Feeling like a Zombie at times

Well this has been some adventure over the last 10 days.  Ray pulled his back out right before having to run his 4 races, I've struggled with ear pain and sinus pain and now I've pulled out my back.  From talking with the nurse at the doctor's office where I have an appointment tomorrow morning, it may be that I have ruptured my eardrum.  Our last day at Disneyland was nothing but me trying to get my pain to a manageable level so that I could survive the 5 hour flight and 4 hour drive home.  Well, I made it, but my back has suffered for it.  Doctor's visit tomorrow for the ears then just rest for the back.

***Update: The ENT doctor says I do not have the ruptured eardrum that he had seriously suspected from my symptoms, but I do have an infection in my Eustachian tubes and an ear infection--from a bacterial infection I picked up over the holidays that got in my sinuses and was not helped by all the airline flights, so he prescribed antibiotics, ear drops, and nasal spray--and Sudafed, Tylenol, Mucinex and rest.

Photo of the scene on the way to Disneyworld that reminded me of one from  "The Walking Dead."  It was really creepy as the sun was just going down.  I had just watched every single episode of the series, so I can be forgiven for having zombies on the brain.

Another Day of Fun--and Pain

Another busy day today and I woke up with a horrible earache.  :-(   Can't miss out on the last time we'll be here, though, so it's 2 Tylenol and when Ray gets back from running, we're off.  

He did very well in the half marathon with a time of 1:57 something, so he received two more medals and, because he came in 4th in his age group, it looks like he'll even get a trophy/plaque this time.  Usually he comes in 4th and they're only giving trophies to the top 3, so he hit it lucky this time.

We had a good breakfast at Rainforest Cafe then returned to Fantasyland to do Peter Pan (almost the same as DisneyWorld), Alice in Wonderland (really cool), Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (fun & saw a man dressed as one of the Dr. Whos), and It's a Small World ( much bigger and not so mind-numbing a song as it was interspersed with Christmas songs and it was decorated still for the holidays), then took the train over to do the Haunted Mansion (almost the same on the inside as DisneyWorld).  Then the train to the monorail to Downtown Disney to shop then to a tiny restaurant called Coco's near our hotel and back to the room for a rest.  This turned out to be all for the day as my ear pain became too much to deal with.

Visitor to Disneyland wearing cool Yoda backpack:

 

Here is Disneyland, they move the fence for the rocks!

Person dressed as Dr. Who on the Mr. Toad ride:

 

At the end of It's a Small World:

Haunted Mansion:

Pretty Sconce in Grand Californian Hotel:

And these are the rewards for all the madness:

Simba in the parade:

 

 

Surprise as the evil queen peeks out a window:

 

 

It's a Small World:

 

Scary ferris wheel in California Adventures--watch what happens to the inner cars!

Deja Vu for Ray--DisneyLand

Well, I thought I had maybe found the solution to my traveling problem--my ear doesn't seem to like flying-- but I soon found out I was wrong.

We flew into LAX (and saw the Hollywood sign in the distance!) on a flight taking almost 5 hours and this time instead of Earplanes, I wore Ray's noise canceling headphones and chewed gum furiously on take off and landing.  I was so happy that this method seemed to work until Sunday night when I woke up in the middle of the night with severe ear pain.  Oh well, back to the drawing board.

We woke on Saturday morning at 4:30 am and Ray spent an hour trying to learn his iPhone and set up a free ap.  That accomplished, we ate at Denny's, another less than appetizing meal, then took a walk through the Grand Californian Hotel where we had tried to get a room but none were available.

Wearing our Honorary Citizens of Disneyland buttons, our first ride was Storybook Canal Boats, which I loved!  It had lots of miniature castles and cottages.  I would love to do something like this in our backyard.  After the boats, we took the Casey Jr. Train through the same lands.  I love these rides, so much more simple than those at DisneyWorld.  The whole park is on a much smaller scale, and Ray is having moments where he remembers yet some other way that the park used to be when he came here as a child.

