Shelby's promotion ceremony was today and Colin and I went to help punch on his stripes. Colin was so excited to see his Daddy and even more excited that he got to hit him in front of the audience. He sat very patiently waiting until the end of the promotion ceremony for the Master Sergeants to be called. When they called the first Master and Colin heard the rank he got excited and thought it was going to be Shelby. I had to hold him back in the aisle so he didn't run up there thinking it was Shelby. I handed my camera off to a Master Sergeant that was sitting in front of us and asked her to take pictures of us punching on his stripes. I figured with her being a Master already she knew how important and what a big deal it was. I guess I was wrong, she did take a picture, but she didn't make an effort to get up out of her chair and come to the front to snap the picture (which was HIGHLY encouraged by the officiating people), so all I got was one bad picture and you can't really even see Colin and I behind the professional photog that was taking the official pictures. I hope the pro pic turns out good and tracks us down at Lajes. Anyway, back to the story...Shelby's name was finally called and Colin about bust with excitement. Then we got to head up on stage and punch on his stripes, along with a very good friend and coworker, Grady Black. Huge congrats to Shelby, this is an awesome accomplishment for him and a pretty big deal. We're proud of you babe!

Monster Truck Show

We've seen signs around several times over the three years we've lived here for monster truck shows. When they come to town they park their trucks all over in highly visible spots and then hang signs everywhere telling people when and where the show is. We mentioned to Colin yesterday that we might go check it out today. He did not forget. He kept talking about going to the monster truck games so we had to drive over and get the scoop on prices and tickets. Tickets were 15 Euro for adults and 10 for kids....ouch! Turns out kids under 5 are free though, so that helped, but 30 Euro for the show still seemed a little steep. Colin talked about it ALL. DAY. LONG. So when 5pm rolled around and it was time for the last show of the day we decided we better take him over to see it. We kind of figured when we saw the size of the area and all the trucks and trailers that is was more of a circus sideshow kind of deal than the big monster truck rallies in the US where they sell out an arena. Once we got in there, it was worse than we thought! It was a big European red neck family where everyone from granny to the cousins worked the show. We actually saw a washing machine inside one of the truck trailers washing clothes while hooked up to a generator. LOL These people are NUTS. We saw a stunt car show at Disney Studios in Paris. They had all kinds of safety measures in place and were ready for anything to happen. All this crew had was an old guy with a garden hose who wasn't really even on standby. They drove two old beater cars up on a ramp and then rolled them multiple times while the guy inside wore only a helmet and there were no roll bars on the cars or anything. They pulled people FROM THE CROWD to pile into the back seat of a little BMW race/stunt car and then they drove one side up a ramp to get the car up and driving on just the two driver's side wheels. People without helmets stood on top of cars while they were driving on two wheels. When it came time to move and line up the dead beater cars for the monster trucks to drive over, the guy hopped in the fork lift and HOT WIRED IT (no joke) to start it up! LOL It doesn't get much better than that people! The best part was how close they let the crowd get. They had plastic patio chairs all lined up as the front row where the kids got to sit and then people just stood up behind that. The cars were crashing, rolling, and doing donuts and spin outs with children sitting under 50 feet away. Colin was beside himself excited though. He thought the show was great and was impatiently waiting for the monster trucks to come out, which they conveniently saved for last. He had a blast and I suppose that made it worth the 30 Euro. He came home and immediately pulled out his monster trucks, race cars and motorcycle toys and started jumping them and crashing them. Priceless!

Wordless Wednesday

Gymnastics Expo

Cartwheel through Candyland

Today was Colin's gymnastics expo, Cartwheel through Candyland. It was a riot watching the little ones roll and tumble. Colin is such a boy, rough and tough all the way. Some of the girls went through it all dainty, not him...he raced through it Colin style. Videos of him in the four areas are here, watch how he did for yourself. :)

Wordless Wednesday

Karate Tournament

Karate Tournament

Colin has his very first karate tournament today. He was very excited and so were we. He has only been doing karate lessons for a few months, so we weren't expecting him to do too well. He was in the 5 and under category for sparring. He won his first match but then lost the second, eliminating him. He was disappointed he didn't get a trophy, but was satisfied with his medal.

Because I'm on a roll...

