Baptism day

My niece Eliana turned 8 this August and made the great decision to get baptized. So, my family made the trip to Vegas to be a part of the events. It was a quick whirlwind weekend for us. We left after school and work Friday evening. The baptism was Saturday morning with a wonderful luncheon afterward. I had the blessing of leading the music for the baptism, but I think one of my favorite parts was watching my nephew, Eli's brother - Ben, give the talk on the Holy Ghost. All of these kids are growing up so fast! The spirit was strong and it was a wonderful day.  Chris told me something Katelyn said after the baptism that I have to share.  They had gone to the lobby to wait for the rest of the group and Katelyn said that while the bishop was giving some remarks she felt really warm in her heart.  Chris asked her if she knew what that was and she said she knew the bishop's words were true because of the spirit touching her heart.  I'm so proud of how she's growing up and learning these important lessons.

I want to share a epiphany moment I had that day. At the luncheon I had the chance to visit with friends I have not seen in a long time. It is always good to catch up. At one point I was on the couch visiting with my sister in law Kristin's mom - Susan, and sister and others around. We were just talking about life and Susan was telling us stories about when she was raising her kids. As part of one of the stories, she was saying how when raising her 7 kids she had to have her date night every week and get out of the house with her husband. Kristin's sister made the comment that the kids needed them out of the house just as much as the parents wanted out of the house. I know this was meant as a funny retort to her mom's comment, but it really rang true for me. Our kids sometimes need breaks from us just as much as we need breaks from them to rejuvenate and appreciate each other more. I'm grateful for this insight. I have since tried to make date nights happen a little more often. I still have a hard time trusting a babysitter, but have gratefully found 2 girls that we really like and the kids like. In fact, the other day after a date night, Megan was asking when we were going to leave again so Briana could come back. Since then we've had some busy weekends and haven't been out much, but I know now that I can go out and I can have a date night, and really, I should do that not just for me and Chris but for my kids too.

As usual, I was terrible with taking pictures on this trip. We did however take some pictures of the Hoover Dam bypass bridge. We can't wait until it's open and we can ride on it! It's supposed to cut the time from Phoenix to Vegas by 45 minutes! Yippee!!

Discovery Club

Megan had her first day of school this year too! She is in a preschool called Discovery Club. I have heard great things about this preschool from friends in my neighborhood. Club is only for kids who are getting ready to enter Kindergarten the following school year and is 3 days a week for 2 1/2 hours. Because of how Megan's birthday falls in the year, she will only get this one year of preschool before Kindergarten, so I wanted it to really get her ready. She has not been interested to this point in writing her name or her letters. She knows all of them, she just doesn't care about writing them when I suggest we work on it. I'm hoping this year, she will get a love of learning and enjoy her class. Good luck, Megan!

1st Day of 1st Grade!

Katelyn is now a big 1st grader! I'm so excited for her this year. She loves school. She loves learning and she loves her friends. I hope that she can keep that enthusiasm for as long as possible.

Let's ROCK! One more day in Disneyland!

We woke up on this day 3 of our celebration weekend and made it to the fireplace early, so there was time for another family picture. Going to Disneyland has got to be the least relaxing, most work, wonderfully awesome vacation there is.  When it's all over, you can't hardly move from being so tired, but it's all worth it for the memories we create together.

Don't let the girls fool you, they're not really tired.

Today is last chance day, so whatever someone missed or didn't go on enough was where we went.  On another round of Autopia, Adam hung back and enjoyed a blueberry muffin.  A new favorite, we've discovered.  I rode with Megan, while Bradley and Katelyn teamed up behind me.

Mmmmm...blueberry!

Ready to ride

Driving Miss Daisy

Adam's not quite feeling the family picture anymore.

Back over in California Adventure, we let the kids kinda guide us to where they wanted to go.  On the way to Paradise Pier, I had to stop and take a picture of the Mickey Ferris Wheel.  You can pretend that we're riding it, but we really aren't. :)

On the way to Toy Story Mania, Katelyn and Megan considered a future as a toy.  Fortunately, they just stayed in the box long enough for some pictures and then rejoined us for the rides.  Adam realized that he can still go on rides even when he's asleep - as long as he just hangs on to Mommy!

We put the 'action' in Action Figures

Just happy to be here!

Who says you have to be awake for the rides?

Kaley and Chase hung with us so we could caravan home together.

Can you guess Megan's favorite mode of transportation?

Adam still enjoyed a few more rides awake too, and then it was time to bid adieu to this vacation.  The kids picked their favorite letters and had a last bit of fun before jumping back in the car for the long ride home.  But hey, at least Adam got to enjoy a Rice Krispy treat on the way!

I'm such a big boy!