Here you are allowed to climb the stairs in the castle (a castle much smaller than its Florida version) to discover the stories behind it.  We rode the Snow White ride and Pinocchio then tried to ride the steamboat, but it broke and we went on to Pirates of the Caribbean, which is longer and has more drops than the one in DisneyWorld.  And I got totally soaked!  The lines for Peter Pan and the Haunted House were too long, so we will try to get them done tomorrow.  We took the train around the park and saw a REAL cat sitting near where they have the real goats and donkeys and horses.

Then we took the monorail into Downtown Disney and had A lunch of filet mignon burgers at Jazz Kitchen.  I had a ginger peach Bellini--closest I could get to ginger beer--and Ray had Abita Amber, which was very good.  We also ordered 6 beignets!  Oh yes, beignets.  They were delicious.  Fun thing-- when I was typing notes about what we did today into my iPhone, and I typed in the word beignets, my iPhone somehow changed it to "being yaya"!!!  Well, yes, it is being Yaya to order beignets, I suppose.  There was even a Gumbo Ya-Ya on the menu.

During the hottest part of the day, we saw a movie, "Saving Mr. Banks," which I was surprised to find was an excellent movie.  After the movie we went back into the park, but we didn't find the lines changed.  The park had actually gotten much more crowded, so we rode the now-working steamboat then checked out the shops.  After that, I stopped at the Cupcake Store Kiosk and purchased a strawberry shortcake cupcake, which was delicious and served as my dinner.

We went to bed early in preparation for Ray's Half Marathon tomorrow morning where he again has to get up at 3!

 

Birds of Paradise on our walk into Disneyland:

 

Interesting warning sign:

 

Candy Apples in Downtown Disney:

 

Storybook Land Canal Boats head into Monstro's mouth:

Adorable little miniature cottages along the waterway:

Aaaahhh--the ducks are invading!

Casey Jr. Train:

 

The miniature village even had a miniature of the Peter Pan statue that we found for real in London:

Exploring the castle, we found a cool skeleton scale:

 

Real goats!

And this sign always brought zombies to my mind for some reason:

 

Feeling Dopey

It’s been awhile—I don’t think I’ve blogged since before Christmas—so I thought I’d catch up on all that’s happened.  This year, we did all the traveling for Christmas.  First it was off to Chicago on the 16th to see Gus for the first time and to visit with him and Lincoln and Laura.  We briefly saw Andy then he was off on a business trip.  Ray spent the days being Laura's personal carpenter/electrician as she had some needed repairs on her list.  And he really enjoyed helping out. 

I spent my days playing with Lincoln and cuddling with Gus.  You know how some babies are more cuddly than others and like to be held more than others?  Well, Gus is the best cuddler of all time.  My right shoulder still feels empty without him.  He is such a sweetheart and hardly ever cries.  He will do this call out sound when he needs something and if you take care of what it is, he is instantly happy again.  Ooh--and he has the cutest sneezes!  He kind of calls out before each one like a little old man!  It makes me laugh every time.  Lincoln is totally crazy about Gus and is such a great big brother.  We had a “Yaya” day and he stayed home from school and we opened presents.  He is the sweetest, kindest little boy.  After we opened gifts, I asked him what was on his list that he wanted Santa to bring him.  He thought for a second and (oh so sweetly) said, “I don’t know, Yaya, you brought me everything I had thought about!”  It just warmed my heart.  He loves school now and can read very well.  At bedtime, we took turns reading stories and we got all silly and ended up laughing like crazy people.  It reminded me so much of when Laura and Katie were little and the same thing happened all the time.  We had such a great time visiting and eating out.

After Chicago we drove down to Atlanta to spend a few days with Katie and Russ in their new house.  Very relaxing days and again, we had such a good time.    And Russ even treated us with the most delicious meal grilled out on his new grill.  So yummy!  We opened gifts with her and Russ and Otis and I actually watched Episode One of “The Walking Dead” TV show with them.  And it wasn’t as bad as I feared.  Thought I’d spend most of the time with my hands over my eyes, but only a couple of instances of that. 

We visited with my parents, too—which was very nice.  But we didn't get to see my sister as the weather turned really bad with tornados and storms, so driving was not encouraged.  We saw the latest Hobbit movie and I managed to turn my ankle by stepping off a step the wrong way while I was trying to be unobtrusive while trying to get out of the theatre during the movie to handle a sudden nose bleed.  When it rains it pours. 

