Disneyland - Day 1

Cameron and I took London for her first visit to Disneyland the week before Thanksgiving. We flew out early Wednesday, November 16 so that we could have a full day in the park. Getting through security in the new terminal of Sacramento’s airport was a breeze. Of course, we budgeted plenty of time, given we needed to bring our own milk for London, which meant it had to be sealed when we got through security and then opened and vapors tested as soon as we got through. Unfortunately, Walgreens had been out of single serve 2% milk so we went with the next best thing – Strawberry-flavored milk. BIG MISTAKE! The sugar count was sky high and hit London quick. She was bouncing off the walls just as we were boarding. Luckily, it was a light flight, so we didn’t have to share our row with any one, and London had a seat to herself.

When we landed we soon discovered that our travel package did not include transportation from the airport to our hotel, Disney’s Paradise Pier, like we had thought. Cameron’s mom was already in Anaheim, and had already been to Disneyland the day before. Since she had driven down, Cameron called and convinced her to pick us up, leaving Joe and our nephew Connor back at their hotel. Of course, we forgot that this was rush hour, so the 10 minute drive took 30 instead. On top of that, while I was letting London wander the arrivals terminal as we waited for Vicki, London’s butt unloaded, just as Vicki arrived. We would drive back to Vicki’s hotel room with the loaded diaper, which was very unpleasant to smell, while London crashed in her car seat for the 20 minutes. Planes have a way of clearing London out and we had to change London’s outfit at the hotel. Luckily, we pulled up to the hotel just as the park was opening so little time was missed.

Connor had kept saying that he thought London wanted to go on the carrousel, which really meant he did, so London’s first ride ever at Disneyland was King Arthur’s Carrousel. It was her second time on a carrousel, and this time she had the sense to hold on to the golden pole in front of her.

Next we hit up Dumbo. She squealed the entire ride and loved going up and down. From there, we took a boat ride through the Storybook Canal. Amazingly, Cameron, who has been to Disneyland more times than I, had never been on this ride.

London was going still going strong so we took our first trip on It’s A Small World – Holiday, which combines the traditional theme with Jingle Bells and its all decked out for Christmas. It was beautiful and the smells of gingerbread and pine tree that wafted through the air a few times was great. London was in awe the entire ride. There was no getting her attention throughout the entire ride.

We hit up Nemo’s Submarine Voyage next. London did great even when the large explosion went off and the lights went out. I’d say Dumbo and Nemo tied for her second favorite ride. After a quick lunch in Tomorrowland, we took the Monorail to check in to the hotel and wait for my parents to arrive.

The Paradise Pier Hotel was great for us. London got quite a kick out of the beach ball pillows and each room came with a play yard so London had a bed in our room and my parents. Plus, the little TV room that showed classic Disney cartoon shorts with kid-sized beach chairs was a great place to let London run around while we caught up with my parents and waited for their room to be ready. Since my parents only had two-day park hopper passes we would just cruise Downtown Disney the rest of the day and enjoy dinner at the Rainforest Café with all of us.

The Rainforest Café was the perfect place to eat with London. The thunderstorms and animatronics elephants and gorillas kept her entertained that even and the fish tanks would keep her attention the morning of our last day (Saturday).

My parents haven’t been to Disneyland since I was probably 5 years old so they’d never seen Downtown Disney or California Adventure. Until they walked into Disneyland the next morning, I don’t think they recognized the place at all, and while I know they’d never to back on their own, they definitely enjoyed experiencing Disneyland through London’s eyes.

A Crafter At Heart

With the current Daycare situation, London is getting exposed to crafting – she comes home almost every day with a new craft. I need to find a place in the house to showcase these little master pieces that can be rotated quickly and often. I already have a huge stack of her artwork that is in need of a plastic tub to be stored in. I figure I’ll hang on to these pieces as long as possible (the aim is 18) and then select the faves from over the years and do something with those pieces for London. I remember after I graduated and in the process of our moving from Chico to Visalia going through the tub my parents had kept f my artwork through the years and I know I still have some of these pieces somewhere.


