road trip

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!

After three days in Disneyland (can you say Mickey Mouse), my husband and I were ready for something different. Before heading to California I pre-booked a 4 day pass to Disneyland and a one day pass to Universal Studios. We lost one day because of car problems in San Francisco and our hotel reservations were up in Anaheim. We decided to spend the day at Universal Studios and then head to Arizona and Nevada to see the Grand Canyon, good old Las Vegas and back to Anaheim for one day on our way back home. I’ve never been to Universal Studios before and I had no expectations. The studio is approximately 35 or 40 miles from Anaheim but it took us forever to get there – there’s never a quick or easy route when driving in LA. So here we are at Universal Studios. I really enjoyed the park, more than I thought I would. We took the studio tour, you can’t possibly go to Universal Studios without taking the tour. There’s plenty to do in the park but we couldn’t do everything in one day, especially since we wanted to head back to our hotel before the traffic was out of control. The Jurassic park ride looked awesome but my youngest did not want to go on it, said it looked to S-C-A-R-Y. We opted out for the studio tours and Shrek 4- 3D. We saw Shrek 4 – 3D first and it was very cool – kids loved it. The studio tours were a blast, I really enjoyed all the effects. You can check all the fun below by double clicking on one of the pictures in the gallery:

While in California Park, I bought my youngest son the flight hat and goggles you see him wearing consistently throughout these pictures. Donkey from Shrek, as seen here, was priceless. He kept saying to my son – “What kind-a pilot are you, where’s your plane?” “You can’t call yourself a pilot, you got no plane.” Had my son in stitches as you can tell by this picture.

We saw plane crashes, a flash flood, old western town,Norman Bates, Whoville, Desperate Housewives, Jaws, Jurassic Park, exploding cars and so much more. All very entertaining and worth the price tag. My batteries died in my camera but we toured through some of the housing where the actors in the 50’s use to live while they were filming. Old 50’s bungalows, actors were kept there during filming – during the era when the studio controlled every aspect of the actors lives. Next post I bring you the Grand Canyon….

HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!

In February 2010, Vancouver, BC hosted the Olympics. Most schools closed for two weeks to accommodate the momentous event. Our family being sports fans, you think we would have hung out here in Vancouver! Hell no we decided it was the perfect time to jump in the car and take a road trip to California and that is just what we did. I booked the trip from here to Disneyland but after Disneyland we played it by ear and booked hotels while we were on the move using our lap top. Equipped with a GPS and maps we had a ball. Wish I was blogging then because it would have been a great blog – thought I’d recreate it through pictures. We were on the road for two weeks with an 8 and 10-year-old. We started out through Oregon and stayed in Ashland the first night. I remember arriving at the motel after 11:00 pm, couldn’t see a thing and surprised by the landscape pictured through our window the next morning. That morning we arrived at Yreka, CA and stopped to have breakfast at Grandmas house. If you’re ever in Yreka and you need a good breakie – Grandma’s House is the place to go. The trip was a long road trip – too long to put in one blog – next blog I’ll take you to San Francisco!

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My mother-in law has a cabin at East Gate in Manning Park, BC. We decided to go skiing for five days during our Spring Break. If you like to ski, this area has great conditions for skiing. It’s a no frills ski resort, a place that offers beautiful scenery, great downhill skiing, great nordic or snowshoeing trails and enough nature to last you a lifetime. If you are looking for lots of restaurants, pubs and bars then Whistler would be more appropriate. There is a lodge, one restaurant and a pub located at the resort. There is one restaurant in the area and it’s a little hole in the wall. East Gate Diner it’s called and the chef (Dave) makes fabulous food, in my opinion better than anything they serve at the lodge. Dave and Melody know how to greet guests, make them feel like they are in a country kitchen and serve some amazing grub. Check out the link for hours and information.

We are lucky as we have a cabin where we can stay. It’s a very rustic little cabin, but it’s a place you can hang your head after spending the day on the hill. At one time there was no tv or computers, but in the last several years my mother-in-law has Satellite TV, dial-up connection for the computer and an extra TV upstairs so the boys can bring all of their games and gadgets. Technology is good, but there was a time when we played board games or read for a past time, now we can watch all the latest shows.

Considering it was Spring Break, the weather was all over the map. Most of the days were beautiful and sunny. We had a blizzard one day that lasted 24 hours and more than three feet of snow fell. Powder,powder and more powder we’re the conditions of the hills after that snowfall.

This family can’t go away without something happening, this time it was water. The cabin is old and so is everything in it. A friend of ours came up with us and he could hear from the well something not quite right. He opened the hatch and found that a leak had sprung from one of the hoses. He insisted if we didn’t fix it, the whole thing would blow. Another friend of ours who has experience with all things water said to him to leave it as sometimes when you fix one thing it leads to another thing. To make a long story short there was no one small enough to fit in the hole except for my youngest son and me. Our friend was talking about tying a rope around my son’s chest so he didn’t fall down this fifteen foot well. No bloody way, so it was left to me – went down three times because just like the man said – we fixed one thing but ended up with more problems. At one point we ended up with no water and that was the third time I went down that hell hole to patch things up. No, I’m not that inclined – I had men yelling instructions from the top and I managed to figure things out. Pretty funny when you think about it – send the deaf chick down the hole and yell at her!

All in all it was good five days and as far as I know the water is still holding!

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THE AIR IS DIFFERENT UP HERE!

This past weekend I found myself in 100 Mile House, BC for an Atom Hockey Tournament for my youngest son. I’ll be honest, when this trip was first mentioned to me I wasn’t all that thrilled about driving 5 hours for a tournament. Then to add insult to injury, I found out my husband and other son could not join us for the tournament. There was no way I wanted to drive up there alone so my husband, being so kind, arranged for me to drive up with the coach and his family. I said to my husband “can’t we just say impossible we can’t make it” – noooo we had to go. After all I wanted to stay home and paint my pumpkin room as I mentioned in my “So Inspired” blog. Off I went and put on a big smiley face and pretended I was glad to go as my son was so excited. We left the house at 9:00 am Friday morning and arrived in 100 Mile House around 2:00 pm. We quickly unpacked the truck and grabbed our skates and hockey sticks and headed to the outdoor skating rink for a game of hockey. The coach myself, his son and my son played a game of hockey for an hour and my son laughed his face off the whole time. It was then that I realized how wrong I was, it was going to be a good weekend. Being out of the city I felt like I could breathe and pretty soon my body lost all of that city tension. Back to our chalet we headed to change to our bathing suits and headed to hang out at the hot tub and pool. The next day the boys played two games and then we had a four hour wait for the next game. Everyone was tired and wanted to relax, but all my son could talk about was playing hockey on the outside rink. I found out that there was a natural pond a little ways down the hill through the trees and that’s where my son and I and his friend headed with our skates through the blades of our hockey sticks thrown over our shoulders. Through the trees where we came upon a beautiful ice rink, smooth as glass with a tepee standing to one side of the rink, a place where you could build a fire to stay warm. Luckily for us there was no need for a fire as the sun was shining warm on our faces. The team lost one game, won three games that weekend and my son played the best hockey he’s ever played. He won most sportsmanship award and the smile on his face was priceless. The picture gallery below was taken by my son on his I-pod, sort of a journal of his journey all through the eyes of a child: