Laura

So, we went to Disneyland for Christmas this year. (This was partially a whim and partially not - we had savings for, and plans for, an eventual Disney trip. I'd been waiting until the boys were old enough to enjoy it, and when our Christmas plans shifted a bit we said 'why not?' I'd meant to do 5/8 for the ages, but 4/almost-7 seemed close enough.) The one bad thing about timing is that Ian is 41 inches tall at the moment, or perhaps 41.5 with shoes on, and that makes him a half-inch too short for several rides. He was very disappointed by this once or twice, but honestly, mostly he didn't miss it. I think the Grizzly River Run is the one thing he really regretted it on, and if he had ANY idea how cold Andrew and I were...well, he'd still have regretted it, because four-year-old excitement and practicality do NOT mix. Heh.

I am not going to try to describe the Christmas decor in the hotels, Downtown Disney, or the parks. It was GORGEOUS and AWESOME and I will have pictures up later and let them handle it because seriously, awesome to look at, probably boring to read about.

I'm including steps/miles walked, as registered by my phone, because they amuse me.

I'm cribbing some of this from text messages sent to other people to jog my memory, so some of you may recognize parts of this. :) Day by day, because I'm not sure I can keep it coherent even so.

MONDAY (11,112 steps; 5.22 miles):

( Travel, hotel, and Downtown Disney )

TUESDAY (16,475 steps; 7.34 miles):

( Disneyland )

WEDNESDAY (18,098 steps; 8.39 miles):

( Breakfast with Mickey and Friends; Disney California Adventure; Laura's health (bah) )

THURSDAY (18,364 steps; 8.26 miles):

( Chip & Dale, DCA, Disneyland, and the Rainforest Cafe; one lost item )

FRIDAY (18,759 steps; 8.27 miles):

( Goofy's Kitchen, Disneyland, and DCA )

SATURDAY (6,919 steps; 3.32 miles):

( In which small children having their routine disrupted catches up with us, and we go home. )

I loved Conflikt. It was hard at times, because the boys - especially Drew - had a hard time with it. Drew wanted to be at the concerts! Except he didn't want to be quiet or sit still. I was trying to balance letting him hear with not disrupting for others, and I hope I managed to keep him from disrupting for others. Compounded by the fact that if he hadn't been disruptive to others before, he sure was when I removed him from the room. Kid can howl.

But the con itself was wonderful. I got to see people! And say hi to and hug friends I get to see far too rarely. Some of them I saw only briefly in passing, and some I ran into repeatedly all weekend, and both were good, though of course a weekend in which we all magically get all the music *and* all the time we want with all our various friends (and they with theirs and so on) would be lovely...sadly, still short on the magic wand for that.

Loving the new hotel. NOT liking the prices - the restaurant there is to be avoided vigorously. I am pretty sure it would be cheaper to walk to the airport and eat in a sit-down restaurant at airport prices. The hotel rooms aren't cheap either. They're nice. They're just not cheap. Very happy with the space we had, the comfort level, etc. (Not thrilled with the view of the pool, but that's because it was out of order as they waited on a part and Drew kept seeing it and wanting to swim. Which reminds me: I owe him a trip to a pool here in the next couple weekends, since I told him we'd do that instead.)

The convention space is glorious, especially as it's not near hotel rooms at all and not subject to the "keep it down, darnit!" rules that apply there. The rooms seem to be really well soundproofed overall, and they were *all together on one floor*. Yay! And comfy.

Small niceties: I never tried to get water at any point without *getting water*. I so dislike when water services run dry, and if these ever did, it wasn't when I was there.

Okay, this is where my friends who have been in filk longer get reminded that I haven't, since I am clueless so often. That's okay, I have new music.

Had not heard Heather Dale perform. Or Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff. Or in fact pretty much anyone who was the "main act" - although certainly many of those performing with them I had heard previously, at other Conflikts mostly. Let me put it this way: shiny shiny SHINY concerts.

I was lucky. I had backlogged "treat money" (work bonuses), so I pretty much bought whatever struck my fancy, music-wise. This probably made several performers I hadn't previously heard quite happy; it certainly made ME quite happy as now I have lots of lovely music.

