Conference, Fires and Disneyland Oh My!

This weekend was quite an adventure. It started out with my co-worker (Vicki) and I driving up to LA for a work conference Thursday night. We stayed the night at my friends house. Friday morning in the wee hours Vicki had an allergy attack which kept her and I up most of the night. Friday morning we knew we had to find another place to stay. On our drive to the conference hotel we called another co-worker (Karin). She did not answer her phone. We called Vicki's husband to have him find us a hotel to stay at (mind you this is within a mile of Disneyland so there are hotels everywhere). A few minutes later Karin calls Vicki back and we beg to stay with her in her hotel and we'll split the cost three ways. Karin retells the story to us: She was checking in when we called her and she did not hear her phone ring. The man checking her in told her there was a mix up and instead of giving her a room with one king sized bed, she was getting a room with two queen sized beds for the same price. The man then asked if she would like an extra room key. She originally said no and then changed her mind and said sure, she might have a friend that wants to freshen up or something. When Karin called us back she said "Things happen for a reason. There was a reason why I got two beds instead of one and there was a reason that I changed my mind and got an extra room key." Vicki and I were of course very grateful.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning were conferences. I only had one seminar that was completely pointless for me to go to, so I walked out. But that was only after about 20 other people had walked out too. Friday and Saturday night our last seminar was over at 5. So Friday we took the hotel shuttle to Downtown Disney and walked around the stores and ate at the Rainforest Cafe. It was fun! There were some fires burning Friday, the sky was a bit murky looking. Saturday it was pretty bad. The sky was quite orange and dirty looking for most of the day. We only went out for lunch and dinner and then stayed in the hotel to watch a movie(which somehow didn't end up on our final bill, though we did say that we watched a movie.) I wasn't feeling terribly well so I fell asleep during the movie. Sunday morning we went to one of the seminars and then headed out to Disneyland. Kim-my friend had to do a scavenger hunt thingy, so she got her friend to meet us in front of the last A in California and he got us into the park for FREE! Mind you it was a park hopper ticket so we got to go to both Disneyland and California Adventure for FREE!
We went to California Adventure first. Did all the major rides including the newest Toy Story which was a 3D interactive thing, it was so fun. While waiting in line there was a Mr. Potato Head that was talking to the guests. He said something to a little girl wearing a gray shirt and she was like "He's not talking to me, he can't be talking to me, he's a toy." It was funny. Then we went Grizzly River Rafting and we all got soaked!!!!! Luckily it was really dry and hot out so we dried quickly. We soared over California, did Maliboomer, California Screamin and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror to name a few. Then we headed over to Disneyland got a Dole Whip (funny story behind the picture. It was supposed to be a picture, but Vicki somehow got it to do a video clip, so anyway enjoy the short clip of us totally unaware that it's a video.) . We enjoyed the Haunted House, Pirates of the Carribbean and a couple others. We were only at Disneyland for about an hour and then we had to run back and try to catch the 3:50 shuttle back to the hotel. We were there at 3:51 to watch the shuttle drive away. As we sat to wait for half an hour for the next shuttle, one pulled up. The driver said someone didn't show up to pick up some people from a hotel so he had to do an extra drop off and he was headed back to the hotel. So we hopped on. We left the hotel and were back home at 6. I was in bed by 7:30.

That leads me to today. I stayed home from work today and slept all day. I think conferences are cursed. I went to a conference in New York a couple years ago and came home sick. I went to this conference and came home sick as well. Go figure! I hope to be back at work tomorrow, with a box of tissues.