December 2025

 December started off with a trip with my good buddies, the state PTA president and vice president.

You can't call it a meeting if there is no chocolate.
I'm just sayin'.

CHEESE.
Sugar was consumed before this picture was taken.

I walked by our garage window and noticed something fluttering behind the shade.
It was a butterfly.

I'm not sure how a butterfly hatches in a garage in December.
I captured him in a glass and then let him go outside.

It was my birthday. 52.

With an assist from Katie, who got home from school the weekend before, 
they made me a rum-soaked South African date pudding.

Mikey had just gotten home from his musical audition for Anything Goes.

I think the pudding was a little too boozy.

Hairs were burned in the taking of this picture.

There is never NOT a time when Ralph is shedding.
I mean, it slows down for a few months here and there, but this is the normal.

Katie got to try a gluten free stroopwafel.

She was a fan.

On Black Friday, an online dance supply store was having an amazing sale on shoes.
The drama boosters recently learned that the spring musical was going to be Anything Goes, which includes tap dancing.
With approval, I ordered 60 pairs of tap shoes for the show!
And, yes, they were delivered to my house.
And, yes, they hung out in our living room for three weeks.

Mikey couldn't wait to give his pair a try.

There were some Festivus festivities on the 23rd.

Feats of strength....

And airing of the grievances.

On Christmas Eve, we had delicious Rueben sandwiches and apple sauce.
Yummmmmmm.

Katie made some gluten free tiramisu.
It was SO GOOD.
Sadly, Mikey could not try it as it was not dairy free.
I'm not even sure how you would make it dairy free.
Hmmm.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We started off the day with pancakes.

Ralph got a new octopus toy.

Shockingly, he did not rip it apart.

As of mid-January, it was still intact!

Thank you to everyone for the gifts!

Instead of Christmas gifts, we made our kids sit in cramped airline seats for three hours.....

....Just to stay in a random hotel and watch Triple D.

Okay. Not really.

We went to Disneyland.

First stop, Goofy's Kitchen.

It's tradition.

Chip stopped by to say hello.

So did Minnie.

Dale stopped by right as Huzbend got the check for the meal.
He quickly scampered away after taking a look at Huzbend's shocked expression.
I didn't get a picture.

We stayed at the Pixar Place hotel.

I really liked the theming of the hotel. This lobby area was really neat at night.
The kids and I watched the Disneyland fireworks from the pool patio before heading up to hit the hay.

The next day we were up bright and early, walked on over to California Adventure and rode Toy Story Midway Mania.

It was a sad day.
I lost to Huzbend for the first time ever.
This is what happens when you turn 52.
Or when you haven't been to Disneyland in years.
I guess we'll have to go more often.

As we waited for the Spiderman ride to open, everyone decided they wanted to ride a swinging gondola on Mickey's Wheel of Death.

Happy.

Happy.

NOT happy.

SPIDERMAN WAS OPEN!

We ran walked swiftly over to Avengers Campus.

We decided to wait the 60 minutes.

Here we are prepping to save the WEB Workshop from the Spider-Bots

Don't we look amazing in our WEB Vision glasses?

After saving the lab, Katie sat down to a hearty meal of 
 Pym's Test Kitchen "potato barrels".

Followed by a visit to the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The rest of us grabbed shawarma for lunch while Katie enjoyed a Mickey Mouse holiday shake from Shmoozie's.

..............................No comment...........................

We hiked over to Radiator Springs and rode the Racers single rider.

Howdy, Lightning and Mater!
(You can't tell, but Katie is in that car you see there)

Time for a little smackerel of something.
Katie picked up some gluten free fries from Flo's.

Huzbend and Mikey had brisket sliders.

Me?
Cookie dough Yule log, anyone?
Don't mind if I do!

It was getting a bit busy by this point in the day and our feets were a bit tired.

Always a good choice for tired feet....Ariel's ride.

To escape the crowd, we hung out for an hour or so in the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail.

There's usually not a lot of people in there, it's quiet and you can find benches to sit down.

Huzbend and Mikey went exploring.

Katie and I sat and chatted.

Last ride before splitting up for a bit was the Incredicoaster.

Huzbend decided to go back to the hotel to grab a jacket for the evening.
Katie, Mikey and I headed to Downtown Disney in the World of Disney store.

It made for even more owee feet.

Official OWEEE FEET faces. Trademark.

We ate dinner at Lamplight Lounge.

I'd say it was ehhhhh, okay.

The highlight for Mikey was that he actually got to order dessert, and it was NOT sorbet!

It was an actual peanut safe, dairy free brownie sundae.

Nice work, pal.

World of Color: Happiness was really fun.
The best part was the Muppets preshow.
Everything could use more Muppets.

