Days 58-69

So many things have happened since we've gotten back from vacation.  Here are some highlights!

- Today was my first official day as "lead"
- Tyler has added several new words and phrases, my favorite is "uppy," which he learned from Cousin Perry
- The entire family got sick after Florida and Grandma Geri was hit the hardest, she was the last to get sick and now she has pneumonia
- Tyler's had several difficult nights and has been sleeping with mom and dad every single night since the vacation
- "Little Einsteins" is our favorite show, Tyler loves the blast off time!
- The time change was difficult for us, we woke up late today and I sped to work totally unprepared for my first day

And since we failed to blog consistently here is a gallery of family photos!

Day 58

Day 59

Day 60

Day 61

Day 62

Day 63

Day 64

Day 65

Day 66

Day 67

Day 68

Day 69

Day 56/57

This was our last day in Florida.  Poor Daddy woke up early to take Uncle Linh to the airport since we were departing at different times.  He came back, tried to catch a couple more hours of sleep, and then we were up and out of the unit before check-out at 10.

We decided to spend the rest of our time in Florida at Disney Village.  We ate at a bowling alley (I had sushi that was actually really good), bought some souvenirs, had some chocolate samples from Ghirardelli, and chased some ducks around.  We visited the toy shops, viewed the Lego structures they had outside of the Lego Store, and then Mommy and Baby had one last ride on a choo-choo train!!!

I also took a series of photos that have become my recent faves:

I love these two men.  Have I said that yet?

Ryan and I were very nervous about the plane ride back.  We had a 6 hour flight to Los Angeles and for the most part it went well.  We sat next to a very talkative woman who was also super nice.  While I was trying to nap she lifted up my head and stuck a travel pillow underneath me.  She offered us chewing gum.  She picked up Tyler's toys and binkie each time he threw them.  We are so thankful that we had such a nice passenger sit next to us.  Tyler managed to fall asleep towards the end of the flight but when we landed we had to do a hand off from Daddy to Mommy and Tyler woke up screaming.  He wanted Daddy to hold him, he couldn't get comfortable, and we had rudely woken him up.  And to think we were only in LA.

We didn't get to Portland until 10:30pm.  And guess what didn't make it with us...our car seat.  It took another hour to get things sorted out.  Apparently we were told that things like this notoriously happened very often at LAX, and usually with United.  They were super nice and loaned us one of their car seats so we were able to bring the baby home.  We left PDX at 11:30, got to Tigard at 12, and finally went to bed around 1am.  We were then up at 6:20am and left the house around 7:10am.  Ryan and were incredibly sleep deprived.

But in happier news, on Saturday I received a text that informed me our lead had gotten promoted and her position was available.  I texted back, "Don't hire anyone until I get back!!!"  Unfortunately, our resort didn't have wi-fi so I was hoping to apply when I got back.  On Monday I got another text that said interviews were being done on Wednesday and if I hadn't yet applied I needed to.  So I applied on my phone.

Wednesday morning completely sleep deprived, jet lagged, and with vomit on me (Tyler decided to gag himself and threw up all over himself so we ended up pulling over in Albany to clean him up as we were driving down that morning), I had my interview...And got the job!!!  Best welcome home ever.

Day 56

Day 57

Day 55

Our last full day of Disney.

Most everyone had left already.  Uncle Craig and Aunt Ali left on Sunday, the grandmas took Andy, Natasha, and the cousins that morning (Tyler cried as they drove away), and Mala's Grammy and Aunt Emily were the only ones left besides me, Ryan, Tyler and Linh.  The other two decided on a kid-free Magic Kingdom day while the four of us ventured to Disney's Hollywood Studios.

On a side note, Ryan likes to make fun of me because I call this park Disney's MGM Studios.  I could have sworn that was what it was called but when we looked it up, he was right.  Then Grandma Barb informed us that it used to be Disney's MGM Studios so I was still right!

Anyways, it was a much shorter day since this park didn't have a lot of baby-friendly attractions and we wanted to go to bed early since we were leaving the next day.

We first watched the 3D Muppet show, which they have at Disneyland.  It was fun but way over Tyler's head.  And he didn't want to wear the 3D glasses so it was probably super obnoxious to watch the screen.  Afterwards we had lunch at Pizza Planet, which was super cute and looked very similar to the Pizza Planet in "Toy Story."  I tried to convince Uncle Linh to win Tyler a stuffed animal in the claw game but after he analyzed it he decided that none of the toys were in an easy position and it would have been a waste of a dollar.

