Trips and the Trip

Okay, so the trip was awesome.  Seriously.  Amazing.  It sucked that the whole plagiarism/fanfiction thing erupted while I was still out of town--and I'm going to address that tomorrow.  It needs to be addressed.  The brunt of it is covered here at Chicks-n-dicks, including links to the site that started the whole thing.  The one thing I will say is that I was deeply offended for my house, Dreamspinner Press--and really irritated that people who presuppose some weight in this particular genre TRULY are clueless about the differences between "plagiarized" and "inspired by" when it comes to fan fiction.  I will also say that  if the original book in question (and you need to follow the links--seriously, it's REALLY convoluted!) WAS plagiarized, the people at Dreamspinner were unaware.  And as to that fan fiction thing?  Next post.  Seriously.  But not now.  Now?  My family and I had a kick-ass time, and I sorta wanna cover that!

Now, let's get to coming home-- but since about 12 hours of my yesterday consisted of this picture here, it's not going to be done in any particular order, kay?

One of the short people's greatest thrills on this vacation was a clean kitchen table.  You think I kid.  Mate and I came home to a table that had been OBLITERATED by oldest sone and almost cried.  As you can see, they're thrilled not to be eating breakfast on yarn boxes, and it's going to take some long work to make that happen in the real world.

I loved this picture, so it needed revisiting.  This is Zoomboy with Chimp baby and Gorilla baby.  He's trying to look all cool--and, well, it's his two favorite apes.  What's not to be cool?

 And this was at Sea World at the otter show.  This sweet couple was there to see the fish (okay--not fish, and the shows?  Were SPECTACULAR!)  But I took the picture because suddenly my mommy reared up her ugly head, and it was all I could do not to tap the one on the left on the shoulder and say, "Oh, honey, you're BURNING!  Here, I've got some 70 proof in my bag."

And we saw Elmo.  This trip around, Mate and I left the tchotchkes mostly for the children--the only thing we really bought into was the constant barrage of photo ops, which was how we ended up with one picture of Elmo and Squish, and one with Elmo and Zoomboy.  We THOUGHT it was going to be both kids in one picture, but Squish had other thoughts.  She REFUSED to get into the picture until Zoomboy was off the stage.


Okay, so Zoomboy DID have his moments in the spotlight.  This here is a giant's shark's jaw.  The picture is inside, which his why the quality is so crap, but you can see by the delight on his bloodthirsty little face that he's impressed.  So were we:-)

This was a cool idea-- it's the family drier for everyone who went on the water ride.  *I* wanted to go on the water ride--but the whole family dumped all their luggage on me in the assumption that I wouldn't.  I'm not bitter.  Swear.  Well... look at all that happiness.  I guess I'm REALLY not that bitter.  And the lovely young woman in the foreground is Chicken's bestie, Stivie.  She had a very good time--and her mother brought her by with a thank you note today.  Nice.  

And this is Rhys Ford.  Yes,  THAT Rhys Ford--and she treated us to some seriously kick-ass Chines Cuisine at Golden City Panda Dragon (Okay--not the real name of the restaurant, but I understand that its a common mistake!)  Anyway, Rhys was tres awesome, and ordered of menu and played with my kids and made us laugh and generally?  Was just way too much fun for someone who heard me ooh-ing and aah-ing over San Diego on Twitter and said, "WE MUST MEET!"  Of course we had to meet.  We'd barely seen each other at yaoi-con, and I had NO idea of the incredible coolness that awaited me.  Meeting was predestined, and now I am in love:-)

And here is Zoomboy, at the Lego hero factory.  He probably could have spent the entire two days right here--we didn't let him.  But we DID buckle and buy him AND his sister some cool Lego kits to take back to the hotel room, and then back home.  They were entranced, as we knew they would be.  For him, it was the chance to build something while paying exacting attention to detail.  For her, it was the fact that it was a Lego dollhouse.  Either way?  Legos... Dude.

 And this?  Batman.  Now, the entire Lego place was full of assembled Lego-amazingness.  New York City, Las Vegas (complete with little mini hookers!) San Francisco, dragons, dinosaurs... just... Dudes.  The legos were a little faded, but the amazing content of accomplishment?  I don't even LIKE putting together Legos--but that didn't mean I wasn't just chock full of awe!  And Batman?  Who knew that Legos could have such raw sex appeal.  Sincerely.  He's awesome.
 And Squish begged so pretty-- and got her face painted.  And about FIVE MINUTES later, tripped and bumped her lip--and I was so agonized for her, I dragged her back to the face painter who completely redid her make up for a small touch up fee--and she was, once again, ravishing.

Lego land was big on rides--I'm not so big on rides, but there were other attractions there, so I got to be the ride documentarian.  And here, you see shiny happy faces, and can live in the knowledge that I have done my duty.






And here is the ocean.  On our second day of Legodom, we left early, got food at a local eatery (we'd been bringing sandwiches and crackers to all the theme parks, and were VERY proud of ourselves because we saved SCADS of money on food, which we felt very comfortable spending on souvenirs! Anyway, the primary reason we left early was to go to the beach.  And we did.  And it was gray and stormy-- my favorite kind of day on the beach--and epic.  And I loved it.  And so did they.  And it totally makes up for the fact that I had to bypass all that earlier ugliness for today while I slept on the couch through Bambi and all sorts of other Disney abominations, and really didn't get much done in work at all.

 It was BEAUTIFUL--don't you think?  Yeah.  Definitely.  Me too:-)