Ben's Blurb - "Well, it was squeaking..."

So this morning started as any normal Saturday would. With a load of laundry in the washing machine. Naturally, washed clothes should ultimately end up in the dryer. Well, Andrea had left for Eugene and about an hour later - I hear a horrific screaming coming from upstairs. So after making sure that Payton was accounted for and, making sure the screaming wasn't coming from me since this is the last weekend the Bears will be playing football, I proceeded upstairs.

The dryer in the past has been making small random squeaking sounds and I've been expecting it to quit altogether. So upon hearing the tirade coming from the laundry room this morning, I was certain that it was in it's death throws. So I decided to tear it apart and see what I could do - what extra damage could I really do right?

Well, long story short (and a couple of extra screws later), it's back together and working quite well. (Whew)

70 Years....?

So the last time there was a White Christmas in Oregon was back in 1937! I thought it might be a good idea to get this on the blog somewhere. Who knows when the next one will be.

We had a very quiet Christmas this year. We woke up and hung out at the house. We didn't do Christmas presents this year which felt a little weird. Since we went to Disneyland earlier in December, that was our Christmas gifts to one another. So we worked on a puzzle and just enjoyed watching the snow. Payton had fun out in the snow as well:

Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas to everyone! This was our very first Christmas Eve as a married couple, and it was a good one.
The day started with both of us having to work. Blech! But we were actually able to get off work at 3:30 instead of the usual 5pm. We were planning on making it to the 5:30 Athey service, but we were able to make it to the 4 o'clock service instead. Which was great!

After church we headed to Ben's parent's house in Aloha and spent several hours there. It was a good time. There was enough food there to feed about 10 people at least! Afterwards we opened some presents and then headed home a little after 11pm.

Ben's Blurb - Football Season

After taking Matt's lead - "Ben's Blurb" will be a potentially recurring theme in the Whitaker Family Blog. To kick this off, I figured why not start with something football related...is ayone surprised?

Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm an avid football fan, and a Chicago Bears Fan. I got into Fantasy Ball severaly years ago. Andrea just loves that about me!

Well, this Sunday basically ended the fantasy football run that I was having. This season I was ridiculously in 3 fantasy football leagues. And today marked the end of all of them. Next year, I may have to tone it down to 2. We took some pictures when Matt Craig and BJ Buckendorf came over to do the draft. It was a fun time. Our wives were downstairs trying not to think of their husbands as geeks. :) The Bears have also been eliminated from the Playoffs, so now it's time to pick another team that I may want to see win it all. I may just have to jump on the Cowboys bandwagon for the next few weeks. We'll have to see...

Puzzled

At the grocery store Saturday night we came upon a puzzle. Bought it, took it out of the box, and quickly became addicted. We completed a 1000 piece puzzle in less than 24 hours! I'm not sure how we did it, but it was a lot of fun. The question is... what do you do with the puzzle once you're done? Seems a shame to just break it up and put it back in the box, but then again - it's not like I'm going to keep it on display in our house either. What a dilemna.

Buckendorf Christmas Bash

Friday night was a good time at the Buckendorf Christmas party. Fellow bloggers, Matt and Kristi were in attendance, along with several other new faces. The party was complete with good food and a rousing White Elephant gift exchange. Lots of stealing was involved and we ended up with some Pez dispensers and a Pen that will really shock you. Other items up for grabs included a pineapple, a hula girl, and some unlucky lottery tickets. Thank you BJ & Tracy for being such fun hosts.

Here's photos of our wild and crazy Friday night.

Day 5 in Disneyland :(

This is Ben posting this entry. Haven't quite figured out how to make it say "Posted by Ben" so hopefully this will clue everyone in. Not that the lack of composition and sentence structure wouldn't give it away anyway.

