Day 12: Some more basketball...... College basketball that is!

So to get a maximum amount of fun for our dollar..... Mark wakes everyone up at 7.00 am! To go back to Disneyland for our second day. We ache all over and the last thing we want to do is get out of bed. But we indulge him and we want an early start to get on space mountain..... Seeing as we missed out yesterday.
We didn't really want to eat at the hotel so we thought we'd have some pancakes at Denny's ..... OMG they were the most delicious pancakes I have ever tasted! Aden had choc chip and they were delicious too but I think they would have been too sweet to have a plate full of them.
After brekkie, we also has to organise our ride to the basketball game we were going to. University of southern California (USC) vs Texas Christian University (TCU)
That done, we were really shortening our day as we had to leave for the game, which was in LA 45 minutes away, at around 4.30-5.00 (as Mark was having heart failure we would get stuck on traffic and miss the game!)
He did offer to hire a car and drive us there.......NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Are you freaking kidding me we'd rather pay the exorbitant fees for the car to get us there!
We decided to leave Disneyland until tomorrow so we could have a whole day there and watch the fireworks this time.
When we last were in LA in 1993, we stayed at the Holiday Inn, and we thought we'd go and check it out and everything other way of South Harbor Blvd.
Our hotel was still there and I wouldn't have recognized it at all! Mark and his uncanny knack to remember everything, started sprouting lots of tidbits about our last time there! The hotel is now called the Red Lion and Mark said it hasn't changed that much, but I must've had baby brain because I cannot remember it at all! There was a few discount outlets along the way but we are savvy on our prices now and not so quickly impressed with prices. Or to part with our dollars.
We walked for miles and miles with no complaining as there were things holding our attention along the way.
I was happy to spot a massive Target and we headed on in. I went straight to the makeup section and bought a good supply of stuff to sustain me for 202.
I showed my camera to a guy in the electronic section and he agreed with me, that there must be something with the auto part of the lens not the actual camera. He showed me a couple of things to do with the camera to get me thought the rest of the holiday and while I was there I bought a new 16GB SD card and a small camera bag ( to stop me throwing the camera in my handbag)
That done we (me) needed a coffee break and some internet and maccas was just up the road.......
We got our fix and just couldn't face the walk back to the hotel so we caught the bus back.
We had a little rest ( remember Mark dragged us out of bed just before 7!)
And got ready for our pick up to the game.
As the school kiddies are on holiday there was hardly any (according to our driver) cars on the road. I couldn't agree though as there was thousands of cars on the road! Traffic was moving though and we got to our destination 2 hours BEFORE the game! We gave it to Mark good and proper and then set off to explore and grab dinner.
We walked for a while and didn't see anything so we turned around and headed back the other way and tried to find something for dinner that appealed to us all. Patrick's choice was the Fatbuger restaurant! Can you believe there is a place actually called that!!!?
People were actually in there too!!!
We decided on a shared Taco Bells and Pizza Hut restaurant.
The boys all had a "personal" pizza which is the size of small here and I had a rice and bean burrito OMG I have never tasted anything so delicious in my LIFE!!!! And the kicker is....... Dinner cost us $16.45!!!!!! We spent over $80 on brekkie!! Too funny!
We had a walk back and looked at a few car yards. Aden and Mark cannot believe the price of the cars here, they oooohed and ahhhed and drooled and we were still early for the game!! I spied a coffee house..... I can spot one anywhere!! We popped in for a quick Cappacino and iced coffee (Patrick asked 15 questions before ordering though!)
When we got to the basketball, we were searched, checked and prodded and then told we were not allowed to take our backpack into the stadium..
Mark in his thickest Aussie accent said...."aww mate we are from Ostraya we didn't know!" they checked with security, checked the bag again an let us in but not before Mark telling them Lachlan's team were just let in and they were all carrying backpacks.
