Big Love? Big Deal!

For those who are breathlessly awaiting the conclusion of our Disneyland series (I'm sure there are many), I hope to get that done on Sunday. But in the mean time, I had some thoughts that are just bouncing around my brain that are causing me to not concentrate. So if I write them down, then maybe I won't dwell on them as much and can move on with my day. Here goes:

For those who haven't heard, the HBO series Big Love, about a polygamous family in Utah (Shocker, how come they never have the polygamous family in Rhode Island? Just a thought), is airing an episode that will fully show the temple endowment ceremony. I am not crazy about that. In fact, I find it highly offensive. But several well meaning LDS members have started on-line petitions to boycott HBO, AOL and Time Warner. The Church has taken the stand that they are just basically going to ignore it because to do anything else would only give it more attention and that is the last thing wanted. I can't help but wonder what those who want to start a boycott hope to accomplish. First, asking Mormons to boycott HBO is probably akin to asking the National Organization of The Lactose Intolerant to boycott the dairy industry. I mean how many LDS families actually subscribe to HBO in the first place? Second, isn't there already a national boycott underway against AOL due to the fact that they SUCK and have sucked for the past 15 years!? Finally, an LDS boycott of Time Warner would probably be similar to the Southern Baptists boycotting Disney in the early 90's over the priest's knee being confused with another body part in "The Little Mermaid". After a few years, they called off the boycott and Disney's response was; "Oh, were you gone?"

Now please understand that I get the "it's the principal of the issue" argument. I really do. I guess I am just suffering fatigue from the amount of "it's the principal of the issue" issues that are out there. I seem to get an e-mail every other day or so telling me about another thing I should avoid or a petition to sign. Some I act on and others I take more of this kind of approach. When I look at it logically, I figure no more than 5 million people will see "Big Love". (Personally I believe that is probably stretching it.) That is less than 2% of the American public. Of those two percent, about half probably fall into the category of HBO viewer who believes if a scene doesn't have something naked or bloody in it, then it must be time to get more Cheetos. So with those kind of numbers, I believe the relevance of this whole thing only gets raised when LDS folks rise to the bait and bring it more attention. I believe that is what the producers were and are hoping for by showing it in the first place. By next week, I'm sure 98% of Americans will never even know what happened and another 1.5% will have forgotten. So to HBO and the producers of Big Love I say, is that the best you got? Then Big Whoop!

Disneyland Journal, Part 4. It Was Fun, It Was Fast

It is intended that this post will be a tad shorter as well. I know I said the last one would be (and it was slightly) I am going to skip things that may have been covered in previous posts and/or not that interesting. So, we move to day 4.

8:15 a.m. - When you buy a multi-day pass to Disneyland, they let you get in one day an hour earlier than everybody else who doesn't have a multi-day pass. This causes you to run like mad men to try and get as much in before the lines again start forming. Today was our day and we got there 15 minutes late, so our Magic Morning, as it is called by Disney, was only 45 minutes. But we made the most of it. We had originally intended to meet Danae and Lamar and family for the early morning, but we got a call from Lamar the night before at 10:20 letting us know they were still in a Denny's and Elizabeth was having a small meltdown. They would not be making the early morning with us. Having seen a few meltdowns already ourselves, (including a few by the children) we understood.

8:30 a.m. - Shannon wanted to go on Space Mountain. Braden and Abby wanted no part of it, but Logan said he wanted to. When they got off, Logan had a big ol' smile on his face. I asked if he liked it and he said, "It was fun, it was really fast." So it was decided that I would go on Space Mountain and Logan would go again with me. Braden and Abby? Still wanted no part of it.



9:30 a.m. - We ride the Autopia cars and Logan, Braden and Abby all get to drive their own cars (Shannon rode with Braden and I rode with Logan.) All in all, Logan drove amazingly well for someone who could not see over the steering wheel.



10:15 a.m. - We head over to California Adventure and meet up with Danae and Lamar's family. We were moving toward the Tower of Terror, when Logan saw his hero, Handy Manny. He hopped out of the stroller and went up and got to meet him.

