Ben woke up ~10am and seemed to be feeling much better so we coordinated with Kerri to hookup at the Monorail entrance in Downtown Disney. By the time we got into the park he was like a new boy (we should have gone on the Pinocchio ride first!).

Lines were short so we got through a ton of rides in fairly short order. By 2-ish we decided to head back to the hotel and get some swim time in. There's a small water slide at the hotel (may 100 yards long?) and after a few minutes of play time in the regular pool I went for a quick run. Next we coaxed Ben into taking a stab at it. He was tentative at first but I saw him half way down and he was loving it. Being proper spoilers we "only" let him ride it a million billion times before we had to call it quits. We had just [almost] forced Abby to go on Pirates of the Caribbean, assuring her that she would like it (which she did not) so getting her to try this "new" thing just wasn't going to happen. Perhaps next year.

After a bit of dinner we made our way back to Disneyland and hit several other rides. None of us had ever been on the Peter Pan ride so we gave it a shot and boy that was fun. 30 years of going to DLand and never once on that ride? No idea why.

While we were in line to fly away with Peter the woman in front of us asked me if she could borrow my cell phone so she could call her daughter. A minute into her conversation led to a bit of a shriek... her daughter announced that she was pregnant. The grandma-to-be was so happy! And Abby remarked, "She's the happiest person I've ever seen!". Kinda weird for a 6 year old to say such a thing but really, that was one happy bird.

Ben was pretty-well spent by this time but we went for one more pass on Autopia, thinking that we'd catch the monorail from there. Turned out that it was too close to fireworks time so we ended up walking back to the hotel. And even better -- I apparently left my cell phone at the Autopia ride. When I got back to the hotel I realized it was missing so I kept calling it with Kerri's phone and finally one of the employees answered. Thank goodness they answered because I never would have guessed that it had been left inside the park. I'll get it back in the morning.

About ready to crash but looking forward to some early access to the parks before we call this weekend "done".

I'm sitting here in the Paradise Pier Hotel at Disneyland in SoCal for our Mother's Day weekend. We got down here Saturday evening so we could wake up fresh and head straight to the park this morning.

Last night we bummed around Downtown Disney for a while and ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe followed by a trip to Haagen Dazs for ice cream before returning to the hotel. At 9:30-ish we jammed down to the pool area where you can see the fireworks from across the way at Disneyland proper. And then upstairs for bed. But not so fast...

Ben indicated that his "tummy" hurt but since he says that quite a bit when there's something he doesn't want to do I didn't pay too much attention. A few minutes later he, his special pillow and blanket and a good portion of the bed were filled with vomit. Woohoo! We cleaned him up and I called down to the front desk to get some new linens. I was a bit embarrassed when making the call but the girl at the front desk did not seem surprised at all so it must not be too uncommon.

I figured it was the excess junk food and his jumping around that had caused the episode so I didn't think much of it. He seemed to feel okay when we woke up but two minutes after a few small sips of water he was competing in the cookie toss again (not much left in him to come up). We tried it again a bit later with the same result.

No need for Kerri and Abby to hang around and watch him feel sick so they're off to the theme park. Kerri called to let me know that they got to sit with the driver of the Monorail into the park which sounds pretty cool.

I'm sure it'll still be a nice Mother's Day because while Kerri might want both kids with her, there is a separate kind of fun to be had with just Mom and her first born -- There's no boys to wreck things for her and no battles over what ride to queue up for next.

Ben is sleeping things off a bit and I've ordered an over-priced bagel to be delivered to our room. At least I've got my EVDO connection to help pass the time (there's only so much Disney Channel this overgrown kid can take). Sure they have in-room broadband but it's a bit of a hassle and requires everything to be proxied through them and they're restrictive on ports (or I'm an idiot and can't figure out SSH through their system).

[...Interruption for room service delivery...]

I should note that in addition to the bagel I ordered a couple of beers. I know it's morning time but I'm on the 10th floor and y'all know that Tom doesn't like being in tall buildings so I need to take the edge off. $10 per beer (Bud Light!), delivered. Apparently for another dollar they'll drink them for me too. Convenience has its price I suppose. But if I ever hear about a large group of irrational, height-challenged people visiting this place I'm gonna buy a crapload of Disney stock.

More updates later, assuming anything at all happens before we leave on Monday, aside from Ben sleeping and barfing..