When we got in and caught up with the team, Leanne asked how we got in with the backpack as they were not allowed and had to make the trek back to their vans to offload them! Lol
There were cheerleaders and all the boys had their pics taken with them. They had all the covers from sports illustrated framed and hung on the wall along with all the trophies and accolades they have achieved.
We went to our seats and they were pretty good seeings as we just bought them late. We were dead centre facing the bench but up a level. There were plenty of seats on the lower level but I think they were reserved season tickets.
The show that goes along with the game is well worth the ticket price! If this is college basketball ..... I really want to go to a NBL game!!!
It was a good game, although even for a half and the home team took it away.
They had a brass band playing, and lots of activities during the endless timeouts that kept us entertained.
We thoroughly enjoyed the experience and to cap it off Aden bought some shorts in the team shop!
We got picked up by our driver and half way home when the police, over their loudspeaker, demanded we pull over.
When our driver started to move over they then yelled that he had to take the next exit.
Our driver told us he what he had done wrong and that he was going to try and get out of a ticket, by telling a porkie pie, as he had a good driving record and didn't want to blemish it.
It was like something out of COPS and the driver was so apologetic (it was a bit over the top) and the officer came over with a torch and hand on revolver and shined it on our driver and the obligatory "licence and registration please" I must say it took every ounce of self control I didn't think I had not to grab my camera!!!!!
But but but I want to put this on my blog!!!!! Lol
He got let off with a warning and that was our little bit of excitement for the night!

Cut me a little slack Christie!!

You may have noticed a few.... Ok a lot of spelling errors and grammatical mistakes along the way! I am
Totally stuffed and not re-reading my posts! Apologies but you get the gist of it!! Internet is scarce and I am trying to get it all down before I forget!
And I miss you so much too Christie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Day 11: Disneyland

We woke nice and early..... But we wanted to have brekkie first and decided to eat at the hotel. We had a bit of everything!! And oh so many cups of coffee! we had all good intentions to get an early start but in true Muir fashion... We stuffed around with other things first and ended up there around 1/4 to 11. Being Sunday and this close to Christmas, I thought it would be empty because who in their right mind would be on holidays and go to Disneyland with so much to do before Christmas and in the middle of winter????...
EVERYBODY!!! Holy cow the Placed was packed!!!!!!! And that was just at the entrance!! Of course we had to study the list of what to buy.... One day one park pass.... One day two park hopper pass, two day pass... Three day pass... Way toooooo much information and choice for Mark.... I thought I was bad making decisions!! After much deliberation :| we FINALLY bought a two day two park hopper pass!! Fabulous!
We are busting to get going...........
Until we get in the gate and Disneyland is on the right and California Adventure Park is on the left......
More discussion on which park to go to first!!....
I am about to scream
........arrrrggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Ok Disneyland it is!
We get through the gate and right in front are beautiful gardens decorated with the shape of Mickey Mouse's head in the centre with absolutely gorgeous flowers and shrubs and the gardens are calling me!!! I am almost pushing everyone out the way because this is a scrap moment if I ever saw one!
Disneyland would be great if all the people and their kids weren't there!
I finally get my family dead centre and the light is just right with Mickey smiling behind them and my camera wouldn't take the photo!!
I click and click and change the setting and nothing.
Ok don't panic I can take another one later when all these people have moved on...
We walk under a little bridge and I see a stunningly beautiful Christmas tree and gorgeous decorations and I am mentally organizing what pictures to take and wanting to snap everything! I don't want to forget a thing!!!!
This is so exciting! I love seeing Patrick's face, he is trying to be cool but he just as happy as I am to be here!
I start trying to take pictures and my camera just won't co-operate :(
An error shows and then it shuts down completely. I am ready to cry. If fact I think I did. My scrap friends will understand how utterly devastating this is! Especially today!
Aden calms me down and takes me to a photographic store and a photographer has a look at the camera and she cannot seem to work out what the problem is either :( I can get some action in manual mode but I can't focus.
