First Day of School! First Day of School!

UPDATE: We're getting closer and closer to the winner! Will it be you?

Yes, it's the First Day of School and everyone had to get up very early.

Emily heads into 5th grade which is part of the Middle School at KHA (formerly called CCS). She has four different teachers and rotates in and out of their classrooms throughout the day. Her day also starts earlier (8:15am) but since she is part of the Safety Patrol (helping students get out of their cars as they are being dropped off) she actually needs to be at school at 7:55am. So she is dropped off by her father every morning since her sister is not ready to go to school yet.

She rushed out of the house so quickly I didn't get the chance to take my annual 'first day of school picture' in front of our house. Thankfully, her Daddy took a picture with her at school in her 'work uniform'.

Ready at work.. no cars yet..

Hannah enters 2nd grade this year at KHA. She has a brand new backpack and lunch box along with her special blanket buttoned within her sweater to comfort her as she goes to school.

 

Unfortunately it didn't work that well since she started to cry hysterically when she lined up with her class to do the morning pledges.

Thankfully she eventually stopped crying as she entered the classroom, found her desk and got settled into the class routine. Mrs. A. is a very seasoned teacher at KHA and is very familiar with Hannah's anxiety regarding separating from me and attending school. I had the privilege of subbing for Mrs. A. many times in the past few years and got to know her as a colleague and friend. Hannah was given the job as line leader and was thrilled to get 100% on her spelling pretest. Yes, she had a very good first day even though the morning was hard.

A new student at KHA was my niece, Marissa. She started Kindergarten and her teacher was.. hummmm... this lady sure looks very familiar..

... Ah yes... she is Mrs. C. and she taught Hannah in Kindergarten too...

.. AND First Grade...

...AND she taught Emily in First Grade also!

We can officially call Mrs. C. our 'family teacher'. Maybe Marissa will get her for first grade too..

Marissa was very excited to see her big cousins at school. Whenever her parents drive by KHA, she always points out to them that this is my cousin's school. Now she can say this is her school too.

Meet, Eat and Beat

UPDATE: We're getting closer to the winner who writes my 50th Comment! Keep commenting!

We had the joy of Meeting our long time friends, the L. Family, to Eat lunch at Moonstar Buffet.

I have to tell you that we are part of a Chinese buffet club called "Bond-Fire". Owen and Grace are the President and Vice-President, respectively. Matthew and I are just members. It's not for the Chinese only. We just only eat at Chinese Buffets.

The club has grown quite quickly. It doubled in size with the addition of us. We eat, rate and critique the quality of food, atmosphere, service, selection of food, wait time, bathrooms etc.. Five Bibles is the highest ranking you can get in a category. I'm not sure how they rank everything. I just go to eat and agree with everything the President says. As a member, I don't want to make waves. Don't want to be banned from the Club.

We were also Meeting to celebrate our President's birthday.. the BIG 4-something. He never did tell us how old he was.

The President's family.. kind of like the Obamas with their two girls but Grace is the Vice-President, a little higher role than Michelle's

The neat thing about this particular Chinese buffet was that it had a cotton candy machine. Did you ever see a cotton candy machine in a Chinese buffet? Well, now you have!

This was one of the favorite treats for the girls.

They also offer free face painting...

Or arm painting...

Or hand painting.. whichever you prefer...

This buffet also had a great rice porridge bar and traditional Chinese soups.

Afterwards we had to work off all that we ate, so we headed to another favorite past time of our beloved President: Racing.

Specifically, Go-Kart racing at GoKart Racer

The purpose for this event was to Beat everyone out there! Well, everyone in your group that is.

This was the track that they drove on.

They were driving quite fast...but there isn't an speedometer on the Kart so they aren't sure how fast they were going.. Matthew drove so fast that I was barely able to take a clear picture of him (#23).

Owen (#5) was smart and slowed down so his wife could take a clear picture of him. He knows that was what she wanted him to do. He even waved at her. He's such a good husband. He already knows what she wants and does it. (I guess that's why he's the President.)

The results are in: Matthew did quite well and placed #2. He actually was in first place at the beginning but that "Innocented" guy cut in front of him and grabbed the lead for the rest of the race. Owen placed #4. I'm sure he did not plan to drive too fast in order for his wife to be able to take a clear picture of him. Yes, I think that was the case.

Below were the 'real' winners of the race.

California's Greatest Adventure

SPECIAL NEWS.. This is my 50th Blog Post! Can't believe that I've already written 50 posts about my life. Thank you all for reading! To celebrate.. I'll send an Amazon gift card (one of my favorite places to shop) to the person who writes the 50th comment on this blog! Good-luck!

Okay.. on to the real post...

The next day we went to California Adventure. Disney has been revamping this whole park. The last time we were here they had huge letters spelling CALIFORNIA at the entrance with the Golden Gate Bridge and a huge sun greeting you as you enter.

