Our trip to California!

The end of March is "Spring Break" for the Oregon schools, which is also the time we chose to head down to California and visit Mickey and friends at Disneyland. We headed out on Friday March 23rd, in the afternoon - parked the car in the long term car park at PDX, and flew to LAX.

When we arrived, the weather was warm - not hot. We grabbed our bags, and headed for the Shuttle which took us to our hotel in Anaheim. The trip took quite a while, because there was an accident on the freeway, which slowed traffic for quite some time. One thing we noticed very quickly - the traffic in LA/California was significantly worse than the traffic in Portland!

The trip lasted over 1 hour, but we made it safely, and went straight to our room to dump the bags. We were around 2 blocks away from Disneyland - which by the end of the trip were the longest two blocks we had ever walked! On our first night, we headed to "Downtown Disney" an area around the Disney owned Hotels, which had restaurants, stores, and a lot of nightlife.

We also made sure we picked up our tickets that first night before the mad rush on Saturday morning. It was a good thing we did, the lines to get tickets on Saturday were HUGE!

The next day we had planned to be a late day at Disney, staying for the fireworks which were at around 9.25pm. The night we arrived, the fireworks were canceled due to "high winds" so we hoped that we were not going to have that happen to us the next night!

We had breakfast in the hotel, and headed into Disney around 10am. Saturday was to be our lazy day around the park, getting a feel for the rides that we wanted to go on, and the shows we wanted to see, etc. We had a great day. We only saw a small part of the Disneyland park, the kids picked rides to go on - sadly for Jessie, her ride was closed for renovation - but we enjoyed walking around anyway.

We found out pretty quickly that anything we wanted to purchase in the park was going to be pretty expensive, food, water, drink, anything pretty much. We kind of expected it - but our suspicions were found to be true when we started looking for food for lunch!

We did get to see the fireworks, but sadly not closely. We had watched the night parade, which is in the second of the two Disney Parks - California Park, which meant we missed the timing to get across to see the fireworks first hand. Nevertheless, we did see most of them, and enjoyed them from afar.

Sunday and Monday we had organised a rental car. We picked up the car on Sunday morning, a small Toyota Corolla, and headed in to LA - specifically to look at Hollywood. Well, what can I say - the traffic in LA is horrendous. We got stuck behind an accident, that took us around 30 minutes to go around 2 miles! Yes - you read that right. Once we passed the accident though, it was smooth sailing all the way until we hit Hollywood. We then had to find a place to park.

Because we were also looking for a specific place, we ended up driving through Beverly Hills, and kept going - heading up to Mulholland Drive, which goes across the Hollywood hills, and allows you to see LA from above.

Hollywood was also busy, because of the World Premiere of "Meet the Robinsons" a new Disney movie being shown in the theater across the road from Man's Chinese Theater. We looks at the hand prints of famous people, and the stars of fame on the sidewalk. We even paid a guy $1 for having a photograph with us!

We met up with a Uni friend of Tara's for dinner, who took us to a nice Chinese restaurant. We then headed back home to Anaheim. (Thank goodness for GPS is all I can say - we would have been lost without it in LA!)

Monday we headed South to San Diego. We had no plans on what to see, other than to go see the sights. We enjoyed the trip down - which ended up being around 1 1/2 hours. We looked at the massive Navy ships in the harbor. We also saw what appeared to be a rescue mission of a dolphin in the water, and headed across to a lovely old hotel and the beach where the kids played for a while.

Tuesday was our "early day" at Disneyland. We had the ability to get in one hour early with our passes. We had made a lot of plans from what we had seen on Saturday as to where we would head first, which were a little ruined when we found out that only certain parts of the park were opened early, and not the whole park.

We ended up staying late on Tuesday until around 9.25pm, when we wanted to see the fireworks - but they were again canceled due to high winds. That was disappointing, as Wednesday was our day to head back to Portland, and we were going to miss them.

Wednesday we packed up early, and headed back to the California Park. This was our last day, and Jessie wanted very much to ride the roller coaster called "California Screamin'" We ran madly around the park getting our "Fastpasses" for each of the rides we wanted to go on, and got our tickets for "California Screamin' " which would mean it was the last ride we went on before heading home.