I posted four blogs with pictures from our Disney adventure, Wordless Wednesday is up too AND I'm even throwing out these two freebies that I came across on my camera disk and finally uploaded. Back in Amsterdam at the Heineken Experience Colin was dancing... And a couple weeks ago Colin was at his Cars 2 racetrack and he had set up all his cars, got his ipad and turned on Cars and started reenacting the opening scene. He was humming along to the music and making the cars crash at the right time and all. It was so stinkin adorable! Grab some popcorn and read on...it's better than most movies and you don't have to pay ten bucks to watch/read. :)

Disney Day 4

We weren't really at Disney today, but I had to do something on the four hour drive home from Paris, so I blogged. I decided to share what I learned this trip... 1. French breakfast sucks. This morning we went to the McDonald’s off the highway for breakfast and discovered that apparently crappy breakfast is a France thing and not isolated to Disney Village. They had the same two lousy choices, egg muffin or pancake. I guess French people just have coffee and cigarettes for breakfast? Speaking of coffee, look at these miniature drinks we got served, and THIS is the large! Seriously, that is the juice from half an orange and a drop of coffee!

2. French toilets are gross. As soon as we crossed from Germany into France the rest stops are totally different. German rest stops are nice and clean, you might have to pay 50 cents to pee, but at least you know the cleaning lady was just in there and wipes everything down between users. The freakin gas station had a squatty potty, not the rest stop, THE GAS STATION. The Disney bathrooms at least had real toilets with toilet seats (a lot of French places just have the toilet bowl with no seat, so you don’t sit on them), but they smelled bad, the floors were gross and there was trash and paper everywhere. People here just made no attempt to clean up after themselves. Nasty. 3. Smokers stink. I get that this is Europe and everyone but the dogs smoke like a chimney, but at least in Germany people follow the no smoking rule where it is posted. Not here in France. Theme parks and places like that are no smoking in Germany and the orderly, rule abiding citizens of Germany comply. At Disney Paris the whole park is no smoking and there are a few smokers areas within the parks that are marked on the map and with signs at the locations. I don’t know why they have these places, when we walked past them there was never anyone there and people smoke all throughout the park where ever they want to. In line, waiting outside the bathrooms, at the parades…everywhere. And the Disney employees just stand there and walk by and never say a thing to them, so apparently they condone this and could care less. Very annoying. 4. People are getting more ignorant by the day. Soon the whole planet is going to be headed to hell. We witnessed people do all kinds of rude, ignorant, obnoxious things. Assisting their kids in pushing their way to the front of the mob to meet characters and pretending not to notice the other 50 people who have been standing there for 15 minutes already. Blatantly skipping people in line. Now I get this is Europe and the concept of a queue is kind of lost here, but Disney tries pretty hard to make the queue lines obvious and organized. People disregard them and go under things, over things and come up with all kinds of crap to get where they don’t belong in line. The fastpass. They way it works is the sign tells you a time frame that you can come back and ride the ride without waiting in the line, if that time works for you then you swipe your ticket and it gives you a ride ticket with your time window to ride printed on it. People would take that ticket and immediately go to the fastpass line and hand the ticket to the checker when it was nowhere near their time to ride. They would throw their hands up and pretend to not understand what the worker was saying when she wouldn’t let them through. I don’t care what freakin language you speak, times are universal and printed in big numbers on the ticket. Stop trying to take advantage and wait your turn asshole. The parades. People line up early to make sure their kids can see the parade and be up front. It’s called planning ahead. I’m sorry that I am taller than your kid and you got here 5 minutes before the parade started and thought you could push your kid up to the front to stand on top of my kid and see the parade. Poor planning on your part does not affect me and I am not above politely stepping in front of your child to reclaim my spot that I have been occupying since 30 minutes before the parade. The worst part is people do all this in front of their kids. Where is the example setting here? No wonder kids are so obnoxious these days, look at their parents. Don’t get me wrong, we had a fabulous time, we made family memories that will last a lifetime. The lousy breakfast and dirty toilets are not that big of a deal. Rather than get upset at all the stupid people and the lines we’d just shake our heads, make fun of them and laugh about it through the second hand smoke we were breathing. After all, we are in the most magical place on Earth and how can you possibly have a bad time wearing silly hats and mouse ears while a 9 Euro container of popcorn hangs from your neck?