Any way, because she is exposed to crafting I went ahead and bough London a coloring book and crayon. The second she sees the book and crayons, she gets excited and goes to town coloring. Then there was an evening at Matt & Lynde’s while we watched Monday Night Football. Their couch has an armrest that lifts up to reveal a storage area for magazine and remotes. London was bored with the game and Lynde showed her the secret compartment. In it was an old magazine that Lynde had forgotten was there. The site of the magazine lit up in London’s eyes. Lynde let her have it and before we knew it she was ripping pages up. But she wasn’t doing this to destroy the magazine. To our amazement, London was taking the ripped pieces and trying to put them together in her own fashion – it was like she was trying to make a collage!


I’d catch her doing this again a few weeks later with the pile of mail flyers and ads to be recycled. I caught it on still camera but I hope to catch London doing this on video one of these days. She gets so into it, so intense her tongue sticks out most of the time. I want to get her some glue or paste but I just envision how messy this is going to be and would want splat mats covering the floor and table, and a smock over London.


When I was visiting her daycare for the pumpkin patch field trip, Miss Alicia was in the process of putting up some profiles on each of the kids below some cutouts of the kids body tracing exercise. Low and behold, London’s profile said one of her favorite activities was to Paste! The girl is after my own heart. She’ll be a great help with our annual Christmas baskets someday!

FYI - Some Changes Coming

If you haven't noticed already, I've renamed our blog from "Cenedella Family Musings" to "The Duck Call". This is in part due to the fact that I've been taking an online HTML course through UC Davis for work. My final project is building a web site using HTML code. I decided to take this opportunity to create a web site that could possibly expand this blog and have the site linked to it. I went with a hunting theme, given it's Cameron's main interest these days and one in which we incorporate into the decor of our "refuge". In order to make the web site and the blog cohesive, I am making some changes to the blog, at least for the time being, so that it matches the web site in some cases.

Thanks!

November Update

Whoa am I behind on blog posts! Let’s see what I can do about catching you up…

On Sunday, Nov. 6 Lynde and I participated in the Apple Hill Harvest Run, which was an 8.5 mile course up in the foothills past Placerville. Cold weather had just hit and there had been a possibility that it might snow up there the night before the run. Luckily, it just rained that night, which was over by the time we got up there for the run the next morning. But golly it was cold. I’d brought along my gloves to wear during the run and then decided to leave them in the car thinking that I didn’t want to lose them when I knew I’d eventually take them off as I warmed up during the run. Whoops!

We got there an hour early, which is recommended, but also required us to stand around in the cold waiting for the race to start. It took a good mile into the course for Lynde and I to be able to feel our feet and fingers again - and that was just the tingly you feel when they start to warm up. By the end, we were both freezing again. Somewhere in the middle I did get warm enough that I actually rolled my sleeves up a smidge, but the last stretch of the course was under a tree canopy that trapped the cold in.

Overall, it was a gorgeous run. The course wound along the scenic Apple Hill region, which meant there were tons of Apple and other fruit orchards all over, along with wineries and Christmas Tree farms. I’ve never seen so many Choose-and-cut tree lots so close together. At one point two farms were right next to each other, sharing a parking lot and another was across the road! I’m not sure we’ll go up there this year for a tree, but maybe next.

The course was also full of hills. Lynde and I both are used to a flat course, so this was a challenge. Eventually, I’d end up going on ahead of Lynde when I was in my stride and the hills had done her in. Still, She only finished 5 minutes behind me. That's her in the blue in the photo above about to cross the finish line.

So what next…

Later that same week, Cameron took me to my first California Waterfowl Association (CWA) Dinner. Lynde said she would watch London, so it was sort of a date night for us, if you count in Cameron's co-worker Ken, his wife, their kids and friends, and Cameron's frat brother Soper, his son and Dad.

