Walt Disney World

Marc signed up for the Florida Half Ironman and that set the wheels in motion for our family trip this year. We used the time share that he inherited and were able to trade a one bedroom week on Kona for a 2 bedroom that slept 8 in Orlando. With the extra room we asked Marc's mom to watch the race and spend some time with us at Walt Disney World.

It turned out that there was a space shuttle launch scheduled for when we were in Florida, so we drove to Titusville to a little restaurant called the Wineburger that a friend's uncle who works for NASA had recommended to watch the launch from. Watching a launch has always been a goal after realizing that I would never personally make it into space. The launch did not disappoint and it was great to be watching it with my family while my son sat on my shoulders. My daughter might have missed it and kept playing with her Leapster had I not told her to look up. It was the highlight of the trip for me to see and head the shuttle Atlantis go up.

Of course the traffic was also a site to behold as many people were going to watch the third to last shuttle launch currently scheduled. Toll roads suck and I am glad to live in a state that doesn't have toll roads. Fortunately while waiting in the cash lane we noticed the rental car had an E-pass for the tolls and even though there was a surcharge of $2.50 per day it was worth it to change lanes and bypass the long bottle necks the booths created and actually get to Titusville as opposed to being stuck on the freeway for the launch.

On Sat we made our first trip into the Magic Kingdom with the kids. We had watched a history channel show on Disney World prior to our trip and my daughter had to see the Hall of Presidents to confirm that Lincoln would not ooze red fluid that looks like blood. She was also impressed with the first lady's dresses and plans to sew replicas of Nancy Reagan's red dress and Eleanor Roosevelt's black dress this summer. A very grand endeavor for a six year old indeed.

Thanks to FB I learned that a friend from high school was at WDW at the same time we were. We briefly caught up and got to meet each others families at the castle. The world gets smaller everyday and it was nice to see him and meet his lovely family.

My mil had mentioned wanting to go to Cinderella's castle for a meal with the princesses. I was able to get lunch reservations and we surprised my daughter with a Cinderella dress and gloves for the trip. She was very excited to dress up for the lunch. She was given a wand and my son was given a sword. It was fun to watch her with the princesses and my son was embarrassed when Ariel gave him a kiss and got lipstick on his face.

Sunday was Marc's race. We stood on a picnic table and got to see him finish in the top third for his age division and the entire race. In the afternoon we went to Animal Kingdom and met up with Marc's cousin who works there. He was idolized by my daughter and she loved bragging to the kids she met that she knows someone who works for Mickey Mouse.

On Monday we went to Epcot. My daughter and I did the "behind the seeds" tour in the land. She got to release ladybugs and we got to feed the fish during the tour. We also met up with two of Marc's cousins for dinner and got to visit with them.

Tuesday we went back to the Magic Kingdom. My son wore his cowboy boots and just met the height requirements for most of the rides. I certainly prefer Splash Mountain to the tea cups which we managed to avoid the entire trip. We also tried to do the rides that aren't at Disneyland.

Wednesday we had a dinner reservation with tickets to Fantasmic that evening so we spent the morning and early afternoon swimming at the hotel. Unfortunately the kids were out in the sun too long and their faces got a little pink after the sunblock wore of in the pool. When I re-applied sunscreen it burned their faces and we had to wash it off and buy baby block at Walgreen's on the way to the park. That got in their eyes and they screamed and cried on the tram. They eventually calmed down in the park, but not before cancelling the dinner reservation that was the hardest to obtain.

Thursday we went back to the Animal Kingdom and my son loved the dinosaur area while my daughter preferred the petting zoo. The hotel had movie in the pool night and we watched Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

Today we went back to the Magic Kingdom to ride a couple of rides and replace my son's broken toy and buy my daughter another pair of earrings since one of her new mouse earrings fell off in the pool. On the flight home we saw the oil slicks in the gulf when the pilot pointed them out.

