A Vacation of a Million Dreams

Exactly two years ago we traveled to china to adopt Jack. When we came home the other kids were feeling a little left out that they didn't get a fun trip. We promised them that when Jack was four we would go to Disneyland. Jack turned 4 in June but we decided to plan it for Thanksgiving week since the kids have early release from school due to parent teacher conferences.

I must admit I had pretty low expectations for this trip. After my experience at Silverwood earlier this summer I had begun to question whether or not taking the kids to Disneyland was a good idea. Truly I would have loved to wait another year but the promises had already been made. I'm not much of a planner and prefer to be spontaneous but I got a great tip from my brother. He had found a website called Ridemax which uses statistical averages to determine an itinerary which will significantly reduce wait times in line. This was crucial for us since each moment spent in line is torture, not only for us but those around us. The website also had lots of great tips that we followed and had the best success, even though the park was crowded.

We arrived on Monday morning at 7:30. Jason dropped us off and went to park the car. I took the kids and waited in the lines to enter the park. The tip on ridemax was to stand by an entrance that was marked "early entry." They said that right when the park opens the sign is turned to "entrance" and whoever is in that line can enter. An employee came out and told us to leave the line since that was only for ticket holders who had early entry privelidges. I followed the tip and stood in line. A family behind us was freaking out because they had been told by another employee to move to the line for the same reason we were waiting. I kept telling them not to worry that I was confident the sign would change. They continued to freak out but I told the kids to stay put. I wasn't going to move. Sure enough right at 8:00 the sign changed and we charged into the park. We went right to our first ride, the Matterhorn and had boarded the ride by 8:05. The ridemax itinerary worked like a charm. We stayed on schedule all day and never had to wait more than 15 minutes for a ride. Most of the rides have height requirements of 40 inches. Luckily we discovered that Lily and Jack are 42 inches so there were only two or three rides in all of Disneyland and California Adventure that they couldn't go on. All three of the little kids loved all of the rides. Jack was in heaven that he could scream at the top of his lungs and it was acceptable. He was definitely in his element (except for when he had to stand in line).

The highlight of the day was when we were walking past the haunted mansion we ran into Jason's cousin Ryan and his wife Charity. It was so fun to see a familiar face. By the end of the day we were tired and cranky but satisfied. We found an out of the way Mexican restaurant about a mile from the park and had dinner there. The owner was so nice and we were the only people in the restaurant since we were eating at 4 pm. We headed back to the park for more rides in California Adventure and loved the Tower of Terror.

We found out that our tickets gave us early entry on one of the days so we decided to take advantage of this on Tuesday. We woke up early and made it to our first ride by 7:30 am. This was no small feat to accomplish this but it was so worth it. Lily and Anna really wanted to go to Mickey Mouse's house but the other kids weren't that interested. There was a little roller coaster right by Mickey's house so Jason took the other kids to ride on it while we went to see Mickey. When they got off there were Disneyland employees handing out the "dream fastpass." This was a special card that gave us fast passes for all 13 fast pass rides. No waiting and running to stay on top of the fast passes. We were so excited. Since we didn't all get one the employees who gave them to Jason suggested we go to guest services and get them for the rest of our family. Disneyland was even more crowded than the day before. We had the smoothest day and just went from ride to ride with little waiting. This was seriously the biggest blessing.

Another highlight of Tuesday was Lily being chosen for Jedi Training. Eli and Jonah are huge Star Wars fans and were really excited about the Jedi Training. We had watched it the day before but none of our kids was chosen. They all wanted to try again so I said we could try but if no one made it we weren't going to spend the time to watch it. Lily got picked to be the main kid being trained. She got to engage in a lightsaber duel with both Darth Vader and Darth Maul and use the force push against the Storm Troopers. She was so cute and the crowd loved her battle. She loved every minute of it even though she's really not into Star Wars.

Our favorite part of the day was the River ride in California Adventure. We got so soaked that we decided we might as well ride it again. Right when we got off Emma ran into Hayden from her school class. As Eli said, It is a small world after all. I wish I would have thought to get a picture. We went back to our hotel to change our wet clothes and went back until 11:00 pm. The kids were all begging to go they were so tired. We ended the day with Space Mountain and said goodbye to Disneyland.

On Wednesday we went to the Wild Animal Park. We were all so tired from the day before that we just did the tour through the park and the petting zoo. It was the perfect transition day. We spent the evening with Jason's mission companion and his family. They were so nice to have us for dinner especially since it was their oldest's 13th birthday. I still can't believe they had us over.

