to take care of it.

We all woke up at 4 am on Monday, to no water in the hotel.  I don't know if I mentioned it, but I brought a bunch of buttons for people to wear every day that said things like loose cannon and song bird.  Stacey, unable to take a shower that morning, chose "Tree Hugger."  We got on the road, and made it to the Grand Californian by 7 am.  Sean suggested we try to squeeze in a character breakfast at the hotel.  We had just arrived, chatted with one wolf guy, when the fire alarm went off and the entire hotel had to be evacuated into California Adventures.  Not before Sean acquired two cups of coffee.  I asked the girls how they liked their first impression of Disney before we were escorted out of CA into the streets of downtown Disney.  We grabbed some food at the Bakery and started rock the socks off of California Adventures. 

We were waiting in line for one of the rides.

Bailey: You're going to hit the people in front of you, be careful.

Morgan (to Jackie): And then you get to use the fancy exit doors. Do it!!

Later, Dawne would ask me what my favorite part of the trip was, and the answer was easy: The Teacups.  Not because I have great love for the teacup ride, but because the enormous amount of unadulterated joy that oozed from Bailey when we got onto the teacups made me so happy.  Thanks Disney.  :)

We also got to go to the Blue Bayou for lunch, and basically saw both parks in one day, with time to come back to the hotel and shower for an hour.  We went back out to the parks, thinking we would grab dinner but just ended up going on more rides - rides that the Seattle fam don't let me go on at Disney like this gem:

We ended up grabbing some food at the hotel and bringing it up to our room (did I mention how amazing the Grand Californian was!?) We were talking about the day and Sean was asking about what I recommended that they do the next day. 

Me: Well, if you can get into Disneyland at 8, you can probably knock out 7-8 rides before 9.

Sean: And if we get to the buffet at 7, we can do a character breakfast before the park.

Jackie: At what point does this place turn into the most exhausting place on earth? It's 10:15, and you're just feeding me dinner, breakfast at the buffet at 7 and then the park at 8 so we can do 7 rides in an hour?

Stacey: Where's the attitude coming from?

Jackie: I already took off my pin.

"Happy Camper." 

All in all, another successful trip to Disney, and a super fun adventure with the fam! More to come soon...