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Trip Planning > Disneyland > Trip Reports > Minda's Vowrenewal - November 2001
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Minda's Vowrenewal - November 2001 Hi Folks, Thursday November 29, 2001 Cast of Characters - First, I should say to all that Joey and I did our vow renewal on our own. We did not go through Disney's Fairytale Weddings. We wanted a VERY simple ceremony with out all of the added "bonuses" that Disney requires. Although it didn't work out for us to go to WDW for our vow renewal this time, we plan on doing it again on our 10th year at WDW through DFTW. We got to sleep in today because we didn't need to be at Disney until 3 PM. We got up at 10:30 and all took showers. We let the girls stay in their jammies because I didn't want them to get their dresses messed up before the ceremony. It was raining and with the wind it was bitterly cold. After we were all packed and in the car it was off to Disney. We arrived at 1pm and checked into our room at the Grand Californian as we arranged an early check in. Our room was really nice, but didn't have the view we were lead to believe. More on that later. We got everyone dressed and in our pretties. Joey's cousin, who is a photographer, met us in our room and snapped a few photos. We went down stairs and met Pastor Thompson, my pastor, who was doing our renewal. He was standing near the big Christmas tree in the center of the lobby and talking to Santa which gave the girls the giggles. Briar Rose wanted to know if Santa and Pastor Thompson knew about what each one did for a living. Since it was still raining and very cold, we scraped the idea of going outside to the Redwood courtyard and instead went down the hall to the convention area. We set up our Unity candle and video camera and had our ceremony near the small Christmas trees and sleigh they had set up for decoration. Since I am pregnant, I decided against a traditional wedding dress and instead wore a beautiful burgundy velvet dress that belonged to my late sister, Heather. She made it when she was pregnant to wear to a Christmas party. It made me feel close to her. It is a sleeveless, long A line dress with a straight collar. I made my bouquet and matching flowers for the girls and my hair. I used burgundy, off white, white, and pink roses. It was a small round style. I just pulled my hair up into a Maryjane style and attached the flowers to the barrette. Joey wore black pants, a white dress shirt, and a burgundy tie. Briars Rose wore a lovely little burgundy dress that my Mom bought her. It is a sleeveless, slip style dress with a chiffon overlay with butterflies on it and a long sleeve, wool sweater cover with butterflies embroidered on the front. Brienne wore a dress that had burgundy velvet on the top and a tapestry cream and burgundy rose print on the skirt. We "reenacted" our wedding ceremony and added the hand ceremony to it. I LOVED the way others on this list have incorporated it into their weddings and loved the line about Joey's hands holding our children. Since we are pregnant again, I thought that was a nice touch. We reaffirmed our vows and made new ones to our children. We presented them each with a diamond and heart necklace. We got one for our new baby too. Each one is a little different. Briar Rose's has a rose on it, Brienne's is a double open heart, and the new baby is a small solid heart. Joey and I exchanged our rings. Since he is a simple guy and really liked the simple gold band HE picked out for our wedding, I just had his engraved with "You've got a Friend in Me 11/29/96". This was the song he picked out as our wedding song. I know it is not very traditional, but I think it is perfect and if you think about it, it is very romantic and sweet. Joey gave me a new wedding band as the one I had never really fit right and I had lost a diamond out of it a few years ago. It is basically the same ring I had designed, but with different colored stones. My engagement ring is a karat pear shaped solitaire in a tiffany setting and I designed a wedding band that had three diamonds on each side in the shape of the tri circle Mickey Mouse silhouettes. The new ring is better fitted to the engagement ring and has sapphires instead of diamonds. I had wanted the diamonds when I got married because I thought it was "cool" to have so many diamonds on my finger. Well time and maturity has finally caught up with me and I realize that I don't need to "flash" my ring in front of every ones eyes. I decided to change to the sapphires because I thought they looked more like the black Mickey (without being black) and because it is the birthstone of both Joey and Briar Rose (she was born on Joey's birthday). I love the way it turned out. After our renewal we went about the inside of the Grand Californian and took some photos. Even if it was our vow renewal, most of the photos ended up being of the girls. Having babies does something to your priorities. At 4:30 my sister in law, Suzy, came to the hotel to watch the girls so Joey and I could have dinner alone. She took the girls to Storyteller's Cafe in the Grand Californian to have dinner, then to the lobby for a while to listen to the Christmas carolers and see Santa again. Then it was up to the room for movies, popcorn, and playing. Joey and I made reservations at Grandville's Steak House at the Disneyland Hotel. Even though we have eaten 100's of times at the Disney property over the last 20 years, neither one of us had been here before. Mostly because we had heard it was REALLY expensive and we never had the expendable money to go. So for this anniversary we decided