Saying Good Bye!

Well we all said our good bye to everyone. It was kind of hard in a way because we have had a really good time. We also have gotten to know the hotel staff pretty well. I think that they are all going to miss having Vann around. Vann loved them too. I am posting a couple pictures of some of the hotel staff with Vann along with a video of our routine in the morning getting breakfast.Here is a Video of Vann going to breakfast.

Tokyo Disney Sea

Monday morning we all got up early so that we could get to Disney Sea before they opened. I was hopeing that it wasn’t going to be very busy considering spring break was last week . We got to the park around 8:45am and it wasn’t suppose to open until 10:00am. When we got there, there was already a line. We sat and ate our brekfast while we waited for the park to open. I don’t know who was more excited Vann or I. I love Disneyland! I wasn't sure who all the people were there to see Vann or Mickey. Vann was on top of Tony's shoulders and all the Japanese people began going crazy over him. They kept saying turn around, over here. Vann waved and blew kisses to everyone around us. People were taking pictures of him left and right. I wounder how many people's photo albums we will be in. Finally the gates opened and Vann was no longer the center of attention. We hurried into the park and got our picture taken with goofy right away. We then headed to the gondola boat ride. That was fun you really feel like you are in Venus. After that we rand over and jumped on the steamboat. Vann had a lot of fun. He kept saying toot, toot, as the boat would honk its horn. Once we exited the boat we were right infront of the Indiana Jones Adventure ride. I really wanted to go but Vann was to young for that ride. They have a program though where I got to go stand in line and ride and then come out and watch Vann as Tony got to go right in and not stand in line. We took advantage of that. It was great. It would have been nice to ride together but oh well at least we got ot go. After that we headed down to The Mermaid Lagoon. There several rides that Vann was able to go on. Tony took him on the Jumpin Jellyfish and the Blowfish Balloon Race. Vann loved them and wanted to ride them again. We told him that we would come back later. We left to go find somewhere to have lunch. After lunch we went and rode 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea which was like a submarine ride. Vann liked it but he was starting to get tired. He ended up falling asleep on Tony's back. Tony and I decided to go walk around and go in some stores while Vann slept. About an hour afterr Vann had fallen asleep Tony and I were ready to go on more rides. We thought we would try to go on Sinbad's Storybook Voyage but Vann couldn't be on Tony's back for that one. We tried to move Vann to the front but he ended up waking up. Oh well, time for more rides. Vann loved the Voyage. It was a boat ride that was kind of like It's A Small World but I thought it was better. After that ride we headed for the carousel. I wasn't to sure how Vann was going to do but he did great. When we got off he wanted to get back on. We walked around and rode a few more rides before we decided to head for home. All in all we couldn't have asked for a better day. Not to hot or cold and we never had to wait more then ten minutes in line for a ride.

The Disney Monorail

This picture could make me cry. I think this should be a disney ad.

Waiting to get in.

Vann making friends.

Here are some videos of Vann riding rides.

Easter Sunday

We had a long day planed for Easter. It wasn't a typical Easter. I got up around six so that I could start getting ready. We had to catch an 8:00am train up to Narita. We had to go change my plane ticket so that I could fly home early. Tony was being sent home early and the only way we could have my ticket changed was to travel the 3 hours up to the airport to have it changed. As soon as Vann woke up he noticed the the Easter Bunny had visited our room. There were eggs all over our room. In fact he started gathering them as soon as he jumped out of bed. I hurried and told him that we had to wait for daddy to get out of the shower. I began putting the eggs back where they were. I told Tony to hurry up. Vann finally got to collect all of the eggs. I have posted a video of him. As soon as we finished our Easter egg hunt we rushed out the door to make the long journey up to the airport. There was a accident on the train so instead of it taking us three hour to get up to the airport it took us over four. That is a long time on a train with a little guy. Good thing I had snacks and water! We finally made it to the airport and the ticket counter was closed. I was really mad but the guy said that they would open back up around 12:30pm. We decided to go have lunch while we waited. Then I went and got my ticket changed. Back to the train we go. We decided to upgrade our tickets and take the express train back to Shinagawa. We were going into Tokyo to spend the night at the New Sanno Hotel. We finally made it there late that afternoon. We were all exhausted. We settled into our room for the night. It was really nice. It was the most comfortable bed that I have lever been on. Once we rested for a little bit we went and had dinner in one of the restaurants in the hotel. After dinner we went to the pool to go swimming. Vann was really excited as were Tony and I since they had a hot tub. We got back up to the room around 8:30 and then decided to go back down and have dessert before we went to bed. After dessert we went back up to the room to get some sleep before our big day a Disney Sea. Happy Easter!

Vann's Easter present. Three new Bob The Builder movies a tractor and a tractor cup.

Here is what the bed looked like at The New Sanno Hotle.

Tony was showing Vann that dit is cool to wear a bib!

Here is a video of Vann in the pool.

Monkey Island

Today was in the low 80's so we took a short ferry ride across Tokyo Bay to go to Monkey Island. It took about 10-15 minutes to get there. Monkey Island is a natural island that used to be a military fortress in pre-war Japan. It was off limits to the public until the war was over. We walked the entire island including Vann. I was really proud of him, he made it up all of the stair and hill with minimal help. There were caves, tunnels, and wildlife all around the island. At one point Tony made me stop because he had to take a picture of a "Japanese Caterpillar". They are so different from American Caterpillars! It took us less then an hour to walk the entire island. When we were done exploring we went and found a seat on the deck down by were the boat dropped us off. We had packed a lunch so we began indulging in all of our food. There was one problem though. All the people on the beach were Bar-B-Queuing and it smelt really good. Tony was getting jealous considering we haven't been able to BBQ for over three months. I felt bad for him as I had him his rice ball that I bought for him at the store. He wasn't to happy but it was food. When we finished eating we realized the ferry was just leaving so we knew that we were going to have to wait another hour before the next ferry would come. Vann was dying to go down to the beach so we decided to go walk and see what we could find. Vann would have ran right into the water if I would have let him. We had a couple close calls with almost getting wet but we all managed to stay dry. We found all kinds of colored glass. We collected about a quarter of a grocery bag full of different colored glass. Vann kept running away from us but by the end he was having fun finding glass and putting it in the bag.

Here is Vann waiting for the ferry to arrive.

Here we are on the Ferry.

Check out how big this aloe vera plant is.This is the ferry we took.

There were four hawks circling above us. I was afraid one might try to pick up Vann.
Here we are on the ferry going back home. This time we got a seat on top of the boat.
Vann and daddy cleaning our treasures we found on the beach.