10:30 a.m. - We ride Tower of Terror. Bryson didn't want to. Logan started to not want to as well as we got into the dark places of the ride. However, it was Abby who provided the non-stop screaming once the dropping started. It was so ear piercing that my head still has a ringing in it some what. When it was over, Logan had met his match. He did not want to do that one again at all. Neither did Abby. Braden? He never went on it in the first place but rather waited with Danae and Lizzie.



10:45 p.m. - While Danae and Lamar ride Tower of Terror on a parent pass, we watch all five kids. We decide to take them on Monsters Inc. While we are in line, someone looks at us with amazement and asks if they are all ours. I assure them they are not, but I realize that there are five children total. If we do as Shannon suggests and have another child, then in the future, we would have to answer yes to that question. I begin to hyperventilate.



11:30 a.m. - Today, lunch will consist of pizza (I ended up not being able to get out of it in the end). During this break in the action, Logan announces another poop break is in order. What is it with this kid and needing to go poop when the food arrives? However, I could now provide an in-depth critique of just about every bathroom in Disneyland and California Adventure. Don't worry, I won't.



12:30 p.m. - Once again, time has run out for Abby. It is time for her to ride California Screamin'. She desparately doesn't want to. She actually made herself "sick" to get out of it the day before. Said sickness was cured five minutes after walking away from the ride. But today? She will not get out of it so easy. The day before she had said she needed to eat and she was sick and couldn't ride because she needed dinner. This time, she tried the I am sick because I just ate. Man, this girl will be a lawyer some day. After half an hour in line, she has informed me that she hates me and what an awful father I am to make her go on this. I said, "I know." She rides it...and hates it. I think I could have written that sentence, She hates it...then she rides it and it would have been just as applicable. Oh well, she did it once and that was all we required.



2:00 p.m. - I wore my Valentine's Day gift which was a black T-shirt that said, Trophy Husband. With my own personal melt down at lunch, my exhaustion settling in from not really sleeping well the night before and my allergies kicking into full gear, I truly was some Trophy Husband. We decide our family needs to head back to the hotel for naps. The kids might need one, but Dad definitely does.

5:00 p.m. - Before heading back to the parks, I go over to Subway across from our hotel and get dinner. I was tenth in line, but each person in line suddenly morphed into 3 or 4 when it became their turn to order. However, the worst was the couple who started ordering and kids just kept appearing out of no where. By my last count there were at least 8 kids. An hour later, I finally get to order our food.





7:00 p.m. - We meet up again with Danae and Lamar and fam and have wonderful evening riding as many rides as possible. Due to the showing of Fantasmic, we do pretty well. However, one downside of the night was when I made it to Pirates at the end of Fantasmic with Abby and Elizabeth and there was absolutely no wait. Somehow, everyone else got caught by the crowd before they could get through. It is very depressing waiting for your party and seeing literally hundreds of people going to get in line for a ride you could have just walked on. But as Fantasmic came to and end, the rest of the group couldn't get to me. It led to about 3 or 4 cell phone calls that went something like:

"Where are you?"

"Right on the bridge above you?"

"Ok, see you in a minute."

8 minutes go by, 250 people get in the Pirates line.

"WHERE ARE YOU?"

"They made us go one way, but then they told us we couldn't go this way and sent us back the other way."

"Well get here as quickly as possible."

"WE ARE TRYING!!!

10 minutes later, 300 more people have gotten in line for Pirates.

"WHAT!!!"

"I was just wondering where you were?"

"We are back up on the bridge above you. They won't let us through on either side."

"Ok, try to get here soon."

"Don't call again."

We eventually made it on the ride and the line wasn't too bad in the end.



8:45 p.m. - Tonight is Logan's turn and he has decided he wants a Mickey ears hat and so he and I go in search of a Mickey ears hat while Shannon takes the kids to get ice cream in Downtown Disney. We say goodbye to Danae and Lamar and work out that we will see them the next day. Logan picks a blue Mickey ears hat with silver ears and it lights up when you push a button. We get his name stitched on the back. He is thrilled.

9:00 p.m. - We all meet up and have some wonderful Haagen Daaz ice cream before heading back to the hotel to go to sleep. AHHH, blessed sleep.

I don't think this is any shorter, but oh well, we are almost done if you are finding the time to read all of these. At least we will remember this trip in detail for years to come.

Disneyland Journal, Part 3. Young Lady In The First Row, Is That Your Brother?

