Vlad, Katie, Tim, Sam and Pets
As I mentioned previously, Timmy and I are proud owners of season tickets to the University of Florida football games. We haven’t missed one yet and they make for an awesome daddy-son days. We drive to Gainesville, watch cartoons on the way up, go shopping, eat at McAllisters and top it off with the actual football game which to a 2 year old is basically an orgy of junk food and awful music blasted as loud as possible.
Today was our first evening game so we spent the day hanging around Gainesville. Below is Timmy and a baby Gator.
The whole baby-daddy Gator thing is my fault. One of the springs that ends up in Lake Alice starts right around Shands where I always park for football games. We pass this stream every time and there is always at least one alligator there. Once upon a time there were two – a big one and a small one. The big one was daddy gator and the small one was a baby gator.
My explanation was that the daddy gator was right in front of us and the baby gator was sleeping in the water. Say bye-bye to the daddy gator, we’ll come back after the game and wake the baby gator up.
Now. Imagine having that repeated to you about 50 times a day to/from work and you’ll probably understand why Mrs. Mazek is not in any of these pictures :)
By the way, how many gators do you see in this picture? If your answer is 1, I recommend staying out of waters in Florida. That’s a good advice even if you don’t see any gators or snakes or turtles. Trust me, they are there.
First evening game.
Barely made it into the third quarter before passing out. Completely.
My wife made fun of me when she found out that I bought padded seats. Our kid has clocked several quarters of quality sleep – in rain, sun and now – night.
That last picture I just had to take. It’s the picture of the Bull Gator Deck and Timmy’s hands. Shot from under our seats.
Go Gators!
I can’t believe that our daddy & son road trip is coming to an end. Timmy is getting really comfortable out here and to see him just hang out and jump for joy every time he sees a Disney character is absolutely awesome.
He is tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny. But at almost 30lb, he is quite a bit to carry around. We’re staying at the Paradise Pier and making that trek back and forth twice a day on top of carrying him in the park has left me quite sore. The floor is made of lava though 😉
One of the coolest parts of Disneyland (well, southern California) is that the thick smog cover doesn’t fully disperse until the afternoon. Makes the parks much more bearable.
And that was it for Disneyland. We went on absolutely every ride the little guy could get on. Hopefully the next time we come back he’ll be over 42” and able to ride the rollercoasters with daddy!
Off to California Adventure:
This place is all about The World of Color and Pixar. I’d actually say it’s more about Pixar than Disney in so many ways. Pixar parades. Pixar rides. Pixar themed lands. Since Timmy only knows of the traditional Disney characters if they appeared on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, this place is pretty much built for him. The Bugs Life playground area is like Mickey’s Toontown – kid rides galore.
And yes, when you’ve been here long enough you just have to sit down and stretch with the characters 🙂
I took the little guy to The Sorcerers Workshop where we found out which Disney character he’s most like. This is somewhat of a family tradition and a big point of contention. Katie is most like the evil witch from Snowwhite, I am most like Tarzan. I agree! Timmy? He is Gaston! And to be honest, I see it – he does have a bit of a smartass of an attitude.
Best daddy & son trip ever!
Our Disneyland vacation continued today. It started bright and early at the Disneyland Hotel in Goofy’s Kitchen. It was pretty much an hour of Timmy trying to get characters to eat bacon with him.
We moved on to Disneyland. Spent a lot of time riding rides that we either don’t have in Orlando or Katie never wants to ride with us. Namely, the rockets.
Saw Donald Duck on our way out!
Then we went across the street to California Adventure.
World of Color is California Adventure’s new thing and absolutely the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen Disney do. If you’ve ever seen Bellagio’s fountains in Las Vegas, this show makes that look like a lawn sprinkler. It’s absolutely beyond comparison.
We played around the park for a little while and went back to the hotel for a quick nap.
Pixar parade was absolutely amazing. Timmy loves all the Pixar movies so this was just made for him. Me, not so much – floats shouldn’t be spraying the audience with water. Just my opinion I guess.
The Simpsons joined us for dinner. Erick gave Timmy some chocolate cake and his attitude completely changed. He went from tired and cranky to energetic and happy. This continued until 11 PM so less chocolate next time around 🙂
World of Color. Wow. We got there about an hour early so Timmy sat in my lap and watched a Disney cartoon on my iPhone. Seems snobby, doesn’t it? In Disneyland and still watching a Disney cartoon on an iPhone?
Finally, somewhat of a days long argument with the kid:
Timmy needs a hat, daddy needs a hat!
I don’t need a hat Timmy!
No, no, no, no, no. Timmy needs a hat. Daddy needs a hat.
So there. One oversized hat – check. One happy monkey – check. Having a short attention span and not spending $30 on an unpractical piece of foam and public – priceless.
More Disney fun tomorrow.
Last night we got to Disneyland. We’re staying at the Disney’s Paradise Peer (it was on sale; it is the only Disneyland hotel we’ve never been to) and we had the best day ever.
Started at Disneyland with the breakfast at Plaza Inn, Minnie & Friends Breakfast In The Park. Timmy loved it, crushed a man’s portion of bacon.
After that, we went on Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. Finding Nemo is one of the first cartoons Timmy fell in love with and he absolutely loved this ride. We followed that up with a trip to Storybook Land Canal Boats. Next up a walk through the Sleeping Beauty’s Castle – this is a truly amazing thing because it fits such a big story inside such a small castle and Timmy really loved it too. We spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to open each door in the castle. We then went for a ride in Mr Toad’s Wild Ride. People always ask me why I keep on coming to Disneyland when we live right behind Disney World – none of what we’ve done so far exists at Disney World.
Took the monorail back to the resort, and after a brief 3 hour nap, monorail back to Disneyland.
We spent more than 3 hours at Mickey’s Toontown. I was absolutely exhausted by the time this was through but my little guy was not to be stopped. We took the Disneyland train to New Orleans Square and spent a few hours playing around the Critter Country and Rivers of America. We went to The Pirates of the Carribean, Haunted Mansion and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Timmy really loved New Orleans for some reason. We got some candy in the critter country and killed some time before watching Fantasmic.
We went back to the Fantasy Land for the fireworks. Timmy nearly fell asleep on my head, as he usually does in Orlando. However, Disneyland does something really awesome – they have Tinkerbell and Dumbo keep on flying over the castle during the fireworks. Timmy fell in love with Dumbo. So we got to wait for the Dumbo ride to open and we went through that. Then onto Casey’ Jr Circus train. After Alice in Wonderland, the monkey finally said “night night Daddy” and passed out cold on my shoulder about 20 yards later.
Fantastic first day. Tomorrow we’re waking up to breakfast at Goofy’s Kitchen and are closing the night with a picnic with priority seating for World of Color. Having the best time ever and missing mommy (well, I am.)