I deeply wish Scott had not been back in the room with the boys for the Bohnhoff's concert in particular, as I believe he would have LOVED it. But I can't wish we had traded places, because I also loved it. I just wish Drew had been in a concert mood! (Ian was asleep, but he could probably have slept even through that concert. Ian can sleep through just about anything if he must. Except being set down when he wants to be held. Baby who can sleep through loud noises or parental dancing nonetheless wakes as soon as gravity shifts as though one is leaning to set him down. I swear it's a superpower.)

Bid on various things in the Interfilk auction, but idly. Got outbid, as you might expect, for idle-interest bids. Would not have been sad to win any of them. Was not sad to not-win them either. WAS sad I forgot to bring anything to donate to the auction, but the idea I had this year will still be nifty next year, so.

I really miss the streaming for members that was done last year, and hope it will be possible again in the future. (One or the other of us watched so many concerts from the room last year. It made a huge difference in how doable the con was with kids in tow!)

Pre-registered for next year. Home. Mostly unpacked. Laundry partially done. Routine house stuff I'd normally do on the weekend mostly done. Grocery shopping done.

And I should now stop writing this and go get more laundry done. :P I *swear* there was something else I meant to talk about in this post, but it's eluding me now like an elusive thing.

(Yes, I know. I tried 16 bazillion subject lines. Oh well!)

This weekend, we went up to Seattle for our cousin JT's wedding to the lovely J. We drove up Friday, leaving at 11 am with the intent of arriving mid-to-late-afternoon since the rehearsal dinner was at 6. Instead, we arrived after 6 and joined the (informal, luckily) rehearsal dinner late.

( I will now talk about the drive, the wedding, the reception, and our Sunday morning activities, at excruciating length. Behind a cut, because hey, excruciating length. )

It was a lovely, lovely trip, except for the traffic. And it was totally WORTH the traffic. (But if I'd known what that would be like, I would've planned our trip up differently. Heh.)

I had an excellent time at ( Conflikt, which is a filk convention; cut because not everyone who reads my journal may care, this is lengthy babble about our weekend vacation )

( From my tweets during the con )

I didn't take as many photographs as I normally would. Alas. But there were too many other things to be doing and in the end, they were more important and more interesting.

Summary: I had a great time. I pre-registered us for next year. To the con, to the people who put it together and who performed (in concerts or in filking circles), to the sound crew, to Interfilk, to the people who hung out, ran the con suite, listened and chatted, admired my baby or merely tolerated him, to the hotel staff, to *everyone*, THANK YOU. I didn't have a perfect weekend, but I had a wonderful weekend, and it was made brighter and happier by so many things and people, moments big and small.

And now I fall over and go to sleep. ...sigh. As soon as I get Drew back to sleep. He just came in here and told me Daddy is asleep and is talking to me happily. It's almost 11. He's still on con time. Tomorrow's pediatric appointment, complete with immunizations, may be fraught if he's as tired as I think.

Posting this now, before I forget any more than I have. Or, say, fail to have any time to do it. :) We just got home a couple hours ago from Conflikt, and it. Was. A. Blast. A BLAST. I will write about that shortly. First, the gripes about the hotel, because they're right at the top of my head. Despite all of these I had a GREAT time, and if you don't want to read my grumblings (and notes on possible solutions I may use if it's in the same hotel next year), please to leave the cut-tags unclicked. :)

(This year was at the Holiday Inn Seattle - SeaTac International Airport.)

( Short form of twitchy mood )

( The details of the hotel stuff, for my memory (and, if Conflikt is there next year, anyone who wants to be aware/borrow solutions) )

And on a non-gripe note, if we're in this hotel next year I need to bring the swim stuff, as the pool does allow little ones in it even in diapers as long as they're in a swim diaper (many don't) and is inside and thus usable in January, unlike the last hotel.

A long long weekend is a good thing. we flew to Minneapolis for a reunion/gaming convention with friends from a gaming club at college. (Well, friends and strangers; it spans all the years of the club and some of them were unknown to us before the gathering, plus some friends and spouses/partners were brought.)