to go all out. I had made arrangements ahead of time with the manager to have our unity candle on the table as a centerpiece (Joey's cousin brought it over after he finished with the photos) and to have a chocolate Anniversary card I made Joey to also be sitting on the table. When we arrived we were escorted to our table and everything looked beautiful. I was a little surprised at the look and feel of the restaurant as it is described as a dark, woody, intimate restaurant with private tables. Well, it is open and everything is done is a Wedgwood blue and cream color. They did have western prints hanging on the wall, which I thought, was a little bizarre. Maybe the prints were a left over from the last remodel. We had an interesting waiter with a Latin accent so thick; I had a difficult time understanding him. He was not very attentive, even though we were one of only 4 tables in the entire restaurant. He started out with introducing himself and offering us some sort of fancy bottled water, Pelligrino water, or (in a rather amazing ability to lose his accent) Anaheim tap. We decided since I am pregnant to go for the fancy bottled water. We laughed and figured that the water was going to cost about the same as a bottle of wine. Just as well since I can't have anything to drink in my current state of health. Well the waiter got more annoying or comical, which ever way you want to look at it, as the night went on and the dinner was less then appetizing and went down hill from there. I ordered shrimp and steak and Joey ordered a Porterhouse. Mine was WELL DONE and Joey's was near raw. The second round of dinners was WELL DONE all the way around. Oh well, we decided the company was the reason and best part of the evening and decided to let everything else roll off our backs. After the meal they brought us our complimentary slice of cheesecake. It was decorated with two swirls of whipped cream and two chocolate Mickey Mouse faces. They put in a candle and sang a rather sad version of "Happy Anniversary to you". Well as I said earlier, Joey and I eat at the resort often and Grandville's happens to be next to a restaurant called Goofy's Kitchen (highly recommended if you are ever going to Disneyland). I noticed that near the bottom of the whipped cream swirls was a bit of color. After the waiter left, I picked up the swirl and it had bits of color from having sat on top of I think the day before cupcakes from Goofy's Kitchen. It was just such a bad presentation of food. After they brought us our bill, and the water was $7.50 a piece, we paid our$100 and went outside for our freezing walk back to the Grand Californian. When we got back to our room we ordered a dessert tray from the room service menu. We wanted to have some sweets while we watched the electrical parade and Luminaria. Although we were told in our reservations that our room overlooked Disney's Californian Adventure and we would be able to see both of these show from our balcony that was not the case. Our room overlooked the park and it was lovely, but we could not see the parade at all and only the higher of the fireworks were visible in the Luminaria show. Even if you were to get the best suite in this hotel, you would not be able to see either of these shows. If we had stayed at the Pacific Pier Hotel we might have had a better chance. *Skipping ahead a few weeks, Joey's cousin has misplaced our rolls of film of the day. So at this point we only have our video of the ceremony. Oh well. Even though we had a lot of things go not as planned, we had a marvelous time just being together, recommitting ourselves to each other and our family, and of course, being at Disneyland, the happiest place on earth! Day two 11/30 - Friday, Disney's California Adventure We got up early, for this family, and spent the day at DCA. The weather was much nicer. It was sunny, but the highs were still in the low 60's and there was a cold wind. We went to breakfast at Chip & Dale's character breakfast at Storyteller's then off to the park. They opened a Who Wants to be a Millionaire and even on a quite weekday, it was still drawing big crowds. This is the first attraction of phase two for DCA. It is a good addition. I know that more and more people are being attracted to DCA, and that is good for business, but we miss the quietness this park had in the first year. I guess it is like all of the parks, it takes awhile for people to discover the charm of the new park. We went to see Blast, the Broadway show that is currently running this season at the Hyperian Theater in the Hollywood section. It was a great show, but I had to leave for a while with the Brienne. It was just too loud for her. We ended up watching most of the show from the back of the theater. Next we went to the Animation building. This is one of our favorite places at the new park. Joey wishes our living room could look like the lobby of this building. It is amazing. It is a huge room with dozens of different size screens and they show clips of Disney movies. They have comfortable seats in here and it is a great place to sit and rest for a while. Then there are different rooms you can visit. All are interesting. The most popular is the Beast Library where you can find out which character you are most like. Then there is Ursula's grotto where you can put your voice to a Disney cartoon. Later we ate at Hollywood & Dine, which is similar to how they run the eating areas at WDW. It is several different kinds of food choices with one central cash register area. It is great because we are not locked into the burgers & fries or pizza like the kids like to eat. During this holiday season the park was