As both the previous posts have been fairly lengthy, we will keep this one a little shorter. So, here we go:

8:00 a.m. - Wake Up. The excitement that causes people, especially children, to wake early full of nervous energy on a vacation has worn off, and the walking on concrete for hours on end exhaustion has started to set in. We all roll out of bed with this Disneyfied zombie look that says, "I think I would prefer to sleep for another four hours, but we are going to have fun today, even if it kills us."



10:00 a.m. - Arrive at California Adventure. First thing we do is make a break for the Soarin' Over California ride. I am going to take moment and welch on my deal for a shorter post by saying, I LOVE THIS RIDE. Reasons? 1. The music is some of the most relaxing music ever heard in a theme park. When I hear it anywhere, I automatically get a glazed look in my eye and the knots in my shoulders release just a little bit. 2. What other ride gives you the smell of pines when you fly over the forest, or oranges when you fly over an orange grove? True, if you are on the second or third row, it might allow you to smell the foot odor that can come with walking all day in a theme park, but I am willing to overlook that. 3. I love the sensation of flying. My brother-in-law Cody for his bachelor "party" went skydiving. I would totally do that in a heartbeat. Shannon has pretty strong feelings against that because she feels strongly I should not put myself in a position of dying while we still have four kids at home. But I love that feeling of flying. After this ride, we see it is going to be a busy day at the park and so we fast pass this ride because it is one of our favorites.



10:30 a.m. - While Shannon, Braden and Abby go on the Grizzly River (get soaked on a round raft) Ride, I take Logan into the huge play area with rope bridges. It is funny to me that this trip and the last trip included both my boys just loving the rope or "net" bridges. When we went there the first time, Shannon was terrified to walk on these, but both our boys just eat them up. Abby too for that matter.



11:45 a.m. - Abby is determined to eat at the Corn Dog Castle. They serve the largest corn dogs I have ever seen. She then sits in the stroller while I push it and eats her corn dog. Now that folks is livin' La Vida Loca.



1:45 p.m. - We stop for lunch and I finally get my clam chowder in a bread bowl. Having lost it the way I did the day before, I appreciate it just a little bit more.



2:30 p.m. - Logan has his transcendent moment of the trip. He gets to go with Braden and Shannon to the Playhouse Disney show. Here, he gets to see Mickey, Goofy, Handy Manny and many more in a show where he is invited to sing along and participate regularly. You must understand that Logan is the kid who when he goes to Library day, refuses to sing along or get involved in story time other than to listen. He wants no part of interactivity. Well, I guess Mickey and Handy Manny are enough to get him to shed his inhibitions as he jumped and yelled and sang at full volume through the entire show. He came out and couldn't get the words out fast enough about how good the show was. That is why you go to Disneyland.



3:25 p.m. - We ride Monster's Inc. We had not been on this ride before. It was fun but at the end, Roz is the last thing you see and the car you are in stops right in front of her. At this point, she said to Abby and Logan in the first row of our car, "Young lady in the first row, is that your brother?" Abby looks around clearly embarressed and squeaks out a "yes". "I thought so, you both have two eyes." My kids thought that was the greatest thing ever. They repeated that no less than 50 times over the next two hours. I have to say I am truly impressed how good at Roz's voice all three of them are, especially Abby. She makes me proud with the number of voices and accents she can do well.



4:45 p.m. - After 45 minutes in line, and being talked up by a giant Mr Potato Head, we ride the brand new Toy Story Midway Mania Ride. Awesome!!! I mean you are basically playing a video game in 3-D. How cool is that?!?! Unfortunately, we couldn't turn around and do it again, because as we mentioned, 45 minute wait.

6:00 p.m. - Leave park and go to dinner. In what is quickly becoming a tradition for my wife and I, I order something that is safe and a known quantity. Shannon orders something a bit on the unknown side. She then hates her meal and wishes she had gotten mine. I feel bad for her, but not enough to eat what she got nor give her my dinner.

