Introducing Darcy To The Wonderful World Of Disney

So we had agreed that we would take Darcy to Disneyland for her third birthday. Michael grew up going to Disney and may have had a small Disney obsession for a few years. Then he went and got himself a new job and we will no longer be in southern California in November, so we decided to take her before we left. That translated into yesterday. And what a day it was!

Yesterday, Disneyland was open from 10 am until 8 pm. Our plan was to get there at opening bell, so to speak, and to stay until Darcy was approaching a walking coma, which we assumed would be around 4 or 5. We walked through the gates at 9:50 (they do a ceremonial opening on Main Street, USA at 10) and walked back out around 7:20 after indulging her request for one more ride on the submarines! Who knew that the wonderful world of Disney would manage to keep Darcy entertained for almost ten hours with no nap and only one very minor meltdown at lunch? Considering that she knows almost none of the Disney characters or the stories behind most of the rides, it was a small miracle.

There were the rides. We were taking our Jungle Cruise by about 10:05, followed by the carousel, the Alice in Wonderland ride (Darcy did NOT like it -- too loud and too many sudden changes), the spinning teacups, and It's A Small World. That one, Darcy liked. A lot. She was singing along with the song by the end of the ride and we ended up riding it twice more later in the day. We took the steam train around most of the park after that, both for a rest and because Darcy loves trains. She loved the Grand Canyon and dinosaurs the train passes, too.

We climbed the tree house and rode with the Pirates of the Caribbean, which she loved even with the steep drops and darkness. Then we went to explore a Winnie-the-Pooh themed ride that was new to Michael. It was mostly Pooh dreaming of rivers of honey and was well-received. And when we got out? There was Tigger! And within a few minutes, Pooh and Eyeore joined him. Darcy got pictures with all three, but was not completely convinced that being near these giant characters was a good thing.

She was very sure -- even while we were trying to take a picture with Pooh -- that Pooh's overflowing collection of honey pots was a very, very good thing. After posing with Tigger, we went around to the back of the honey pile and she got to see it up close and personal. You can see Pooh just behind her, but unfortunately, can't see the personification of the Heffalump which looks like a bee crossed with an elephant. Quite cute!


There were, of course, more rides. The Nemo-themed submarine ride (twice), the rockets, more train rides. We had a nice, quiet interlude petting goats at the ranch. As she did the only other time she's had the opportunity (maybe at the Portland Zoo?), Darcy made sure to pet each and every goat. Very briefly.


We were able to get away without buying anything except food and Michael's indulgence of a silhouette of Darcy. It was pretty impressive watching it made. The woman who cut it just sat and looked at Darcy sitting on Michael's lap and took her folded piece of paper and very small, sharp scissors, and a minute later -- it was done! She told us she'd been cutting the silhouettes at Disney for 35 years! She did a great job with the crazy-curls. Michael is planning on scanning it and (maybe?) actually writing his first post for this blog. Darcy was very restrained in the gift stores. We went in planning to get her something small, but just didn't see anything we wanted for her and nothing she begged to have.

When we got back to the car, we got Darcy into PJs for the ride home, and ten minutes later? She was sound asleep. She slept the whole ride home and even transferred from the car to her bed without waking up, something she has done only a handful of times. All in all, I think we got our money's worth from our day at Disney. We have a happy girl and fond memories.

Darcy Teaches Michael To Speak Properly

This was the end of a five minute process in which Darcy tried -- I think without success -- to get Michael to say "Fungus among us" in just exactly the particular way she thinks it should be pronounced. The lesson continued after she walked away. Sorry for any loss of quality...

Pearls Of Wisdom From Darcy Jo

Last night after dinner it had cooled down enough to be pleasant outside, so we went out to play, water the garden, bring in the last of the laundry from the line, and watch the moon rise. Darcy, despite her love of almost all green vegetables, has been resisting trying any of the cherry tomatoes from the garden. I picked two last night and offered her one, which she took, but "just to hold it". I ate the other and told her how sweet it was, kind of like candy. So she popped hers in her mouth, bit down, acted like it was instant death, spit it into my hand, and proclaimed with a wobbly bottom lip:

"That is very different from M&Ms."

She speaks the truth, but I'd prefer she liked the tomato and wasn't so fond of M&Ms.

Darcy running across the meadow on Mt. Charleston.

For those of you who do not know more about the Wright Brothers than you ever wanted to know, the well near their original bicycle shop was contaminated with typhoid in 1896 and Orv got sick and almost died. Wilbur nursed him through it and read books about flying pretty much non-stop. This morning, Darcy asked for a cup to give one of her elephants a drink. She specified that she wanted one without typhoid in it, which I thought was a good decision. Unfortunately, she then put a ball in it to represent typhoid and drank it herself. This led to her being all bundled up in blankets on the couch while I read to her, just like Wilbur did. Right now, she's typhoid-free. I suggest you all try to stay the same.

