Disneyland and San Diego Zoo

So, okay, it's been longer than I thought it would be.  We moved faster from the last place, so I didn't have the time I thought I would.  Anyway...

On Sunday, January 6th, Mario drove down to Mexico to talk with a hotel about Skyware.  Ryan, the teenager that he is chose to stay back in the RV while the rest of us (me, Michael, Genny, and Jason) spent the entire day in Disneyland.  We had a really great time and it wasn't very busy, so by lunchtime we had gone on everything we had wanted to, and then we split up to do repeats. 

 Having been to Disney World so many times, I really loved the Matterhorn and Star Tours, which I've found out they now have at Hollywood Studios too.  Look closely here on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and you can see Genny, Jason, and Michael in the first row of the second car.

 It was the last day that the holiday decorations were out, and I really liked what they did with It's a Small World.  Particularly because they played Jingle Bells in addition to the Small World song, so it wasn't quite so repetitious.

Later in the week we went to a taping of Wheel of Fortune, we were sitting in the center for most of the taping.  They got some really nice footage of the kids (Mario and I are on the far end).  They have it air on three different dates, the first is tomorrow, Thursday February 14th, then Friday, February 15th, and the third day is Monday, April 29th (go figure that one out!)
   
    So be sure to watch for us tomorrow!!


On Saturday, January 12th, the six of us went to the other Disneyland park, California Adventure, which is kind of a combination between Epcot and Hollywood Studios.  So here's the New York City street scene, where we had to get  a photo of the kids.

 They had just opened Cars Land, it featured a ride called Radiator Springs Racers, which was awesome!  Unfortunately by the time we realized how popular it was, the earliest FastPass was for 8:30PM (we got it at 10am) !!  so we only got to go on it once.  Genny, Michael, and I had a great time.

On the following Monday (the 14th) we left Anaheim and moved on to Chula Vista, just south of San Diego.  We stayed at a great park, that we would really like to go back to.  Another of the things I really wanted to see on this trip was the San Diego Zoo.  We lucked out, because they had a new panda born just six months ago, and they had it out for view.  You had to be in line by 11:30am, though, and we found out about it at 11:20, thankfully we were right around the corner, and just made it in line (I think there may have been 10 people behind us)!

 After seeing the Pandas (he was playing with Mom), we stopped to get some lunch.  Then we got on a tour bus that took us around the zoo.  After walking around all morning, we really enjoyed the ride.  We got to see quite a bit of the park, and many of the animals.

We had a really good time, and it was well worth the time.  On January 20th we left Chula Vista for the Palm Springs area, where I did training at a new hotel of ours, the Horizon Hotel.  It's a really nice property built in the fifties.


 After a few days there we went to Las Vegas, for a few nights spread out in a hotel - the NYNY hotel right on the strip.  More about that next time!

New Year's and LA

Okay, so I know this is LONG overdue, so I'm going to do my best to get us caught up over the next week or so. 

 We had an early evening on New Year's Eve, to get up early for the Rose Parade.  It was a beautiful day and we bought tickets in the stands. 

 The floats were really awesome, and we had a great view.  There was a B2 bomber fly over that was so cool!  Ryan even got a picture of it, but it was too fast for me! I personally loved watching all the marching bands.

While we were in the LA area I couldn't resist taking Genny to the American Girl doll store for tea.  It was so nice, they did a wonderful job, and we got some quality girl time together.  At the tea they had conversation starters so we had lots of fun answering questions like, "What was one of you favorite childhood memories?" and "What food would you never give up eating?"  It gave us lots to talk about, and we even found out a few things about each other.

The trip to LA wouldn't be complete without a trip to Hollywood and the Walk of Fame. We saw lots of stars...on the sidewalk!  Michael liked the enormous macaroni from Kraft.  We also had the opportunity to go see a taping of Wheel of Fortune.  We were in the center of the audience, and the filmed us for audience pictures.  You can look for us on February 14th, 15th, and April 29th (they split up the filming so it doesn't look like the same audience).  Please don't worry about the absence of Ryan from these photos, he's been a bit camera shy lately, but I'll have him in some for next time.  So, next up is Disneyland, I promise!  Maybe I'll also get to Chula Vista and the San Diego zoo.  We got to see the new baby panda - just six months old!