6:45 p.m. - Tonight it is Braden's turn to go with Dad and he decides he would like to do pin trading. We buy him a lanyard, pins and a lanyard medal. He said it reminded him of getting a medal at gymnastics. Anyway, on the way home, he was so happy he was saying things like, "Everyone who loves their Dad, raise their hand." Then he would raise his hand as high as possible. Now that is a confidence booster. Never mind he was mad at me a mere half hour later, for now it was awesome. He also wanted to ride the parking tram. This probably added an additional 10 minutes to our journey and gave us the opportunity to walk through a darkened parking lot, but when your son is singing your praises the way he was, I would have ridden the parking tram to San Diego and walked back if he wanted me to. One of my best memories with Braden, hands down.

9:00 p.m. - Kids are in bed and as we knew we would before we ever went on this trip, we were in place and ready to watch Lost. That is commitment right there folks. However, I begin to notice that if I lay on the bed in the same position for too long, my bones, muscles and ligaments all begin to protest to the point I can almost hear them screaming. And we have three days left! I am glad I am young at heart. My body is telling me that might be the only young place I have left.

Disneyland Journal, Part 2. Are You Sure You Can't Wait

After a really cool night on Monday, we woke prepared for a full day in Disneyland. How did the day greet us? Completely cloudy and rainy. The following is a timeline of our first day in Disneyland.

9:00 - Twenty minutes before this, it had stopped raining and the sun had shone through the clouds. As we leave the hotel, the clouds are back and it proceeds to rain hard on us for the 1/4 mile walk we have to the gates of Disneyland. Fortunately, Shannon had the foresight to pack us ponchos. Unfortunately, the ponchos only covered the top half of our bodies and our pants got soaked. To add to the joy we were experiencing at this point of our day, Logan was highly frustrated that we made him get in his poncho and ride in the stroller. He is not a baby. He informed us of that many times and felt it a personal insult to have to get in that stroller. For anyone familiar with Logan's grumpy face, that is the look he had the entire ride to Disneyland. Boy are we getting off to a good start.

9:20 - Arrive at Disneyland. Just at the point where we are able to reach cover from the rain...it stops raining and the sun comes out. This is a good thing, but you still find it hard not to ask why couldn't it have come out twenty minutes before.

9:30 - We decide our first ride of the day will be Buzz Lightyear. As we get going, Logan begins to understand that this ride is going to take place in the dark. Not crazy about that idea and also a little intimidated that a full size Zurg is shooting at him. Logan's view of the ride...We don't need to go on that one again right now. Meanwhile Abby and Braden rode in their own car and spun that car continuously while on the ride. Their score was abysmal but they sure enjoyed getting dizzy on the ride.














9:45 - Next we went to Fantasyland and went through the newly opened Sleeping Beauty's castle. We arrived at the entry at the exact same moment as some other folks and being raised by goodly parents, we extended the courtesy of letting them go in first. In retrospect, I should been like most everyone who lives in Southern California and shoved my way in front. To understand, this attractions is a narrow darkened hallway with stairs that goes through the main Sleeping Beauty Castle while providing different windows that have scenes from the movie Sleeping Beauty. When someone is ahead of you, it is very hard to get past them. The people we let go ahead of us decided it was important to get a digital picture of every single window and effect. If a window had two or three effects, they would get a picture of all three. Also, the lady taking the pictures needed to make sure that every picture was perfect so there were repeats at several points. Meanwhile, Logan is again not crazy about the dark and the longer these people in front of us take, the more people are backing up behind us wanting to move forward. Also take into account most of these people had experienced the same rain we had and it was starting to have a nice musty/wet dog smell. I don't think I have been that close to wanting to be rude in a Disney park since Shannon barely stopped me from putting a lit cigarette into the pocket of the man in line in front of us to get food at Disney's Animal Kingdom after he smoked it right there in line and then dropped it on the ground still smoldering. I had picked it up and was right there when Shannon made me stop. Anyway, I was about there with these folks.














10:00 - Small World. Logan begins to loosen up. I think he realized darkness was going to be a part of just about everything we did and it wasn't necessarily all bad.














10:20 - We head to Toon Town. Logan gets to meet Mickey. Just like with Braden before him, this is one of the highlights we will never forget. Complete awe.

10:30 - We go on the Toon Town roller coaster. Logan loves it. Braden did not want to go and begged not to go until we made him get on. Once it was over, he said, "That was quite fun" and begged to go again.

11:30 - We decide to get the kids pizza in Toon Town. Shannon decides to join them and gets some for herself. I choose to hold out for better food later. This would come back to bite me.