So after lunch we went to the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: Movie Set Adventure, which was basically a big playground for little ones.  Tyler had so much fun running around, watching the water splash down (and staying out of it, thank goodness), and exploring the tunnels.  If he had it his way he would have stayed there all day!  But unfortunately for him the big people had fast passes they needed to attend.

The Studio Backlot Tour was closed that day, much to our dismay.  Both Linh and I really wanted to do that tram ride.  So we did The Great Movie Ride instead and Tyler was quite scared.  There were a lot of loud noises (gunfights and explosions) and some scary themes (ghosts or zombies, I'm not sure what they were) so he was not a fan.  Us big kids weren't fans because the ride was cheesy and we were expecting something more similar to Universal Studio's backlot tour.

After the disappointing ride we got to meet Pluto and Goofy, Tyler's favorites!!!  Grandma Geri has a picture of Daddy as a baby kissing Goofy on the nose so Mama's mission was to replicate that picture.  Tyler is not the type to give out his kisses just to anyone though, not even Goofy.  He did reach out to touch his nose and whiskers and that was close enough for me.  Both characters were very playful and very sweet towards the baby.  We brought both our Pluto and Goofy stuffed animals and they were excited to see themselves.  At one point Tyler pointed to Goofy's shoes and he did a little dance.  It was very adorable.

We then went to Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which was once again too dark and scary for Tyler.  They started off the show with colorful fish singing "Under the Sea," Ariel came out and sang "Part of Your World," and then Ursula came in and ruined it all for our baby.  So afterwards we went across the way and caught Disney Junior Live on Stage!  Poor Uncle Linh, he probably didn't know any of the characters.  Tyler had a blast.  He got to see Mickey and all his friends (including his favorite, Goofy!), Sofia the First and her friends, Doc McStuffins and her stuffed animals, Jake and his pirate friends, and Captain Hook and Smee!  He got to stand up and dance, he moved his arms like a crocodile (he's been doing it since every time we come across a crocodile or alligator...which is surprisingly often), and he jumped up and down in excitement when he saw characters he's familiar with.  It is such a good show to bring a little kid, all the other kids loved it too.  Even though Linh was probably bored out of his mind I'm so glad we did it.

Since we were already in the area we decided to look around the Animation Courtyard and we found even more characters to meet and greet!  Mickey had a super long line so we decided to skip him.  Wreck-it-Ralph was also there but we skipped him as well since we haven't yet seen the movie and Tyler wasn't interested.  As we were leaving we saw Frozone and Mr. Incredible come back to their station.  Tyler pointed and was super excited to see them so we let Uncle Linh look around the gallery while we waited in line.  When it was finally our turn, our baby suddenly turned shy.  Instead of being excited like with the other characters, Tyler clung to Daddy and seemed scared of Frozone.  We still got a really cute picture:

And after all the cameras were put away, Tyler and Mr. Incredible had a moment.  They high fived, fist bumped, and Tyler even cracked a smile.  It was really sweet.  The people in these costumes are amazing.  They are incredibly patient, go out of their way to cheer a child up, and truly give you a magical Disney experience.

Because it's a much smaller park than the others, we did't stay for too much longer.  We walked around the park after Tyler fell asleep.  He missed out on Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater and we waited for a while in case he would wake up but he didn't.  So we left the park and ate at a Golden Corral, our first experience with the chain.  Tyler loved it.  It's crappy buffet food but it was good enough for such a late night.

And we managed to get our family photo in early that day:

The rest of the night was spent packing and cleaning and getting ready for a long day of travel.

Day 54

Epcot is Ryan’s favorite Disney park.  I love the Magic Kingdom but our day at Epcot was definitely the most relaxing, the most fun, and the most successful.

As we were coming into the park we saw Pluto near the entrance.  Tyler really wanted to see him but we were meeting Uncle Craig and the kids so we didn't have time to wait in line.  He was pretty sad but when we got to our meeting point we received a text from Uncle Craig that said they had just started the Circle of Life show.  Luckily, Chip and Dale were taking pictures and greetings kids very close to us so Grandma Geri and I took Tyler over for a meet and greet!  By the time it was our turn, Craig's gang had arrived so Mala snuck in the picutre.

We started with one of Ryan's favorite rides, Living with the Land.  It was a nice little boat ride that was informative and interesting for the adults, and slow and calm enough for Tyler and Mala.  Perry's an animal, nothing ever bothers him!  But Tyler seemed to really enjoy being on a boat.

He also loves running around with Cousin Perry.  He got to do a lot of that in Orlando.  So much that he now thinks he can do it here in Oregon...in Safeway.  We broke our baby.