( Over-detailed description of weekend, with lots of baby-related babble, yo! )

There were many many photos. None of them are presently online. I'll fix that some other time, later this week I hope.

Never thought I would. I'm a fan of cool, rain, wind, storms. I love Oregon weather in fall/winter/spring, in other words. But when it's almost-freezing (yeah, I know, half the US is now muttering "cry me a river" - at least, the more polite ones are) here, I admit a trip to Arizona was far more lovely than I'd expected.

We were visiting my in-laws, taking Drew down for pre-Christmas celebration. His grandparents have met him before, but Scott's brother and his wife also live in that area and had not met Drew before, so getting to introduce him to them was part of the point. (Only part; seeing family again was also part of it, and a direct flight to Phoenix is not too bad, scheduling-wise.)

Five days seemed like a good balance when we scheduled it, and it probably was, but coming back it seemed far too short. It was a VERY good visit, with good food (my parents-in-law are amazing cooks), good conversation and company, a trip to see the local ZooLights (we still may make it to our local as well, but we may miss it - it's chilly here, and dragging Drew through it may not be so kind), and an early Christmas celebration.

We all got nice things and the gift exchange was much fun, but Drew of course made out like a bandit. As soon as it arrives up here, I think I'm going to get very tired of the dump truck - it's a walk/ride dump truck that has buttons to make horn and engine and lift noises - or maybe I won't. Because I remember Drew's absolute glee when he hit the button and it made noise. He loved that truck from the instant he smacked that button. And baby glee? Baby glee counters a lot of "gee, not that noise again" (plus the noises are actually tastefully quiet - I won't go deaf or anything listening to them over and over). He got quite a few things he liked, though, and several more that I think he will come to like over the next year but that he has to explore or figure out first. (The baby-safe lego-like blocks being one of those things. Currently, tearing them apart is fun, banging them together is fun, but when he decides he wants to do something else he gets frustrated. Sometimes he's clearly trying to put them together and not quite achieving it; others I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish.)

Oranges. Fresh oranges, right from the tree, and juice from them. Oh man. I will miss those. (And I'm sensitive to oranges, so I couldn't even indulge as much as I wanted to! One glass of OJ once in a while is okay, but oh how I wanted more than I could reasonably have. Oh well, I was good. So was the orange juice.)

The trip home was...interesting. Very, very interesting. We were in PHOENIX ARIZONA. We were flying out. Our plane was late arriving which, as we had a direct flight, I didn't care about. Meanwhile, a storm rolled in with lightning and pouring rain. (Yes, Phoenix.) For reasons not clear to me, since the storm had been forecast, they had brought a cart of luggage out and it was in the open and not covered - and when the ground crew got called in due to the lightning, the luggage sat out there. And got DRENCHED. Several of us were watching and wondering if it included our suitcases; one looked like ours. After some observation I decided it wasn't because I didn't remember a leather piece visible on it being on ours.

More fool I. We got to Portland and it had, indeed, been ours. Soaked. The name/address tag was pretty illegible. What worried me was the contents, though - I'd packed several books (including three gifts not yet really looked at!) in that suitcase. ACK. Most everything else in there was water-safe or water-proof (although I was glad I hadn't done the laundry before we left; that way I didn't have to debate between just drying it or washing and drying to be safe, since it needed washed anyway). Opened it quickly - books were okay. A more thorough check when I got home and was unpacking turned up two books that I hadn't spotted at the airport - both wet. Both were, however, ones we'd brought along thinking we might read, and then not read; smaller paper-backs. And the water damage was minimal; still totally readable, just some crinkled pages. I opened them out to dry and they're as fine now as they'll be, a bit of staining and crinkling.

So in the end, nothing major, just some minor aggravation. And we're home. And Drew? Drew is sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, having returned to his at-home routine (with the addition of some fun new toys and books) with nary a problem.

We're home now, after a nearly-two-week trip through the midwest (Oregon to Wisconsin to Ohio and home). Drew got to meet his great-grandmothers and a whole bunch of aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as visiting his grandparents (whom he's met before). Wisconsin for Scott's family, Ohio for mine.