12:30 - We ride Thunder Mountain Railroad. Logan laughs the entire ride and begs to go again. If you ask him today, he will tell you this was his favorite ride of the whole trip.

1:15 - We can put Braden off no longer and go to ride the rockets. In case you are not keeping track, we are not doing a very good job of staying in one part of the park very well. That equates to a lot of walking.

1:45 - In keeping with the tradition of walking all over the park, we then go to Pirates and Haunted Mansion. Kids give them the thumbs up.














2:15 - We get our first Churro of the trip. I love Churros. I don't care that we spent $45 on Churros while we were there, they were worth it. Isn't it amazing how out of whack your financial sensibilities can get while at Disneyland? Following this, Braden is done asking. He now demands that we ride the train.

3:00 - While trying to get on Splash Mountain, the guy at the front of the ride tells us that Logan is probably too short so he sends us to the loading area for them to test him again. When we get there, they tell us he is fine and to wait right there. They then put us on the next log. AWESOME...SPLASH MOUNTAIN, NO WAIT! Abby and Braden don't like it and Logan doesn't care for it either. But his reasoning is that he got wet. He demanded we go back to the hotel immediately and change his clothes. How about the long drop? No big deal, but in case we missed it...he is wet and this must be addressed immediately. He is quite irate when we choose to not deal with this pressing matter.

3:45 - Logan was not crazy about going on Haunted Mansion again, but Shannon, Abby and Braden want to. So I am now going to take the opportunity to get some good food while they go on that ride and I will keep Logan with me. I get Clam Chowder in a bread bowl and as I sit down to take my first bite...Logan needs to go pee. I finally find a table away from everyone else very near a restroom. I run into the restroom, hold Logan up to the urinal and pull his pants up the second he is done to get back to my food before they take it away. I think we pulled that off in less than 90 seconds. Awesome. I then sat down to my delicious lunch. 10 bites in, Logan says, "I gotta go poop." "Can it wait?" "Noooo." So back we go into the restroom. There will be no rushing this and when I return, my breadbowl and wonderful soup are gone.

4:30 - We had told Abby she would have to ride Indiana Jones when we went. She was very nervous about this, but the time had come. I took her and we got in a 25 minute line. After waiting for a half an hour, we get to the front of the line and...it breaks down. We ended up waiting it out and it only took an additional 15 minutes, but still. She is now a nervous wreck. As it turns out, this ends up being her second favorite ride of the trip.














5:45 - Nemo followed by the monorail. Both big hits except that Abby is freezing in the monorail because you can't roll the windows up.

6:45 - We leave the park for the day and go to dinner in Downtown Disney. As we pass under the railroad track, the train is there getting loaded for its next run. Braden calls out to the engineer, "I love your train."

7:30 - Time to head back to the hotel. Logan is cold and so we wrap him in his blanket and put him in the stroller. Funny, he isn't near as opposed to it now as he was earlier. No more than fifty yards and he is asleep.

7:45 - Each night, I would take a different child and let them pick something they wanted and just spend some time together. Tonight it was Abby's turn and we set off. We had discussed getting her some pins to do pin trading, but Downtown Disney has a huge Build a Bear workshop and she decided a new outfit for Tara was more important. So we hung out in the Build a Bear store and eventually, Tara got a Camp Rock shirt with a denim skirt and tennis shoes.

8:00 - Abby and I stop at the Haagen Daaz store and eat some of the best ice cream EVER!!! It was freezing and we were really cold but who cares. It was awesome.

8:30 - Shannon's shoes had let water in during our walk to the parks that morning. They never dried out. When she finally took her socks off, white prunes were attached to her ankles. A bed has never felt so good.

Disneyland Journal, Part 1. Going To Disneyland? Don't Start In Prescott.

As I sat down to try and blog about our recent Disneyland vacation, I realized that trying to recap it all would take a whole lot of time and I would leave stuff out and the post would be eons long, so I decided to do it a little different. I will give a running journal of our days, one day at a time over the course of the next couple weeks. This way, I can cover everything and get more pictures in and hopefully keep the posts manageable. We will see how it goes. With that said, the first day of our vacation went as such:

10:05 - Kissed Kate and said goodbye as we left her with Shannon's Aunt Charlene in Prescott. Stopped and went back and kissed Kate again.

