Thursday, February 15, 2007 ;
1:01 PM
5 Feb
3rd day of trip, and last day at Disneyland.
We caught almost every show the kids were interested in the previous 2 days (i.e. all those boys things.. if i had a girl we'd be going for the Princess Fantasy Faire and Little Mermaid show. but instead i watched the Jedis battle the Dark Force whatever, see Sword in the Stone, the Disney Cars show. i'd probably post another post next time about how i've had to do very different things with my sons from what i did during my childhood cos i only have a sister and we like to cut Barbie dolls hair. i've suddenly had to learn to wrestle and roll around the floor with them and remember the difference between a front loader, bulldozer and an excavator..)
oops digress again..
So the 3rd day was devoted to rides.. we basically let the kids choose all the rides, so we end up sitting on trains, boats etc, that were more fun than spine-chilling or extreme thrill kind. Only when ds2 took his routine afternoon nap did we take turns going on the rides that were more adventurous and had height or age restrictions. ds2 was prohibited from several rides due to being too short, haha, and this applied to Legoland and other places we went later too. There was this deja vu feeling for him, like in Spore, where we brought him to Ikea and he stood outside the ball playroom, watching ds1 squealing with excitement burrowing in the balls. He struggled with me and cried to be let into the playroom but I had to try to explain to him there was a height restriction. poor boy. that's why we took those rides only when he was asleep... ignorance is bliss.
There were many more rides, shows and photos than what's here but i decided just to highlight some... not enough time, space to show all.. {at a later post you will realise what happened... the lousy planner in me took too many photos at Disneyland that despite having 3 1GB SD cards, a videocam and a digicam, i started to realise i was running out of memory space. so from Legoland onwards i had to do severe rationing... the videocam was controlled by dh and the harddisk memory was sufficient so we did mostly videos from Lego land. i even deleted photos from Disneyland halfway through the trip but still there wasn't enough space for too many photos later on... :-(}
We first sat on Peter Pan's flight which was was popular, a Pirate's galleon will bring us flying over many adventures, some in the dark.
ds2 wasn't very happy with that, and with the next one we took, Mr Toad's Wild Ride. :-)
So we went on to Dumbo.
Below: One of the kids' favourites: Dumbo-themed rides. They watched the DVD many times and know all the music by heart. I also feel it is a good movie. When we sit in the Casey Jr Train, the music and sound effects were exactly the same in the movie, including when it puffed "I think I can..." uphill... it was very enjoyable for me as well. And we sat in the cage for the monkeys... haha.
ds1 had fun pretending to be the mouse and he sat on Dumbo's head while ds2 was content to be in the actual seat behind.
Then ds1 wanted to sit the Pinocchio's Daring Journey and Snow White's Scary Adventure (faster rides twisting and turning in the dark with scary effects), so dh brought ds2 on the King Arthur's Carousel.
After lunch, ds2 slept and ds1 went for a Storybook Land boat ride with dh.
The sun was blazing hot then, so I sat under a shelter with ds2 in the stroller and chatted with another mom from Seattle, who apparently visits Disneyland every yr cos her 3 sons love it. They've been coming for 5 yrs already. She told me the one at Orlando was 3 times bigger than the Anaheim one, and we began discussing how the different Disneylands around the world are. ALthough I have never been to the ones in Japan and HK before. Just from hearsay. You guys reading this can comment on the HK and Japan ones? Tag me.. How different are theY from the pics you see here? Then we had a long chat about Singapore too... She asked a lot of questions about taking English too, cos she said "you speak English so well". She said she wished American schools taught 2 languages too.
Her sons were also in the queue for the boat ride and when dh and ds1 were done we left first.
Dh then went for a super thrilling ride with ds1, called the Matterhorn Bobsleds (min height 89cm), and the bobsleds roared down this mtn.
After that I told dh, enough, it's my turn. Cos the bobsleds look so fun... people were screaming with joy as they rode on it and I couldn't help wondering why I was pushing ds2 in a stroller window shopping in a souvenir shop. :-)
So I went for a ride with ds1 on the even-more-scary Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This one was really roller-coaster...and the min height was 102cm. I hadn't measured ds1 for along time but I figured he should be at least that.
We went happily to queue... the queue was so long, about 20min... and this is non-peak season! I wonder how people get their money's worth during summer when they have to queue for longer periods of time at each ride. For all the other rides we didn't queue much.
