Sunrise, Sunset.

Hello from Sunny San Diego.  We're holed up in the hotel room this evening, the boys are snuggled up on their bed watching the Heffalump movie, my husband is down in the laundry room switching loads, and I am...well, I'm blogging!  With a glass of wine in hand!  And a sore body and a full tummy!  Welcome to my vacation!

We have been going 90 to nothing since we got here.  Thursday we went to Disneyland with some friends.  Just in case you were wondering, over the Christmas to New Years holiday is probably not the quietest time to go to Disneyland, Oh my God there were so many people there.  We were nine strong, four adults, four kids between 3 and 6, and one teenage babysitter who got a free ticket to come along and help us keep track.  You would think five grownups to four kids would be a pretty sweet ratio, but you would be wrong.  At one point, we lost Drew, for about five of the most terrifying minutes of my life, and probably his.  We had just come off the Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride, and were cutting through the que line to get back to the main walkway, ducking under ropes and cutting through the line, all of us thinking he was ahead or behind with the others.  When we got to the other side and stopped and did a headcount, we were only eight people.  I looked back in the direction we had just come from to find a sea of people, all moving in different directions.  My husband and the other dad set off on foot to retrace steps, I immediately climbed up on a light pole with a concrete base and started scanning faces from 15 feet up, hoping he might see me.   The employee who was manning the entrance to the line for the Pirates ride yelled at me to get down, and I yelled right back at him "I am missing a blond 6 year old boy in a light blue t-shirt - leave me the hell alone and start looking!"  People below me gasped and started counting their own kids and craning their necks around to look, and send the message up the line like falling dominos.

After just a few minutes, my cellphone rang, a number from Denver, Colorado which I didn't recognize.

"Hello?  I have a little boy here...?"  He was less than 100 feet away, through 500 people.  He had done what we had told him to do if he got lost: find someone in a uniform or with a name tag and give them my cellphone number, which he has memorized.  This woman, a visitor to the park and not an employee, but a mommy herself, had noticed him standing there looking a little panicked and stopped to talk to him.  She knew something was not right.  And right about the time she was trying to describe to me where she was standing, my husband saw them.

So it worked out fine, but suffice to say Drew was freaked enough that I carried him almost to the entrance of the park, we had decided that was about all the excitement we could handle for one day.

Today we went to the zoo, much calmer, mostly because we have been to the San Diego Zoo so many times we know our way around, so even though it was pretty busy, we felt much more comfortable.  And also I think despite the scary moments, we all, Drew included, feel a little better knowing our emergency plan works.  But the boys are exhausted, daddy is exhausted, I am exhausted.  Tonight we caught a beautiful sunset while driving up highway 101, and ate fish and chips for dinner. I am going to yoga in the morning, I've already caught one class yesterday, plus all the park/zoo walking. 

Tomorrow is new years eve.  We hope to catch an early dinner at our favorite mexican restaurant and crash early.  So exciting, I know. 

Comments

[Happy and Blue 2]

That was scary. Glad you have a plan for things like that.

Wishing you a Happy New Year..

[SJ]

Happy New Year to you and your family!!!

Sounds like you all had a ton of fun! What a better way to ring in the New Year!

[Bex]

I can only imagine how scary that must have been to lose your son at Disneyland! I'm glad everything turned out and that he remembered what to do if he was lost.

And I must say, I am very jealous of the warm weather you've been experiencing. I'm sick of the snow!