Disneyland and California Adventure

After spending the night at Grandma's, we started finally started our vacation. But first we spent an hour and a half touring the metropolis of Hurricane. All of those last minute errands added up. One would think that our destination was Hurricane. Meanwhile to ease her boredom, Rachel prepared for Disneyland by pretending to ride on top of the Sequoia.

But we finally made it to the beach that night...

...and to Disneyland the next day. This was the first time we entered the park without a stroller. Last time both Camille and Rachel were in strollers. We didn't know what to do with all of our stuff. Some silly children thought that mom would carry it for them. Then they tried to get dad to carry items. All soon learned that less is more, and all you really need is a camera, a phone, and money.
When I was little I so wanted to live in a tree house just like this. I still think it would be fun.
Here we are on the Small World ride. This was Kevin's favorite ride!...when he was five. Look how much he seems to be enjoying it now.
Yes, Erin's enthusiasm is also unbounded.
Our new favorite ride was the Tour of Terror. This is a picture of a picture of us just before another drop. Rachel looked at me half way through and said, "I want to get off." "We will," I told her, "in just one minute." DROP!
The second time (we convinced Rachel that it really was fun), we planned on holding our fingers up and circling our eyes. Not all of us made it, but the guy behind us obviously heard us talk about it and joined in.
At first I thought the drop was more of an illusion. How in the world do they get that thing to drop so far and so fast and then catch it? But when I looked at my purse floating in free fall next to me, I was convinced that the drop was real.
We only had one long wait. Our neighbors were at Disneyland the same day, so the kids had friends to wait with in the Splash Mountain ride. Here Kevin models his friend's hat.
One of Krysta's favorite rides really is the Winnie the Pooh ride. Frumpalumps (or whatever they are) and Woozles, oh my!
Have you ever been on the Storybook Boats? Neither have we. This is a ride we have always skipped, but everything was closing for fireworks and this is one of the few still open. Besides, we had to do a few kid rides for Rachel. We would race by on our way to the "big" rides and she kept saying, "I want to go on that." Finally we did.
The ride turned out to be a tour of cute miniature castles, homes and gardens from various Disney stories. Ironically, of all the boats we rode-Jungle Cruise, Small World, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean-it was the Storybook boats that had the greatest risk of tipping over. The employees had us load in a certain order and really cautioned us not stand up because of the danger of capsizing. We even all had to stand up together at the end of the ride to keep the boat balanced. Really, the little kid ride is the most dangerous boat in Disneyland?

I had video from the World of Color show that we saw at the end of the day, but it didn't load properly. Someday I will get the hang of this video blogger thing. But if you'd like to see the entire show, follow this link to the YouTube video. It's incredible what Disney can create out of water, light, music and fire. Movie scenes were also projected onto a screen of water. This show was wonderful and worth the 40 minute wait in line just to get our fast pass tickets to come back at night.

Fifteen hours later we ended our day. How fun to have kids that can go all day long!

Little Subaru in the Big Woods

While Curt, Kevin, and Erin were river running on the Colorado River for Youth Conference, I took the girls camping at Granite Flats in American Fork Canyon. We had a great short stay--perfect weather and no bugs!

Krysta had to work early the next morning so she and her friend, Dana, just came up for the evening. They were eager to snag some smores.

It's a good thing we had Dana along. She has some mad fire starting skills. Our firewood must have been a little wet, but she got the fire going so we could roast our hotdogs and marshmellows.

The little girls found a perfect tree to climb right in our campsite.

The next morning we went to Tibble Fork, where the girls amused themselves by constructing a "bridge."
It was a great little get-away!

One Day More! Until Summer Vacation!

"One day to a new beginning. Raise the flag of freedom high!"

Good News!

Krysta got into the Dental Hygiene Program at UVU!!

They only take 14 students and she was number 16 on their list. We were bummed when we heard the news a few months ago, but today they called and offered her a spot. Yeah! All of her hard work in anatomy paid off!

Summer!!!!!

