A Surprise Visitor

Christmas night there was a knock at our hotel door at about 11:30 p.m. I stumbled out of bed in my unattractive nightware and peered out our Best Western window. Who could it be? Was it Santa Claus coming to take me away from my Disneyland nightmare? Even better -- it was my long-lost brother, Caleb, from New York City! What a surprise! (I actually knew he was coming, but it felt like a surprise in my sleepy state!)

He came bearing gifts: my favorite cookies from New York City! We stayed up and chatted for a bit. I talked Caleb into going for a jog with me the next morning at 4:30 a.m. I set the alarm, crossing my fingers that he'd still want to join me in less than 4 hours. Low and behold, when my alarm went off, Caleb was already up. It turns out the sofa bed Caleb was sleeping on had large coils that poked him in the back all night long, so he hadn't ever really gone to sleep.

We headed down the streets of Anaheim, not knowing what we'd run into. We passed a Palm Reading shop, and quite a few homes with bars over the windows that made me feel a little bit nervous, but other than that, the streets were quiet. About halfway through our run, we ran past a homeless gentlewoman (we couldn't figure out if it was a man or a woman) that informed us we should wear brighter colors next time on our run so he/she could see us coming. On our way back to the hotel, I cringed as we ran past the entrance to Disneyland, knowing that we were going to be walking back there in less than an hour.

The Continental Breakfast was mediocre. There was a waffle machine available and some dry powdered donuts. Aaron found some whole milk for his cereal which he was very excited about (I always buy skim!). The kids were thrilled to hang onto Uncle Caleb during the mile walk to Disneyland. They all requested shoulder rides (except for Cali). I wondered how long he'd be able to take all of this attention!


When we got to Disneyland, we decided to split up: I got the two youngest (the scaredy cats) and Caleb and Aaron got to ride the adult rides with Ian and Cali.


We rode a couple of rides, but the lines were so long, that we spent the majority of our day in the gift shops taking random pictures.

Nyah with a plastic snake.

Carson with a scary skull staff. You can tell we were having a blast.
We moved onto Tarzan's Treehouse where we spent another exciting hour until Carson stumbled over a giant tree root and fell flat on his face. That one ended in tears!


We toured the Mission Tortilla Factory and the Sourdough Bread Company an unprecidented 20 times during our 4 day stay at Disneyland. We were very disappointed this year that the torilla factory passed out corn tortillas instead of the flour. However, we saved about $50 due to all of the free samples.

When we met back up with the "fun" group, we found out that they had spent the day riding California Screamin' and The Tower of Terror. I wasn't jealous. At all. Really!

Later that night, while the rest of us snacked on more sourdough bread samples, I lived through my worst nightmare: watching Ian gnaw on a turkey leg. Truly, the grossest thing I've seen. He even licked the tendons.