When we were nearing the start point, someone behind me decided to leave the queue. She and her daughter had been arguing throughout the queue time if they wanted to sit cos it looked scary. People were screaming their heads off. Up till then I was quite excited, but when they left I suddenly had 2nd thoughts... what if ds1 fell out, what if being just 102cm there was some kind of danger?? what if he cried halfway and then tried to stand up? But then we reached the start and the guy there measured ds1, cos he looked too small. hee...
phew, he passed, think by 5 cm only. otherwise we'd have wasted so much time queueing.
the ride was exciting for me. it wasn't the scariest i'd taken in my life but at least more thrilling than the other rides in Disneyland I'd taken in the 3 days. the sudden turns and drops made ds1 scream a bit. his screams were a bit weird. they sounded like a scared-animal- cry, so people in front turned back to look at him at the end of the ride, probably wondering if he was scared.
but at the end of the ride, he claimed it was very fun and that he wasn't scared at all... he looked a bit green in the face though but i let it go... don't tease him too much lah, he is that kind, very ego... like his dad. :-)
We did something calmer after that, and visited Critter Country where the 100Acre woods is.
Ds1 actually asked Eeyore why he looked so sad!! Good thing that guy in the costume didn't hear. They can't seem to speak or hear I think... Cos I recalled the day before, 2 guys who wanted to take photos with Elastigirl kept asking her to put her arms around them and hug them for the photo-taking but she didn't seem to hear and she just stood there.
At that time I thought maybe she was just pretending not to hear but... ds1 actually asked Eeyore and Pooh several things but they didn't answer too. Maybe they're just tired of hearing the same things from thousands of kids each day. haha
Weather in California is really nice, it is sunny yet not hot and humid... But when the sun sets it gets chilly, since it is winter after all.
So evening time, i got the kids to wear their jackets..
We then caught a show in the Kodak Theatre called "Honey I shrunk the audience". It was supposed to be 4D. This shows ds1 trying on the 3D spects. And in case you are wondering why ds2's clothes look 2-toned, he just spilled water all over himself. I was worried he'll catch a cold, fortunately he didn't.
Then we actually spent a huge amount of time at Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. This ride was fun for me and ds2 also, cos it involved a lot of interactive shooting at targets with a laser gun and we were riding in cars that can spin around and shoot various things around us. But ds1 wanted to go again and again. so ds2 and i played outside while dh went with ds1. ds1 has never watched Buzz Lightyear and doesn't know anything abt the movie, he just enjoys shooting. i never understood the innate inclinations of boys towards shooting and fighting stuff.
i tried to do non-stereotypical stuff with my sons throughout their childhood. i bought ds1 a doll that can blink her eyes and cry.. i always ask him to carry her and feed her. he only wanted to throw and catch her like a ball. that was when he was 2. i also introduced soft toys like bears and such. try to get him to pet and hug furry things... he never did it with the kind of passion as when he holds a toy aeroplane, train, car or bike. up till he was about 3, he had never watched any superhero movie, shooting or sword fighting stuff. he didn't even watch tv, only VCDs of marching bands and concerts.
I play house and cooking with him too. He has this toy set with the pots, pans, veggies, etc and a stove. And I showed him my Barbie collection. I still keep them! I said, "Look how pretty these clothes are!" He didn't even bat an eyelid. I said, "Try combing her hair? So silky soft!" He ran away... sigh.
But, I can remember so clearly how his eyes lit up and shone so brightly when he saw a sword at Toys R Us. And when he first found out about toy guns, from a neighbour who pulled the trigger and there were sounds and lights. You should see his face... I don't understand. He was only 2 yrs old then and had never seen anyone use a sword or gun.. How can you like something so much when you don;t even know how to use it? hmmm...
ok digressed again...
The last ride we took was Autopia By Chevron. Min age of 12mths to ride with adult, and min height of 132cm to drive alone. So dh took a car with ds1 and i took one with ds2. Difference: I drove my car while ds1 drove the other one. So dh has a really bumpy ride that swerved wildly cos ds1 couldn't really see where he was going. See bottom left pic. You can barely see his head.
It was quite a long drive, not like the Luge I took at Sentosa where I thought it ended too quickly.
Although dh and I would be able to cover a lot more shows and rides if we didn't have the kids, I think it is more fun seeing them enjoy themselves so much. We weren't able to see much of California Adventure Park although we had a 3 day pass for both, so it was a bit of a pity. But Titus' wish was to meet the Incredibles and Justus' was to ride Dumbo. They achieved what they wanted and got much more... If they're happy then we are too!
Disneyland was quite an experience and definitely a memorable birthday for Titus.
rainbows every day, do not worry for the morrow
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