Summer Vacation is in two weeks!!!! Not that I am counting. Here are my plans: sleep, free time, only 5 children all day, sleep, catch up on everything, sleep, scrapbook, eat a real home cooked meal, sleep, relax, exercise, sleep, read, play, dejunk the house, camp, vacation, hike, sleep! Can you tell how tiring this year has been?

Sweetheart?

Have you ever been called "sweetheart" or "sweetie" by someone, not a friend or family member, and you know they really mean "stupid"? As in "Sweetie, could you please stop kicking the back of my chair?" Translation, "If you are too dumb to not know that kicking someone's chair is annoying, then I will pretend to tell you nicely." A teacher at school called me sweetie, and I knew she really meant "stupid." I should have kicked the back of her chair!

Idaho-Part II

After escaping the (potential) axe murder in Lava Hot Springs, we rolled along up the state to visit my grandma. Grandma is 97 and has a better mind than I do. I can't remember last week (which may be a good thing). She can remember details and dates like none other. We had a good time visiting with her and my aunt and uncle. My aunt fed us a delicious lunch, and we watched the afternoon session of conference. Although, my late night (almost) conversation with the drunks made me doze off during some of the talks. (Hey, what are the odds of using the words "drunks" and "conference" in the same paragraph?)

After conference we decided to check into our hotel so Curt and Kevin would have time to get to the Priesthood Session. The hotel was nice; the main feature we loved was that the bathroom had a door! After Curt and Kevin left, we went down to check out the pool and get some pool towels. Several children were swimming and enjoying the pool. Even though the hotel was fairly new, I thought the pool had seen some wear and tear. Otherwise, why were so many deep brown gouges scattered around the bottom of the pool? They couldn't possibly be...? No, if that were true then the culprit would surely have told a parent who would have warned everyone to get out! I offered to come right back and take Camille and Rachel swimming, but bless their precious little hearts they wanted to wait for Kevin. That sisterly love saved us all from a horrible fate! Krysta went for a walk an hour later and came back to tell us that the pool was closed for several hours. Only one thing closes a pool for hours folks! The poor maintenance man.

But the evening wasn't lost yet. The Easter Bunny had brought an early present, Princess and the Frog on dvd. We decided to watch it in the room. But our dvd player didn't work. We gave up and went to bed for a well deserved rest. Unfortunately, the words "rest" and "family vacation" are not meant to be used in a sentence. Erin had woken up that morning with an earache that got progressively worse during the day. I spent the night giving her tylenol and warm washcloths to put on her ear. Kevin was at the end of a cold and spent the night expelling mucus from his lungs. Huckaloogie! Huckaloogie! all night long. Just as I was falling into a deep sleep the alarm (which we did not set-we are on VACATION) proceeded to ring at 6:30 am! Curt turned it off, but apparently only hit the snooze. Ten minutes later it blared again. We had to turn the light on to get it all the way off. Welcome Easter Morning!

The good thing was the Easter Bunny came!

All of the girls received crystal pendants that are the same kind of crystals used in the Draper Temple chandelier. Later, I had to reassure Camille that they hadn't been taken FROM the temple. They were just from the same manufacturer. I could tell she wondered if I had reached up (15 feet) and snagged a few crystals.

At least the hotel breakfast was good. After a night like we had we really needed something more filling than pastries, and they had eggs, bacon, and waffles. The plan was to eat, watch conference, and head for home. In another of our series of unfortunate events, channel 5 no longer worked. We watched the news the night before. How could this be? (I later found out it was on another local station, but that didn't help us then.) We went to say good bye to grandma and hurried home hoping to catch the afternoon session on TV at home. However, judging from the painful moaning from the back seat, we knew we had to find a doctor. We stopped in Ogden where Erin was diagnosed with an inner AND outer ear infection. We haven't dealt with ear infections for, oh years and years, but why not this weekend? After we got Erin drugged up with antibiotics and lortab (which didn't help her pain much) we finally made it to home, sweet, home. Spring Break 2010--Good bye!

(P.S. I mentioned to the hotel clerk that our stay was not the best. The alarm going off was the straw that broke the mother's back. Even though some of it was not their fault (they can't help that other people have crappy kids), the manager called me the next day to offer a free nights stay. Idaho-Part III? Here we go again.)