Merry Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve from the Murray/Beck/Banner family

The Crud

We have the crud. I came down with it on Friday and couldn't get off the couch for about three days. It felt like something was sitting on my chest and I coughed so violently that my abs and back got incredibly sore. Add on the fever and fatigue and you've got a party, if your idea of a party is laying on the couch watching movies on ABC Family all day. Just when I thought all was well, Spencer got it. He started yelling "Daddy!" from bed at about 2am and wandered into our room before I could get up. He had a 103 fever and the cough. His turn on the couch.

Future Olympian

Disneyland, The Final Post

Our last morning we managed the prime front-car seats on the Monorail.


The driver was really cool and let Spencer and Lorelai blow the horn once we were parked at the Tomorrowland Station. How many kids can say they've blown the horn on the Monorail?


It was the first official day of the Christmas season and Small World was all holidayed-out.

Every "land" had decorations and stuff from their local holidays.




This is near the end of the ride... kind of a grand finale to get you in the holiday spirit.


They redo the Haunted Mansion around Halloween to Nightmare Before Christmas and it was really cool. the entire ride is different.


I didn't take many pictures at California Adventures but we did go over for a bit. Spence is tall enough for Soaring over California and thought it was really neat. This shot is from the ferris wheel of the new water and light show they're building in the lagoon. It looks like its going to be kind of Fantasmicesque but bigger and better.

All I Want For Christmas

Lorelai is officially a big kid. Last night I gave her loose tooth a little tug to see how tight it was. She yelped and bled a bit but it was still stuck. This morning it popped out on its own while she was brushing her teeth.


You can already see the big teeth coming in behind the babies. She's quite proud.

Happy Birthday to Me (and Ryan)

Quick post as Stevo and I are getting ready to go to a late (for us, anyways) movie...

As we were exiting Disneyland on Thursday (my birthday), Stevo says "Hey, it's that guy from The Notebook!"

There he was, wearing a Disney Happy Birthday button that said "Ryan" on it, being gently accosted by Yummy Mummies... Ryan Gosling. We were polite and didn't take a paparazzi shot.

This makes my third celebrity citing at Disneyland... Sam Choy years ago, John Larroquette on Lorelai's birthday, and Ryan Gosling on mine. Cool.

Happy Birthday To Me! (part two)

After some fun in the park we headed back to the hotel for a swim.

My first birthday present was a cool new camera. It takes pictures up to 30 feet underwater, is crush-proof up to 260 lbs, and is shock proof when dropped up to 6 feet. Perfect for a klutz like me. (One of my other presents was a new housing for my palm since I keep dropping it and it was all cracked).

The camera was really nice to have at the pool. This picture was actually taken the first night we got there, but it fit in nicely here. Spencer was a little leery of the swimming thing that first trip into the pool. It didn't help that the water was pretty chilly.


He warmed up to swimming on our Thursday swim break. A bit.



It was really fun once he started to trust the life vest and paddled around by himself. Bless Disney for thinking of everything!


After our swim and a quick snack we headed back into the park. We went straight to Toontown and found it decorated for Christmas. This was Mickey's house. We followed the hallway out the back all the way for the first time and met Mickey at the end. Spence was shy but thought it was cool. Lorelai seems to be over the character-meeting thing.

Leave it to Lorelai to find a TV in Disneyland. This was in Mickey's livingroom. It was playing Steamboat Willie.


Minnie's house was Lorelai's favorite because her tree was Pink!


Spencer was fascinated with Minnie's dishwasher.


This was one of my favorite shots - through the gazebo to the big tree in front of Toontown City Hall. I tried to take another and play with the exposure but some clueless people got in the way.

That was it for day 1 in the park. Off to bed and back again in the morning!

Happy Birthday to Me!

My official birthday trip was a 3-day stint at Disneyland. We drove down and checked in on Wednesday. You know you're in a place designed with little kids in mind when there's a tiny sofa in front of Disney cartoons in the lobby. The kids were happy to sit and watch while Stevo checked us in.