Wordless Wednesday

Disney Day 3

Disney Paris 3

In the park at opening and it appeared it was going to be packed out again today. Don’t these people have work and school? Of course we went right to Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast first, the day just wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t start there. Yes, of course we rode it two times! Then we got in line for Autopia again and guess who had to pee as soon as we got into the line? What is it about this ride? I hopped out of line with Colin to pee while Shelby kept our spot. It worked out because by the time we came back and met up with Shelby the line only had about 10 minutes left to go. A few more rides and it was off to Pizza Planet for lunch. Colin was very excited about this since he would pretty much live on pizza if we let him and it was like the movie. Next we checked out the dragon’s lair of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, rode Pirates of the Caribbean, visited Captain Jack Sparrow’s ship AND met Captain Jack! He was funny to watch and very in character, making weird eyes and funny faces. With the older “kids” he’d fall on them and seem drunk and clumsy like in the movie. More rides and then it was off to stand in line for an hour to meet Mickey. Ugh...hate waiting in line, especially with a three year old, but you gotta do it for Mickey! After that we had to reward Colin by FINALLY taking him shopping. We’d been telling him for the last three days that on the last day we’d go to the shop and buy stuff and that we were not buying anything at all until the last day. It worked well as bribery for the most part. He was certain as could be that he was getting a Buzz Lightyear Blaster gun like the one from the ride. When we got into the shop he decided he wanted a pirate gun instead though and there was no talking him out of it. Of course he needed a pirate hat, and shirt and eye patch to go along with it. Several more trinkets and half a car payment later we were done shopping . We had reservations at 7 to eat in the Blue Lagoon restaurant when has tables along the water inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. We figured Colin would love watching the pirate boats go by and listening to music. It was not quite 6 yet though, Colin was fading fast and we never fit in that nap we had planned for. Dinner at 7 was probably not going to be as enjoyable as planned. Colin wanted to go see the alligator (which was animatronic and in a cage out front of Rainforest Café) again, so we let him do that. I have no idea what his obsession is with this thing, but he begs to go see it anytime we walk into the Disney Village area. He asked if we could eat with the animals again and we decided that was better than waiting another hour to eat with the Pirates anyway so back to Rainforest Café we went. After dinner Colin was getting tired and cranky and we didn’t see him lasting until 10:30 for the fireworks so we decided to give up that idea. We had hit most everything we wanted to see/ride and got our money’s worth so back to the hotel we went.

Disney Day 2

Disney Paris 2

Started off the day at McDonald’s Disney Village for breakfast, something the French have managed to totally screw up, and then Starbucks for coffee. In the park just after opening time and holy crowds! Jeez, we thought coming on weekdays would be better and less busy, no such luck! It was packed like summer time on a Monday. So much for that plan. First ride we went to was the Buzz Lightyear Blast of course! We grabbed a fast pass ticket, then got in the really short regular line, rode it once, got off and rode it again with no wait using our fastpasses. Two days at Disney and we’ve managed to ride Slinky Dog, Pirates of the Caribbean and Buzz Lightyear (FOUR times)! LOL Oy vey! Oh and doesn't French Buzz just sound wrong?! I laughed every time we went by to ride. It was soon time to make our way across the park and we visited the Pirate Beach on the way. We saw skull rock and the pirate ship, played on the pirate playground for a while and then went to Frontierland for lunch. We had reservations at the Cowboy Cookout with the characters. Colin got to see Daisy, Woody, Tigger, Pluto, and Donald, who turned out to be more of a d%ck than a duck. :( In Donald’s defense some snotty little Italian kid was tormenting him, BUT he straight up ignored and blew Colin off three different times while Colin was trying to wait patiently to meet him. Colin didn’t seem to notice or be too bothered, but I just spent 65 Euro on some overpriced cheeseburgers to eat with the damn characters and I expect every one of them to treat my kid like a rock star! That afternoon we managed to work the crowds and get some other rides in. We met Peter Pan and Wendy and saw a sweet little Make-A-Wish kiddo meet them too, she was so excited, it was too cute. Colin amused the crowd when Peter Pan asked how old he was and Colin proudly replied “THREE!” while holding up four fingers. Peter laughed and translated in French and then everyone else laughed. We rode Peter Pan and then jumped Parks to go back to Disney Studios for the “Moteurs….Action!” Stunt show with McQueen. Colin was really into it and loved all the special effects, shooting, motorcycle tricks and racecars doing stunts. After that it was about time for the afternoon pick-me-up trip to Starbucks and then back into DisneyLand. We rode Snow White, Pinocchio, The Haunted Mansion, a few others I know I’m forgetting, before catching “Disney Magic on Parade.” We purposely went to the very end of the parade route near the park exit so we could dash out when it was over and beat the crowds to dinner. The first two floats came by and then it appeared as though the gate that the floats exited was stuck or broken and the whole parade backed up and had to sit for a good 15 minutes before it could be opened. The poor dancers in between the floats were running out of things to do to entertain the crowd and they had to sing and dance the same song over and over, and over, and over. We were right in between Pinocchio’s float and the Toy Story float. So we had marionette dolls and little green army guys entertaining us. Colin got to play patty cake with one of the dolls and the army guys were doing pushups in formation to try to entertain the crowd. I have to give them all credit because you could tell they were running out of ideas, lol! FINALLY the gate was opened and the parade started moving again. The parade was awesome and had floats from just about all the famous Disney tales, Colin loved it. As soon as the parade ended we dashed out to Disney Village to eat dinner at Rainforest Café. Colin wanted to eat by the elephants but we ended up near a fish tank. After dinner we decided we were all tired and probably not going to make it to the fireworks (again) so we headed back to the hotel to get some rest. Game plan tomorrow will be get to the park early, go back and nap midday and then come back for dinner and fireworks at night.

