Ye Olde Companie Christmas Party

It's time for the annual Christmas Party at Jeff's "fun job", and when that company is Disneyland...three guesses where they hold the party! So we bundled Tenley up and headed back to Ratopia to frolic in the cold with Uncle Kevin & Tia Lorena.

We were supposed to meet at 7:30, but that didn't quite happen because we were stuck on Ball Rd. for over an hour trying to get into the parking structure. In a former life, Jeff was probably some blue blooded person who lost their head in a most unfortunate way, because it's always miserable situations like this that cause him to go into "Royal Highness" mode and begin declaring in his snottiest voice that this is "...ridiculous! Totally unacceptable! I am never never doing this again." As though he was the only person being detained on the street. Admittedly, it really did suck to be in our car, because Tenely gets really irritated about being strapped into a carseat for any great length of time, particularly if the car isn't moving. She was screaming so loud that we had to shout to each other in the front seat to be heard over the tantrum. This never helps the situation and was just fueling Prince Snottypants and his righteous indignation at being trapped in traffic.

We did finally arrive, and after meeting up with Kevin and Lorena and dropping off our bag of loot at the Toys For Tots drive we headed into the park and straight for my one and only requirement of the evening: a ride on Space Mountain. They broke Space Mountain 2 years ago while I was on a cruise in Hawaii with my Mom, and since it was scheduled to go down for a complete overhaul anyway, they decided not to fix it. So it's been 2 long years since I've had my SM fix, and I was really looking forward to hearing the new soundtrack and seeing the new interior. Since the Christmas party is usually seriously capacity controlled, it was only a quick 30 minute wait for 2 minutes of happiness. Tia Lorena took Tenley, and the boys and I made our way through - and I even waited 1 extra car so I could have the front seat. :) I was not dissappointed, and I wanted to go again.

Instead we headed over to Buzz Lightyear which Tenley enjoyed pointing at everything on, and I had beginner's luck and got the highest score for target shooting out of the 4 of us. After that we trooped out of Tomorrow Land and watched Tenley watch the parade and point at the princesses and clap. As soon as it was over, we decided to see what Ten thought of Pirates & Haunted Mansion. We're happy to report that she thinks they're just fine, and she thinks there should be more than 2 drops on Pirates and it should go faster.

On our way back to It's a Small World, we stopped to get hot pretzels and show Tenely the reindeer in Big Thunder Ranch (interesting note: if you put reindeer in a warm climate, their antlers fall off. Ask how I know that.) We also detoured to Mr. Toad which Tenley really liked and felt should be slower so she could get a good look at everything.

We finally made it to It's a Small World, which ranks high on the kid's list for the music and sparkly lights. For me, the best part of the ride was discovering that it really is a small world after all: the family in line behind us had 2 adopted Chinese daughters - and their little one, Jewel, was just home to the US from Yang Xi SWI...the same place as Tenley. We figured out that the girls would have been at Yang Xi at the same time, and I couldn't help but wonder if she was one of the precious little faces I saw still waiting for her forever family when we were there.

At that point it was late and the Tenster was getting tired, and the temperature was dropping, so we decided to pack it in. We stopped on Main St. for coffee & rice crispy treats before collecting our commerative ornaments and driving for home and feeling as though the Christmas season had really begun.

See the pictures at www.jeffandmichelle.net!