BEFORE:
California Adventure 2004

AFTER:
Now it's an Art-Deco-style Entrance (reminds me of a diner design)  The Maliboomer (a drop zone-like ride) is no longer there.  The Sun Wheel and Mulholland Madness were rethemed into Mickey's Fun Wheel and Goofy's Sky School respectively. The Orange Stinger (swing ride) was also rethemed to Silly Symphony Swings, and the giant orange is gone.

Number One Ride in this Park: Toy Story Midway Mania!
This ride is probably THE most popular ride in the Park and it does NOT have a Fast Pass! It reminds me of the Peter Pan Ride (popularity-wise) in the Disneyland Park only the Toy Story ride is sooooo much better!

This is one of the best and funnest rides ever! We rode it twice and on my second time I got the highest score ever.. at least for me that is. This game is so much easier than Buzz Lightyear. But boy, was my wrist super sore! You can easily get carpal-tunnel if you play this too much. I even beat Lisa.. who's probably an expert by now!

Toy Story's newest family toy!

Number Two Ride: Soarin' Over California:
Hannah absolutely loved this ride and had to ride it twice. I really love this ride too! I love riding over the groves of trees and smelling the oranges.

New Ride for Hannah: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror:
She and Marissa loved this ride even though it was a bit scary. (Definitely not a ride for me.)

The "Lobby" of the Hotel

We could barely see the little girls.

Newest Ride: The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure:
We were able to ride this one first before the park opened to the public because we were hotel guests. It was very well made. The loading/unloading and vehicle mechanics is similar to the Haunted House ride at the Disneyland park.

They made the characters very realistic looking and their lips moved in sync with the songs they were singing. I wanted to add a video clip of this ride but couldn't because I didn't know how to. :(

Another Ride: Mickey's Fun Wheel:
Matthew and the kids rode the moving one. Every time their cage slid, we heard lots of screaming! Lisa and I ventured to the non-moving part of this ride. No screaming and no sliding. My type of ride.

Something New for Us: Sorcerer's Workshop:
Emily & JD worked together and drew their own cartoon strip. They put their drawing into these large cylinders and watched their drawing turn into an animated cartoon.

New Show for Us: It's Tough To Be a Bug! 3D Show:
I've always wanted to see this show but never had the chance until this time. I actually loved it! It was so surprising and creatively made! Don't want to spoil it for any of you who have never seen it. It was one of my favorites at this Park.

Always a Fun One: Francis' Ladybug Boogie

A Gem of a Find:
The Blue Sky Cellar shares the 'future' plans for this Park. It showed a short and informative clip of the making of Ariel's new ride along with many drawings of the new "Cars Land" scheduled to open in 2012. If you have 10 minutes, slip into this ACed room to check out Disney's future rides and attractions or you can take a short cat nap too.

Waiting for the "World of Color": CA Adventure's newest water and light show!
We purchased the picnic lunch so we could get reserved seating (we sat in the Yellow Section) and got pretty good 'seats' on the ground. When the show starts you don't really sit anyways since everyone in front of you stands up to watch the show. So plan to sit for about an hour waiting and then stand for 27 minutes for the show.

It was a beautiful show but pray that there isn't anyone in front of you that has their kid on their shoulders blocking your beautiful view.

The show was on twice during the summer: 9:00pm and 10:15pm. The latter show time was definitely not as crowded as the first showing. If you want to see the visuals that are projected onto the water make sure you sit in front of the show and not on it's sides or behind it.
In my opinion, I felt that the show was too long. They showed visual clips from almost every Disney/Pixar movie/character including a fire-exploding Pirates of the Caribbean.

A special treat was for us to go eat out of the park for an early dinner before the show: P. picked us all up and took us to sushi. It was a great time catching up with the whole W. family and have a quiet and delicious dinner.

This was the first time we really were able to hang out the W. kids. The majority of the time when our families get together the kids go play with the other kids and the adults get together with the adults.

Matthew and I had the extreme pleasure of really getting to know JD. He is a character and a spitting image of his father. He is not shy talking to adults (unlike my girls); enjoys telling stories and has a true joy of experiencing life. Matthew says that he was the most polite and thankful 9 year old he has ever met. After dinner, he asks who paid for it. He then proceeds to thank them profusely. He helps calms the nerves of others who are hesitant to ride the new rides; he is not greedy, not always asking his parents 'buy me this' 'buy me that' (like one of my girls again) and he apologizes to everyone when he unintentionally gets separated from the group thus making us wait for him to have lunch. He even didn't mind hanging out with girls. He is a very mature, responsible and silly guy. It's easy to love him.

Marissa is a very sweet and friendly young lady who took to Hannah very quickly. These two girls got to know one another more and more whenever we get together. They both brought their Build-A-Bear animals, dressed them up for the day and rode on the rides together. Hannah misses Marissa very much!

Until next time with Bear and Bunny.... and JD bring your pins so you and Emily can go trading!