Meeska Mooska.....Mickey Mouse!

We've back 8 days and already the memories seem hazy.

So, rather than the detailed account I'd planned here's a bullet-list of the good, the bad and the Francais!

Bad points
1) We arrived slap bang in the middle of French National holidays. Parks and hotels were packed. There may also have been other European holidays going on at the same time because there was a fair few Dutch and Belgians at our Hotel.
2) Being English, manners/politeness and the ability to form an orderly queue are second nature (okay, we have some "elements" of society who let us down but it is a minority). Let's just say our European cousins don't share the same good standards.
3) Smoking. Disney put lots of designated smoking areas in the parks (too many). These are well adhered to in Florida - but not in EuroDisney. All the French (not finger pointing but 99%+ of the attendees were French) completely flouted the law, even smoking in queues. With high volumes of smokers in Continental Europe you were never more than a couple of metres away from someone smoking (I'm not kidding.) Nasty.
5) Food. I almost died. I have a nut allergy and an innocent purchase of pasta at an unnamed global franchise resulted in an adverse reaction. I managed to avoid needing medical treatment by drinking over 2 litres of water really quickly. I could only assume they had cooked using pesto. At another restaurant I almost selected pancakes and cream for desert -I'm glad I didn't because the cream was laced with nuts. I had similar issues in America and other Countries, so, I've concluded eating outside the UK is dangerous for anyone with allergies!
6) Hotel - Disney's Hotel Santa Fe - not great. Expected better from Disney even though it was 3star. At breakfast-time it was like a free for all in a crowded mental asylum.
7) Currency - poor exchange rate. Everything was really expensive.
8) Atmosphere. As Russ Abbotts said, "I love a party with a happy atmosphere." And at parade time it did - but overall there was something lacking. Perhaps I've been spoilt by 5 trips to Florida...
9) Train journey going home - Waiting in a massive queue (like good Brits!) that was so long it went down a flight of stairs. On thejourney back passport control caught some immigrants [actually, that should be a good point! :-)]
10) Upkeep of the parks. Pot holes and cracks everywhere.
11) Some of the rides were completely "en francais", and others were a mixture of English and French.
12) Characters had a siesta that lasted until the following day. THe characters had photo shoots at certain points thoughout the morning, but none of them were available after 1pm.
13) Albion lost - bah!

Good things
1) I wasn't a work. Yay!
2) Luke didn't find out where we were going until the train departed Lille on the final leg of the journey. He went mega nuts with excitement (although he thought at first he was off to Florida...)
3) The boys loved it!
4) The boys behaved really really well (okay, Luke had a couple of incidents and got too excited at times, but overall...)
6) I was so cream-crackered everyday that I fell asleep before 11pm (ever happens at home!)
7) Weather was good for this time of year.
8) Parade was good, and Mickey's Winter show was great- I got some good pictures and video footage of both.

Photos to follow....

Bonjour!

Okay, at this time of night it should be "bonsoir!" but I'm too lazy to change the title.

So, It's late February and this is my first post of 2009. Pretty pants eh?!

As ever work pressures have kept me away from blogging and other things, like having a life. Any spare moment is definitely spent with my little boys.Priorities right, and all that jazz.

LATEST MAJATO NEWS

Unfortunately I've had to remove my Christmas Eve message because the cool video (which was someones Xmas lights set to Jingle Bells sang by the Bare Naked Ladies) has been removed from YouTube. Bummer.

Luke is 5 in a few weeks time. Blimey - the past 5 years have gone mega fast.

THis time of year I start to get Disney withdrawl symptoms, but as I can't really afford to go to Florida again this year, we're off to EuroDisney next week for a short break. And the best part? Luke won't know until we get on the EuroStar!!! He's gonna go nuts. Mind you, I'm soooooo looking forward to seeing Ben's face when he sees Mickey Mouse for real. When we went to Floirda last year he wasn't even 6 months old, so didn't quite take it in. So, now he walk up to a 7 ft mouse he's gonna be totally chuffed. Either that or he'll be scared because on TV Mickey is only 30cm height at the most.

Nuts

The last few months have been a hard slog at work, so when I walk out that door on Christmas Eve, I know I will totally deserve a couple of days off.