Craig had to cut his Epcot day short since he had an 8 hour drive back to North Carolina but the rest of us continued on to visit 11 different countries.

First up, Mexico:

We didn't spend a lot of time in Mexico.  Perry had fallen asleep and we were all getting pretty hungry so we wanted to go to Germany for brats, which was high on Ryan's list of things we had to do.  Unfortunately, the Grandmas had gone to Germany first to scope out the restaurant and found that there was a super long wait just to get to the front desk to find out how long the wait was to get in.  Ridiculous.  We found a much shorter wait in China.

We left Mexico, passed through Norway, and decided to lunch in China at Nine Dragons.  Tyler was super tired and threw the biggest tantrum we've ever experienced at a restaurant.  I ended up taking him outside for a bit so that he could calm down.  When we came back into the restaurant he sat with dad while I sang "Baby Beluga" and stroking his hair.  He quickly fell asleep.

After lunch we spent some time watching some amazing Chinese acrobats.  They do some crazy things!  Mala liked watching the dancers the best.  She kept twirling around, hitting people with her Chinese parasol.  Perry was also very entertained.  Tyler was asleep.

He woke up when we circled back to Norway.  Mala really wanted to see Elsa from "Frozen" but Craig spoke with an Epcot employee earlier that day who told him that we'd have to stand in line right away if we wanted to see her.  The line for Anna and Elsa was incredibly long!  I offered to stand in line while everyone else went off but Ryan said we didn't need to.  Mala peeked through the window to see the princesses and that seemed to satisfy her.  Instead we went on Maelstrom, which was a lot of fun!  It's a boat ride similar to Pirates of the Caribbean but with more speed, twists, and turns.  The trolls scared Tyler (we have a sensitive baby, just like Mama!) but he enjoyed the speed and the mini drops.  I didn't remember doing it the last time we visited Epcot but Ryan swears we did.

I wanted to buy an Elsa dress for Mala for her birthday and throughout the entire Disney trip I searched high and low for that dress.  When I realized they didn't carry it, I searched for a doll or a shirt or anything!  Nothing!!!  All they had were some "Frozen" books and CD's.  But in Norway they have a shop called the Puffin's Roost with a bunch of Norway-centric items.  It's where Ryan bought a keychain on a previous trip.  They had a tiny "Frozen" section with lots and lots of Anna and Olaf shirts but no Elsa shirts.  Until a clerk brought one over and hung it up.  It would have been slightly too big for Mala but I wanted to grab it anyway.  And I was too late.  Some hefty woman barreled her way over and snatched the shirt off the rack.  She compared the shirt to her teeny, tiny child who was much smaller than Mala, shrugged, and carried it close to her chest.  She knew I was eyeing the shirt.  I should have snatched it out of her chubby hands.  But we had already bought Mala a baby Nala and got her face painted so Ryan said we didn't need to buy her anything else.  But I was ready to go all Black Friday Wal-Mart on that woman!

After Norway we passed through China again and made it to Germany.  We had lost some group members so Grandma Barb, Daddy, Baby and I decided to buy some brats and beer and wait for everyone else to catch up.  We bought two sausages, one for Daddy and one for Baby.  By the time the other kids showed up, Perry brought along his appetite.  The babies ended up eating both sausages!  So I got another one for Ryan.  We had some hungry babies!

I love the picture of Tyler chomping on his bread.  Our baby loves to eat!!

In Italy we got gelato.  Natasha loves cake and ice cream so that was high on our list of things to do.  We had a small list and unfortunately we weren't able to get to all of them (pastries at Kringla Bakeri og Kafe in Norway for Mommy, sushi and dinner in Japan for Grandma Barb and Natasha, seeing Elsa in Norway for Mala, and the Ellen exhibit for Grandma Geri) but at least we got the brats and gelato in!  We have learned not to have high expectations while traveling with small children and also a massive group.  It's difficult trying to wrangle everyone and the first couple of days we spent so much time and energy trying to keep the group together, it took Epcot to have some meeting points and just letting people do as they please.  That was so much easier.

We passed America (we live in America, why do we need to "visit" it?) and shopped in Japan.  Tyler tried his first Asian strawberry non-carbonated soda and he loved it.  It tasted like liquid bubble gum that Linh and I used to get from Asian markets.  We also picked up a cute little doll for Ba Ngoai.

It was then getting pretty late so we strolled through Morocco, France, the United Kingdom (where we listened to a Scottish cover band and took a blurry photo with a topiary of the Crocodile from "Peter Pan"), and then Canada.

