Wednesday, July 16, 2008

When you wish upon a star

We had a wonderful time at Disneyland yesterday. As I mentioned previously, we got free ticket's to Disneyland from the Hugh Hewitt show so that Gunnar could challenge "Generalisimo", (aka Duane, the shows producer) to a new shooting game/ride.

Gunnar ended up being on the air a lot longer than we were expecting. He also got beat really bad my "Generalisimo", the shows producer on the "Midway Mania" ride.

If you missed it yesterday, you can hear an excerpt from the show here. That is the clip of him talking to Gunnar.

Also, if you want to hear the whole show (he mentions Gunnar a couple other times) you can do that here. It is the one that is titled "Stacia Martin" from Tuesday July 15th. He talks about Gunnar some at the beginning and again from around minute 17 and on.

I took a gazillion pictures, so be warned, the rest of the post is not for the faint of heart!
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We got there a bit after noon (when we could pick up the tickets). Our first order of buisness was to figure out where we needed to be for the show. Once we did that, we had a couple hours to kill before we had to be back there. Neither Gunnar or I had been to Disneyland as adults so we didn't really know what to expect. We also didn't know what Grace would make of it. Of course, she loved it.

The first thing we did was the carousel, which was a big hit.


From there we headed to the area themed after the movie "Bug's life". There we rode a couple more rides. Fun stuff like the little train that looks like a catapillar, and the boxes of take out that fly around in the sky. Grace loved them both.

There are Gunnar and Grace in front of the little train ride, and below are a couple self portrait attempts while on the ride. They didn't really work out like I had hoped, but how cute is Grace?


Pretty much from there we walked around for the next couple hours. Wandering around and seeing the sights.
Oh, and getting dehydrated. It was really hot.


We found an area that was supposed to be like the forest in California. It was really nice and shady and cool.



There were a bunch of walking trails and little park like things. The lady gave Grace a pin for going down the slide, which we promptly lost. Oh well.

Apparently, we aren't the only ones with feral cats. Who knew there would be kittens at Disneyland?

So Grace loves my dad to tell her a story about when they had a baby skunk in their backyard. We tried to get a picture of her pointing to the sign about skunks for him, but as you can see, we did not have a lot of luck with that.



Grace was a little unsure about crawling through the swinging tube at first, but by the end, she was all smiles.
Finally, 3 o'clock and time to head back to the radio show. It was on a patio from one of the restaurants in the park. We were a little unsure at first as to what we were supposed to do.

Gunnar introduced himself to one of the guys working there, and he introduced us to Hugh Hewitt. I was impressed at how nice and friendly he was. He talked to us for a bit and then as the show was starting, he went on the air. Gunnar headed off to go on the ride, and what did Grace and I do? She passed out on my lap, apparently she was worn out. For anyone who listens to Hugh Hewitt, I also go to meet Tarzana Joe and Emit of the Unblinking Eye. I know, I know, you are jealous.
When Gunnar got back from playing with Generalisimo, Hugh put him on the air. It was really kind of weird because although I was sitting only feet away from them, because of the noise and the way they were facing I couldn't hear then at all. Yet people all across the country could. Gunnar was on for a whole segment, which was neat. He was a little nervous at first (as you can hear in the segment), but once he got called a "baby faced killer" he loosened up a bit. I mean, really, who isn't more comfortable after a compliment like that?

The lady in the middle was a Disney expert who was also on the show that day. She was really sweet and drew Gunnar a Mikey Mouse and Grace a Donald Duck.

We hung out there for a while. Hugh would come over and talk to Gunnar during a lot of the brakes. What can I say? I pretty much married a celebrity. There we are with Hugh Hewitt. Can you tell Grace just woke up?

He then gave her an oatmeal cookie, and she liked him a whole lot better after that.

Finally we headed back across the lot to Disneyland. On our way across we took pictures by the large letters. Mostly because everyone else was doing it, and that is always a good reason.



Disneyland was lots of fun. There was so much to see that it was hard to figure out what to do. I figured taking a picture by a castle seemed like a good idea.


When we were at California Adventure, we "saw" Alladin and Jazmin. Gunnar asked if I wanted to go take my picture with them, and I said "pssh, of course not. Now if it were Mary Poppins, that would be someone to get excited about." Well, what do you know? Mary had shown up that day too. I don't think Grace was too sure about the whole thing. I think she was suspicious that those rosy cheeks might have not been natural.
Toon Town was really cute. Grace enjoyed a snack in Minnie's house.

And broke out of jail.
and drove Mikey's car. I really could relate to her driving experience. Both in her barely seeing over the dash, and the wondering why the pedals have to be so far away. But so you know, the tongue thing is totally from Gunnar.

She insisted we "ride the ponies" again. Apparently she was a carousel fan.


We went on the jungle cruise. Grace sat there with pretty much that expression on her face the whole ride, and then wanted to ride it again. So I think that must be her "taking it all in face" or maybe "I am really tired face".

After the jungle cruise we had a snack, while Gunnar returned some phone calls and basked in his celebrity-hood.



Grace tired to ride on the shoulders of the Indian. To get in touch with "her people" as my dad would say. It really wasn't as comfortable as it looked. I think she should stick to carousels.

All in all, we had a fabulous time. From the rides to the radio show, lot's of fun.

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