Happy Chinese New Year, Cheyrl!

Alice and Cheyrl

Jason and I trekked to Columbia this weekend to meet our friend Cheyrl, who is heading back to Taiwan very soon. Since we were going so far, we decided to make a day of it and stopped in at Hollywood Theaters to experience the much-anticipated Alice in Wonderland...in 3D! We really should be considered adventurous because we went to see it on opening weekend. Gasp! Practically unheard of in our household these days. We got to the theater a little early, but not soon enough as the que had already reached the street in front of the theater. They opened up another window, and the manager informed everyone that they could skip the wait and order their tickets with the machine at the side. Sounded good to us! We're pretty savvy with these do-it-yourself types at the Wal-Mart, the grocery store, the airport. No problem. And so, Jason set about pushing buttons on the touchscreen. Yes, we would like to purchase tickets. For Alice in Wonderland in 3D. For this matinee showing. We got all the way to the card processing part before we had problems. By this time, the people next to us had gotten their tickets and left.

"Try it again," I offered. And so he did. We got to the end again, swiped the card and the hourglass came up to say the machine was deciding between giving us our tickets and making us late for our movie. I got the manager as Jason started working through it again (third time's a charm, right?), and we showed her the issue. She said she was pretty sure it wasn't charging us all those times, and she would let us in. So, either the movie cost us $60 or it was free. We grabbed our 3D glasses (that unfortunately looked semi-normal, no red and blue lenses) and found some seats. After the show, Jason talked about what he thought of the film.




Later, we met Cheyrl at her going-away party at Heidelberg. Cheyrl was mostly the center of attention, that is until Sam's baby, Max, started mugging for the crowd. (Hey, we all know that babies are little rockstars.) Anyway, we're going to miss you Cheyrl! Have a safe trip and stay in touch!

Six Flags in the rain

Cheyrl got free tickets for Six Flags, so she invited me to come visit and go to the park.

We were greeted at the gate by some characters, including Pepe Le Pew! It was looking really overcast so we decided that it might clear off and warm up later. Instead of heading to the water park, we started out easy with the big wheel and the carousel. Then we hit a few roller coasters and water rides.

We stopped to get ice cream, and it started to rain. Boo! We still hadn't made it to Hurricane Harbor! We hurriedly changed into swim gear and headed toward the water. We splashed around in the wave pool first. Then, we climbed the tallest tower to slide down the Big Kahuna. When we got to the top, the ride operators closed it down...something about lightning? Ha! Anyway, they wouldn't even let us ride down; we had to walk down all those stairs.

We got some dinner provided by Cheyrl's employers. Thank you, Ameristar Casinos!