I took a photo with my iPhone and the quality was ok so I at least had some way to record the day.
More decisions on which ride to go on first! We agreed on Space Mountain as we were closest to this. The wait time was lit up next to the entrance as 50 minutes!! We just got here.... We didn't want to wait in line!!
So people don't have to wait in line, they have a system called FastPass You use your entry ticket and you scan it into a machine near the ride and it will tell you a time to come back and you can bypass the line.
Great! We thought we'd go to all the rides and hit the FastPass!! Ah No :( once you have used your card to FastPass, you cannot do it again for another TWO HOURS!! You just have to wait..... And wait..... And wait!!
Everything was at least a 50 minute wait or longer. Despite this, we managed to do every major ride the boys wanted to do. I begged them to do the cup and saucers with me! You cannot go to Disneyland and not do the cup and saucers!! I felt sick at the end of the ride though!!
The day goes by quickly and your poor legs, feet and calves and back are aching and there is so much more to do! Mark and I are certainly feeling our age but let me tell you, we are running rings around Patrick stamina wise!!
He is really feeling it with all the walking around. There is so much I want to see and do and they just want to go on rides!! You could come everyday for two weeks and I don't think you'd see it all. I really wanted to go to Toon Town and see It's a small world and go on the Mark Twain and look for Nemo and go on the Pirates of the Caribbean and go through the Haunted House and they pooh poohed all of it.
Hmmm I will come back for a second day and get my way then.
We head over to California Adventure Park and it is dark by then and the park is all lit up spectacularly!!!
I just want to take photos and the boys just want to look at everything. They are getting quite annoyed at me stopping every two minutes and wandering off if something catches my eye!!
I have had a play around with my camera and if i change everything to manual it seems to work! It just won't even let you take a picture with the wide angle on auto but it will with the zoom lens!! I have taken nearly all the pictures I have wanted though.
Going through the park, we head straight to the rollercoaster California Screamin. Mark and Patrick (sooky la las) opted not to go and as there was a 15 minute wait, Aden and I were busting to have a go. It was an awesome ride!! I think I screamed the whole thing! The start is the best as it goes from zero to 90 in 4 seconds. Then we went straight to the other fast scary ride the Hollywood hotel tower of terror as we quickly got a fast pass.. It would have to be my newest most favourite ride. I was terrified!! Absolutely loved it. It is a bit like The Drop at Dreamworld.
We walked around and then stayed to watch the World of Color which was an awesome night show with water, light, fire and colour with Disney characters each telling a little story! It was magnificent and we all loved it. We still had our fast pass for space mountain at 11.10pm and we were just so spent! Our legs were jelly and all we wanted to do was go to bed! Knowing we had another day, we voted to go home and go to bed.
When we got back to the hotel, which I didn't like at all! No Wi-FI, coffee in styrofoam cups in the room and our bathroom was not very clean. The brekkie was nice though and it was across the road from Disneyland, well across the road and a little bit up the road.... Lol

Day 10: last day in NC & we love Walmart!!

We probably should have for an earlier flight as there wasn't any more games to watch but I sort of took the ABT lead and caught a late flight to LA. As we had the day to play with we thought we would catch the outlets that we didn't pick yesterday. We thought we could handle Mark for the 30 minute car ride...... We found out that the terrible traffic yesterday was due to school finishing for the Christmas break and everyone heading to their families for the holiday period.
There was hardly any traffic on the freeway and we were making good time until we took the turn off to get to the shops.....on the left. The hire car was beeping that it needed petrol and the petrol station was on the right!! We turned right and filled up with petrol and tried to get back on the road to travel 2ks max to the outlets and it would have taken 40 minutes!!!!! The lights would change every 15 seconds allowing only one or two cars at a time. Mark predictably handled the delay as you would imagine...............lol
The outlets were ok but we were a little shopped out... But not before I bought another pair of runners! I just cannot believe the price difference between the two countries!