We spent the last day in Disneyland as busy as the first 4. We got to the park at open and made sure to hit all of the big rides one last time. We made it to Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, Haunted Mansion, Astro Blasters, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Pirates of the Caribbean, all sorts of things. We were even able to catch The Dapper Dans in action as well (they're a Barber Shop Quartet).

During each day in Disneyland, they have "professional" photographers strategically scattered around the park anxiously waiting for people to take pictures of. At the end of the trip you have the option to buy a CD of all of your pics. It's not a good deal if you've only had a handful of pictures taken. It's a crazy good deal if you've had, say, 87 pictures taken! Here are some of the 87 pics that we had taken in various places around the park....enjoy!

Believe... in Holiday Magic Fireworks

We scouted a spot about 2 hours before the show since it was our last night. Very chilly out, but it was worth the wait. The crowds are light during the day but insane at night. Here are some photos we captured of this spectacular show!

Day 4 in Dland

It's our last full day in Disneyland and we made the most of it. The crowds were incredibly light this morning so we went round and round on lots of rides.

Other highlights of the day: We got invited to go to the way up top of Mark Twain's Steamboat with the captain. We both got a turn at ringing the bell and tooting the horn. We stopped in Critter Country to visit with Winnie the Pooh and get a sweet treat. We ate lunch at Cafe Orleans so Ben could have one more famous Monte Cristo sandwich. Yum. This afternoon we returned to Animation Academy where we learned how to draw Goofy - this is one of my favorite features at California Adventure. Yesterday we drew Jack Skellington from Nightmare before Christmas but he's kinda creepy - so I had to go back.

To Infinity and Beyond

One of our favorite rides is Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. It's interactive like a video game - you aim and hit targets with your "blaster". Then at the end you can email your photo to yourself. Here's links to some of our photos that we have had done.

Visit http://disneyland.com/buzzphotos and enter the following code number into the code box to view a photo of Star Command's newest hero:

CODE NUMBER: 1E95A125D3FE9A53804026C7B6584D78

CODE NUMBER: 0549B7A42CF18BD6E62EC831504C4DD9

CODE NUMBER: 3CC061D4C87AB9A85D6337E6654420F1

CODE NUMBER: A8626CB840F0790D5526063C1AD858E8

Ben was so happy today when his score was in the top ten for the day! We won't mention what time of day that game was played.

Hidden Mickeys

So this trip, Ben and I have been on a quest to find Hidden Mickeys. For those of you that don't know what hidden Mickey's are... Imagineers sneak images of Mickey into the rides and buildings that you wouldn't necessarily notice. Here's some photos of hidden Mickey's we were able to capture.


Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
Haunted Mansion
Pirates of the Caribbean (not sure if you can really see this in the photo)
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Day 3 at Dland

Tuesday was a great day in Disneyland! It was much less crowded and we were able to get a lot more in. We did all of Fantasyland in less than an hour! We spent the afternoon at California Adventure and then back to Disneyland for the evening. The lines were short enough that we did all of the major rides again in the evening, some of them twice. Here's some photos of the day.

Day 2 in Disneyland

Another busy day here. The park was a little less crowded today and it wasn't quite so windy. We were much more comfortable. We started the day with Finding Nemo, a 45 minute wait. We watched the wait all day on Sunday and it seemed to never go under 75 minutes. Unfortunately, it wasn't really worth the wait, No WOW factor there.

The wait times for other rides were usually between 15-30 minutes - so not too bad. Other rides we did today that we didn't do yesterday: Haunted Mansion, Soarin' Over California, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We might have done some repeats from yesterday.


We ate lunch at Blue Bayou which overlooks Pirates of the Caribbean. The Monte Cristo is
famous - but half is more than enough. I don't even want to think about how many weight watcher points are in one of those. Always a treat to eat there and watch the boats go by.



After lunch we got our shopping done at the World of Disney store - spent way too much money. In the evening we camped out for the Christmas parade, and then we walked around the park and took some photos of Christmas lights.

Here's some photos of the day!!