In fact, I'm fairly sure I could put last week's bout of Flu down to work; the kids being poorly with it at the same time was coincidental.

So, it will be with relief more than anything that I greet the festive break.

And after a couple of days recharging batteries, I will be raring to go again in the new year.

Step....One

Yay!!!!!!!!!! Yesterday Ben took his first steps on his own. For ages he's happily held on to fingers or trousers or used various toys to walk along, however he's never been keen to go it alone. We've tried a few techniques to tempt him: Jaffa Cakes, toys, biscuits, chocolate, the TV remote control (that was the most likely to succeed...)

So, what worked? Well, I can't believe I didn't think of this before. Afterall, he is totally obsessed with this fella......Mickey Mouse!!! I left him standing while I put on a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD and he starts clapping along as usual, then start a jigging as usual, then takes a couple of ginger steps towards the TV. Whoah! I need my camcorder (run run run, run fatty run!!!)
Okay, tape is rolling (metaphorically speaking, seeing as it's a HD camcorder) and Mickey is still appealing but Luke is now prancing around and has totally put Ben off. A minute later; eldest child politely told to stand back (he's a limelight hog) and we've ran Mickey back to the opening credits.... and the little jig starts again.
Oh yeah baby, this is dynamite. I remember to tell the camcorder that this is two days before Ben's first birthday and back up as much as I can to get him completely in shot. But that becomes a bit harder as he's on the move. One step, two steps, three steps, four, five, six, sevennnnnnnn, eight. Plonk. On his bum pointing up at Mickey (a mere two feet away) saying "tehtehhteh! isssss tehetehteh!!!!" FYI That's Ben talk for "It's Mickey Mouse!"

Can't believe the little blighter is gonna be 1 tomorrow. Man, that year has gone quick.


Source:Disney-Clipart.com

Just 'cos i want to.

I'm in a Harold Lloyd mood.

So here's some stuff I found on YouTube......."Hooray for Harold Lloyd...."

Does Obama like to get bladdered on Guiness?

Apparently somewhere in Barack Obama's family tree there's a slither of Irish.

Here's the (ahem) musical proof.

Low scoring month

2nd blog entry of the month. This has got to be one of my lowest monthly blogging volume totals - pretty poor even by my standard!

Once again....

I'm back after another enforced lay-off from the blogging scene. The last few weeks have just been a bit darn hectic and I've have no "me" time whatsoever.

I'd like to blame part of my absence on having a brother-in-law visit for a week, but apparently this was before my last blog. Shame - I could've moaned about him monopolising my PC for the whole week, and that because I'm a such a generous host he cost me a fortune in food, drink, petrol, electricity, spending money, and valuable web-site maintenance time too.

Here's a quick summary of what else has gone on over the last few weeks.

THE GOOD
- The mighty Baggies are going great in the English Football PRemiership.
-England are doing great too - yay!
- Ben has some more teeth - the top two are now through, so he has 4 chompers to bite with.
- Ben now enjoys joining in with pretend rough play (wrestling, chasing etc) with Luke and I.
- Ben's obsession with Mickey Mouse has reached feverishly funny proportions - put anything with Mickey in front of him and you get a big old beam, the finger extends towards the Mouse and squeels in delight!
- Ben has developed the ability to clap - yay Benji!
- We went to a good friend's wedding, followed by Legoland the day after.
- Luke is learning to read at school.
- Luke good loads of praise from his Teacher at parents evening - sounds like he's one of the smartest (if not the smartest in his class!)
- I had a good work trip to Cheltenham - hard work but enjoyable.

THE BAD
- A Goldfish died (a couple of days ago.)
- Roger Rabbit died - in fact I discovered his solid corpse about an hour ago when I went out to feed him. I think he must've had a bad fall down his ladder last night. RIP good bunny - you served the family well and 8 years is a decent stretch.
- I've been working my balls off at work over the last couple of weeks - absolutely shattered so looking forward to a bit of RandR and the weekend.
- Wendy had a bit of a tummy bug which she caught from Ben.