10:09 - Got all the kids loaded in the van and then couldn't help it. I went back in and kissed Kate again and tried not to cry.

10:13 - Realized I had left my Dr. Pepper in the refrigerator and went back in to get the most important traveling item I had. Would rather forget all hair care items than my Dr. Pepper...Just checking if you are awake out there.

10:15 - Kissed Kate a third time and finally get out the door. At this point I lost an argument with Shannon about whether we really needed to leave Kate at all. She would be fiiinnnneeee!!!! Oh well, here we go.

11:15 - Braden is car sick. I am pretty sure he doesn't really know what car sick means. To him, I think car sick is that he is sick of being in the car. However, we are on a curvy mountain road (if you want to go to Disneyland, never start from Prescott, AZ) so we let him out of the car for some fresh air. He gets back in and goes to sleep. When he awakens, all is fine.

11:45 - Not being on an interstate is proving problematic. Shannon is starting to really need a restroom. However, the "towns" we are passing through on this back way are proving not to be ideal bathroom locations. I love my hometown, but imagine trying to figure out where to use the bathroom in Duncan if you were passing through. By the way, Duncan would have been the biggest town we passed through if it were on this highway. We did see one promising place, Big Mama's Roadhouse, but the sign underneath saying, Bikers Welcome, tipped the balance in favor of not stopping.

11:55 - Pass through Yarnell, AZ. Prior to this trip, I didn't know there was a Yarnell, AZ. I mention this only because Shannon saw that they had a museum which had a big sign announcing, "We Have Brand New Dead Things!"

12:25 - Pass through Hope, AZ. It took 20 seconds and at the end of the town, a sign stating, "You are now beyond Hope." This had special significance for us as Shannon had still not found a suitable bathroom. Also, we had passed no less than 15 RV parks during this stretch and realized the movie, RV, is not that much of an exageration. Hallelujah, I-10 is only 10 minutes away.

12:45 - Reach Quartzsite, AZ. Stop at McDonald's and Shannon finally gets to much needed bathroom, except...line is out the door. Could someone explain Quartzsite to me? Thousands of senior citizens gather each winter to park their RVs five feet from each other and go look for rocks...That's it as far as I can tell. Town doesn't even appear to have a pizza restaurant firmly attached to the ground, but has the largest RV dealership I have ever seen. I am sure it makes sense to someone, I am just not that someone.

2:30 - Shannon again is needing a restroom. She started with four water bottles in the front seat. You do the math. However, rain has begun to fall in CA (yes, we had made it to CA) and traffic on the Interstate has begun to crawl. We covered 10 miles in 1/2 hour. None of those miles happened to have a bathroom.

6:30 - (This is the last entry with Arizona time. The local time in CA was 5:30, we shall now refer to everything in the pacific time frame.) We finally reach our hotel. If you do the math, that is 8 hours and 15 minutes in the car. Sure glad we were able to break up that 9 hour drive from Thatcher to Anaheim by stopping in Prescott over night. Very glad at this point Shannon won the argument about bringing Kate.














6:30 - Arrive in Disneyland. Logan very very excited and our first ride is....The Disneyland Railroad. It had been raining all day, but had blown over. However, still pretty cold. In our previous trips we had never made it on the train and so this was all of our kids' first ride on the train. Result...Braden loves it and demands a verbal contract that we ride it 5 times every day that we are in CA.














7:30 - Logan had said he wanted his first ride to be the Dumbos. He changed his mind when he saw the train, but the Dumbos were then officially next on the agenda. As we get on the Dumbos, it begins to rain again. Did I mention it was cold?














7:40 - We sit down in the Village Haus to eat dinner. My favorite part of Disneyland is...I spent $18 for my kids to eat Mac and Cheese. I don't complain about the prices because it is what it is. But the irony of this particular meal, knowing that Shannon is usually able to get a box of mac and cheese that will feed all three for 50 cents, is not lost on me.

8:40 - Fireworks start. This is the whole reason I paid for tickets for this day. It is the only day they will have the fireworks and I love them. Amazingly, they did not get rained out. For the first time ever, Braden actually watches the fireworks without freaking out. Plugged his ears, but watched them. Logan however, hated them. I held him as he cried a bit and he buried his face in my shoulder. He was so scared that he...fell asleep on my shoulder. What do I expect from a four year old who just spent 8+ hours in the car. What this does mean is that I get to carry him all the way back to the hotel. My back was a little tired when we got back. Oh if I had only known what was to come.