We spent Thanksgiving at SeaWorld. We loved the dolphin show and the pets rule show. The kids all love penguins and polar bears so those were highlights as well. By the time 4:00 hit we were ready to hit the road and head to our pit stop in Vegas. We had a disgusting lunch at Seaworld and thought we could find something on the road. Everything was closed. When we got to Vegas at 9:30 we found one Del Taco that was open by our hotel. That was our Thanksgiving Dinner. Luckily we had Thanksgiving Dinner the Sunday before we left town.

Tomorrow is the BYU/Utah game and Jason and Emma are using our tickets. If BYU wins all our dreams will come true and it will be the perfect ending to our vacation.

We made it!

After three days of travel we made it to So. California. We started on Friday and stopped at our friends, James and Betsy's house in Oregon. The kids were so excited to see their friends and partied late into the night. We woke up first thing and hit the road. We had a beautiful trip with lots of gorgeous scenery and fall colors. The highlight was crossing the willamette River on a ferry. We arrived at my brother's house in Sacramento and the kids were in heaven with their cousins and uncles. If given the choice they would have stayed there over Disneyland. George and Amy gave us the royal treatment with their beautiful house and tons of yummy food. We literally ate the whole time we were there. We left late this morning and all the kids are sleeping peacefully in their beds. We hope to get up early and arrive at Disneyland first thing in the morning.

Sunday Goodness

Man, I am just loving Sundays lately. I don't know if it's our newly created ward or what but the past few Sundays have been power packed. Last week it was our primary program which I meant to write about but never got around to. I figured that I have watched 35 primary programs over the past few years and I have to say that this one was right at the top. All the kids spoke from the heart and knew their parts so well. The highlight for me was having 5/6 kids in the program. I've said it before, but I wish I could freeze our family right now. They are all at the perfect ages.

I was so proud of Lily. She practiced with her speech therapist for weeks to get down her part, "Heavenly Father had Jesus create the earth." All those words are hard for her but she practiced so hard and she did great. I got all teary eyed when she said it because I was so proud of her and know how hard she had to work to get her part. Jonah and Emma both sang in small groups and did really well too. I've always had an aversion to singing publicly, even as a kid, so I was glad they could do it without laughing their head off like I always used to do. Jack was able to sit on the stand for the entire program which was quite the accomplishment and Anna looked so cute sitting right in front of us. She did well on her part too even though she was nervous to say it in front of everyone.

Today was a powerful testimony meeting too. We had lots of different speakers from the norm and I found myself choked up several times because they were so great. We have a family in our ward who are serving as mission presidents and we miss them so much. Their kids were all there today because they are home for a funeral and it was so great to see them.

Today after church I went visiting teaching and picked Elder Eyring's talk. There were so many great talks this past conference and I especially liked his. I realized giving the lesson just how important it is to remember the Lord's hand in our lives. I feel like I recognize it when it's happening but I'm not as good at writing it down. I have set a goal to do better at this and follow Elder Eyring's example of doing it everyday. I'm going to do this in a separate journal instead of the blog. I think this will be a family treasure someday. This is something I feel that my parents did a great job of when I was a kid and I want to pass it down to my kids as well.

November 1

I knew when I made the appointments weeks ago that November 1 was not the best day to schedule flu shots and well check appointments for 6 kids. Unfortunately I haven't been to the doctor since last year's flu shots and today I remembered why.

The highlight of the experience was when the cold and distant office lady handed me a pile of paperwork to document my two 4 year olds physical development. I was asked to answer such questions as "can you understand them when they speak?" Why no, I can't and that is why Lily goes to speech therapy three times a week. During the appointment the doctor pointed out that Lily and Jack, according to the questionairre I filled out, might have some communication issues. Thak goodness I went to the Dr. to figure that out.

Anyway, the point of the story is that while I was filling out this four page questionairre times two Jack was turning off the tv. The nice office worker who had just handed me the pile of paperwork pointed out to me, (as I was going to turn the tv back on), "um, he really can't be playing with that tv." Again, thanks for the information. An hour and a half later we had our flu shots. Hopefully that's it for another year.

Jason saved the day by taking the three older kids later in the day for their appointments. I just couldn't go back. I'm so grateful Jason is willing to help me out when he knows I need it.

On a happier note today the countdown to Christmas begins. We're going out of town for Thanksgiving so I'm dispensing with my fall decor and heading straight into Christmas. My mailbox has been stuffed with fun Christmas catalogs and I'm excited to shop and decorate before we leave for Thanksgiving.