THE UGLY
- Ben had a really bad bug for about 10 days - both ends! This started when I was away overnight in Cheltenham, so I was really miffed to not get home until 10.30pm the following night due to a late finish in the office and car trouble on the way home.
- I managed to come down with the bug too - at the wedding reeption! Great time to start vomitting. Even worse both Ben and I were mega poorly while at Lego land too so we didn't get to go on anything (not quite true. We went on a train and Ben went on the Carousel with Wendy and Luke.) So Wedny had to take Luke on all the spinny rides (which she hates!!!)
- Like most people in the western world, my finances have taken a fair walloping thanks to pesky credit crunch. It's really annoying to think this is caused by really sloppy Banks, Mortgage Advisers etc. So the ole pension has probably had a bit of a hit, but it's the share-based saving that have been decimated. Even more annoying, my bank is one of the ones that the British Government have had to bail out and they haven't passed on the interest rate reductions! Great!
If I had money to spare right now might be an idea to buy shares. Oh well! Cest la vié!

Stair Master

Oh great....Guess who was found standing on the bottom step this morning? Yup. Ben.
He's been trying to clamber up onto it several times in the last few days and he finally did it today.

Shortly after achieving this feet, he then showed it was no fluke by climbing two more steps.

A short nap (dreaming of conquering the whole flight of steps, no doubt) later and his efforts were now thwarted by the arrival of stair gates.

Only thing is, he can still stand on the bottom step, and now has something to hold onto, thus standing up and shouting the odds about why we've stopped his fun.

Just for my friends in Utah...

....Here's the Utah Saints!

Well,....the dance house/sampling/dance band from Leeds, England . According to Wikipedia they weren't named after LDS; the name in fact relates to some Basketball and Grid Iron teams.

They had a few hits in the early 1990's, and are experiencing a bit of a revival at the moment. To be honest, it's not my preferred type of music (thought I recall dancing to it in the discos of my youth....)

We have a (potential) winner!

Yep - in all competitions there's a winner.


And when it comes to this years' Miss Utah I like to think I'm backing the winner -
Miss Provo (kk).

Here's her blog

FYI, kk is seeking sponsorship for her entry- so if you're a business or a website this is a could be a really good opportunity.

Disney matter

It seems ages since we got back from Florida (just over 4months ago) and I'm getting a hankering to go back again, but know I won't be able to afford it for a couple of years at least.

So, I figured I'd post some Disney stuff to cheer me up!

Here's a recent video on how they make their cartoons.

Jeez

Retinoblastoma - Having read this article on the beeb I thought "merde!" (pardon my French- Merci beaucoup) "I gotta find out more about this."

This site had a bit more explanation to it. Only trouble I'm now paranoid about any glints in my boy's eyes on recent photos.

Shocking Stuff

Even by my standards, the time between blogs has been pretty poor. And the excuse? Well I was on a course for 2 weeks away from home and although I had web access I didn't really have time for blogging. And the past weeks, well, just laziness tbh!

A lot has gone on in that time. The Olympics have come and gone. Congrats to Team GB, and boo hiss to the dodgy Chinese officiating. The Ruskies have been up to their usual tricks and invaded Georgia. Ever since Putin came to power they've been heading back to their cold-war ways. More worrying than that is the start to the Premier Football season by my beloved Baggies. 2 league games, one cup match, 3 losses. And, biggest news of all.....Ben has started crawling!!!!

Yep, the litle blighter has been trying for ages and has been getting around quite well despite not quite getting the need to keep both knees on the ground. And over the last few days he's been getting nearer then finally today, inspired by the desire to fetch Mummy's smelly trainers he crawled properly. Suddenly I'm filled with the need to hide absolutely everything because in addtion to this new skill, he already has the ability to haul himself off the ground and stand up holding on to whatever he can find.

And once he's got his balance sorted he'l be waddling around too as he's alreadt fathomed out that he needs to put one foot in front of the other (by holding his hands he'll merrily walk along with us....for a few seconds before falling on his bum!

Bewildering

We went to Bewilderwood today. Luke loved it and I gotta say I enjoyed it alot too. Although I was a bit concerned when we were about 50ft up going across a wobbly rope bridge!

I'm gonna miss both my boys over the next couple of weeks; I'm going to Bournemouth on a course. Although I'm back next Saturday for the day it'll be like not being a home for 2 weeks. So, whilst D will be struggling to cope with the little monsters at least she'll be able to get a cuddle!