We visited with Adam and Drena and their two children, also, and went to lunch with them before we drove home for a quiet Christmas.  Quiet except for my sneezing and blowing my nose and being generally miserable for I caught a cold and it went into my ears and sinuses and necessitated a doctor’s visit and a round of antibiotics.  With me, it can never be just a cold.

But my miserableness did allow me to sit still and watch all 5 season (62 episodes) of “Breaking Bad” and the 4 seasons of (51 episodes) of “Walking Dead” that have already happened, so now I am caught up and can start with everybody else when Walking Dead returns on Feb. 9. 

Ray worked a bit on the new addition to the house then on January 5, we packed up two days early to head south as snow and ice we're predicted for home and we couldn’t take a chance on getting snowed or iced in with Ray’s 4 races on the line.  We spent the first night in Savannah then drove on to DisneyWorld where we had a week at Old Key West Resort.  Ray is doing the Dopey Challenge-- a 5k on Thursday, a 10k on Friday, a half marathon on Saturday, and a full marathon on Sunday.  Yes, he IS Dopey!  He says the running the hard part; it's the getting up at THREE am every morning for four mornings in a row that's bad.  And I agree with that, for I can’t sleep once he is up, so I had gete wake at that awful hour, too.  My sleep schedule is totally off now.  I was waiting for him at our traditional place on the marathon day to cheer him on.  I love doing this.

We left on Monday morning and drove home—9 hours!  Ugghh.  Then we fly out on Friday to Disneyland in California so Ray can run another half marathon.  Doing all this means that at the end of it all he will have received 8 medals total. 

5K, 10K, Half, Full, Goofy medal for doing the half & full, Dopey medal for doing the 4 races all together,  then the half in California, and the Coast to Coast medal for doing two half or full marathons—one on each coast—in the same year.  He says he’ll never do multiple races again.  Never?  I think we’ve heard that before.

Ooh, the weather in Florida?  Yes, it was crazy.  I couldn't tell what season it was going to be next!  It dropped 60 degrees in Hendersonville in a 6 hour period before we left!  We had snow predicted for home before we left then drove through storms on the way.  The first morning we went into the park it was 17 degrees!  In Florida!  We rode the Peter Pan ride then went back to the room for hot chocolate and stayed inside all day.  The next day it was warmer and poured rain all day!  So we stayed in.  Then it was nice but very hot on Saturday  and then there were torrential rains again then a drop of 20 degrees, and a perfect day on Sunday.  But by then we were so exhausted from the sleep schedule that we had no energy at all.  I think this will be recorded as the longest trip to DisneyWorld with the fewest rides done.  In our whole time there, we only did Soarin’ once, Peter Pan once, the Safari, and the French movie in Epcot!!!  So it wasn’t much of a vacation at all.  It was all about the races. 

We did do Ghirardelli for dinner one evening--if you're gonna be bad, you might as well do it up right!  I had a Warm Brownie Sundae and Ray had his Banana Split.  We also had one special meal at Disneyworld at the new "Be Our Guest" restaurant made to look like the castle from Beauty and the Beast.  Beast made an appearance as did snow that disappeared halfway down the way to the ground.  This was a delicious meal in a great atmosphere.  Our waitress was wonderful and for dessert she explained each one in detail while showing us the rolling cart.  Ray chose the Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcake and I had the "Grey Stuff"--a cookie shell with chocolate brownie/cake and this grey colored cream and beads on top.  It was wonderful. 

The first day we were there, my laptop, that has been threatening to take a hike for some time now, decided to die all together.  So I went to the Apple store and purchased an iPad 2 and I love it.  Very intuitive to use and easy to get started.  So I am pleased.

Horrendous basket made of towels in our Disney hotel

 

Scenes from our Safari

 

Magic Kingdom Castle

 

Crest of Be Our Guest Restaurant

above the door

 

napkin rose

pretty menu

dessert cart

 

restaurant

Grey Stuff

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcake

Beauty & the Beast

Beast says hello

Mosaic in lobby

Ray being royal

 

Blue castle...

 

...and seconds later, pink castle

 

Ray enjoying his Banana Split

 

All 6 medals...two more to come!

 

Ray approaching our tradition meeting place along route of marathon