'O' Megan

I can do that too!

Best picture of the trip?

Keep these coming and we'll do just fine together.

We love every chance to spend together as a family, and are so grateful for this trip to Big D.  I think you could drop us just about anywhere and we'd all be glad to spend good family time together.  But as Five For Fighting sings, "it's a nice day, when you wake up in Disneyland."  Hope to wake up again there someday!

Happy Birthday Amy, it's Green Day!

Keeping the Celebration theme going, today we celebrated Amy's birthday by wearing new green shirts that magically appeared in this Happiest Place on Earth.  We usually are running so fast first thing in the morning that we never stop for a classic "castle" picture, so this time we did.  It's one of my favorites, especially since pictures of the whole family are rare (I'm usually the one behind the lens).

Smile big, this is for the blog!

Near the castle is one of the places where a princess shows up sometime during the day.  We found Ariel so the girls got to enjoy while Adam just explored.

Sometimes it is better above the sea!

I see the girls over there, and I'm happier right here.

After the fun at the castle, we met up and conquered Fantasyland.  Adam got to ride with Cassi on the Casey Jr. Train.

I think I can...I think I can...escape!

Katelyn and Megan still like to listen to "It's a Small World" to go to bed at nighttime, so we had to ride those quiet boats.  It's also one of the few rides Mom likes to go on so it was a "whole fam" party (we take up at least two boats when we're all together like this).

Small world, the perfect quiet time at Big D

I haven't been to Tom Sawyer's Island since it was overrun by Pirates.  We didn't go there before the pirates either, but I was surprised how big it is.  We assigned at least 1 adult to every couple kids.  I snapped this shot of Joshua and Megan when they paused from running around.

We could tell you we're twins and you might believe us.

At lunch, Adam figured out what to do with the boxes when they're empty.

Have you ever noticed the fountain on the Autopia?

See you tomorrow!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Maybe it's self-serving to wish myself a happy birthday, but let me break it down.  My birthday is on August 3.  Because of all the stuff going on with fooling the kids about the trip to Disneyland, I kept telling Cassi not to worry about my birthday until after the trip.  I've celebrated a handful of times not on my actual day, so it's no big deal.  Plus, I'm not 8, I don't expect a big hullaballoo for my birthday anyway.

So we had early entry today and that meant call time was at the big fireplace at something like 6:30.  It's amazing sometimes how little sleep and how tired I end up on our vacations to Disneyland.  I think about those old commercials where everyone is too excited to sleep before they get there.  Once you're there, you don't want to stop long enough to sleep either, you're just too excited!  Anyway, at the fireplace we were by 6:30 for family prayer and marching orders.  We've gotten into the habit of having a certain colored shirt for each day we're at the park.  It's fun, and lot easier to spot everyone, or catch up in line to the group.  It has to be a bright color though.  My mom usually drives herself about crazy as she scours the countryside to find all the coordinating shirts in the right sizes leading up to the trip.  (I don't know if Mom ever hears about it, but we get comments all the time, in line and such, that the t-shirt idea is a great idea.)  This time was no different, but the color they picked was orange, my favorite color.

Break out the Orange, it's my birthday (kinda)!

At the fireplace, during marching orders, I learned that the reason I couldn't get Cassi to destress about my birthday before the trip was because we were celebrating my birthday on the trip!  It wasn't just Orange Day, it was "Everyone pay homage to me" Day.  FUN!  They made it Phineas and Ferb -themed, and I was a secret agent who had to stop Doof from doing something nefarious.  I had to solve Disneyland trivia puzzles during the day to get my presents.  It was a lot of fun, and I came away with a new Wii game, iTunes card, a new shirt, and other fun stuff.

We started out in Disneyland and hit the favorites of Autopia and Astro Blasters in Tomorrowland (we're all getting pretty good at Astro Blasters by the way, Ryan made it to #3 on the leader board one day, and Dad whooped us all with somewhere around a 1 million point score).  After Tomorrowland, we hiked over to California Adventure to get FastPasses for the new night show World of Color (crazy awesome show, more later).

Cute girls cruisin' in Cali

This was my high score for the day, though not my highest rank (made it to #5)

We trekked through California Adventure, hitting all the rides the kids wanted to, and even convinced my Mom to try out Soarin' Over California.  It's definitely a favorite ride.  My mom usually sticks to the Teacups and Small World, but she branched out this trip.  Maybe we built it up too much, but I'm afraid she wasn't as impressed as I am with it.  Either way, it was fun that she went on it with us.

We always appreciate Uncle Chase's shoulders on these adventures!