Disney Day 1

Disney Paris 1

Our Disney adventure began about noon and we headed into the Disney Studios Park first. We went back to the Toy Story area of the park and rode the Slinky Dog ride first. The park was pretty busy and there were a lot of crowds and waiting, which we kind of expected on Sunday. We did the Armageddon Special Effects Show/Ride thing and Colin was not too terribly impressed with that one. We walked around the park some and then went to the Stitch Live Show, which Colin definitely approved of. After that was Playhouse Disney Live and Colin really got into that one. He was doing the Hot Dog dance from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and was excited to see The Little Einsteins on stage too. He sang and danced and had a blast at that one. When we came out of that show we lined up to watch the Stars n Cars parade, which was neat, but Colin was a little disappointed there was no McQueen and no race cars in the parade. I’m with you Colin, Stars n’ Cars is not complete without McQueen! We decided it was time for some coffee so we left the park and headed to the Starbucks (hallelujah!) just outside in Disney Village and then took the train back to our hotel. When we had arrived at the hotel this morning they didn’t have our room ready, so we just left our stuff in the car and took the train to Disney. Our plan was to try to catch the fireworks/light show at 10:30 tonight so we wanted to go back to the hotel and get all our stuff in and arranged now instead of trying to do it at midnight with an exhausted mom kiddo. We got checked in, unloaded, recharged and then caught the train back to Disney (the hotel is only two train stops away, just about a 7 minute train ride). We went into the DisneyLand Park this time and Colin couldn’t pass by the Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast ride, thankfully there was only a 20 minute wait. He called it the “Pume Zurg” ride, because you become a space ranger, ride around in the little space cruiser and shoot (aka pume, (pew-m)) targets to help Buzz defeat Zurg. The fastpass time was only about 30 minutes out, so we pulled our fastpass tickets, got in the regular line, waited 20 minutes to ride, then as soon as we got off the ride it was time to check in with our fastpasses and so we exited the ride, then turned around went right back to the front of the line to ride again. Colin was ecstatic. After the second ride we told Colin we had to go eat some dinner. We attempted to go to Pizza Planet, like in the Toy Story movie, but it turned out to only be open for lunch. We found a less exciting place that was open and ate there. After dinner we went got in line to drive the racecars at Autopia, but shortly after getting in line Colin had to pee, so we had to get out of the line. Ugh…this is why I tried to make you pee before we got IN the line Colin! Oh well, potty mission accomplished and it was off to the Pirates of the Caribbean to ride. It was about this point we were all tired and thinking there was no way we’d make it to 10:30 fireworks, so we scratched that plan and went back to the hotel.

Wordless Wednesday