We had dinner back at The Land and Andy and Ryan squeezed in one more ride at Mission to Mars.  That gave Tyler plenty of time to "test" out the stuffed animals by knocking them down and riding them like a horse.  I'm glad the store employees didn't kick us out.  He gave a couple of those stuffed toys kisses.  His kisses are very wet.

But we got our family photo in!  We ended up getting several of them in a few different countries.

Japan

France

Germany

We can't wait for another trip back.  Next time we're hitting all of our favorites.  Mama wants her Norwegian pastries!!!

Now please enjoy these pictures of Tyler chasing after birds:

Day 53

This was Tyler and Mama’s very first trip to the Animal Kingdom.  Too bad Baby was asleep for most of it.

We started off the trip with lunch at the Rainforest Café.  I was really excited to take the kids to the Rainforest Café.  As children Linh and I would often go with our uncle when we visited California and I remembered loving the atmosphere, the animals and the fanfare, I was so excited for Tyler to see it!

We got to sit close to the elephants, which Tyler loved.  Every now and then the restaurant would go through a “storm” and the animals would move around and make some noise.  I was a little worried that Tyler would get scared since he didn’t enjoy the loud noises in Belle’s Enchanted Stories but he was entranced.  He wasn’t a fan of the gorilla but he loved watching the elephants.

By the time that we were done with lunch and off to our first ride, Tyler fell asleep.  He missed out on the whole safari and I felt really bad for him.  I think he would have really enjoyed seeing all the animals!  This summer I plan on taking him back to the Oregon Zoo to make up for it.  Now that he’s a bit older I think he will enjoy it much more.  We took plenty of pictures of the animals though, so if he's ever interested he can view those later.  Though I kind of doubt he will.

After he woke up the party split up with Mama, Daddy, Uncle Linh, the grandmas, and Tyler taking a train ride to rest our feet.  After we came back Tyler’s been saying “choo-choo” for train rather than signing it.  It’s super cute.

We then met up with everyone to catch Finding Nemo: The Musical.  I don’t think Tyler was too interested but he did a really good job of sitting and not trying to run around all over the place, which we were a bit afraid of.  We have never brought him to a movie theater and he doesn’t have the attention span and patience to sit through a full movie at home.  So we were pleasantly surprised with how well he did.  His favorite part of the whole show was when the bubbles came floating down.  Unfortunately we were sitting in the middle section and missed out on the bubble action.  Both Tyler and Perry were pointing at the bubbles, wanting to run over and play.

The big kids then rode Everest while the littles got to ride a dinosaur ride that was similar to Dumbo, which Tyler missed out on the day before.  Ryan and I caught up to them in the midst of their ride and Tyler looked so happy!  Afterwards he kept pointing to it and I do wish that Ryan and I could have taken him on it again but we had a fast pass to catch, one that I wish we hadn’t done.

Ryan, Linh, and I have all done It’s Tough to Be a Bug at Disneyland and we all remembered small bits and pieces of the show.  There’s the “sting” that you get on your back, the bugs “crawling” under your seat, etc.  I knew that Tyler was not going to enjoy the show because he hates bugs.  I promise I have not been indoctrinating this baby with my own likes and dislikes, he has decided this on his own.  So the entire show is about bugs and then we got “sprayed” with “insect repellant” and Tyler panicked so Grandma Geri took him out of the auditorium, in the nick of time.  Right after he left the evil grasshopper burst into the scene with a loud bang.  Tyler would have been bawling at the time.  Perry, on the other hand, we were told enjoyed the show.  Mala did not, she was pretty scared as well.

To make up for it, the kiddos got to meet Dug from “Up!”  Apparently that’s how Disney spells his name.  Not “Doug,” but “Dug.”  I don’t care how he spells his name, he made Tyler’s day.

Tyler and Mala were both very excited to see Dug.  Tyler kept pointing and saying, “Gus!”  If you remember every dog is a “Gus” and every car is a “bus.”  So “Dug” became “Gus.”  We had received an autograph book from an AAA presentation we went to about Disney prior to taking our vacation so our first page has Dug’s name and a paw print in it, how cute!  Perry does not like the characters, something the family discovered at Great Wolf Lodge when he refused to go up to Wiley.  When it was our turn Perry did not want to see Dug at all.  Mala gave Dug a big hug and Tyler was grinning from ear to ear.  Dug gave Mama a kiss and Tyler in turn gave one to him!  We were so lucky to get to him in time, they ended up roping the entrance shortly after we got in line and a few kids were disappointed when Dug was taken away.

