Hibbets' Happenings

We slept in a little later than we have been Christmas morning after being up so late after the movie. Jayden has been getting up every morning about 7:30, but she slept until about 8:30 Christmas morning. Joshua had stayed up VERY late, so he was still asleep. Because of that, we modified our original plan a bit. I started on breakfast -- blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs -- and David got his shower. We ended up both getting our showers and eating breakfast before Joshua woke up. David got to talk to his family on the computer, and we read the Christmas story and let Jayden open two presents -- they were two CDs from Miranda, one for us and one for Joshua, but we hadn't opened them yet, so we let her open them. Miranda had given her a cute pink Santa which I really like, but she had already opened it. Jayden also got to open some gifts at the Christmas party Saturday night. Then we finished getting ready and headed to Disneyland. We left the house about 11:00 and made it to Disney by 1:00. We were inside the park in time to see the parade. We got good seats right at the park entrance, which was the end of the parade route. Jayden really enjoyed it. She danced to the music and waved at the characters. I don't think she wanted it to end. I got good pictures and video of the parade and of Jayden. Joshua slept; he fell asleep sometime during the trip and didn't wake up until a few hours later, well into the Disney day. I'm not sure he was feeling all that great. He's okay; maybe he just needed to catch up on his rest. He did stay up WAY too long the night before. After the parade we went to find the Lion King show. We had heard it was good, and we agree! It was probably one of my favorite things of the day. It had a circular theater and the action was all in the center -- so it was really neat. It was a very well-made production. Definitely worth it. However, this is where we believe the bad thing of the day occurred. At one point I was juggling with Jayden and trying to keep her contained, happy, and safe, and the camera fell. I checked it out but of course was distracted with the show going on and the kids, etc. Fast-forward to an hour or so later when we got on the carousel and I wanted to take a picture of Jayden and David on the horse -- and discovered the memory card was not in the camera! I figure it must have fallen out when the camera was dropped. We went back to the theater and asked, and at the end of the day filled out a loss report, so MAYBE it will be found and returned to us. It has to be somewhere in the park, because I know I had it during the parade and didn't have it at the carousel. And it doesn't come out easily, so I figure it had to happen when it fell. The good news is I had spent time Sunday night cleaning off the memory card, so the only thing I lost was the pictures on Monday. The bad thing is, not only do I not have any pictures of Disney, I don't have ANY pictures of our Christmas Day. BOO! But things could be worse. And the Lord knows the desires of my heart; I won't give up hope yet that the card will be returned. That would really mean a lot to me. We got some good pictures of the kids Monday morning, and of course I had taken lots of pictures of Disney to capture and share the experience. I do have video, which is better than nothing. But I like my still pictures. It also is interesting because we had already decided to buy a new digital camera and have been shopping to decide whether we should buy one here or wait until we get home. Now this happens; David says he hates to buy a new memory card for a camera we're planning to replace very soon. (The new cameras apparently don't take this same kind of memory card.) Well, in the meantime we're able to use the internal memory of the camera, which gives us about 100 pictures on low quality and about 15 on medium. For most things, low quality is fine, and it's easy to switch to a higher quality if I'm doing a posed shot that I might want to make prints of. So I was able to take a few pictures of our day today that I'll be able to share. So we did the parade, then the Lion King show, then we walked to Fantasyland and rode the carousel. Then back to Adventure Land to ask about the memory card; then back to Fantasyland. We rode the Winnie the Pooh ride (kind of like the Snow White/Mr. Toad rides) -- it was the longest wait and my least favorite. There was another show, a 3-D show with Mickey's orchestra and Donald as conductor -- kind of like in Fantasia, and then with a medley of songs from the different movies. It was good. And towards the end of the day we saw another show, The Golden Mickeys -- set up as an awards show with characters and songs from the different movies. It was live-action, like Lion King (and not like the 3-D show); it was good, but I liked Lion King better. The last thing we did was in Fantasyland; Jayden and I rode Dumbo. She did