holy mama... where did the time go? (getting in shape or not...)

I have no clue where the time went. "Just like that...oooh..." I think I watch too much TikTok is what's happened during the covid pandemic... And this pandemic sh*t is still happening and going strong. We are going towards 3rd year now?

We attempted to get in shape during the pandemic. We figured, pandemic can't slow us down -- we will get hot and strong, so we got our garage equipped with Costco equipment (treadmill and cable weights). That worked out for good 3 months -- now it's sitting in the garage. Our new excuse was, garage looked like crap, so we got our garage remodeled -- we even installed a TV inside the garage. Let's see what our new excuse will be in about a month. 

Everyday, we give an excuse of -- diet will start tomorrow. I'm afraid of getting on the scale. I'm afraid of the confirmation that I'm getting fat? The confirmation that I am indeed a couch potato? The Netflix marathon and the occasional cokes (everyday) is making me lose weight? The dust collecting on the equipment in the garage aren't from the remodeling? What?

To be or not to be (err...)

Am I a bad parent for not wanting to send the kids back to school? Am I bad for wanting to spend entire summer with my kiddos? I counted and it's only 6 more summers (with my 12 years old) and 8 more (with my 10 years old) til they leave the nest and go off to college and not even want to be with us or hang out with us. Is this what they call the toxic or helicopter parenting? Am I the mother-in-law in the making that no one want to deal with? Oh lawd. 

I'm also wondering why are schools letting kids go back to school so early? Am I getting too old and used to sending kids back to school after labor day? Now a days, kids are back to school in July or August. I mean, what is this so called, "year-round" school but they have these weird a week or 2 breaks in the middle. I mean, what are working parents supposed to do with those breaks? Really, it's a serious question - what do working parents do during those times? 

Lots of question in my mind

(Post-Covid) Disneyland and Universal Studios Trip

We did it! 

We took the plunge and took our trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood.

Overall planning phase: 

Disney started selling tickets on April 15, 2021 for Disneyland. I was one of those crazy psycho folks (no I'm not judging you!) who waited in the virtual queue at 8am on the day and did not know whether or not I was still in line or got kicked out or what's happening but had my faith in Disney until I got my weird countdown that it's almost there and finally bought my tickets at 8:33pm. (OH MY GAWD, that's a run-on sentence!! and I'm out of breath!)

Planning Phase - Theme Park Tickets

I bought my tickets online as soon as Disneyland announced tickets are available to purchase and made my reservations. Since I have let go of my season pass in 2018, I always get 3 days park-hopper. At this point, it's an additional $50/day per ticket for park-hopper. After I made my initial reservation, I cancelled it out and I changed my reservation dates to the 4th of July weekend at no additional cost. Basically, when you make your reservation, you must look at the calendar for the available days and select which park is available to start your day. At 1pm, you're allowed to hop your day over to the other park. (You really don't need the park-hopper IMHO).

Universal Studios Hollywood have no reservation system. As long as you have a ticket, you are allowed to go inside the park. Because we don't know how many days we want to be inside the park, I decided, it's cheaper to buy the Gold Pass. You can pay down payment and pay the rest over the next few months. 

Getting There

We initially planned to drive -- but in honest truth, our kids missed being on the plane (or maybe they're sick of being stuck with us for the last 1.5 years)

2 weeks before the trip, I noticed Alaska airline has a great deal on roundtrip tickets (cherry on top, they were first-class tickets!! -- I hopped on this so we won't be seated separately from our kids).

• SJC -- LAX: 45 minutes flight (vs 8hrs drive)

because of first-class tickets, we got free luggage check in's -- we checked in 2 of our luggages (yes I'm an over-packer)

HORRIBLE ordeal: when we got to LAX, getting an Uber or Lyft was hell. Not even Black, BlackXL or XL were easy to get and we weren't able to get one for the next 2-3 hours. YOINKS!! We ended up taking a Taxi van to the hotel. Otherwise, Uber and Lyft are on par with driving time.

• LAX --> Hyatt Regency (Orange County): 1 hour 
• Hyatt Regency --> Sheraton (Universal City): 1 hour
• Sheraton --> LAX: 1 hour

Accommodation: All reservations for hotels are made through Expedia. Due to covid, I wanted to be able to cancel if plans are to be shifted; and because I changed my reservation with Disney, I had to cancel out my initial hotel reservation with Expedia at no cost. 

• Near Disneyland 
• We stayed at Hyatt Regency in Orange County
• Positives:
• 10-minute shuttle ride: $3/day 
• Kids Suite with bunk beds; 2 separate rooms
• Cozy, family & pet friendly (pooches around)
• Starbucks is in the hotel lobby so you do not need to go wait in a long line in Downtown Disney. HUGE plus!!
• Cost: $191/night

• 
  Near Universal Studios Hollywood 
• Good ole Sheraton at Universal City 
• Positives:
• Directly across from the park
• FREE Shuttle
• reason over Hilton: shuttle stops at Sheraton first
• Breakfast buffet in the lobby (you'll have to pay)
• Plenty of seatings in the lobby to lounge if your flight is later in the evening
• Cost: $230/night

Are you going to Disneyland/California Adventure or Universal Studios anytime soon? or perhaps returning back again like us? It is really me who wants to go, but my kids --  not so much, they're not interested.