Darcy and Michael on the log that was Darcy's goal in the first picture.

On Thursday, while it was 107 in the Las Vegas valley (and we "enjoyed" some play time at a park in that heat), it was a cool and lovely 72 at the meadow on Mt. Charleston. It's amazing that a half-hour drive can bring that kind of change, but we were very grateful for it and had a lot of fun playing in the meadow and hiking through the trees. Darcy played a wonderful game in which she would dive off a tall stump into our arms; I'd put up the video, but she got a little reckless as the game progressed and it might make us look like Very Bad Parents.

Darcy and Angela at the other end of that log.

Our Next House!

Hey! We have a house! The manager of the complex emailed today to say that they have a Model B available starting the 12th -- just perfect for our moving plans! And they've already approved us! This model is almost 1300 square feet, so the rooms are big. The living room is 21 x 14. The kitchen is actually a U-shaped kitchen, with the sink on the back wall with a window (so I'm told); I'm not sure why the whole thing wasn't shown on the floorplan, but it also doesn't show a pellet stove in the living room and all units say they have them. It doesn't have as much storage as the other model we were interested in, but the manager said that they had a few choices and she chose this one for us because it has a grassy area in front and is on a corner, so there's more outdoor space for Darcy to play in. There's also a patio off the dining room with a sliding glass door on that back wall.

One less thing to worry about in the next six weeks!

Practicing For Crescent City (And Other News)

We had an overcast, cool, off-and-on damp day the other day. We never managed to get real precipitation for more than a minute or two at a time, but it felt like a practice day for our new life in Crescent City. Darcy passed the test with flying colors; it was everything I could do to get her to come inside once her hair was verging on wet rat.

Her sleeveless dress might not be appropriate in the northern rain, but she's got the right attitude! She started out with just the hat and moved on to the umbrella when she wanted to play peek-a-boo. It wasn't at all to keep the rain off her, just for the play.

As you can see behind her, our summer rains have left a green wash behind. The video for Mojave says that the water from summer storms runs off quickly and "does little for the fabric of life" in the desert, but you couldn't prove that around our house. There are several kinds flowering plants that are in a second full burst of bloom. A lot of the green on the ground is just grass from the hay seeds in our resident cows' poop, I will admit that. But there are a lot of natives having a second hurrah these days.

In other news, Michael will officially work for Redwood National Park as of October 11th, so our move should start the 12th or 13th and take three to five days, most likely. The movers will be done in a day, if our experience in King Salmon is any measure. Then we'll drive north. And drive north. And then drive north some more. We'll keep everyone posted.

On the book front, I've just finished Rebecca today. Somehow, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Rebecca have always been linked, loosely, in my head, and I still think that's not unrealistic. Rebecca had a modernized element of suspense, with the sinister housekeeper playing a more active role than the insane wife in Jane Eyre. I felt this book ended rather abruptly, but I need to go back and re-read the prologue to see if that sheds a bit more light on what happened next. I like it in a fairly vague way. Not something I'll feel compelled to read again, and I read a lot of books multiple times.

Next up is Middlemarch by George Eliot.

(For those of you paying attention, Dickens should be coming up next, but I've requested it through the Bookmobile, so when I was at the library in Las Vegas yesterday, I skipped ahead.)

And The Next Park We'll Be Around Is...

... Redwood National Park! Yesterday morning, Michael accepted a job at Redwood as a park ranger/visual media specialist. It was a hard decision because there was another job possibility we were weighing and both options are truly wonderful places.

We'll move to Crescent City, CA, sometime in October; the parks haven't negotiated Michael's start date yet. We are excited by all the new opportunities living in a town will bring. There's a multi-screen theater! There are TIDE POOLS! (When I was Darcy's age, we lived just a block or two from the beach in Wollongong, Australia, and there were tide pools we loved to play in and near, so I'm thrilled that I'll be able to share that amazing experience with Darcy.) There are playgrounds! There are supermarkets! Neighbors! A post office! Harbor seals piled up on the piers! And, of course, really, really tall trees.

With any luck at all, we'll be living in a rental duplex that is already home to some park service employees and has its own indoor pool and playground equipment. It's on the opposite side of town as Michael's office, but it's not a huge town. It won't mean a super-long commute. Michael's office is in an old house overlooking the ocean. One of his soon-to-be coworkers said that she can sometimes watch Roosevelt elk and whales from her office window!

I Confessed To My Librarian

In a further effort to make myself follow through on my reading quest, I confessed to my librarian at the Bookmobile this morning. She is keen to see the list and make sure I get the books I need. Next up is Dickens. Yikes!

I loved The Color Purple, by the way. Finished it yesterday afternoon.

Big news is on the horizon. Watch this space for a big announcement in the next two days. We're in the middle of some heavy-duty decision-making.