Our Halloween Weekend UPDATED! About This Page:

[gym mom]

I just got my work schedule and realized that if I don't post now, it won't be until Thursday before I can! So here is my first installment.



We are:

Jennifer - age 47

Jeff - age 47

Trisha - age 16

Kyle - age 14

Lindsay - age 19 (a friend of Trisha's)



Day 1 - The Longest Day!



Our day really began on Tuesday morning (October 28) when the alarms began to go off at 5:30 in the morning. Today was to start as a normal day. The kids have school and I am working. Unfortunately, even though I asked for a morning shift, I am closing the store. So I need to be totally packed with everything done in the house before I leave for work at about 1:00. After Trisha got out of school, she had a friend take her to the mall to pick up my car and take it back home. The plan is for the rest of the family to pack the car and be at the mall when I get off at 10. They were on time, I was kind of late getting out. Wouldn't you know it, the one night I want to get out on time all kinds of things come up to slow me down!



We were on our way shortly after 10. We have a 12 hour drive ahead of us. Of course we were concerned about the fires. We will be coming into the LA area from the east, right where the fires are. After we left Needles, California, we began to see signs of smoke. It got worse as we travelled. The visability was down to about half a mile. If I hadn't known that it was smoke and if we were closer to the ocean, I would have said it was fog.



We stopped in Barstow for breakfast. The sun was red. Very weird to see. Some Bible verses come to mind as I look at it. We talked to some of the people in McDonalds and they said that today was the first day they had seen the smoke. The winds had been blowing it out over the ocean, but now they have changed direction and the smoke is blowing east.







Lindsay is flying into LAX this morning. She called us while we were in Barstow to say that she had just landed. We still have 2 hours to go so we better get going so she doesn't have to wait too long at the hotel.



As we came into Rancho Cucamonga we could see where the fire had burned. We saw one area that was burned and right in the middle stood a home...safe. SALUTE to those fire fighters! We also saw an area where the fire had burned right up to a subdivision. I bet those people were sweating bullets. I couldn't tell for sure, but I don't think any houses were burned. We did see many fire trucks and at one point a bunch of them were lined up ready to head up the hill. (Good Luck, guys!)



We got to the Paradise Pier at 10am local time. Our rooms were even ready for us! The best part...I had gotten two rooms. One was an "Upper Level" room and one was "Lower Level". The girls were going to stay in the lower level, less expensive room. They put us together on the 10th floor in adjoining rooms. So I got an upper level room at the lower level price!











We unloaded the car and took everything up to the rooms. Check out the view! That is smoke in the air. We were told that until the day before, ash had been falling from the sky! It continued to get better as the days went on.



First order of business...Disneyland! We have a tradition that we ride the train around the park first thing. Not being ones to break with tradition, we did just that. Caught our first glimpse of the Haunted Mansion done up for Halloween. Wow!



Back at Main Street Station, we headed down Main Street for Adventureland and New Orleans Square. The lines today and tomorrow will be nothing. Indiana Jones was something like 10 minutes. We quickly rode Indy, Haunted Mansion, Splash and ended with Pirates. Just in time for our 1:30 reservation for lunch at Blue Bayou.



I had requested a table by the water, but it wasn't to be. The food was good, mine was a little cold, and the service was great. The A/C was a little over enthusiastic, we all kept our sweatshirts on.



The Haunted Mansion was totally AWESOME There was almost too much to see. I knew we would need to go on it several times, just to take it all in.



One other thing we got hooked on right away was the pins. Trisha began a collection of Tinker Bell pins. All very cute. We never traded. We only bought what we wanted, so didn't have anything to trade.



Before we knew it, it was getting late and we were beginning to really drag. We had been on the go for close to 40 hours, with little sleep. We were all in bed and sound asleep by 10pm.



Tomorrow we will visit California Adventure for the first time!



Jennifer