( Details, because, well, because I can. )

It's good to be home, however. Most of the myriad things that needed doing after getting back are done, and I'm relaxed and settled in and mostly back in this time zone. This is good, because tomorrow I return to work.

One of the things that remains to do is uploading photo and video. I've started the process, but there's still a lot of processing to be done. (Something about having over 13 GB of stuff will do that to you!) Some of those photos will be linked here but the ones of Drew will be linked in his journal (if you have it friended and it friends you), arstrasz (or, if you're reading this and routinely get my emails about him, also in those).

So, I get a late start to work this morning (not too bad - about 15 minutes later than I wanted). Fortunately, I've been listening to traffic reports. The bottleneck on my route to work now is 217, because the alternates you can take once you get near it are...well. Crappy, 30 mph, filled with traffic lights, twisty city streets. Not good. You're usually better on a slow highway than those things.

Fortunate that I've been listening to traffic reports, because on 217 near Hall, north of Scholls Ferry, there's a roll-over accident that started a while earlier. Argh! In the backup, two more wrecks occur, one at 72nd and one at Greenburg.

To put this in perspective, 217 runs from Highway 26 to I-5. If you get on 217 at I-5, at its start, the first exit is 72nd. The next is 99W. The next is Greenberg. The next is Scholls Ferry. They needed only one more accident to have put one near each of the first four exits. Argh. >.< And of course, a rollover wreck does not clear quickly.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good alternate. Oh, I know they exist - some back-country routes through Sherwood and such - but I've never tested them, don't know them, and my GPS would be continually trying to land me back on 217. Plus I had to be in by 9, there was a meeting. I knew I could do that on 217, it just wasn't going to be fun. So I head up there, use surface streets to dodge the early part of 217, and as I'm dodging I hear the rollover (which had happened quite a while prior but was still blocking when I set out) is in the final stages of clearing. I also hear that the surface street I was planning to use for my next leg is way, way overcrowded and a bad bet. So I dodge back onto 217, counting on the backup clearing (or at least rolling forward).

Which it does! Huzzah! ...for about a mile past Scholls Ferry, and then it grinds. To a halt. Yes, someone managed to have another accident, up near Allen this time. >.< ARGH. Left lane blocked, car slightly into the right lane (less than six inches, I think). Not moving without a tow truck from the look of it. Second car involved not as badly damaged, driver nicely pulled onto right shoulder somewhat beyond accident scene, and isn't blocking anything. Driver of first car is leaning on the center median, talking on his cell phone and crying. Ambulance personnel are hovering near him; police haven't arrived yet. Ambulance? Parked in the left lane of 217 southbound, thus sharing the backed-up-traffic joy.

I hope everyone was all right, though no one looked very injured. Driver of the left-lane car looked REALLY rattled, though.

After that, the rest of the commute was merely the normal levels of tedious. But...217 is what, 8 whole bleeding miles? Good GRIEF. (Eight of the slowest, most aggravating miles ever, when it wants to be. In the afternoon, it gets ugly without any accidents, but morning commute is usually easier. When there aren't accidents.)

In theory, Scott is most of the way to MSP, thus to return home - if all goes to schedule, he'll be in Portland in less than six hours. I should hear from him in the next hour or so to confirm that or tell me if airline woes have changed it. :)

The high today? Is supposed to be only 76. So nice after the 100+ temps of the weekend. It's presently POURING rain in buckets, and there's thunder. (My mother would have loved this summer's weather, except for the heat. I do as well.)

Babe has had her morning dose of prednisolone, which did not please her, and her treat, which did. She's settled back on the 'bed' and generally being cute. I'm not sure where Apple's got too. She was skittish and scared earlier during some thunder, so I expected her to be on the bottom shelf of Scott's desk when next I found her, but she isn't. She'll be okay, though; she may have curled up for a nap since the thunder stopped shortly thereafter. Maybe it wasn't quite bad enough to send her for cover. (Heck, maybe my petting and reassurance before she headed downstairs helped, although normally it doesn't, with her.)