disney magic, sort of

so yeah, my weekend recap is being chopped up into little pieces. if i went over the entire weekend in one post, y'all would fall into a dead sleep from the sheer length of it. seriously.

oh, and i'm totally jumping back and forth - nothing's in order. oh, well. i doubt it really matters, anyway.

okay, so on friday, the teen had minimum day. ironically, the school's annual disneyland trip for all the kids who'd made it on the honor roll throughout the year was that very day. heh. we picked her up from school, grabbed lunch at the hat, went home to pack, and then headed out to scoop her friends up from their school.

the hub's poor tahoe was absolutely loaded down with girls, bags, and the bean's giant stroller. i'm surprised we were able to fit everything and everyone in there! but i was happy that we didn't end up having to take two cars after all. that was $20 in valet parking charges we got to spend elsewhere.

we pulled up to the gate at the grand californian hotel less than an hour later, which was pretty good considering there was a stop at the mcdonald's drive-thru for the girls first. and then the teen got her first taste of the disney magic to come when the valet greeted her by name and wished her a happy birthday. magical!

unfortunately, it wasn't so magical for me and the hub as we checked in at the registration desk. we shooed the girls away to go and check out the hotel, since we were we were being cheap mofos and only claiming to have two adults and two kids in our party. haha! but then we found out those bastards gave away all the suites with 2 queen beds and all that was left was a king bed with a sofa pullout. they couldn't even provide us with two rooms with queen beds in them, because the damn hotel was SOLD OUT. not a single room to spare. amazing.

after going back and forth with the dude at check-in (who was training, so the hub had even less patience for him), we gave in and took the king suite. what choice did we have? and because there were only supposed to be 4 of us, we couldn't exactly request any rollaway beds. shit.

it was funny when we exited the elevator and got closer and closer to our room - the teen blurted out "whoa! we've got double doors!" heh.
and because i'm a total dork, this sign cracked me up. whoop whoop!

and then there was more squealing and "ooh"ing and "aah"ing when we opened the doors and stepped inside. it was a nice room, with a separate bedroom, flat-panel plasma tvs, a good-sized balcony, with great views of california adventure and the hotel's pool area. the hub and i weren't convinced that it was worth the big coin it cost to get there, but the girls were happy and excited, so that was good enough for us.

as they got settled, the hub took off to pick up our park tickets at the guest relations booth by the park entrances. the girls took the opportunity to freshen up, change into shorts (they were all in jeans and sweatshirts. in 90+ degree weather. teens.) and run a flatiron through their hair. the teen put on her tiara and birthday button that the front desk had given her, and when the hub got back, he distributed their tickets and they were free to run amok through california adventure for a few hours before our 9:00 reservation at club 33.

we took the bean out to walk the park and grab a snack. i do love california adventure, but my favorite rides there aren't exactly bean-friendly, so i settled for peoplewatching and snacking instead. it wasn't very crowded, and even the tower of terror ride only had a 15-minute wait, but i wasn't all about riding it alone. bleh.

the hub really wanted a corn dog, and he talked about it so much that he made ME want one, too - even though i was trying to save my belly for yummy dinner, only 3 hours away. so we were sad to get to corn dog castle and find it all boarded up. boo.

so instead, we headed over towards the "hollywood pictures backlot" area and the hub chose a bbq bacon dog from this place:


i didn't take a picture of it, but that dog looked fucking gross. i left him to enjoy his nasty ass snack and went off in search of a churro instead. and at the fruit stand nearby, the hub bought himself a cold, crisp apple to chew on, and i found these for the bean. they're little slices of fuji apples, freeze dried and perfect for her to gum on. she loved them, so i'm happy that we found another snack for her that i can toss in my bag when we go out.

and when we were done snacking, we strolled through the rest of the park with the bean, who was amused for a few minutes before deciding she was over it and closed her eyes for a catnap.


and it wasn't long before it was time to go back to our room and change for our fabulous dinner.


we caught the first quarter of the laker game before we left, and lamented the fact that we'd miss the rest of it. oh, well.

although i thought it was kind of funny that when we got back to the hotel after dinner, we turned on espn and found that they were replaying the game in its entirety, and we'd caught it right at the beginning of the second quarter. so we got to see the whole game anyway, and it was cool because we hadn't seen nor heard a thing about it while we were out. whee!

go lakers!