Good Times With Mickey

I will admit up front that I have an unhealthy fascination with Disneyland. This is not to be confused with "All Things Disney" because I refuse to buy the direct to video sequals of the Disney classic cartoons, I think the Power Rangers are possibly the result of a very bad acid trip, I feel the Disney Channel could be destroying my children's brain cells and I know that any company which fascilitates the return of Billy Ray Cyrus deserves to have their stock price cut in half on principal alone. But when it comes to Disneyland...there is nothing like it. I have some of my greatest memories there. They are as follows:






-I can barely remember when I was 4 and I went the first time. Mickey Mouse kissed me on the head, I met Captain Hook and I told my mom after we rode Space Mountain that we didn't need to go on that one anymore.






-My second visit as a teen is remarkable for one reason only. It provided me with the only picture I know of where my dad has a beard. He was growing one for the Duncan Centennial's Beard Growing Contest and I got a picture. That has never been seen again.






-We went there on our honeymoon. Of the parts we can talk about, it was my first time to ride on Indiana Jones. That is one of my all time favorite rides. It was funny because Shannon had never been on it either. If you have been on this ride, you know that the queue to get to the ride is incredibly long and incredibly detailed in its decorating. After about two full minutes of walking, we began to wonder if the queue was the ride. Finally got to the ride and...AWESOME! Also, we bought matching shirts that were some of the best t-shirts we have ever owned. They were green and very good looking and they lasted forever. Also on that trip, we went to Universal Studios. On the ET ride, you would give someone at the beginning of the ride your name and then ET would say goodbye to you by name at the end of the ride. We got such a kick out of giving out fake names and having ET try and say them. I don't remember what we said other than I said Lionel at one point. My gosh were we really that juvenile? The answer is yes and if that ride still existed, I would do it again.






-We went again on our five year anniversary. California Adventure had opened just three weeks before we went and it was so awesome. It was pouring rain the day we went to California Adventure and we bought ponchos and then rode the Grizzly River Run over and over. We got very wet, but who cared. We were getting wet anyway. Also, it was our first time to experience the best theme park ride EVER (Didn't I recently make a comment that I shouldn't make claims like that...Oh well, screw it, it is the best theme park ride EVERRRRRR!!!!!)Soarin' Over California. I think we rode on it 5 times that day and we would have done it more had we had the time. I still ride that ride multiple, multiple times, everytime we go.






-Shannon's Dad passed away five months after our five year anniversary trip. To help pull the family out of the funk that we were all in, I suggested to David maybe we should plan a trip to Disneyland. It became a rallying point. We were all so excited. Shannon and I, Marilyn, Cody, David and Clinton went and I have to say, it is still probably my favorite trip ever. They talk about the Disney "magic", well I saw it on full display as three boys (you can't even really call Cody a boy at that point)experienced Disneyland for the first time. It also provided some joy and happiness that the family hadn't had for a while. It was so funny trying to convince the guys to leave just about every ride we went on and go to the next because they thought what we had just done was so cool. Clinton was a bit nervous about California Screamin' at first, but when he finally went on it, it was his favorite. I think he and Cody went on it like 9 times in a row because there was no line. Absolutely a great trip.






-The first time Abby went, she was pretty nervous about everything and then she had six adults (Shannon, me, my parents and Danae and Lamar) trying to get her to "look at this" and "look at that". It was all a little overwhelming for her. Then after about an hour, we went to Toon Town and all of a sudden, she says, "I want to get down and see Pluto." We didn't see Pluto, but we let her out of the stroller and she ran over to a Pluto who was squatting down at kid level and she just hugged him and petted him. Heart melter right there. Same when she got to hug Cinderella and Aurora. This trip also provided the great story of Shannon and the berm between the freeways while we were dead stopped in traffic at 10 p.m. at night.






-Braden's first trip was great, but the best was when we finally made our way to Toon Town at night. We just hadn't gotten there yet and so it was dark and mostly deserted. We went through Mickey Mouse's house and then at the end, we were the only people there and didn't realize that there was a meet Mickey area at the end. They opened the door and had our family come in and seeing the look in Braden's eyes was a once in a lifetime experience. He couldn't blink and he couldn't take his eyes off Mickey. We got it on video and it is one of our prized possessions.




