4:37 AM

We set off in the darkness, carrying the sleeping kids to the car. I packed stuff, cooked and tidied house till 4.30am then slept for 1 hr then woke at 5.30am to cook somemore.

Why cook? I was worried we have to buy every meal on the week long trip and that'd cost so much, not to mention, it will mostly be junk food. There was hardboiled eggs, scrambled eggs, toasted bread with butter and jam, several pieces of leftover banana cake... I also cooked a tupperware of spaghetti and another tupperware of spaghetti sauce (not those bought ones, but stir fried mince beef and fresh tomatoes/ carrots). Besides these, we brought 6 cans of Campbell soup, instant noodles, a whole box of breakfast cereal, packet milk, juice, apples, oranges and bananas. For dried fruit/ food, we had raisins, Oreos.. My sis even joked that she can get army rations sent to me. Her dh works for SAF.

But in the end, we still had to eat a lot of fast food, cos our food ran out fast. Fast food is the cheapest, and most readily available. Back home, eating out meant I could still choose fish porridge or nasi lemak with bean sprouts, french beans etc that my kids would eat happily, and not end up with sore throats from deep fried food. But I found that I couldn't easily find veggie sources for kids when eating out. They don't eat salads cos the veggies are raw. I will get them to get used to eating lettuce and tomato, but right now they still don't. If I order fish and chips (which is healthier than burgers), they don't come with veggies here. Most main meals are the meat and the fries. That's it. And just a burger can cost $6.99. A meal with drinks and fries set us back US$10 in and around the theme parks. (My big bowl of fish porridge with veggies, tofu, seaweed, ikan bilis etc that I share with kids and still feel full cost only S$2.)

It's not just me who feels food is ex. I overheard a grandfather exclaiming to his grandkids that the burger is just too expensive and that they should've brought food from home that morning. I also saw some locals, a mom at the next table, who ordered just juice for herself and kids, then she took out homemade sandwiches to eat with her kids.

That night I got dh to drive around the motel vicinity to find a supermarket, and we bought more food, bananas and so on... follow the locals, save money.

Ok, back to the trip...It was a 14hour journey (the poor driver), made worse by the jams as we neared Los Angeles vicinity at around 5pm. But, cos we had a cheap 3 day pass to Disneyland, and Sat was one of the days, we drove to Disneyland directly and still entered the park at about 7pm!

[What we saw during the drive down: still snowing in UT to arid Nevada, passing through a bit of Arizona then down to sunny California]

I was glad the kids behaved very well in the car the whole day, or else it'd be terrible for us. I am confident about long drives now, can do so more often in future. At one point in the afternoon, the hot sun (yes, hot in California even during winter) shone relentlessly onto ds1 who was sitting in front. He was irritated and also felt upset at having to be restrained by the car seat the whole day, but fortunately he could be distracted by various means, like music and books or toys.

So the first day in Disneyland was spent catching a parade along Main Street complete with floats and Disney characters, then "Fantasmic!" which depicted a battle between good and evil Disney characters. This was done along the Rivers of AMerica, so there were laser beams and musical fountains (like Sentosa), and also pirate ships sailing along. The kids were bit scared though, cos the battle was loud and had a lot of eerie music and special effects.

The final show was "Remember Dreams come true Fireworks Spectacular" by Honda, at about 9.30pm. There were so many fireworks set off within the story, I thought it would never end. It was definitely much longer and more fireworks than National Day Parade or the fireworks Fest at the Esplanade. There were many different types of fireworks too.

A pity that the kids were too overwhelmed as there were simply too many fireworks set off. ds1 got very upset and dh brought him to another part of the park towards the end and I stayed behind with ds2 to watch the whole thing.

By the time we travelled back to our motel in Anaheim and checked in, it was close to 11pm. A tiring but happy end to the first day.

rainbows every day, do not worry for the morrow
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