Christmas Break

Christmas flew by in a flash! The kids were off school a week before Christmas, so Peyton went to CDC for the first three days, while Dave took Brandon to work. He got lucky, as there was a holiday luncheon one day, and a going away party another day. Peyton had fun at CDC mostly because Hope was there. Thursday, both kids stayed home alone, while my mom drove down to them. I got a few texts and tattle tales, but they were alive by the time my mom arrived to them. I worked a full day, since the piano teacher’s birthday was Thursday, taking over our normal time. Friday, we made up the time by going in the morning. I surprised them with a visit to the humane society after piano lessons. We were donating some sheets and blankets, and we got to walk around a bit and look at the animals. Both of them enjoyed this, though Brandon had a problem with the kitties making his nose itch. He did make a connection with one dog, who cocked his head to the side when Brandon did it to him. Peyton fell in love with a small chihuahua named “Creampuff” though it looked like he had visitors and she hoped he’d be adopted that day.
We waited for Dave to get back home and we went to donate some more things, both new and some ofthe kids’ clothes and toys. We were going to go watch a movie that night, but Dave couldn’t find tickets, so he decided to postpone it to the next morning.

Saturday, we woke up early on our first vacation day as a family to watch Coco. We ended up going up to the city to explore since my uncles from LA were at my grandma’s house. My mom had met up with them earlier in the day, and they were headed in a different part of the city. We went downtown to explore and look at my puppies and kitties in the Macy’s window. We headed to the fortune cookie factory for a few bags for the cousins and our trip down to LA. We went to look at the upside down Christmas tree. But the kids were not keen on the city, as they didn’t like the bums there. We met up for dinner with the family before we headed back home. We were going to return the next day for Xmas eve.

Sunday, we headed up relatively early, as Dave wanted coffee and breakfast in the City. We beat my parents to my grandma’s house, but my cousin, who is 2 months older than Brandon, had fun with him, playing cards and video games. My older girl cousin took Peyton to play with her. We hung out there all day long and waited until midnight to open gifts.

We eventually got up and opened our home presents before driving back up to my mom’s. My grandma wanted to take my dad out for dinner, so we met up with them halfway through. The kids were playing with their gifts, especially the Hatchimal that my parents got Peyton. My mom wanted to see it hatch, so Peyton showed her. We all watched! Twins came out, and Brandon asked her if he could help her raise one. He told my mom that he did really want one, too.

We had dinner, then we headed home to pack up as the plan was to leave super early on Tuesday. We packed up and we did head out just after 6 am on Tuesday. We stopped several times, but the drive down was pretty smooth as the kids slept much of it. Peyton was in regular clothes, but Brandon was in his jammies. We were meeting with friends, so we stopped by Target for some shopping before meeting up. We were meeting for froyo, so we had lunch at the food court where we were meeting them. PEyton saw some baby Hatchimals at the store, so Dave sent Peyton and I out to get lunch first, while he circled back with Brandon to get the babies. He took him to change in the car, and we had lunch. Peyton ate a whole poke bowl, while Brandon and Dave ate Class 302 food. We got to hang out with Katie, Pish and Debbie, while Kyle was at math class. We hung out there for awhile before Kyle had to get picked up, then we all headed back to their house before they had to meet up with family for dinner.