Overall it was a nice vacation and the crowds weren't too bad given school is still in session. The life experience of seeing the launch was worth pulling my daughter out of school. I was glad the kids were big enough for most of the rides. I certainly favor Disneyland over Disney World as it is easier to get around especially staying within walking distance and the weather is much nicer in Anaheim without the humidity. Although I am not in a hurry to go back to an amusement park anytime soon.

What's for Dinner?

I have answered that question so many times and received less than appreciative responses so many times that I now respond to that question with, "Yuck! I hate that." It is not a specific recipe, but just a way to prepare the kids that I am cooking and if you don't like it, oh well and you can wait until breakfast. And they have held out. At 2am when they wake up with hunger pains and are told the kitchen is closed for a couple more hours it is a sad time and I empathize with them, but maintain the rules.

Sometimes cooking is fun and other times I get in a rut without inspiration and look upon it as a dreaded but necessary task that is criticized and unappreciated. My daughter has food allergies so I cook from scratch a lot and we rarely order pizza or go out to eat as a family. I also go to several different grocery stores to get safe foods for her. It is a part time job reading labels and shopping for soy and dairy free products. A few of the stores I frequent are Fresh n Easy, Trader Joe's, Sprouts, Whole Foods, Fry's, Costco and Sam's Club. I might be able to get by shopping at Whole Foods all the time, but there is a reason it has been dubbed "Whole Paycheck" and why I go to the other stores and stock up when I am there.

My husband doesn't necessarily like the "safe" foods, requiring his own brands of certain items and went so far as to label my daughter's items as "bad tasting stuff" on a Google grocery list he created earlier this week for "our" benefit. Opening this list made me wonder what his real intention was since he has been scanning food cartons to track his diet online. And let's just say these were not pleasant thoughts that entered my mind. Visions of him wanting me to scan food as I buy it and then again as I throw it away entered my head. Thank heavens that wasn't his plan. It had more to do with using a list when shopping and a conversation regarding sardines and other random items and their quantity in the pantry that don't seem to circle through our diet as frequently as they greet him in the cupboard and his concerns about waste. The sardines were bought when my daughter was eating them a couple of years ago and they have yet to expire. They are a good source of calcium, but like most little kids they like something and then they don't.

Last night in an attempt to circle some stuff through the pantry I used cans of garbanzo beans and made falafel. One kid liked it, one kid didn't. I can't wait until sardine night, it might be one where we all say "Yuck, I hate that" especially if I serve them with mustard, diced green chilies and maple syrup which by the way I have too much of also.

Gloriously Gluttonous and Indulgent Girl's Trip

I did a girls' trip to San Francisco with my best college roommate and friend of 20+ years this past weekend. It was my ninth trip to the city and her first. We decided to forgo renting a car and use pubic transit and shoe leather. The public transit was easier than I expected especially with Google Maps on my phone.

The flight into SFO was eventful in that my friend passed out on the plane and I couldn't get her to wake up and when I felt her face she was clammy. That revelation prompted me to push the call button which set all sorts of things in motion. Fortunately my friend rallied as they were putting the oxygen mask over her face. There was a Dr on the flight that assisted and EMT's escorted her off the plane. They did a brief assessment and finding nothing we went on our way after signing multiple documents for the airlines and EMT's.

We took BART from the airport to the city. The exit was right at the doorsteps of our hotel, The Palace Hotel. I was thrilled to be staying at such a beautiful historic hotel. We checked in and were back out the door to find a late lunch and explore.

For lunch we found a Vietnamese restaurant and I ordered soup and tea. They were out of black tea and the woman at the counter suggested Thai tea as a substitute. I was expecting something similar to a normal ice tea but got an orange thick drink instead with several black round balls at the bottom that looked similar to rabbit droppings. It was good, but not what I was expecting and it took a while to get used to and helped if I didn't look at it.

