Travel with the Team

Monday, April 20, 2015

Travel day home and early start to begin. I will be on the same flight as the Acadec team, although it can't be known that I'm affiliated with them; Ethan's ridiculous request. I'm sure the affiliation will be appreciated when a ride is required home in Houston.

I leave Brenda behind for her week of Disneyland training while I go home and work and attend to the kids I'm thinking the week will go by quick as usual. It's been a good trip but I'm always ready to get home

Disneyland

Sunday, April 19, 2015

No better way to start our Disney adventure than with beignets and coffee at the Mint Julip bar. As we are enjoying our treat we are approached by a woman asking if we would photograph her springing the news to her husband that they are going to be parents. What a cool thing to be a part of, so naturally we agreed. She had this idea to have a caricature done with it revealing the news. One hour later the news sprung and memories made and our adventure continues.

Alice in Wonderland - Mechanical failure

Big Thunder Mountain RailRoad Closed

Davy Crocket Canoes

Big Thunder Ranch Petting Zoo

Finding Nemo submarines

Corn dog

Parade

Haunted Mansion

Space Mountain

Indiana Jones

Railroad - too crowded

River Belle Terrace

Fantasmic

Acadec Awards Banquet

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Jump out of bed to the alarm for the big day, Acadec Awards Banquet. Back to the event hotel this time we drove and dressed up for the breakfast supplied banquet. The Pearland team did vey well placing 2nd in the nation! Several individual metals were awarded to the team members. Of special note Dakota Dock got award for most improved from state and Ethan got award for highest score in economics.

Ethan also received the following awards:

Silver medal - Art
Bronze medal - Music
Gold  medal -Math
Bronze medal - Literature
Gold medal - Economics
Gold medal - Science
Silver medal - Social Science

Among all the charter and magnet private schools Pearland made a great showing for the public school sector. Way to go Pearland! 

We were released for the day with our purpose for the trip complete it was time for some recreation and lunch. With Disneyland planned tomorrow and need to redeem tickets we took a 15 minute hike to guest relations to redeem our tickets and have lunch at downtown Disney at Le Brae Bakery, part of Brenda's plan to get extra Disney time I'm sure. 

Contemplating how to finish our day we both agreed a trip to Santa Monica and a walk along the pier would be nice and with such a beautiful day the hour long drive seemed like the right thing to do.

Santa Monica seemed very chic place especially along the sea wall, that was our extent of Santa Monica. We made it onto the pier with its carnival like atmosphere and it's pier side peddlers every ten feet. Unfortunately the carousel was closed for a private party the only attraction we cared to see. Next to the carousel we stopped for some dinner at Rustys Surf Ranch, a bar like eatery with a variety of fried foods. After refueling we began our journey back to Anaheim and our hotel where our day would conclude.

Acadec Super Quiz

Friday, April 17, 2015

Waking up this morning was tough so we  didn't, we slept in until early afternoon. Walking through the hobby of the hotel hosting the Star War Celebration was fantastic. To see all the Star War fans and their costumes was great, especially seeing how some folks spent a lot of time and money on their costumes.

I had heard of Roscoes Chicken and Waffles and it was on my food list and one happened to be a few yards from our hotel. We ordered some and we're not disappointed. The chicken was tasty and the waffles were flavor with hint of nutmeg, delicious.

With such a nice day ahead of us we chose to drive the pacific coast highway to where ever it takes us.  The first place it took us was to Huntington Beach where we took a moment to dip our toes into refreshingly cool Pacific Ocean water and walk along the beautiful sandy beaches enjoying the the awesome weather.

Back on the pacific coast highway where will we wind up next. We had a hard stop at 3pm to get back for the Acadec Super Quiz otherwise let the PAC highway guide us. And it did just that, guiding us to an intriguing Seal Beach with its eclectic home styles and quaint community. Rolling through Seal Beach we find ourselves detouring off PAC highway to ocean drive being sucked closer to Long Beach as we discovered it to be Grand Prix weekend. The Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix is this weekend (actual race on Sunday). Cruising through long beach watch all the race fans was a nice surprise. 

With Long Beach in our rear view mirror it was time for us to turn on some speed of our own and hit the freeway so we can get to the super quiz event. We return from our journey to get ready for super quiz and make the 15 minute walk to the Hyatt Garden Grove where the event is being hosted. Thirteen questions for each group; Varsity, Scholastic and Honors. Our varsity missed 2, scholastic missed 4 and honors missed 3. Our overall placement was second.

Returning from super quiz to our hotel we seek dinner from one of the many food trucks outside the hotel serving the Star Wars crowd going to and from the event. We find a decent truck, Poco Rico, and eat some street tacos which were quite tasty and filling all we needed now before calling it a day was some dessert we found just the solution, amoung the food trucks was Chunk and Chip specialing in ice cream cookie sandwiches perfect finish to the day

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Acadec Nationals

Thursday, April 16, 2015
Today is a travel day as we start our Academic Decathelon weekend in Anaheim California. The only highlight today was the one and a half hour delay in departing Houston. The delay had us arriving in Los Angeles by 8:40pm, after baggage pickup, rental car shuttle and rental car rental, we finally arrived at our hotel (Hilton Conference Center) at 11:00 pm.

Upon arrival at the hotel we were met by storm troopers and other Emperial and Rebel characters. We had landed in Anaheim the same weekend as the Star Wars Celebration weekend, this was going to be fun!
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