We went to check into our hotel room. We had several bags, and it was cold, so Brandon was wearing a beanie over his head. He volunteered to pull two bags. We had stopped after getting out of the elevator to regroup. Brandon suddenly turned and ran into the sharp edge of the wall. He wasn’t looking where he was going, and the beanie didn’t help. He fell to the ground, and I took over the bags but not before insisting he gets up. He was holding his beanie, when Peyton said, “EW, he’s bleeding!” I got him up to the room, and when he pulled his beanie away, he revealed a dark bloody gash. I looked at it, and said, “Let’s take him to the ER.” We went to the KP urgent care, but there was a line of over 20 people there. There were no ER services there. So we turned around and started calling ER’s. None would give us the wait time, but they would tell me there were 40 and 45 people waiting in each. We went to the closest just to check it out, as other ER’s that I was calling were at least 20 minutes away. There were not many people in the waiting room, and they processed us fairly quickly. We waited about 5 minutes before there was a woman who came out to triage him. He had been crying all along, most about the prospect of getting stitches. He was scared of needles and that it would hurt more than the act of the injury in the first place. She tried to calm him down and talk through his fear. But he cried more. Suddenly, Peyton welled up with tears and started to cry. She buried her face into my lap, and I felt bad for her. She’d never really seen him hurt before! After the nurse checked on him and did concur about the stitches, I took her back to the car. She read for 30 minutes, before I realized that our friends were at the restaurant across the street (they later told us they’d gone to the wrong location, and they were in fact at another restaurant about 1 mile away). She finished her reading, and they were not yet ready for Brandon, so we headed to Target to get pain meds. I wanted to get more snacks as well, so we killed some time in there. Dave gave me updates, and he was going to send me back to the hotel, but I didn’t want to drive around. Soon enough Brandon was getting stitches, though Dave thought B was going to pass out or vomit up his Tylenol. Verdict – 3 stitches. Funny, he thought he’d “win” the stitches battle, but Peyton retained her title with 6 in her chin. We went to go back and get them, and all in all, we were away almost 5 hours. We hadn’t eaten dinner, so we hit up Denny’s for breakfast for dinner. He was more calm now, and had gotten all bandaged up. Dave didn’t think it was a good idea for him to be with Brandon since he was unsympathetic, though I couldn’t have been much help with respect to the blood. Peyton made it easy for me back when she was injured; she cried until she fell asleep, and she was a trooper. They also took only 30 minutes it seemed, from start to finish as we were not in during a holiday time. The nurse told Brandon he picked THE WORST night to get hurt.

We all slept in on Wednesday, which meant a late start to the park. It was super busy, so we had low expectations. We went on one ride together, then Dave and Peyton headed to her favorite, the roller coaster. I didn’t think it was a good idea for Brandon to ride upside down with his fresh injury, so he stayed close to me. The park was really crowded by now, so after awhile, we decided to cut our losses. We went to a local food court area (the meat packing district of Anaheim). We had dinner and dessert, and Dave didn’t want to run the ragged. He told them to relax, stay at the hotel, and try again in the morning on Thursday. They did end up watching movies in the hotel room, and we did relax.

There are a few supplements accessible in the stores today, Kamagra has made an unmistakable impact as a viable alternative to the other impotency drug i.e. cheap viagra for women has resulted in the launch of Kamagra Fizz is sildenafil citrate. In addition, it has been also used for tadalafil 10mg treating various heart diseases, erectile dysfunctions, fatigues, hepatitis C, menopausal symptoms, high blood pressure, and other conditions. Both these problems can be addressed with great respect – they have already travelled quite a distance back to you and are expensive, so don’t ruin the rewards by using the wrong temperature water. soft cialis india It has been found out that this viagra without side effects product is needed to apply to the genital area and cause harder, bigger and thicker erections for intercourse. Thursday morning, we headed in early. The security line was ridiculous that early on, as we had driven in, after making the mistake to walk on Wednesday. We were also headed out to meet Dave’s high school friend, Mike, for lunch, so we wanted to be able to head out quickly and not have to return to the hotel to get the car. We were efficient for getting there in the morning. By now, Brandon was riding the roller coaster. He had pretty much returned to his old self, but I was more cautious having him stay on my right side so I could protect him on his left. We queued up fast passes, took a bunch of pictures, had a great time before leaving for lunch. We arrived first, then Mike, his wife, and baby Eunha arrived. We’d last seen the baby one year ago, when she was immobile. Now, she was more fun and interactive. Peyton and Brandon sat away from her, with Peyton diagonally seated furthest away from her. She loved Peyton! She passed her napkin, water and spoon to Peyton and only Peyton. When the other three of us tried to intercept an object and pas it to Peyton, she’d shake her head, and pull it back. When Peyton accept it, she’d clap her hands and smile! We had fun with her, and when lunch was done, we met up for ice cream. She had fun with Peyton and a set of keys, trying to get into the door. Surprisingly, the key fit into the lock, it just didn’t work. Yonhee was very impressed with how good the kids were with the baby. Both kids fell asleep on the ride back (this was Peyton’s second nap). That allowed us to stay in the park longer on Thursday night. We stayed until almost midnight, getting on rides because the crowds had thinned.