On Thursdays the SFMOMA is open late so we walked around the corner to the museum and began to explore the museum. Modern Art is interesting. I can appreciate most of it, but only really like about half of it or less. Having just watched the movie "The Invention of Lying" with Marc I thought it would have been hysterical to have had a movie scene shot in such a museum and have the actors discuss the art truthfully. There was one incredible exhibit that I really liked and that was Ewan Gibbs' drawings of various San Francisco scenes that he made with minuscule circles or slashes. They were really remarkable.

One of the things we lucked into when planning our visit was "Dine About Town" where several for the nicer restaurants offered three course dinners for $35 and two of the ones we went to had wine pairings with dinner. This was a glorious gluttonous find that really made the trip over the top. We chose restaurants within walking distance of the hotel, so we dined at XYZ, One Market and The Waterfront.

On Friday we were up early and had breakfast before setting off on a walking tour of Chinatown. I found the book "Walking San Francisco" at the library and it was a great book although following the tour backwards because of our starting point did complicate things a touch when alleys weren't labels from the direction we were approaching, but Google Maps came in handy. We did stick out in Chinatown, especially carrying at tour book, but I don't think the book made that much of a difference. At the conclusion of our tour we ate dim sum and then contemplated our next adventure.

We walked through North Beach to Washington Square Park and started a walking tour of Telegraph Hill. The title of the walk is "Scaling the Stairways' to Paradise. The walk was labeled as strenuous and I skimmed the book and it didn't seem like that big of deal. We climbed Telegraph Hill and the view from Coit Tower was incredible. I think there is a picture of my husband there when he was a little kid but I have to confirm that. We then climbed down the Greenwich Steps and there was a lovely garden where we stopped and watched the parrots. At the bottom of the hill the book then instructed us that "is should be instantly obvious that you have your work cut out of you"- that's right we were supposed to climb back up the hill we had just climbed down. My friend would have none of it and refused. So instead of making it to the finish and connecting with the North Beach Bar Crawl walk back to the hotel we took the low ground and walked along the Embarcadero which provided us with a way to get to the start of the cable car line at Market and Drumm. We rode the cable car up and down the California line getting off in Chinatown to stop at some of the shops that had been closed when we first walked by. I got Paige a pink kimono with butterflies and Ken a little battery operated lantern. We got caught in the rain and I was a drowned rat by the time we got back to the hotel.

On Saturday we took the 38L bus out to the Legion of Honor and got to view the Golden Gate Bridge from the other side. The Legion of Honor was incredible. They had a traveling exhibit of Cartier Jewelry which was amazing. Grace Kelly's diamond necklace was my favorite piece. The other exhibits were amazing and the collection of Rodin's was unique in that it had both plasters and bronzes.Hunger pains and sore eyes from actually being able to read the labels without kids in tow, we eventually left to seek out a late lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant about 3pm.

Later we met up with my friend's brother who lives in SF and leisurely walked towards our dinner destination. There was a full moon rising over the Bay Bridge that was just amazing and we had a view of it from our dining table where we feasted on lobster.

Sunday morning I went back to St. Mary's Cathedral that we had found on our Chinatown walk for mass. The congregation seemed to be all travelers from somewhere else except for a handful of people. It was a nice mass in a historic setting. The second reading was Love is patient, Love is kind.... and that is what Father Chuck chose to spend his homily on even quoting Shakespeare. I of course prayed that my friend wouldn't faint on the flight home among other things.

After mass we went to breakfast and headed to the airport. Thankfully it was an uneventful flight home. I am reconsidering wearing slip on shoes without socks though after walking barefoot on what felt like sweaty carpet. I was so grossed out that I put hand sanitizer on my feet.

It was a nice get away with a treasured friend where I could do grown up things. Today it was back to carpooling, a play date at the park and plunging an overflowing toilet. Such is the life of being a mom.

A Little Green

I can not handle puke in action, especially the sound. And I think it goes deeper than listening to the first guy I ever dated puke his guts out in my shower after my roommate and I hosted a party in college. For over an hour I kept repeating to myself that the shower will come clean and I will be able to use it again as I listend to him wretch. The thought still makes me shudder 15 years later.