We couldn't go into the park on Veteran's Day because we have the cheapo passes but we had a nice swim in the pool and went to Rainforest Cafe for dinner.

As guests of the Disneyland Hotel we were able to enter Disneyland an hour before opening on Thursday. Quick ride on the Monorail and straight to the rides.
Lorelai and I hit Star Tours and Stevo and Spence headed for the Astro Orbiters. We didn't discover until later that Spence is officially 40 inches tall and can therefore ride almost everything. He wanted to try Thunder Mountain Railroad but changed his mind back and forth about 20 times while in line. Final decision was - not a chance in hell was he getting on that train. Probably a wise decision since he doesn't like the dark, loud noises or bats.

The Nemo submarine was a better pace. We were really stupid and got in line for Nemo right at 10 AM... when the park opened and everyone on the monorail jumped straight from the monorail exit into the Nemo line. It was the longest line we waited in the whole trip. Considering it was only about 45 minutes that's not too bad. Most of the rides we waited about 5 or 10 minutes.

After Nemo we headed up Main St to get some business done. Lorelai and I went to City Hall to get my happy birthday gift card and Stevo and Spence went to the season pass office so Spence could get his picture taken. He's 3 now so he needed his own pass.


The first official day of Christmas decorations was Friday but they had a bunch of stuff up on Thursday. The tree in the Main St plaza was gorgeous, and huge!


It was so big Lorelai could stand under it without ducking.


We headed to meet up with the boys and stopped to watch the barbershop quartet for a minute. They ended up pulling me and the other two women wearing birthday buttons up to sing us Happy Birthday. Apparently it was Barbie's 50th birthday and the lady next to me carried that doll around all day. Lorelai is becoming quite a little photographer.


They are already doing stuff for the new Princess and the Frog movie that hasn't come out yet. There was a cool show on the river boat and the performers paraded to and from the boat so you could get really close and see their cool costumes. The lady playing Princess Tiana was gorgeous and had a hell of a voice! They had a little shop set up with movie related stuff already and they were doing big business.


Spence really could still use naps. He spent a lot of time with this look on his face.


But he also spent a lot of time with this look. Cute little dude.


Its funny how a ride I never rode (or at least not as far back as I can remember) has become one of our favorites. Lorelai was chatting with the lady manning (womanning?) the gate while we were waiting for our turn and apparently every horse is unique and has its own name.


This is Daisy. She was Mrs. Disney's favorite and therefore is now Lorelai's favorite.


This is a preview of some of what you'll see next post... Christmas decorations everywhere! If you've never been to Disneyland this time of year - go!

My Birthday Celebration Continues

After Meier's party we spent the night in the Bay Area and headed to Monterey the next morning. We planned it out to have breakfast at First Awakenings, the best breakfast place on earth and conveniently located spitting distance from the Aquarium.

They have a relatively new exhibit on sea horses that we had never seen before. It was incredibly cool. The babies are the size of big sea monkeys but perfect miniatures of their parents.

Had to give a size reference in this shot. These are older than the ones above but in the same size tank... to give you an idea just how tiny they are when they're born.

To continue the tiny sea creature theme, a baby octopus. Awww.

Stevo showed Lorelai and Spencer the sand dollars. Spence stood still for about a nanosecond at each tank before taking off to the next one. Still doesn't grasp the concept yet.

He did better with the hands-on exhibits. This is the fake flounder you wiggle to bury in the sand. He could have done that over and over for hours.

He liked the deep sea simulator with the touch screen too. Same thing, didn't grasp the concept of what he was supposed to be doing, but he got to touch so he was happy.

Cutie pie in the clam shell. This was extra-amazing because not only did he sit still long enough for the camera to focus on him, but he smiled at the camera at the same time!

Lorelai loves the big-kid hands-on section. She spent ages playing with the tide and current simulator, moving the fake fish around and trying to get them all cornered in the same place.