We decided that we would go and Aden and Patrick desperately wanted a a Walmart fix so thank goodness for Aden's google maps because the stupid GPS wasn't happening! Patrick has surprised me no end with his observation and perception skills they are outstanding! We have on so many occasions thought we were heading in the right direction and he has told us differently!
We got to Walmart and loaded up with lollies and cookies (gooey choc chip yummmmmmmmm!!) and the boys each bought a huge bottle of Gatorade! They cannot get over the huge big gallon bottles for $3.88. Aden bought a gallon bottle and Patrick got the smaller one and lots of Revlon makeup!! $9.95 for the brand I use which in OZ is $37.00 so I bought a few!! I could of gone crazy but I didn't! I will regret that once I run out and I have to pay the Aussie price though.
We took the car back to Charlotte airport and I think in that 10 minute drive we polished off the whole pack of biscuits (cookies)!!
We were NOT sorry to say goodbye to the hire car that's for sure! We caught the shuttle to the airport and booked in and we had to wait for Aden to drink a gallon of the blue stuff!
Security was surprisingly uneventful. For once and we saw the ABT team all sprawled out and poor Henry in a wheelchair! He was one of the walking wounded from the last game. We were talking to the teachers and every couple of minutes a motorized car that take the disabled to their gates would whiz by.
One stopped and picked up an elderly lady sitting near us and put her bags on the back and started to leave. Thank goodness Patrick was watching because he said to Leanne, the teacher, "That man is leaving with your bag." As the car took off Leanne grabbed the bag just in time!! Thank goodness he was watching because all of us certainly weren't! Goodness know where it would have wound up! Like I said his observational skill have been impressive.
They left a good two hours before us and while we waited I did update the blog but I couldn't find it or I think I it must not have saved when I went to add some pics! :(
We had a walk around Charlotte airport and it is awesome! Boutique shops and great eating places and bars! I was so
Impressed it was so pretty! It looked like an expensive hotel lobby. I especially loved the moving sidewalks and alongside them were gorgeous looking white wooden rocking chairs . Beside each chair was a power point for people to sit and recharge their electronics and free wifi too. It was fabulous and puts Tullamarine to shame.
Our flight to Altanta was awful and just when I was starting to relax, I went right back to freaking out again. Even Mark was a little nervous. The ONLY thing that didn't stop me from losing it was the hosties were still casually offering passengers tea, coffee and soft drinks.
When we got to Altanta we sat down at the gate we were told to and the gate that was written on our boarding pass .
After a while Mark noticed our flight wasn't even on that concourse. We were in the D terminal and our flight was leaving from C terminal. We grabbed our bags and caught the subway (another thing Tulla could take a few pointers from) to the C terminal just in time to board our plane.
I wasn't taking any chances for the next flight to LA so I took TWO travel calm tablets!!! Aden and Patrick decided they would bite the bullet and buy some WI-FI for the 4 and a half hour flight and were really excited to learn that there was a Saturday night special and it was $1.95 instead of. $12.95 so they couldn't get their cards out quick enough!
Me on the other hand was so zonked out from the moment the plane took off until it landed in LA! In fact that stuff is so good, I didn't even know the plane had landed!!!
We found our shuttle and the stupid thing kept continuing circuits around the airport in search of passengers to take to Anaheim for at least an hour! Thank goodness I had my iPad so I just read my new book while I waited. The people we were waiting for had lost all their luggage and were not going anywhere until it was found so we finally were able to make a move.
We checked in to the Anaheim Plaza the same hotel as the boys are in and we arrived at the same time despite them leaving 2 hours earlier and going Chicago way.
We all are stuffed as it is 5 am in NC and 2am in LA.

Day 9: the nicest mall in the US

I had half done this post and I cannot find it anywhere!!!!!!!!
I'll try and remember that far back....
Mark and I went down to brekkie and Aden and Patrick decided to forgo it again, much preferring sleep that filling their bellies!! Why would you care when mum and dad will just buy it for you!!
