It's all over but the crying.

Today, my parents fly back to VA. We had a great time, but I'm also looking forward to having some time with Sarah, setting up our home and getting ready for our trip.

Yesterday, we did the WB studio tour (pretty neat), had dinner at a great placed called Jar, and then we watched our old friend Briana in WICKED! I had never seen the show, and other than hearing 30 seconds of one song a few weeks ago, I had never heard the music either. The first act was unbelievable, but the last act fell flat. It lost its pacing, lost its urgency (from a character point), and the music wasn't as good. The worst part of all, though, was the ending. I won't spoil it in case you haven't seen it, but I was really disappointed by it. Alas.

Don't know what we're doing today! Maybe the aquarium?

The Happiest Place on Earth!

I have to admit that Disneyland was not one of the things that I was most looking forward to about this trip with my parents. It's commercial, expensive, crowded, and filled with small children screaming, alternately with glee (o0o0o Mickey!) or terror (oh crap! a six-foot rat!).
But, Dad thought it'd be fun, so we went.

I had a blast. We hit all the highlights (Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Star Tours, Matterhorn, Indiana Jones, The Tiki Room), some other bits (Tom Sawyer's island, lunch in New Orleans, etc.) and still didn't get it all done. We were there for about 11 hours, and we loved every minute of it.

The best part, though, was Mom. As we were waiting for the tram to take us from the parking structure to the park, she started giggling and talking about how excited she was to be there. None of us expected it, not even her. She was like a kid all day, and it was a treat to see!

We bought the photo of us on Splash Mountain, and I'll post it here once I have it scanned.

Wheee!

Pasadena, Pomona, Disneyland

Yesterday was full of family and friends. We spent a quasi-relaxing morning at home, reading up on some activities and selling our moving boxes. Then, a drive up to Pasadena for lunch with some old family friends. Joel and Joanee grew up with my dad, and we saw them, their son, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, sister-in-law, and nephew. I hadn't seen Jonathon in five years and hadn't had a real conversation with him in more like 10. It was great to see them.

After lunch, we had a few hours to kill, so we drove around Old Town Pasadena looking for somewhere to shop. Nothing looked particularly appealing, so we just headed towards Pomona.

In Pomona, we were meeting my dad's cousin and her family for dinner. We thought we'd get to Pomona, find a place to buy some wine and flowers, and have 40 minutes to kill. Unfortunately, we had trouble finding a place to buy anything. All of the shopping areas we found were very depressed. After three false starts, we finally found a wine shop with wine that was more than $8/bottle.

Dinner with the cousins was great. There were lots of stories of days of old, lots of great food, and lots of wine. No photos, though.

Today is Disneyland!

parents, birthday, san diego, les miz...

Okay, so my parents are in town. They flew in on the 5th, and have zipping around socal with us. We've tooled around the LBC, toured the Queen Mary, caught a rehearsal of Les Miz at the Hollywood Bowl, dined with friends, seen UCI, gone furniture shopping, and more! Right now, we're in San Diego, visiting my dad's cousin.

While they're here, they're staying with us in our new place, which means that we had to sprint to get it all set up (as much as we could) before they arrived. We did a lot, but they've still had to endure some of the more annoying pieces of homeownership... utilities not connected, bad wiring, bad plumbing, etc. It's been a bit frustrating.

Heading back to LBC tonight, then up to Pasadena and Pomona tomorrow!

furniture!

First off, Sarah is the craigslist queen. She's been keeping tabs on furniture from Craigslist, and she's managed to get us $3700 worth of furniture (retail) for $700. Most of the deals have been great, though one guy snaked us by claiming that an $80 (new) shelf from Ikea was actually a $200 (new) shelf from West Elm. We paid $90 for it. Lame. Oh well, caveat emptor.

Today we went around to some retro furniture stores and found some great pieces! A nice desk, a few coffee tables, and a great old bar. We didn't buy anything, but we're thinking about it...