After the aquarium we headed home for a few days and then off to the next stage of my birthday... coming soon!

My Birthday Week Begins

Last weekend we went to the bay area for the 40th birthday party of one of our best friends, Meier. The evening was a downright surreal. It was all the same jackasses we've known since college but everyone is married with kids now. Everyone was drinking beer out of plastic cups, but it was good beer. There were conversations about cars, but they were debating the virtues of a mini van vs. a suv. There were talks of gray hair, potty training and preschools. The weirdest moment was when the birthday boy was telling some story, all loud and obnoxious, gesturing wildly with his 7-foot wingspan with one arm, propping a newish infant on his shoulder with the other hand.

Meier's hobby/weekend job is being a DJ and he had "the system" set up in the garage, complete with disco ball. Most of the action took place out there. Some of the kids started using their Guitar Hero guitar for the ultimate air guitar action.


Lorelai rocked out. The next shot was taken with a flash so the disco ball lights are washed out but it shows her fan club rocking out with her while she played Meier's electronic drums.


Spencer found the frosting from the birthday cake more interesting than anything else, even the fact that there was another Spencer there to play with.


It was really great to see all of our friends again, and wonderful to see what great parents they are. We spent the night and went to the Monterey Aquarium on the way home on Sunday. I have lots of pictures I'll post soon!

Stevo Can Breathe!

Stevo has always snored. Loudly. In addition to the snoring, he'll stop breathing completely. During this time of no-breathing, you can watch his chest rise as if he were breathing but no air moves. This can go on for what feels like ages when you're laying there in the dark waiting for him to breathe. Finally he'll inhale, making the most obnoxiously loud noise in the process. He mentioned my observations and suspicions of apnea to his doctor recently and was prescribed a sleep test. First he spent a night with a pulse-ox taped to his finger and the analysis of the data from that determined if our insurance would pay for a full study. Apparently it did because a few days later he was spending the night at the sleep lab.

His results look like this:

The green and blue squiggles on the left half of the graph are all the times he stopped breathing and half-woke up. That lasted for about 2 hours before they woke him up and strapped on a CPAP machine. After that, smooth sleeping. The respiratory therapist analyzing the data said he had 62 apnea-episodes per hour.

Stevo's new best friend:
Thanks to the awesome insurance coverage I get from the Huge Large Corporation I work for, he got the Cadillac of CPAP machines. He's slept with it for the past 2 nights and I can tell he feels better already. He's been in a much better mood when I've gotten home from work this week. He just seems perkier.

I've suggested he should give his machine a name, considering how intimate a relationship he'll have with it. Leave it to him to come up with Traci Lords... "because it blows".

Happy Halloween

We yet again went for a theme... this year we dressed as the gang from Peter Pan.



















Lorelai had decided ages ago that she wanted to be Rosetta and it all flowed from there. Spencer originally was going to be Peter Pan but later decided that Tinkerbell was more his thing. I was Peter Pan and Stevo was Captain Hook, though some people thought he looked more like Captain Morgan.
Lorelai demonstrating how to Trick-Or-Treat.

We hooked up with the neighborhood kids for some Trick-Or-Treating. Dixon and Grayson were Buzz Lightyear twins and Sophie was a bunny princess.

Lorelai and Dixon held hands the entire time. Their friendship has already started prompting wisecracks like "leave that door open!" when they play in her room.

I have a new theory regarding Halloween candy this year. Lorelai had the idea to take the candy left in her bag from last year and give it out to trick-or-treaters this year so she can get some fresh candy. Yes, she still had candy from last year. We were rationing it, only allowing them a piece now and then so they didn't go into a sugar coma. This year - its their candy and if they eat it all today and barf, that's their problem.

Welcome!

Welcome to the new home of The House of Madness. Hope you like it! Let me know your thoughts... I'm a little concerned the white text on dark blue is hard to read.