Scheduling anything with Hubby is usually fraught with danger. The danger of cancellation or of having to call everyone else involved to change the date. Birthday parties, group photos, get togethers... nearly anything involving anyone beyond me, Hubby, and the girls gives me a headache and requires multiple phone calls and emails. If it's just the four of us our options are always open anyway and I know things will change dramatically at any moment. We just don't plan much of anything and as much as possible we're a seat-of-the-pants kind of bunch. That's fine. Sometimes annoying, but fine. It's when other factors, like extended family, or Delta, become involved, that I go crazy.
A couple months back Hubby got a four day contract in Nuremberg. Then there was a two day class for him to teach in Hamburg the next week. If we wanted, we could schedule them as far apart as possible, and the girls and I could come to Germany and play with him in between. If I had my top choices of where it would be cool to take the family, Bavaria would be right up there. I've been there twice, I know some fun things to do there, it's a beautiful area. Hubby's never been to Germany, I could show him around a little too. We weighed all the options. Briefly. For a couple of days. Seriously enough for me to see that if we DID decide to go, we had to renew the girls' passports. Yeah, how freaky is that? I got my first passport at 18 or something. My girls are 7 and 9 and they need theirs RENEWED, and they've actually needed them TWICE. The times they are a changin'. I digress.
We decided to go to Germany.
Then we talked about it some more for another couple weeks or so. Of course when I say "talk" I really mean "brought it up while squeezing everything of relevance into a late night phone call, or an intercontinental skype session in which one of us was trying to have dinner while the other was trying to have breakfast." That's what I meant.
After briefly discussing it a couple times, for many reasons we decided not to go.
Then Hubby talked to his contacts in Hamburg to see if he could schedule his thing there the 2nd week at the beginning of the week instead of the end, and only be gone for 7 or 8 days or so all together, instead of the full 2 weeks. They said it's too late to move the dates, so he'll be stuck alone in Germany for the full two weeks, just working at the beginning and the end.
So we decided the girls and I should go meet him. We're going. We're taking the girls to Germany!
We looked into airfare. It seemed relatively inexpensive, and we got these sweet direct to Paris flights... so we bought tickets. That's always a scary moment... the "YES DANGIT GO AHEAD AND DO IT!!! LET'S GO TO GERMANY!!!" moment. Everything is rolling toward going.
I told the girls' teachers at parent teacher conferences that we'd be leaving on November 10th after school, coming back the weekend of the 20th. We'll come get any homework assignments for them to take with us and do on the plane. It's getting closer and closer!
Then on Saturday Oct 30th I get an email from Hubby telling me his thing in Hamburg at the end of the 2nd week in Germany was canceled. Suddenly we have no real reason to have a big family vacation, with the girls missing 7 days of school, in the middle of November, right before the Thanksgiving break.
We talk. We decide to cancel, eat the change fees on the tickets and use the remaining credit to go somewhere else another time.
Hubby calls the airline to make sure it really is a $250 fee per ticket to cancel an international ticket. Yes, it is. He is shocked that it really will cost us $1000 to NOT go, in changing his ticket and cashing the girls and my tickets in for credit. He gets off the phone and doesn't cancel. We start talking about what we'd do in Germany. I start getting excited, and telling him all about Bavaria and the castles and the nutcrackers and the shopping and on and on...
We decide maybe we should go. By now it's Sunday evening.
We talk some more. We weigh our options.
By Monday we'd changed our minds again. This one is looking final. The reasons to go? The experience, the cancellation fees on the tickets. The reasons NOT to go? For me, the thousands of dollars of the expenses of this trip (in addition to the price of the tickets we have sitting on this cycle of the credit card) and the fact we'd be pulling the girls out of 7 days of school. There are quite a number of other, lesser reasons.
So we're not going. Hubby leaves Saturday for Nuremberg, and will have to change his ticket anyway to come back the following Saturday. And will enjoy having a week at home, for a change. We've told the girls to tell their teachers we will be here after all.
There. The decision is made. Final.
This is not the first time a European trip was cancelled for me... the last time I found out TWO DAYS before we were leaving that our trip to Sheffield England was off. But knowing in the back of my mind it always could fall through isn't much comfort. I'm still sort of sad... I did really want to go.
We got up and packed half our stuff, then left for Disneyland pretty early, and checked in early to the GRAND CALIFORNIAN. Holy cow. It was like the Yellowstone Lodge, only less rustic. Maybe a little more calculatedly rustic. But a pretty nice hotel. Our intent was just to drop off our bags and stuff, but of course the girls are completely enchanted with the hotel and it's hard to get them to leave.
Checking into the parks from the hotel was amazingly easy. The hotel was prohibitively expensive, and I kept telling Hubby that the Ramada across the street is just about as convenient, but I can't argue that this hotel is uber convenient.