So as we get ready to go again, we are so excited and look forward to what memories we will add to our already great stash. We are also super excited for Logan to experience this place. So is he.

Potpourri Or Mini Posts 2

The Legend of Sleepy Church Street Canal
For those who haven't heard, a dead body was found in the Church Street Canal Monday. When I first heard about it, I was told it was a young woman or girl in just her underwear which implied the worst. Within hours, conjecture and rumors were swirling around the valley about the "murder" victim. As it turned out, it was an older lady in her fifties who had been known to have drug and mental illness issues. She apparently had been making her way alongside the canal and decided most of her clothing was a nuisance. After a while, she apparently made her way under the bridge or somewhere in the canal and it is believed, succumbed to the elements and froze. Very tragic. But it was interesting to be reminded of just how small a town we live in. Had this occured in our old neighborhood of Gilbert or Mesa, it would have been viewed as just another day in paradise, but in Thatcher, not so much. My friend, Rhett Dodge, whose home was near where the body was found, told me he had a lady come into his business and emphatically declare that anyone who had a daughter should get her home immediately because they had found three dead bodies between Safford and Central, all young women, and they had had their heads shaved. Another rumor floating around was that there were three young women found under the Pima bridge with their hands and feet cut off. My aren't we a morbid little group here.

Compare this to the morning I went out my front door in Gilbert to go to work and four police officers with shotguns and shields were walking down my sidewalk and asked (told) me to go back inside my home. Apparently the man who lived in the home right across the street from us had gone and got his ex-wife's current husband and kidnapped him. When the kidnapped individual tried to escape, my neighbor shot him. We knew none of this at the time, we just huddled in our home praying not to be shot. Shannon got to be on the news later that day in the typical "He was a quiet kind of guy" interview. But the next day, life returned to normal without much thought to it anymore. This, by the way, happened in the "#1 Housing development in the Phoenix Area." My what a difference a few million people make.

Logan Quote
As we get ready to go on our Disneyland trip, I, as any good Disney nerd would do, ordered the Disneyland Vacation Planning DVD even though I could probably make one after all of our trips. Anyway, it came and I had the kids sit down and watch it with me. Right as it started, Logan said, "Is that Disneyland?" I said, "Yes." To which he replied, "So Disneyland is a real place?" I guess we have provided a little to much hype and not enough solid proof.

Bailouts and Stimulus Packages
Can we bankrupt the country and mortgage our grandchildren's future? YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN!

Root Canal Update
Shannon finally reached a milestone in her root canal saga. After three visits and 6 hours in the chair, they finally were able to finish the basic root canal and fill in the "mysterious void" that appeared during her second visit with some sort of oral cement concoction. Now we get to wait to see if it gets infected and puss starts gushing out of her mouth. Nothing says Happy Valentine's Day like your sweetheart oozing puss from her satanically possessed tooth. If all goes well, after 6 months, she will return to have a crown placed on said possessed tooth. If all does not go well, Shannon will likely have to have the tooth removed and we will be forced to move to Mississippi where she will not feel out of place. In what I am sure is an unrelated topic, our dentist is finishing up a major home expansion project that appears to be going very well. Just kidding Dr. Lee. Our dentist is in our ward and he has been great and more than fair. We love Dr. Lee. Any contribution we could make to his new home addition is done so happily.

Lost
Lost is the best show on TV. Period. Actually, period is kind of weak after a declaration of that kind. So, Lost is the best show on TV. Exclamation Point. I have realized just how often I make very bold declarations. The best this and the best that. Oh well, at least no one can say I don't take a firm stand on things, regardless of how silly those stands may be.

Vacation Hallucinations
We must be getting close to our Disneyland trip. Everything is reminding me of something. I walked into the hospital cafeteria and smelled something that made me think of how much I was looking forward to a Churro. I have caught myself with my eyes shut a couple of times at my desk daydreaming about being on the Soarin' Over California ride. Lastly, a couple of time, I have smelled a slightly musty smell that isn't necessarily unpleasant, but it has reminded me of the ride queues for both Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain. My gosh, I need this vacation.