Party of 8

Throughout our week here Alfredo has been asking each day what we're planning to do and offering up helpful suggestions for activities. I have been deflecting some of these due to weariness from previous activities, but yesterday he motivated me to go to Universal Studios. (We had originally planned to go there, but were feeling lazy and unmotivated.) 

{Notice her shopping bag of misc. stuff}

We all piled in their car, with Missy Claudia at the wheel. It was hilarious. She was flying through the streets and then said, "Alf, do you think we have enough gas to make it to the Irvine station?" Only Claudia! We made it there, but it was a wild ride just getting to Costco for gas.

Traffic was slow going so I found myself thinking "this better be worth it" but I harked back to my spring Paris trip and the ordeal it was to get to Giverny (metro, train, bus, sweating, long lines, etc.) but how it was one of the highlights of my trip. Fortunately this proved to be the case with Universal Studios as well!

It was a perfect day, excellent weather, NO LINES, fun company, great stuff to do, just a wonderful day. We had barely arrived when Marge Simpson came and started pushing Jorvik in the stroller (taking over for Whitney) and walked and then danced with Whitney. It was darling.

Five minutes after that we hurried over to catch the Waterworld show. There were guys warming up the crowd by throwing buckets of water and getting the crowd to cheer. Apparently Alfredo told Whitney to wait before running across a section of sidewalk, but she didn't listen and got wet. She was mighty upset about this, but I thought it was funny and had to take a picture.

Claudia and I took this self-portrait in front of these British flags in honor of Amanda, and then realized this was just the facade of the restrooms. So funny.

Landon trying to act like he wasn't ecstatic to be posing with Spiderman. (Nice girl in the background eh?)

Randy, the kids and I got in line for The Mummy ride only to have Landon reduced to tears and wanting to leave. Randy was really bugged (last year Landon wasn't afraid of any rides at Disneyland) so I took Landon and Whitney out while Randy rode it alone. Poor Landon cried out in frustration, "That's 3 things, I'm hungry, I'm scared out of my wits (we had gone on the Jurassic Park ride just before this and the big hill at the end freaked him out), and now dad is mad at me!" (Is it wrong that I thought this was hilarious?)

I ended up going on this ride with Claudia and Alfredo and screamed my guts out. I don't think Landon and Whitney would have been happy riding it. It was in the dark, had sudden drops, went backwards at one point and was just crazy. I felt like my brain was rattling around in my skull. Claudia and Alfredo couldn't stop laughing at my screaming. The picture the ride took of us was hilarious, but we didn't want to pay the $20 to buy it.

Alfredo pushed 2 tables together for our dining pleasure. What a crazy group we were.
Randy had received a front-of-the-line pass for the studio tour for answering some survey questions when we first arrived at the park. We had to run to make it to the last tour of the day but got to be in the first car thanks to our pass. What a treat, we had great seats for all the surprises along the tour.

This is just spooky right?

This is as close as Whitney would get to the shark. She watches a ton of Planet Earth shows, so I figure she can't separate this plastic shark from all the shark facts she knows. Too funny.

Claudia took this picture of us with our 4-D glasses on before the Shrek show. It was really dark in the room (plus she was wearing her glasses) we were waiting in so we didn't know if the picture would turn out. I think it's funny.

Who can resist these things?

We had an awesome dinner here.

The kids fell asleep right away, so Randy blinded them with the flash when he took this photo in the dark (hence Landon's expression). Claudia gave us a driving tour of downtown Hollywood, the Walt Disney Hall (amazing) and downtown LA, which was very cool.

Even Alfredo fell asleep! Claudia ended up driving us around in Fullerton so we could find the place my family lived from 1981-1984. We didn't find it, but it was fun looking. I love that she's so adventurous and willing to drive forever. We wouldn't have abandoned our search except that our passengers were getting restless.

**Have you been to Universal Studios?

Can you sleep in the car?

Have you been on The Mummy ride?

Do you love Buca di Beppo?**