The dinner included an auction, silent auction and raffle besides the Prime Rib dinner. Cameron purchased many tickets for the raffle and ended up winning one of the last drawings, which was for a rifle – he ended up passing on the rifle and getting the cash instead for a new goose call. And we didn’t walk away from the auction empty handed either. There was this beautiful drawing of a couple of wood ducks that we both liked – it would go great in our loft whenever we get around to decorating it. We went for it and out bid all the others. We got it at a great price since it was toward the end of the auction, most people had spent their limits.

All in all it was a fun night out.

The Saturday after the CWA dinner, the one before we went to Disneyland (that post is next!), Cameron got an invite to go crabbing with his co-worker Ken, who had attended the CWA dinner. Ken had to be back by 1 PM that day, so he and Cameron met up in the wee hours of the morning (I think it was 3 AM) and headed for Bodega Bay. Cameron ended up coming home with his allotted 10 crabs and said the whole group caught their maximum for the day that morning - they even got home early.

Of course, now that we had 10 crab, we needed something to cook them in, so on our way to the Tarrs that evening to celebrate Jeremy’s birthday, we stopped by Home Depot. Originally, Cameron was going to get a bunch of cinderblocks and a metal basin to build a fire under to boil the crab – until he saw the Turkey Fryer. Perfect.

We had a great evening that night catching up with all our friends and getting to know baby Braydon a little more.



Sunday, Cameron boiled the crab so we could feast on not only the crab but also pulled Antelope Monday night. Yes, I even had some of the crab – I’ve had a bad reaction to calamari and was instructed to stay away from all shellfish because of it. But I remember eating crab when I was little and loving it. It was just too tempting. Since we were home I popped a Claritin and gave it a try. I didn’t go overboard, not even eating a full crab, but it tasted as good as I remembers and no reaction in sight! Now I’m dying to try shrimp again. If I can check these two off the list on what I can eat again, I’d be one happy lady. Calamari I will never touch again.

Our Growing Girl

The girl just won’t stop growing – seriously. London won’t even slow down, not even a smidgen. Just when you think we’re set for a while, she goes and grows some more and passes two more milestones in her race to grow up and be taller than me!

The first milestone was a bit delayed on Cameron and my parts. The poor girl, while still within the weight limit of her infant car seat, had definitely outgrown it in height. The little girl’s feet were taking firm walks up the back of the actual car seat. This was until her last doctor’s visit, when she was officially too heavy for the infant car seat as well. With our trip up to Reno, we knew we needed to get London into something more comfortable. Its not like we didn’t have the new car seat – we’d bought it last November during the Black Friday/Weekend sales. We were just lazy in taking it out of the box in the garage and learning how to use it.

When I got back from my 5K that morning though, Cameron had it out of the box and fitted to London. Only thing was, if we placed her backward, like the Academy of Pediatrics recommends until the child is 2 years old, London would have been eating her knees, still!

After checking the labels and seeing that London met the minimum forward-facing weight and height requirements of the car seat, Cameron and I both agreed it was time to turn that girl around. And boy, does she love it, being able to see so much more, minus when the sun gets her in the eyes.

The second milestone has to do with clothes. We made it through the summer on size 12 months – barely! By the end, we were struggling to get some shirts over London’s head and the few pants that we had looked more like capris. The poor girl had a wedgy if we tried to put a 12 month onesie on her.

And so it was off to Target one rainy night recently to get her some fall and early winter clothes – all pants, no shorts with a mix of long and short sleeved outfits.

It’s also sad to report that London has almost outgrown onesies altogether. They are rare for the 18 month size and even rarer for the 24 month size. By next summer there will be no onesies in her wardrobe for sure.

We tried not to go too overboard, given that both Cameron and I doubt we’ll make it through the winter before needing to buy some 24 month sized clothes. If she grows another inch, another shopping trip is in our future. Thank goodness Target sees enough clothes go through the stores that in season items can be found on the clearance racks.

This growing also makes it terribly hard to predict where she will be a year from now, so we don’t shop with the future in mind – we can only get what we need right now or we’ll jinx ourselves and she’ll either stop growing or double her growing. Her closet is filled to the brim with tubs of clothes the girl has outgrown and we’re quickly filling the shed with more!