Happy almost New Year Jacob!

I’ve been missing you a lot. Thinking about you in your new area and comp. And not wanting to make things harder for you, but being down here in SoCal has been fun, but I’ve missed you at everything we’ve done.

We left Wednesday as soon as Ben got home about one. He texted so we were in the car waiting when he got home. It was cold but the weather was clear. We made decent time, but we did get stuck in the gorge traffic after st george. We only stopped for gas twice, mom had sandwiches so we made decent time. 

We got up early the next morning to go to Disneyland. It was raining super hard all day. We got there early and parked in the new parking structure. It was literally a mile away from the front gate. I don’t really know how they managed that, as it’s on the property. Mom had the whole day mapped out. I made everyone wear these cheap rain ponchos, one of my better ideas. Here’s some highlights: Star Wars Galaxies Edge—so awesome. I’m attaching a few pics, but it was so well done and so immersive, it felt like a pilgrimage. On the smugglers run ride you get to pilot the Millennium Falcon, there’s an opportunity to put the Falcon into hyper drive by pulling the lever back, oh man what a geek spasm that was. The other highlights were the special Christmas time rides like the Haunted Mansion and a Small World. Well, at least the haunted mansion. There were a lot of Utes fans there, and I didn’t see any Ohio State fans, but your brothers said they did. The other highlight was the Blue milk from Star Wars. It was good. The main drawback was one of my shoes had a hole in the bottom. With every step it acted like a tiny pump drawing water up from the ground eventually filling my shoe. It only took about 20 minutes for that shoe to become completely water logged. My right foot was soaked all freaking day. We had our fill by about 9:30 pm, so That actually made me grateful for the rain, nice weather would have kept us there till midnight.

This morning we slept in for a while. We got ready and went for donuts and pastries. The donuts we found were so good. Later, we went to a place called Olvera Street. It’s a street in downtown Los Angeles that has been preserved as the original Mexican style street from the olden days. It’s basically just a block of old restaurants, shops and stands that are like old Mexico. Mom thought of you, it reminded me of going there as a kid with my parents. We looked around the shops, bought some crap, including the Luchadore masks, we got one for you too, but we’ll keep it here you unless you want it.. We ate lunch and got churros. We met some Utes fans that suggested we go to the stadiums and get wristbands early to avoid the lines tomorrow. So we did.

I was anxious to go up there anyway and I had always wanted to see Pasadena, mostly due to The Beach Boys song. It’s a really pretty place, we got our wristbands and went to go buy some merch, most of the Utes stuff was sold out, but there was plenty of Ohio state stuff left. Hopefully, there will be more tomorrow. For as big as the stadium is, it not very tall, I’m excited to see it even closer tomorrow. There were some parade floats nearby and mom got super excited to see them. It’s so fun to see her excited. 

We went for burgers tonight with uncle Justin and Spencer. Artie went to the lakers game with max. He invited us, but I really didn’t want to pay for them or be out late on New Year’s Eve. 

I’ll try to send you updates during the game, I hope there’s enough bandwidth during the game. We’re going to start for home after, I’m not sure how far we’ll go before we stop. I’m sure Ben will send you one of his comprehensive recaps. I’ll write again Sunday night to get me back on my normal schedule. I’ll look forward to hearing how your first week in the new area went.

I love you kid. I know we both wish you were here. I appreciate you for your dedication and sacrifice. I’m not planning on coming back to the Rose Bowl even if the Utes make it again until your return, then we’ll do it again for sure.

Pops