Storming the Castle (Repeatedly)

I have been dreading this post with a passion: a full week of family in town (Mimi, Grampy, sister Sue, brother-in-law Vic, niece Aubrey and nephew Garrett), with every day packed with some overly-adrenalated activity. This could either be a tome, or an exercise in literary minimalism.

Minimalism it is!

Saturday:
After a rather brutal travel day, the family arrived in Burbank at, like midnight. They are on their own. No way I'm going all the way to Burbank at midnight. That's what rental cars and GPS are for. (In our household unconditional love is off the clock at 10PM.) They had rented a vacation bungalow in Redondo Beach and went there directly, so aside from the phone call in the wee hours saying they'd landed, we didn't get to hang with them.

Sunday:
None of the world travellers are awake enough to go to church with us, so we grouped up at our house for dinner that afternoon along with all of Stacy's family - Grandma, Poppa, Aunt Claudia, Aunt Joyce, Mr. Jay, and honorary Grandma Flo. (16 people in all.)

It was nigh-unto Aubrey's birthday, so we used the gathering to commemorate. Cake and bubbles and hyperactivity!

Thank goodness for beer.
...and sangria.

...oh, and scotch.

Monday:
The games begin in earnest. Disneyland in all its crowd-controlled glory. Spring break has sprung and the Mouse is glutted.

We started with a "character breakfast" where we were fortunate enough to eat French toast and Eggs Benedict while periodically being interrupted by large woodland creatures who insisted upon hugging our children. Fun.

After that it was the park full-bore. The Disney Deathmarch! Lines deterred us not, for we were on a mission. No teacup unridden, no small, singing, ethnic stereotype unheeded, no bathroom unvisited.

It was here that Aubrey battled the forces of evil incarnate and N first began to betray his unorthodox fondness for goats. (We had to ask him several times to stop kissing them.)

Sue and Vic are avid Disney-doers; us, not so much. Our immediate family and Mimi and Grampy were done well before the fireworks, but Sue and Vic and their young-uns had to be forcibly extricated from the park at closing by armed security guards (presumably all wearing cute, cuddly cop costumes, of course). I tried my best to instill my bad attitude on all those around me, but alas, the Happiest Place on Earth^® won out and everyone seemed to tragically have a good time.

Tuesday:
Hardly a day of recovery - a picnic at Redondo Beach with plenty of time to embed our bathing suits with fine-grit sand at the waterline so that the ride home was especially tearful.

Wednesday:
A jaunt to sunny South Central LA, land of USC, gang shooting and (unfortunately) the California Science Center. We got to see a really cool IMAX 3-D movie^* about sea critters - the highlight was watching two cuttlefish mate. Quite fascinating. I guess that's why they call them cuttlefish.

After that it was a brisk walk over to the Natural History Museum where we got to see some pachyderms a la taxiderm, a pretty amazing collection of gem stones, both natural and cut, and got to see real-life paleontologists as they chisel away at an honest-to-goodness real T-rex skeleton recently uncovered. (Tommy the T-rex! Whoo-Hoo!) I have to turn off my sarcasm generator for a moment to admit that it actually was pretty cool.

Do-it-yourself Dinosaur Dig

Once again my immediate family's inherent whimpiness was made evident. Mimi, Grampy, Stacy, L & N and I were walking zombies by 3pm and hit the road for home. Sue and Vic and team burned it up with another couple of hours back in the Science Center.

We all met up later at a Brazilian churrascaria in Redondo with Uncle Ray and Aunt Karla to further explore the animal kingdom with some well-roasted members of the Bovinæ subfamily.

Thursday:
We are officially declared old-fogies. Sue, Vic, Aubrey and Garrett are off to Disneyland for Day 2. Mimi and Grampy, still somewhat catatonic from Day 1, came over and napped at our house all day. It was a good day. Nary a picture taken!

Friday:
Back to the front lines! Disneyland Day 3! (Actually it was California Great Adventure, which we'd never seen.) What can be said that hasn't already been stated?

I'll just leave it with pictures.

California is very considerate to have both my kid's initials within its panoply of letters. Can you imagine the whining and moaning if it were not so?

Saturday #2:
The fam's flight to Atlanta was at 7:00AM out of Burbank. (The unconditional love schedule constraint kicked in again.) Having endured a week of non-stop sugar and adrenalin, L and N moped and cried most of the day. Melt-downs abounded so bedtime was blissfully early.

Let the recovery begin.


^*SIDE NOTE: Just now, as I was putting this page together L saw the photo of the IMAX film poster (which I downloaded from the IMAX website, by the way). She was immediatly all seriousness and furrowed brows, and she glared at me accusingly: "Daddy, they said no flash photography! Why did you take it?"