It was a painful walk back to the hotel.

But we made it.

With our feet refreshed and a decided lack of sleep, we headed to Disneyland via monorail the next day.

Huzbend wanted to rope drop Rise of the Resistance, but by the time we made it there it was a 90-minute wait.

With a little cajoling, we convinced him that we could pay for the Lightning Lane and do about 6 other rides in those 90 minutes.

We headed to Smuggler's Run, which was a walk on.

Prepping for our flight on the Millennium Falcon.
We had a private charter.

Katie and Huzbend were our pilots.
Mikey and I were the gunners.

We survived and collected at least two coaxium containers.

Success? Not sure.

Next up, a favorite of mine, Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway.

POTATOLAND!

Next was, Huzbend's favorite.

That was sarcasm.

Yay for holiday theming.

Time for a little space exploration.

 WHOOSH.

It was time to head back over to Batuu for our appointment with DESTINY!

Destiny in the form of dessert.
The Kashyyyk Cake.
It was yummy.
It was all mine.
I didn't share because I couldn't
And even if I could, it would be hard.

Katie picked up dill flavored popcorn and a shake from Kat Saka's Kettle.
And not pictured, the boys had some Ronto Wraps.

After our snack break we rode Rise of the Resistance.
Still amazing.
And all the effects were working!

Stopped in and said hello to some Pirates and then stopped to pick up our Mint Julep and beignets.

Mikey was a big fan of the julep.
It's kinda like a minty lemonade.

We sat down to a little lunch at Rancho del Zocalo.
Tacos all around.

Unfortunately, someone had a run in with cashews.

There was some miscommunication, and Katie ate a dessert that had cashews in it.
She immediately started having allergic reaction symptoms.

We gave her a dose of Benadryl to slow it down.

Katie and I headed to the First Aid station.

Huzbend and Mikey followed after they investigated the dessert (that's how we knew there were cashew in it).

Katie's reaction kept ramping up, until her stomach decided it wasn't enjoying itself and kicked all the lunch out of her stomach.
After that, her symptoms started to decrease and her breathing eased.

We decided to sit in First Aid for an hour to make sure it wasn't going to ramp up again.

Even though her breathing eased, it took a while for the runny nose and swelling to subside.
She also developed a full body itchy rash for the next 6 or so hours.

We decided to slow things down and found a seat for the 3 o'clock parade figuring it was better to be at the park where medical attention was as far away as finding the closest Cast Member.

I stress ate my beignets.

The next few hours were a bit stressful.
Katie was okay, but I was really worried that things would get worse again.

The parade was a welcome distraction.

After the parade was done, we rode Star Tours and then made our way to the Haunted Mansion via the Disneyland Railroad.
On the way we saw the Grand Canyon "as we know it today" and traveled back in time to Primeval World. IFKYK.

As the sun set and we waited for our dinner reservation, we hit up the Tiki Birds.
This is my favorite one, Michael.

We shared a Dole Whip while watching.

Because, tradition.
Katie was able to eat a bit of it.

We still had time before dinner, so we took a cruise in the jungle.

Huzbend and Mikey enjoyed a bao bun from the Tropical Hideaway.
It was a tad bit chilly out.

We ate dinner at Cafe Orleans.
I had special ordered a gluten free Monte Cristo sandwich for Katie.

Luckily, her appetite had returned.
The Dole Whip might have helped.
She really enjoyed it.
Meanwhile, Mikey was able to enjoy bottomless Mint Juleps and a dairy-free creme brulee.

After dinner, we enjoyed Fantasmic.

The fireworks were cancelled due to wind.

Boo.

The last ride of the trip was Big Thunder.

We took our time exiting the park.

Katie stopped and got a popcorn.

We took some pictures in front of the castle and slowly made our way down Main Street.

I grabbed a Gingerbread Mickey from the Jolly Holiday Bakery.

Katie was assisting me in getting a good picture of the cookie with the castle in the background.
I thought this one was better.

Bye, Disneyland!

See you next time.

Egads. Time to go home.

We ate breakfast in the hotel before heading out.

WOT?

There were Christmas trees themed to Pixar movies in the lobby.

This one was just straight up Pixar theme.

Waiting for our Uber to the airport.

There was a really pretty sunset on the way home.

I saved half my Gingerbread Mickey to eat at home.

It was not the same as eating it on Main Street.

We didn't do much when we got back.

It was a few days before New Years.

Huzbend and Mikey both brought back a cold.

We watched an old Batman movie, the one with the penguin I think, on New Years Eve.
Katie's face just about sums up Batman: Returns.

Mikey was flabbergasted by this Batman.

The Space Needle fireworks disappeared in the fog.
Typical.

Happy New Year!