You think as a mother I could rise above the aversion when my kids are the ones hugging the porcelain but alas there is a boundary I cannot cross even as a mother without getting sick myself. Thankfully I am married to a man who can handle taking care of the children while they are puking. He is my hero. This was not a matter we discussed before we got married, but I think there should be a question on the Pre-Cana test like "Can you handle watching someone puke?" At least one person has to say yes or else you aren't a compatible couple.

So I took clean up duty last night. It was not pleasant especially given the fact that dinner involved spaghetti sauce and the kids woke up puking so there was puke that smelled like bile and sauce in their beds and on the carpeting. It was disgusting and red. Fortunately we have the "Little Green" which is a hand held steam cleaner that I found at Costco after seeing way too many commercials for it on PBS. The commercial is of a happy mom cleaning benign spots out of her carpet in the middle of the day. In reality I did clean some spots in the middle of the day as a way to be cheap and put off having the carpets professionally cleaned. But where this baby really shines is in the middle of the night with red puke on our light colored carpet. Our scenario last night would not make a good commercial but I may have figured out how it got it's name because I was more than a "little green" cleaning up the mess.

Sometimes You Need to Get Lucky

A friend and I planned a weekend at Grand Canyon this past weekend with not much of a plan in place except to enjoy the canyon and let it help us put things in our life into perspective. My friend needed this weekend as her ex-husband was flying off to get remarried. I wanted to be a supportive friend and have a little weekend away.

If someone needed a little bit of luck, it was my friend. We were fifth on the wait list to stay down at Phantom Ranch. I was thinking we just might get lucky because there would probably be more men on the list. That theory was quickly debunked when there were more women than men waiting for a spot.

It just so happened that there was a sufficient amount of cancellations and we had our choice between sharing a dorm or having a cabin to ourselves and we selected the cabin and steak dinner, which was the only food option for dinner. I felt like we had just won the lottery, especially since our next stop would have been the Back Country office to see if we could backpack into the canyon. I was thrilled that I wouldn't be carrying a big pack with a tent and sleeping bag.

So we went back to our hotel and packed for our overnight in the canyon and had a nice breakfast at the hotel before heading into the big hole in the ground. It took two shuttles to get the South Kaibab trail, so we didn't start hiking until just before 11am, which was fine because it was rather cool at the top.

We stopped at Cedar Point for a snack and there was a squirrel that was a little too friendly begging for food and really liked my day pack. It probably had something to do with the fact that I didn't give much thought to where I put my bananas that I took from the breakfast bar and my water bottles banged against them making mush in the mesh netting. I ate the bananas before they could get any worse.

The hike down was gorgeous and the weather was perfect. The museum curator in me wanted more signs to read, especially when we were in another layer of rock as I tried to place layers with the mnemonic I learned on my rafting trip. After the first three top layers I was a lost cause.

So being women, we talked. Of course part of the conversation revolved around my friend's ex- husband and relationships. Really the summary from that topic is best reflected with an Italian proverb:

"In man, mortal sins are venial;
in woman, venial sins are mortal."

Walking past the canyon walls that were radiating heat felt like a wonderful welcome back embrace as we got closer to the river. I loved seeing the river and it brought back a lot of memories from this summer.

Once across the bridge we went to Boat Beach and took a break and put our feet in the water. The water was as cold as I remembered and I was glad that a warm shower was waiting for me instead of a quick soaping up and jump in the river. We saw a couple mule deer just above us. After a while we left the beach and headed to check in and dinner. Our cabin was very nice and had its own toilet and sink with running water.

The steak dinner was very good and what it lacked in flavor was made up for with huge portions. I had the steak dinner before- aka the vegetarian dinner which was the steak dinner without the steak the first time I hiked to Phantom Ranch with my family as a teenager. My dad saved $3 because I didn't eat the steak. My dad loves that story.