good. I'm not sure she knew what to think. But she didn't seem scared. She did like the carousel; she didn't want to get off! We could have/should have ridden it again. Around 5:30 we made it back up to the front to Main Street to catch the tree lighting. There was a bakery nearby so we were able to get a little something to eat without spending a whole lot. We ate our supper while we waited on the tree lighting. They played carols and then Mickey and Minnie and Santa came out in a sleigh, did a few more songs, and then the tree lit up. I think David got it on video. It was pretty neat. And then, after the tree was lit, there was SNOW! The "locals" especially thought that was neat. They don't ever get snow here. They've told us it's never even reached freezing. The lowest it's ever been is 6 degrees Celsius. So it was neat to watch them react to the snow. I think it really was snow, too -- not bubbles or confetti. It blew for a while, maybe 10 minutes or so. We spent a total of about HK$100 on food, so $13. Not bad for a theme park. Well, actually that doesn't include our water; we bought 3 bottles of water for $34, so that gets us up to about US$17 or so. That's for 3 bottles of water, two little mini chicken pizzas, a sandwich and a turkey pastry, two little custard pies, and two boxes of popcorn (caramel corn, like at the movie -- it's very good). I don't think that's too bad for a theme park. We spotted the little carts earlier in the day when we were buying our water; they were selling fish balls (we're not 100% sure about those), soya chicken legs (not quite sure about those, either), hot dogs, maybe some other kind of pork, I don't remember, and corn on the cob. The people here seem to really like corn. My guess is it's a Western thing that they've adopted into their food culture. I wouldn't think corn would be part of traditional Chinese cuisine. We saw a lot of people eating corn on the cob. Oh, and when we got there, they were selling turkey legs at the carts. But when we were ready for one later in the day, we only saw soya chicken legs. I don't know if they switch over at supper time or ran out of the turkey legs. Hong Kong Disneyland only has four areas: Main Street, Adventure Land, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. We never even made it to Tomorrowland. But we got to do everything we wanted. We were only there from 1-8, but it was plenty. And we were plenty tired, too. It was fun, though, and even though I don't have any still pictures (maybe that will change!), I got some good video which I'm glad about. Today we went to a Christmas party at Jamie and Rachel's for the home group at ICA. There were a lot of people crowded into their "flat." It really reminded me of Paris. The big city culture is just different than what we're used to. Jamie and Rachel had prepared a big spread for all of us: turkey and ham and stuffing, peas and carrots and potatoes, cheese and crackers, asparagus dip and baguettes, and hummus. And for dessert, mini pies (maybe mincemeat, I wasn't sure), two types of cake -- I tried both and both were good, and chocolate ice cream. It was all delicious. After the lunch we sang Christmas carols, accompanied by Jamie on guitar and another man on cello. It was really neat. Then Jamie read the Christmas story and we exchanged gifts. We were given a cost limit of HK$25 (a little more than $3). We cheated on one and took the magic set that David ended up with from Dirty Santa at our Christmas party and bought one -- I found a cute little travel cosmetic kit and nail polish at one of the beauty stores on our way to the party. One of the little boys ended up with the magic set, and we think he liked it. He wasn't sure what it was at first, but some of the guys were showing him and we saw him playing with it. I don't know who ended up with the travel kit -- hopefully a female! My gift was a toothbrush -- I'm sure Jayden will be excited -- and David got a back scratcher and roller massage thing. That's pretty neat, I guess. When we got home I was pretty tired so I took a good nap and now am staying up to work. I have one task down, several to go. Tomorrow we're going sight-seeing and shopping. I'm really looking forward to it. Everyone's asleep but me. David worked some while I slept, so I'm glad he's sleeping now. And I'm definitely glad the kids are sleeping. I'm thinking I'm going to vote that we don't try to go to Ocean Park and save it for next time. One theme park may be enough for this trip. But we may still decide to go. It's not that expensive and it's also not that big, so it may not be a full-day outing. But then again, it may be like Disney, where it wasn't a full day but it was; we were only at the park from 1-8, but it took us until 11 to get ready to go, then until 1 to get there, and then when we got home we were wiped out. I'm not sure what David is thinking about Ocean Park. Let me get back to work. More later.