It ended up being great. Jessie and I were the only ones on the ride from the family. Cynfor was not very keen to ride it - I have to say, looking at it, it looked pretty scary - and Tara was not interested in going either. We had four tickets to ride though, so Jessie and I figured if we enjoyed it once, we would go again. Well - we did. We were stuck up in the front of the ride, and enjoyed the best view on our first ride. We went up and down and around and when we returned, Tara and Cynfor were waiting for us - eagerly awaiting our feedback.

Both Jessie and I loved it. It was amazingly smooth, fast, and a lot of fun. Very exhilarating!

We then headed out of the park, back to our hotel, to our shuttle to return back to Portland. Now that we are home, it all feels like a memory - but we know we have the photographs to remind us of how much fun we had! (Just click on the link below to see all the pictures we brought back!)

Disney March 2007

Our First NBA Game

We went to watch a NBA game on Sunday. It was great experience for all of us. We enjoyed the cheers, entertainment and advertising as well as the game itself. However, just as the football game in Melbourne, the food, the parking and the drinks are all extremely expensive at the venue. The game was between the local Portland team, the Trailblazers and the Seattle Sonics. Portland sadly lost the game by around 20 points.
Cynfor loved the game!

Jessie enjoying her hot dog.

A floating car distributing coupons around the stadium.

Proud Artist

Jessie's art work had been selected to display at Bethany Village Starbuck's for this month. There are only one piece art work from each grade to be selected every month. She is so proud of herself as you can tell! This is a picture of the whole display. Can you find her work?

Jessie's 8th Birthday

Home made cake with candles could not blow off!

Opening her presents.

Dinner at Maxican restaurant. Waitress sang songs and gave her a special hat and free desert. People came over and wished her 'Happy Birthday'.
She had a great day!

Our first sleep-over in our house...

It is common in the USA, as it is in Australia, for school friends to come and stay the night. Well, with Jessie's birthday on Monday (March 5th), we asked her if she would like to have a couple of friends come stay. We did not want to have a huge party, as we are planning to head down to California later in the month to Disneyland, which we thought was enough.

Anyhow, Tara picked up the two visiting friends around 4.30pm on Friday afternoon, and they headed to our place for the rest of the night. We arranged Pizza from Papa Murphy's - which basically is uncooked Pizza made while you wait, then you simply put it in the oven and cook it yourself. We had not had it before, but it was very good - although the order was wrong when we looked at the Pizza's after we got home. It was okay though, the Hawaiian was simply missing pineapple, and the other Pizza was missing MEAT! The kids did not care, actually they preferred the without meat option.

The girls headed off to bed around 9pm, but we knew that they would not be falling asleep in a hurry. That is normal, kids talk and don't want to sleep. So by around 11pm, they eventually started to drift off and sleep!

Above are some pictures of the girls before sleep.

Kung Hei Fat Choi - or "Happy New Year!"

This year is the year of the PIG! Below is a link to us enjoying the celebrations here in Portland.

Best wishes to you all in this the year of the pig.

ChineseNewYear2007

Let's play trains...

This past weekend, the kids and I decided to take a trip down to the Portland Expo centre to see the model train expo. We managed to get Tara to join us, she has not been feeling well due to a cold.

As you can see by the pictures below, there was a lot of cool trains to see. From some amazingly small ones (check out the one inside the old Macintosh computer) - right up to ride on ones (we have no pictures of that one.)

All in all, it was a fun time - definitely a place to visit if you are interested in model trains at all. They had workshops on how to build scenery, to the story about Walt Disney and his interest in model trains.

Our trip to Tillamook

On January 28th we went to Tillamook. Tillamook is famous for its cheese. Some of the pictures below were taken outside the cheese factory. The other pictures are of some of the famous Oregon coast. We thought the view was very similar to the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia.

Jessie lost a tooth!

Before...

Vampire tooth
After...

After the BIG snow

Melting snow men

Slippery street

Snow fight field

Back to school

Building a snow man

Who needs to really go to Mount Hood!

Well, we awoke at our normal time this morning, I was going to get ready for a dentist appointment, and get the kids off to school before I went. I looked out the back and saw the "white stuff" all over the yard, then looked out the front, same again.

We checked on the TV and online, apparently the schools were still open, and work does not close - you generally should attend regardless - unless it is unsafe to do so.