The girls were excited to spot Minnie after our Soarin' good time

One thing I love, now as a parent, is to find the rides that the kids love, and introduce them (height-permitting of course) to some of the rides I love.  Megan found a new favorite called Jumping Jellyfish.  It's Tower of Terror for the little kids.  Katelyn decided she's not afraid of anything, and actually chose Tower of Terror to go on with me.  I kept my hand on her leg the whole time so she could sense me there, but she did great, and loved it enough to ask for more!  As for Adam, he has so far spent almost all of his waking time in this wonderful land in a stroller, so I tried to find a few times when he could just (safely) wander and explore.  It's fun to see him investigate and think and figure things out.  I had to make sure he didn't stick his head through the fence bars, but other than that, he got to be a somewhat free spirit, and I think he liked it.

Jumpin' Jehosephat! No, it's Jumpin' Jellyfish!

Brave face now, just try to keep that smile in the elevator!

This is probably my favorite picture of the whole trip.  It's 100% pure joy.

We of course went on Toy Story Mania, and even brought Adam.  He sat with me, and had a lot of fun.  Megan learned that she can hang upside down on almost any set of bars with her feet and swing around (until we catch her, that is).  For the first time, we did the Animation Workshop, which was a lot of fun for me, and I think the kids liked it too.  We drew Dale, of Chip 'n Dale fame.  I've always wanted to learn to draw better (even took Drawing 101 at BYU), but am just not that good.  I can do some OK imitation stuff, but nothing that would make it beyond the fridge.  So this activity was particularly fun for me.

One size fits all most

You can see Katelyn getting ready to join in the monkey fun

Last activity for the day was World of Color.  I've seen the fountains at Bellagio, and the Dancing Waters at the Disneyland Hotel, and other water shows here and there and liked them, and I've always loved Fantasmic.  Well, World of Colors takes all the others and just tells them to go hide under a rock, because this was AMAZING!  They would shoot the big tall fountains (the following are all heights as I guess, absolutely not scientific) say 80 feet in the air and that looked impressive.  Then another section would come and they'd double that height.  And it wasn't just two or three big guns, it was like 40 that could do that.  From a techno-geek perspective, I think I shed a tear.  From a Disney-lover perspective, you're just about in heaven.

Needless to say, after that high, we floated down and made our way back to the hotel to enjoy some rest, in time for the next day of celebrations.  I'm so glad Cassi and everyone else put in all the work to make my 31st birthday one I'll never forget.  Really, it was way better than those in Kanab! :)

Surprise! We're in California!

So Ryan and Jennifer decided to have a "couples vacation" and farmed out their kids to us in the AZ, all pre-arranged and approved.  For their time away, they chose Disneyland.  Well, why should they get to go and not us?  Mom and Dad figured out that they could still have time without the kids and we could all be in Disneyland and probably not even cross paths!  Ok, so the FUN plan was pre-arranged and approved also, but it was mum's the word to the kids.  As far as Ryan's kids knew, they were playing in AZ for a week.  And as far as my kids knew, Benjamin was sleeping at our house for 3-4 nights.  Oh how twisted we can be, all in good fun!

Ryan and Jennifer headed for the Big-D on Sunday afternoon, and Operation Trick-Or-Treat went into action.  Benjamin stayed with us two nights and then Tuesday morning Mom and Dad picked up Benjamin and "went for a drive."  We told our kids that Ryan's kids were going to spend the day/night with Grandma and Grandpa and we would see them later.  On Wednesday, we told the kids that Grandma and Grandpa had invited us all to a party that night.  So after work, we got in the car with our "directions" to the party.  Amazingly the kids only asked a few times when we would get to the party, but didn't realize that we were in the car for 6 hours.

I need to pause here and say that I generally have a pretty good sense of direction.  And inside Disneyland, I might rival the cast members.  However, Anaheim is like a dead zone for me.  We had directions from Google Maps, and our GPS (which weren't exactly the same), plus we've been there before, but for some reason we just had a brain cloud as we rolled into the greater Disneyland area and ended up making about 3 U-turns to actually get to the hotel.  I look forward to future trips to the Happiest Place so I can further hone my skills and drop this dead zone. :)

So after we arrived at the Grand Californian, and got the luggage, and walked inside, and asked the girls a few times if they knew where we were (we had told them that the "party" was in California), they still didn't quite figure it out.  Katelyn said a couple times, "I hope we're in Disneyland" but couldn't find the visual cues to confirm her desire.  Finally we told them we were at Disneyland, and went to my parents' room and saw Nathan and Benjamin and Joshua, and they were very happily surprised.  Almost enough that asking them to go to bed (because we had an early start the next day) could be considered cruel and unusual punishment.  The excitement wore out and fatigue finally set in and they enjoyed peaceful sleep in the shadows of Sleeping Beauty's castle.