The Cat Returns

What a trip! I was going to say the room was awesome, but I think the wife said it was more of a condo or something like that. What I do know is it had two full bedrooms, a living room, dining room, and full kitchen. We were at Disneyland so the kitchen's only use was drinking glasses for water, and microwave to reheat a snack the others got while I was at the park. Could have done both of those in a regular room honestly.

While I don't have any pictures of the condo/suite, or whatever you'd call it. What I do have is this photo from the balcony of our room.

I believe they call that Grizzly Peak, and it is one of the more obvious formations inside Disney's California Adventure. From our room we could look directly down, and see Discovery Trail.

 A hard look to the right, and we could see World of Color, and attempted to watch it one night from the balcony. Problem was you could hear it quite well, but seeing the pictures on the water was a no-go. This was a bummer as one night they were working on the Christmas version, and while we got to hear most of it we didn't get to see it. Kind of a sneak preview on a show that I think started the same night that we left. Would have loved to see it, but I guess you can't win them all.

Our park days were as expected with the crowds at almost peak levels. We still got tons done in the way of rides, but not so much in my favorite part of pictures. I got a fair amount of pictures of the Christmas displays, and loved the Carsland stuff.

The problem came in the form of lines for all the characters, and Photopass photgraphers. Much like ourselves, it seems tons of other people want pictures in front of the Christmas Trees, and displays. Add in a fifteen year old who would rather spend her entire trip doing nothing, but rides and skipping the pictures. So pictures of us on vacation isn't as large of a batch to choose from.

We did get to do the two things though that I wanted most on this trip. The first was to finally see the 'Nightmare Before Christmas' overlay they do on Haunted Mansion.

The second was to get a photo with Jack Skellington, and Sally.

Check, and check.

 Skellington was an awesome experience as they didn't just snap a picture, and send you on your way. The two interacted with each group before doing the photo. The daughter had on her Olaf t-shirt, and he talked about how much he liked Olaf's brother. Said they could use a people eating snowman in Halloween land.

Once things start to get back in order I'll have to pick out one of the pictures, and put it in the Jack Skellington frame I found a few months back at the thrift store. Then comes the adventure of making room in the hobby room to show it off. Hopefully I'm up for the challenge in the near future. Don't want this to be one of those things I put off, and put off until it either never gets done or takes two years.

There was so much to see, and do in the way of Christmas stuff. That is probably the thing we enjoyed the most about this entire trip. Showing the pictures I have is just tip of the iceberg in the way of decorations. Every day more started appearing which only added to the experience. What is the most nuts in my opinion about all the decorations. They didn't officially kick off the Christmas season until the day we were leaving. So odds are more stuff went up that we didn't even get to see. It has definitely put me in the Christmas spirit.

In the end I was glad we went, but it is nice to be back home, and relaxing for the next four days before going back to work. All the rushing around begins to wear on you towards the end, and being able to wind back down will feel great. The worst part is we left some beautiful weather in California. The first two days were insanely hot, but the remainder were perfect. Cloud cover with that not to hot, and not to cold feeling you love to have. In Portland we arrived to it snowing, and icy roads which we managed to maneuver through just fine. Now at home it's raining, and we've had to crank the heat on, but it is good to be back.