doing a Junior Explorer promotion for the kids. We had to go to 7 different areas of the park and get a sticker to put on our map. At the end they were awarded with a Junior Explorer membership card and a button. Not to mention the coupon for a free ˝ ounce lollipop with any $20 purchase, wahoo! It was fun for the kids. One of the sticker places was a place to draw a picture to be used in that night's Luminaria show. When the girls were drawing their pictures, Daisy Duck came and sat down with us and colored. Briar Rose was all smiles and Brienne just sat there open mouthed and staring. Daddy sat there doing nothing. Mommy sat there trying to videotape the girls while tears are getting in the way, sappy! After we sat and watched the electrical parade. This was the first time for both of the girls. They have seen the video many times, but it is quite different having it up close and personal. We had great seats. Almost every single character came up to them or waved at them. Again, Briar Rose was mostly smiles, except when the Alice in Wonderland bees, snails, and turtles came up in her face. Then we had a totally panicked little girl on our hands. Brienne just sat there opened mouthed and watching. A little overwhelming for such a little person. After the parade we went and rode on King Triton's Carousel and the Sun Wheel, a huge Ferris wheel, which is sort of the center of the Paradise Pier area. Then we sat and watched the Luminaria show. Now this was advertised as the West Coast version of Illuminations. Well it was far from that, but it was good in it's own way. I really liked all of the sparklely fireworks. Then it was off to a well-deserved night of sleep on our last night at the Grand Californian. Both girls were asleep before we got back to the room. Joey and I were not far behind. Day Three 12/1 - Saturday, Disneyland Today we had to check out of the Grand California. We weren't finished with our holiday so we checked into the Country Inn & Suites for the next two nights. We ate breakfast/lunch at a local favorite called Hof's Hut, and then it was off the Disneyland. Doing a play by play of this day would be very difficult and boring for most of you. See I worked at Disneyland for 8 years, we have had AP's for many years, and we have little kids, so we do DL very different then most people. We stroll through the parks very slowly and relax in different spots throughout the park. We don't do many of the rides, but Small World is a must see at any visit for us. If any of you should ever be at DL during the holidays, you should ride it yourself. They redo this attraction every year and it is not only beautifully done, they add Christmas music to it so you get a break in the …It's a small world after all… Also we had to go see the Haunted Mansion because it had been redone for the entire winter season in the Nightmare Before Christmas theme. Not only were we interested in the re-theming, but also a friend of ours was responsible for the remake and we were interested in seeing how he and his company had done. But there was over a 2-hour wait and even the fast pass line was about 45 minutes, so we had to pass on seeing this for the kids' sake. Highlights of the day were decorating Christmas cookies in the firehouse, having Belle to ourselves for about 10 minutes of talking and playing, riding It's a Small World, seeing the girls watch the Christmas parade, watching the Believe! Fireworks display over the castle, and watching it snow on Main Street. Day Four 12/2 - Sunday, The Block, Downtown Disney, DCA, & DL We had Sunday Brunch at our hotel. They have a great Brunch that was included in our hotel package. After brunch we checked out and went to an outside shopping area near Disney called The Block. Sort of a Downtown Disney/CityWalk shopping area. We window-shopped and picked up some Krispy Kreme Donuts for taking home. Then we went to DCA for a few more hours of relaxed enjoyment. We visited the Animation building again to see a new show called One Man's Dream about Walt Disney. Then over to the Grizzly Rapids area to let Briar Rose play in the children's area. After that we went out to the DTD area and made reservations for Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen. We went shopping for a bit and ended up making teddy bears for the girls at the Build-A-Bear Workshop. What a fun place. I loved the experience. Briar Rose wants to go back when the baby comes and make one for her. I'm sure we will. Then we went back into DL for awhile. Watched the Tiki Room show and went to Aladdin's Oasis and listened to stories told by Jasmine and Aladdin. With having watched these two shows it was time to do a little walking again and we went back out to DTD. We had a wonderful dinner at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen. They had a good quite pianist, which was nice. Sometimes when we go there, the music is too load for our taste and our kids. We split a delicious Red Velvet cake. It was a nice way to end the weekend. The Rest of the week 12/3 - 12/10 Well, that ends our wonderful weekend at Disney for celebrating our anniversary and vow renewal. But it didn't end our vacation. Throughout the week we went to Palm Springs, San Diego to visit Sea World, Old Town, Coronado Island, a harbor cruise, Seaport Village, and Balboa Park, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, and Knott's Berry Farm. Some things we think are great about the Disneyland Resort: Hotels: Grand Californian Disneyland Hotel DCA: Disneyland Main Street from the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor. DownTown Disney 
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