We decided on a little shopping today... Lol just for something different.
We asked the concierge and she suggested either a mall which was 7 minutes away (not 5 or 10 but 7) or some outlets that was a 30 minute drive! Not wanting to spend 30 minutes with psycho dad driving we Quickly picked the closest Mall!!
Well we got out to the main street and it was ok for a minute , then we hit some traffic and it was slow moving for absolutely ages! This 7 minute car ride took over 50 minutes!! Mark loves traffic delays.........
Finally arrived and It would have to be one of the nicest, prettiest malls I have ever been to. It had gorgeous fountains and lush greenery and lights everywhere as well as a lot of Christmas decorations. It was shaped like a cross and It had four major department stores at the end of each cross with lots of specialty shops in between.
We split up again and decided to meet up for lunch. Where Mark and I decided on a spud with cheese a decision I was regretting when I saw this lady POUR cheese on through a sauce bottle!! Ewwww! Tasted delicious though!
Went to another sports shop!! I personally don't think this family could buy any more Nike, Reebok or any brand for that matter sporting apparel .
I needed a Starbucks (love that lace) and we got our coffee and wifi fix while we waited for Aden and Patrick to come back from buying something! then I desperately needed a nana nap! We decided we were shopped out and wanted to go back to our hotel and have a rest before our trip to Metrolina Christian Academy school.
As it was only 30 minutes away we arranged to leave at 5.15pm so allow plenty of time. I dozed and about 4.45 Mark looked out the window and it was pouring so we thought we'd better go a bit earlier as the rain might slow everything down.
Once we got to the main street, it was ok and then we hit the freeway and I have never seen such a sea of red l brake lights in my life!! It went for miles and miles and we were NOT moving!!!!! We moved 100 metres in 20 minutes and as we had allowed a certain amount of time, that was slowly draining away! Now I'll set the scene.......... Foreign country, pitch black (at 5.30!) 100,000 cars moving at smail's pace, Lachlan's last game starting soon and a GPS that is directing is in the wrong direction!
Mark wasn't dealing well with the situation at all!!!
I literally saw the little car icon tell us to do something and then when we followed its lead, the little car drove in a completely different direction! Mark was screaming at the GPS and vowing to disembowel the hire car company!
To cut a very long and physically draining story short.... We eventually got to the school and there were a million, ok quite a few cars, with attendants directing traffic with the fluro batons. We thought bloody hell! This game is packed, must be very popular here! When we parked, we noticed A baptist church prayer service that the masses were going to! Lol
We raced into the stadium and here was Lachlan sprawled out on the bench with a massive ice pack on his ankle!!!!!! Once I knew he was ok I laughed!! The last 90 minutes in horrendous traffic busting to get to the game and he injured himself in the first 15 seconds!!!!!!
The boys played really well and ended up wining the game quite comfortably.
The older boys played well too, but ended up losing by 40 something. The boys were dropping like flies! Injured players were nursing icepacks everywhere! The toll of the 10 games was beginning to show and Aden mentioned he was ready to suit up should the need arise! Patrick mentioned he would be up for it too!
While we were watching the older boys play, the girls were swarming and pretty soon even Aden and Patrick were surrounded too! They were so friendly and inquisitive about everything Australian. I even had some of the mum's asking me questions and coming over for a chat.
After the game we all went out for dinner and after a few goes at it we finally got in to Applebees restaurant where we had a yummy steak and mashed potatoes with vegetables (only broccoli!) I didn't care I am craving vegetables!! Poor Patrick stuffed up again and ordered a bowl of chips as nothing else appealed to him and out came a bowl of cornchips! Jake did the same thing and rather than say anything that's what they both ate for dinner!!
It was really nice having dinner with the team, Aden & Patrick really enjoyed catching up with the boys and it was good listening to the teachers funny stories.
More photos to follow... Camera is being silly :(
Haven't done a spell check either so disregard any mistakes for the minute!!!!