Friday morning, we went back to the meat district to get pastries for our next meet up. We were headed to Brodard for rolls and catching up with Teddy and Eunice. Brandon was in their wedding when he was just over 2 years old, his second wedding by that time. They brought Abby, 4, but left Brady, 1, at his grandparents’ house. We’d not met Brady yet, but they said he was a handful, and a bit under the weather. Peyton and Abby were sitting next to each other, but then later, Abby sat between her parents. We had a nice time catching up, and later, Abby came back to join Peyton, bringing her phone with her. They played games together for the rest of lunch, while Brandon continued to eat. After a couple of hours, we said our goodbyes and headed to the park. The kids were anxious to get in, as they had been with us all morning long. They are into riding rides on their own, namely the roller coaster and Goofy’s Sky School. We didn’t push it too long, as this was our last night in the lesser hotel, and in the morning, we were going to transfer to the Disneyland hotel!

On Saturday, we brought our bags over by 9 am, bag-checking to the hotel. We stayed out until dinner, before we returned to the hotel to enjoy our stay. We visited the tiki bar, and we all got drinks. The kids don’t usually get virgin drinks, but each had silly straws and carbonated fruity drinks. The kids took pictures with our beds, and Peyton found herself the separate bed. She remembers the one in Aulani, which was below the TV. Brandon as okay with it, as he got his own bed, too. The kids eventually went to sleep, and our plan was to wake up early for the Magic Morning for Sunday.

Magic morning is at 7 am, so we had alarms set for 630 am. We got out of the hotel in time to be let in to the park by 7 am, and headed for Radiator Racers. There was a malfunction on the ride, leading to missing audio. We seemed to have more problems this trip, as we had been stuck and escorted off Matterhorn earlier in the week. They issued fast passes for any time of the day later on. We planned to use it later in the evening. We got four rides in before the “regular” people were let in at 8 am. We did RSR, the Luigi ride that is never worth waiting for, twice, and then TSM. We played in the park, with midway games as well. Peyton won a medium prize at the fishing game, while BRandon won a small one, much to his dismay. He tried again, and they got the opposite prizes! He was happy once again. What was even funnier was that he fished for a fish that another man had had his eye on, but it slipped away from him downstream, which is where Brandon was. Brandon plucked that fish out of the water, to reveal the medium prize! The man had been fake-swatting at him with his fishing rod with his friends and me all laughing at the situation. He was a good sport, though I still felt bad for him. We went back to the hotel room, and Dave took Peyton to the water slides. Brandon couldn’t get his eye wet, so he hung out with me in the room. I slept while he watched tv. Dave and Peyton came back, and she took a nap, while Dave took Brandon shopping. They all went back to sleep until we had to go to our reservation. Peyton was so grumpy, and said she didn’t want to go, but I convinced her otherwise, since it was our last chance to see Ariel before the Grotto went away. She snapped out of it, and quickly came about. We got to the restaurant and she took her picture with Ariel and the rest of the princesses. She’s never too old for that! From there on out, we headed back and forth to ride more rides. We watched the Magical Map show to hang out some more, and then found a spot for the midnight countdown. We had a great spot in front of the lagoon, and had fireworks just as it hit midnight. Peyton proudly displayed her birthday pin, only having revealed it for the earlier front of the Monorail experience that we waited for, since the morning hadn’t been super busy. We set the alarm for early this morning, so we could get a start on our drive back. The kids slept 80% of the time, and the rest of the time they were groggy and quiet. We stopped once to get gas, and otherwise, it was smooth sailing for us. Good thing that Dave can drive especially on little sleep and with it being quiet. We met my parents for dim sum, and then they hung out with us this afternoon while I did loads of laundry. We’d gotten the birthday celebrants a cake, with Peyton asking for it to JUST say “happy birthday to Peyton” instead of “Papa and Peyton” because it was HER birthday, and not his. We got a visit from Hope, Grace and their parents, along with Cody, for a birthday present/Christmas present delivery. We chatted with them for awhile, then we went back to the football games that were on. Brandon came out long enough to show them his stitches. We’re ready mostly, to take on the new year. Both kids didn’t want to go back to school, wanting to call in a “sick” day, but they will bounce back. Videos and pictures to follow!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.