Wow, Disneyland's fireworks are some of the best I have EVER seen!

The trip was amazing, a 36 hour extravaganza covering almost 1000 miles and spending 16 hours in the park.

The kids were totally wiped out when we got in this morning, but everyone had a blast and there were no major incidents (no one was even late to check in!).

Fuego and I had a great time hanging out together in the park. Neither of us particularly likes the atmosphere of consumption and I was disappointed to find that they had additionally added the element of commercialism in that different corporations now sponsor different areas of the park (I guess $17 for a cheeseburger isn't enough, so they have to have corporate sponsorship to underwrite the costs ;o) That said, spending sixteen hours together walking around and noticing the little things I've never noticed before at Disneyland (for example, did you ever notice the amazing trees in and around the park?), and going on our favorite rides (Space mountain remains my all time favorite, especially since the renovation -- NICE!).

I think I'm going to have to let Fuego drive next time on Mr. Toad's... I took a wrong turn and ran us head-on into a train and we ended up driving around in hell for a bit before we found our way back out (whew!).

Some of the upgrades are kind of hokey -- the additions to Pirates wasn't too bad, but the Haunted Mansion a la Jack Skelington is pretty lame. It's cute if you've never seen it, but once was enough... (and nothing was scary). They also changed the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse into the Tarzan treehouse (I didn't go in, so I can't say whether it was a real upgrade or just a bastardization of the original with a new name to attract younger audiences who don't know what Swiss Family Robinson is -- I blame the parents ;o)

Back to the fireworks... now that was a show worth waiting for! They were timed to a history of Disneyland through the addition of each new ride/attraction, done to music, and had a live tinkerbell zipping back and forth over the castle (DURING the fireworks!) on a zip line running from the top of the Matterhorn to somewhere else in the park that I couldn't see from hometown square. They combined fireworks with lasers, with flame-throwers, created three-dimensional effects by setting off fireworks all the way around home-town square, and used the park sound system to narrate the whole thing -- it really was awesome!

So... having left at 11pm on Friday, driving all night (with maybe 3 hours sleep), plaing from 8am - 12am (sixteen hours), boarding the bus at 1am, driving all night (with closer to 4 hours sleep this time!), and getting back to the church at about 7:45am, it's kind of surreal to be sitting at home on my couch now writing my blog for the day...

Enough for now... I've been up for a very long time and am going to bed.