We had three wonderful days at Disneyland. The way we do the parks we need all three days, as Hubby and I are a little driven to do stuff, but the girls are not, so it takes three days for us to get in everything we want. Though we never talked the girls into Indiana Jones, Space Mountain was out of commission, and we end up doing Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain more than he or I would choose. I do quite a bit with Thing 2 while Hubby and Thing 1 go to the animation academy and learn how to draw different characters. Thing 2 is not interested in that.
The girls love the bear playground thing in California Adventure. They have to hit this smoke jumper thing several times before we can do anything else.
They have to walk their lines up to the launching area on the right, then they ride the line to the end and it pops them up, and jerks them back a little. They love it.
Though she grows older, the Merry-Go-Round is still one of her favorite rides.
I brought some food in our backpack, which worked out well as some of the food lines were really long, and one which Hubby stood in for about 10 minutes didn't move at all, so he bailed and we had dried mangoes and beef jerky for lunch that day. We tried to eat in the park, really we did, but just kept finding it easier to eat what I brought. We met a friend of mine for dinner at the House of Blues on Tuesday, which was marvelous. It was wonderful catching up, he seems to be doing really well. On the last day, Thursday, we had lunch at the Blue Bayou because that was the only reservation available. Hubby was floored at how much that set us back. I figure it averaged out by our not buying much food the rest of the time we were in the park. Aside from a few ice creams and popcorn, we hardly bought anything.
We put the girls off on buying a souvenir until the end of the day, at least because I hate carrying those sacks around. Thing 1 has become a first class negotiator. I told them I would buy them each a souvenir of the trip. Thing 1 decided she wanted some Legos from the lego store, but then saw some club Penguin stuff she wanted, so she told me that she'd buy the club penguin stuff with her back allowance. I am terrible about remembering to pay them their allowance, so fine, they each get to pick two things. The trouble is trying to get everything to add up financially. But the first part of the negotiations went well. Thing 2 picked out a little doll thing like a polly pocket where the doll is Minnie Mouse.
The trouble came the next morning, Thursday. Both girls were so obsessed with what they'd spend their souvenir money on, Hubby suggested we just go do that first thing, then take it out to the car and then enjoy our day. Okay fine. We checked out of the hotel, then went shopping. Thing 2 heads straight to Build A Bear. I think they already have enough stuffed animals, they don't play much with them, but it's their choice, and I can't deny the lure of the build-a-bear ritual, and it ends up meaning more to them than just picking out a stuffed Disney character from the Disney store. Thing 2 picks out a bear and is going through the whole ordeal of stuffing it, rubbing the little heart on all her body parts as instructed before the helper drops it in the bear's back and sews him shut, and picking out an outfit. (I encouraged her to get something Disney related, she bought a Downtown Disney tee shirt)
Thing 1 was going crazy. She started jonesing for a build a bear. She started negotiating. She promised to eat meatloaf if I'd buy her a bear. What about the legos? The problem with the legos was that the set she wanted wasn't in the store, they were out. They expect them the day after we leave. Hubby finds them online on her iphone and we can order them, but she won't have them today. Well, she wants the legos too, but she wants the bear for something else. She is practically in physical pain about this, writhing around. Hubby starts looking at me with puppy dog eyes. He can't deny them anything they REALLY want and she seems to REALLY want this stuffed dog. I think. Okay. You can have this dog today, for your Disney souvenir. You can have the Legos in a couple of months, when you mark off all the days of your homework chart. Yippeee! Everyone's happy.
She gets her dog, stuffs it, puts the heart in it, picks out a sweater for it. We're standing in the line, the sales person has put each girl's stuffed animal and associated accessories into their little take home boxes which they're holding, they've swiped my credit card, I'm just waiting for the screen to come up for me to sign and she slaps her hand to her forehead and says "Oh No!"
What?
I've made a mistake. A horrible mistake.
What?
I don't want the dog.
.... Too late, honey, you've got the dog. I sign the pad, we go out of the store and I turn to her and say "What's going on?"
She says "I don't know how I'll play with the dog." This is something Hubby pointed out to her in the negotiations for the stuffed animal. She plays with legos all the time, but we don't see her playing with stuffed animals.
She admits she wanted the stuffed animal because Thing 2 was getting a stuffed animal, and because she likes GETTING the stuffed animal, the ritual (not her words). But she doesn't really WANT the stuffed animal.
Sigh. Well, she's got it now.
Hubby took the bear and dog to the car while I sat in the hotel lobby with the girls, assuring Thing 1 with all my ability how cute the dog is, what a good choice it was, why it made sense at the time she made the choice. She cried, she sniffled, she seemed resolved.
Then she started negotiating about when she's going to get those legos.
We fast passed a bunch of rides and had a very nice day at the park.