I dropped the kids off, and headed to my appointment. It took me about 5 minutes to realize that it was going to be a long drive. There was already an accident between a bus and three cars (not serious, but blocking most of the road.) There were other issues with drivers who really had NO IDEA how to drive with snow, and what happens when you drive in this weather.

When I got to the dentist, they were closed. I was stuck, bucause I was NOT going to head back out with all of the other people on the road. Let's just say that Starbucks was doing a roaring trade. (There were A LOT of people in the same boat.)

I waited for around 45 minutes, when I found out that I needed to go back to the school as it had been closed, and we needed to pick up the kids. It was the slowest drive on normal roads I have ever taken. It was like driving in a precession. I did not go faster than around 15 miles per hour.

I made it home without incident, and the kids made it back. We are snug in the house, the kids tried making a snowman, but that failed. (Too cold on their hands they said.) I look out the window at other kids who are currently having a snow fight.

Work has closed as of 2pm today, and we are not sure what tomorrow will bring. Let's just say - we wished we had weather like this at Christmas, it is amazing, and asides from what it does to the roads - it is great fun! Check out what it really looked like!

Finally - Jessie gets to Ski

The weekend of January 12th, 2007 is the long weekend for Martin Luther King Jr. memorial day. Although the memorial day is actually a Monday.

We decided earlier in the week that we would head back up to Mount Hood to go skiing again. Jessie was very keen to learn how to Ski, after hearing and seeing how much fun Cynfor had been having the last time we went.

This time we decided to head to the lower part of Mount Hood, to a place called "Ski Bowl." This is a considerable way below the Mount Hood summit - and when you are part way up the bowl, you can see the summit clearly. It was an amazing day - weather wise. We headed out from home at around 7am, stopping in Sandy (about 30 - 40 minutes away from Mount Hood) for breakfast.

By the time we arrived at the Bowl, there were already a number of people - although our car space was ideal, as we were right out the front of the Ski School! Anyhow, we all registered for lessons - Tara, Jessie and myself went for beginners classes, and Cynfor was put up to a more advanced level - being he had had so much fun the last time.

Our lessons were not due to start until around 2pm, so because we had arrived so early, we figured we would have a play around on the Ski's. I tried my best to give Jessie some pointers on what she needed to understand, after hearing what Tara and Cynfor had learned the last time.

She picked up on the basics very quickly, and was ready go give it a faster effort at 2pm when our lesson started. Again, proved that kids get into skiing pretty quickly and easily - she was off like a duck to water within no time.

The only problem we found was that although Cynfor, Tara and myself were exhausted by around 3.30pm - Jessie wanted to keep on going! We had to call it a day, and headed back down the mountain - as it starts to get dark pretty early, we did not want to be driving down when the ice started to build.

Although the weather was fantastic - which I am sure you can probably gauge from the photographs below - it was still only around 26F (about -3C) - it was pretty cold!

By the time we had gotten home, all of us had some form of ache or pain, but were thinking about the next time we were hoping to get up to the mountain to go again.

The following is actually a video - not a very clear one (because of the sun), but you get the idea. You can see Cynfor coming down to a stop, showing his "expert skills!"

Trips to the Snow

Skiing on Mount Hood!

New Year's Eve, and we got up pretty early to head up to Mount Hood to get some skiing in. The kids were excited, and the weather turned out fantastic! Sadly, Jessie was not able to Ski on the day, because we were not able to get her fitted into a class with kids of her age. We plan to get her a chance next time. There were not a lot of areas to really play in the snow, without fear of being hit by a snowboarder or skier! So she and I spent most of the time going back and forth between watching Tara and Cynfor ski, and Timberline lodge, which had a warm fireplace, and a table for us to sit and watch through the windows in heated comfort! It was not really a cold day, and once you stood out for a while, you were quite hot. Tara even took her gloves off because she was so hot!


By the end of the day, Cynfor was skiing downhill like he had always been able to do it, and Tara was saying that her arms and back ached through all the work they had been through.


We were all very tired, so by around 11pm, we were all in bed sleeping - at midnight, we heard fireworks going off, but to be honest, I think we were all so tired, it did not matter. It was a great day had by all - even if we did miss the start of the new year!

On the way back from the coast

On the way back from the coast, we tried to do some whale watching at Cannon beach, but because of the weather the whales were difficult to see. (Actually we saw NONE!) We did take some pictures though.