We ended the day picking up some super cheap pizza that really wasn’t bad considering the price ($26 for three pizzas and a dessert pizza???  What???), watching the Olympics, and then chowing down on popcorn.  And of course an Amway presentation from Craig.  But while Daddy did his “business meeting,” Tyler got some Mommy and Grandma time jumping on the bed and watching “Madagascar.”

Perhaps it’s because we went to bed late every night but Tyler slept so well in Florida.  We kept his crib next to our bed and we rarely had to get up to check on him.  I actually can’t remember a time that we did.  Maybe I was dead asleep and Ryan got up with him but I don’t remember it.  I can’t say the same about post-Florida.  Let’s just say our nights haven’t been as…sunny.

Day 52

MAGIC KINGDOM!!!

I was so excited to take Tyler to Disney World.  His first Disney experience ever and he gets to go to Disney World, what a lucky baby!  This was Mama’s first time at the Magic Kingdom as well and I was so excited to experience it with him.  It was definitely a different experience doing Disney with a baby.

What I Learned About Taking a Baby to Disney

-        Go at the baby’s pace

-        There will be naps.  They may only last 20 minutes and there may be more than one.  But there will be naps.

-        Even though a ride says “all ages,” it doesn’t mean it’s “all age appropriate.”  Tyler was pretty scared several times throughout his Disney vacation.  My poor baby.

-        Food is expensive at Disney.  Pack a lunch.

-        Bring plenty of snacks.  We did and we managed to feed our baby, our baby nephew, our 6-year-old niece, and a 16-year-old boy.  Thank goodness for diaper backpacks.

Our Magic Kingdom experience started with Prince Charming’s Carousel, which I knew would be the highlight of Tyler’s day.  He has lately become obsessed with horses (“Neigh!  Neigh!  Neigh!”) and kept pointing towards the horses.  We got to watch the grandmas go round and round with Cousin Mala and then it was our turn!  Tyler sat with Daddy on a horse while Cousin Perry sat with his daddy.

Afterwards we went to Belle’s Enchanted Stories, which was not Tyler’s favorite experience.  He enjoyed standing in line (playing with a rope, watching the little birdies hop around, hanging out with Daddy…) but once we got inside all squished in like a can of sardines he started losing interest.  When we entered Belle’s castle and they were picking out volunteers for the “play,” the whole group was instructed to sing.  The sudden burst of high notes frightened Tyler and he clung to me.  He then passed out for the rest of the show missing out on Mala performance as an enchanted portrait and our meet and greet with Belle.

Still asleep, the other two kids got to go on the Dumbo ride.  Tyler woke up in time for lunch at Ray’s Starlight Café and chowed down on some chicken strips.  He had quite the appetite the entire trip!  I think he gained at least 5 pounds!  After lunch we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, another one of Tyler’s favorites.  He sat in between Mama and Daddy and was in charge of spinning the cart, which he did with fervor!  Ryan and I were spinning around like crazy!  I can’t use that as an excuse to why I did so poorly though.  I think I managed 3300 points.  Ryan got something like 22,000.

Afterwards the “big kids” took Mala on a ride called Stitch’s Great Escape.  There was a lot of time spent in the dark and a lot of loud noises so Mala was pretty scared.  I was disappointed in the ride.  It was pretty much a waste of time, I wish we had done Space Mountain instead but the ride had been closed when Linh tried to ride it so that might have been a bust as well.

While we were hanging with Stitch, Tyler went on the People Mover with the Grandmas and Perry.  We all reunited on the Jungle Cruise, which was different from the one they have in Disneyland so that was fun.

Tyler fell asleep again afterwards so he missed out on Pirates of the Caribbean (Mala was scared again, she thought the pirates were real.  Once she realized they were made out of “wood” she was fine but she kept asking, “Are they going to do something to us?  Are we going to die?”) and the Magic Carpet Ride.

He woke up again in time for the Electric Light Parade.  I don’t think he really knew what was going on until the end of the parade with Pete’s magic dragon showed up.  Then Tyler got really excited, pointing to it and signing, “More!”  We ended the night with fireworks (Ryan got some really cute pictures of the show and of Tyler’s reaction), some shopping, and a ferry ride back to our parking lot.

We had completely forgot to do our daily photo but remembered in the nick of time, right in the middle of our ferry ride:

For a first time at Disney, it was pretty awesome.  As evidence, may I present to you some more Disney pictures:

What Disney trip is complete without some fireworks?  Disney perfection.