After dinner we decided to take showers. Unfortunately I don't always have my whole brain working on vacation and the shower was where my brain decided not to function in any problem solving dimension. Maybe it was too gorged on chocolate cake, but I had the world's coldest shower all because I didn't realize that the hot and cold were reversed instead of the hot water being gone. Some women who had already had their showers and were primping were kind enough to tell me the faucet was reversed after they listened to my painful screams for what to me felt like an eternity. I was grateful for the advice and recovered from my hypothermia in the hot water.

We went the ranger talk as a way to kill time before the Canteen reopened. The talk was about the Kolb Brothers. At the Canteen, I had more wine, bought a t-shirt to sleep in and mailed postcards from the bottom with the famous stamp that says "Mailed by Mule from the bottom of Grand Canyon".

At the ranger talk we had been given a weather report for the next day, sure enough we awoke and it was windy. The report had said 45 mph winds through out the day. Sometimes the wind was at our back and sometimes it was blowing sand into our faces. It made the hike longer for everyone.

My friend's hike was made even longer with pain in her left leg. Shortly after crossing the silver bridge she was having problems. Neither of us being medically trained at all the remedy consisted of more Advil, duct tape and underwear- hers of course since in was her leg. The underwear was wrapped around her leg below the knee and then wrapped in duct tape to make a brace on the fly. Miracle of miracles it helped and the pain subsided.

We chatted with people on the way out and saw more wildlife. This time we saw mule deer leaving camp and big horn sheep on the trail. There were also assorted lizards.

The last part of the hike is always the most entertaining with all the tourists taking a leisurely stroll not really paying attention to squat and certainly not getting out of the way. My favorites are the couples holding hands taking up the whole trail and not even considering separating their touching display of affection to make it easier for others to get around them. This time I encountered three such couples. My other favorite tourist was a Frenchman with the camera. Apparently I stopped for a break in the spot he wanted to photograph. He waited me out and then asked me to take his photo as soon as I got up. I them got to walk behind him and watch him run a head, take a photo and then run ahead again until he disappeared beyond my view.

One nice thing about the trails from the last time I hiked them was that there were composting bathrooms conveniently placed and I was grateful and happy to mark my territory at every stop both into and out of the canyon. Actually I would have skipped the one at mile 3 hiking out of the canyon on the BA had I been told there would be another composting toilet at the 1.5 mile spot. It was a long walk to pee.

My friend loved her first hike into Grand Canyon and I was happy to be with her. We put the finishing touches on a return trip next year when we returned to civilization. This time we are hiking North Rim to South Rim. Hopefully we won't need the duct tape.

Tax Credits

The school tax credit in Arizona is being scrutinized by the media. Seriously if you are going to pick a tax credit to pick on why schools in a state that ranks near the bottom for our nation? Why not pick on the stimulus tax credits for the auto or housing industry or all the people who get a $1000 tax credit for installing solar heater to heat their swimming pool?

A Glimpse of the Life I Didn't Choose

Sometimes in life you get the opportunity to see the path you didn't take. There was a female motor guide on our trip who was about my age, but who had chosen a very different path than me. She is a nomad guiding river trips in the summer and traveling as a fill in yoga teacher at various studios across the country in the off season. She had taken the path less traveled and after grad school I had chosen marriage and family.

Marriage is a serious fork in the road. I've come to realize that I didn't fully grasp the magnitude of the decision to settle down at twenty five. Being married and having a family is an adventure, but it is a far cry from the person I was in college. I went on archaeology digs in the four corners and studied ethnography traveling up and down the Baja of Mexico. Going on this trip gave me a chance to just be me without the many obligations I face everyday with small children under foot. It was nice to get a break and step away to get some perspective. I am grateful my dad was willing to go along with this adventure and we had a great time, but it is wonderful to come home where my arms and heart are full. I also realize that I am very lucky to have a husband who will support my dreams even when they differ from his and make more work for him while I am gone. And while the nomad existence looks appealing especially when the kids are giving me grief, the happily ever after comes with traveling down the path and following through.