Vacation!

Earlier this year, Will and I discussed taking a trip for our 10th anniversary, which was in July.  As we looked at different trips and prices, we decided that for the same money, we’d rather take a vacation that the whole family could enjoy.  Will and I took a mini-vacation by ourselves to Las Vegas in July, then we booked a Disneyland vacation for UEA break.  In the 10 years we’ve been married, we have never taken a vacation with just our little family.   We decided it was time!

I’m so glad we did.  We had so much fun.  Neither Will nor I had been since we were teenagers.  And yes, the crowds were just as bad as I imagined, but we still had a really great time.  This trip was planned long before moving was even on the radar, but it was just what we needed right now.  The knot in my stomach all but disappeared for a few days - and it was wonderful. 

Jacey’s Favorites:  Meeting Rapunzel; Splash Mountain; and Soarin’ over California.  Least favorite:  Indiana Jones. (A side note:  it was REALLY hard for her to narrow down her list of favorites.  She also really loved the Matterhorn and Grizzley River Run.)

Londyn’s Favorites:  Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and the carousels.  Least favorites:  anything too fast (including all rollercoasters) and Soarin’ over California . 

Calvin’s Favorites:  Toy Story Mania, Ariel’s Undersea Adventure (particularly the “under the sea” part), and Francis’ Ladybug Boogie.  Least favorite:  standing in line while overtired.

Cynthia’s Favorites:  Toy Story Mania, meeting all the characters, Parade.  Least favorite:  World of Color, but only because of the logistics.  The show itself was amazing.  Also Space Mountain made me sick. 

Will’s Favorites:  The kids’ excitement as they waited on Main Street for the rope to drop on the first day (it was palpable); Toy Story Mania; riding his childhood-favorite rides with our kids.  Least favorite:  (I forgot to ask him but I’m going to guess Space Mountain or the Mickey Fun Wheel, because they both made him sick.)

Things we all enjoyed:  The Aladdin show at California Adventure (even Calvin sat and watched without having to be taken out), Peter Pan (we started there each day); Monsters Inc.; It’s A Small World; Gadget’s Go Coaster (the one roller-coaster Londyn liked); Ariel’s Undersea Adventure.  We were all equally bummed that Pirates of the Caribbean was closed. :(

Some other random observations from Disneyland Rookies:

1. Being there when the park opens is totally worth it. 
2. Having a plan for the day is also a must.  A friend tipped me off to RideMax, and it was a good investment in my opinion.  We only followed our plan loosely, but we both decided it was worth it if only because it forced us to plan out our day.
3. I thought that the character dining with the princesses would be the way to go because I have girls who love princesses.  I wish I’d listened to my sister and done Goofy’s Kitchen instead.  It was fun to meet the princesses, but the food wasn’t all that great, and we probably could have met most of the princesses by waiting in line at the park.  I wish we could have met a few more non-princess characters, and the dinner probably would have been the best place to do that. 
4. We had 3 days in the park, and 2.5 probably would have been just right.  We killed a little time the last day.  But I’d rather do 3 days than 2 – I think 2 days would have left us feeling like it wasn’t enough time. 
5. We told the girls that we would buy souvenirs on the last day, so to look around and think about the ONE thing they wanted to choose.  While I still think this was a good approach to keep them from constantly asking to buy things, the shops were SO crowded by the end of the day on Saturday.  And picked over.  We’ll definitely buy souvenirs earlier in the day next time. 
6. We took PBJs, snacks, and drinks into the park with us, and I will definitely do that again.  Not only was it cheap but it was also super convenient.
7. My sister-in-law loaned me her hip hammock, and it was a life saver.  I figured Calvin would spend most of his time in the stroller, but since we mostly did rides he could go on, he spent a lot of time in line with us.  And most of that time he was in the hip hammock.  It’s genius.  Totally saved my arms.

Will and I spent the first half of our drive home planning our next trip.  We had such a fun time.  Other than being a little over-tired at times, the kids were amazingly well behaved and fun to be with.  It wasn’t easy to come home.  At dinner last night we all brain-stormed ways we could make a living by going to Disneyland every day.  Unfortunately I don’t think we came up with anything workable.  But we’ll keep trying.  :)

The post I’ve been putting off.

I’m not sure why.  Well, kind of I am.  It’s partially because I haven’t had much time.  But it’s also because I am just not quite sure where to start!  Maybe at the beginning.

The Sunday before school started, Marie invited my girls over for a sleepover.  We walked them to her house, borrowed a movie to watch, and walked back home.  On our walk home we started in on  a conversation we have every couple of months.  It goes something like this:  “Should we have another baby?  When?  Where would we put another baby?  We’d have to finish the basement.  Do we really want to put that kind of money into this house?  How long are we planning on staying in this house anyway?  Maybe we should just move.  Can we afford to move?  What is even out there in our price range?”  Etc. etc. etc.

We have this conversation a lot.  It usually ends with a big “I don’t really know” from both of us.  But on that Sunday night we crossed a switch point.  (You know that Pres. Hinckley quote right?)  Instead of sitting down to watch the movie we borrowed, we got on the internet and started browsing the MLS listings. 

And we found something.

And we felt something. 

And we fell in love with it.

And we made an appointment to go see it.

And the next night we saw it.

And fell more in love with it.

And put in an offer.

This is where things got stressful.  We started getting our house ready to sell.  We de-junked.  We de-cluttered.  We organized.  We cleaned.  All while waiting to hear back about this offer we’d made.  And mentally moving out the whole time. 

And then we heard back:  they took another offer that came in the day after ours.  We were bummed.  Super bummed.  And we couldn’t figure out why we had both been so sure that this was supposed to happen. 

We looked at our options.  And after a lot of back and forth, we decided to put our faith in that feeling we had had earlier and go ahead and put our house up for sale.  We had no idea if it would sell or not.  We figured that if it didn’t sell, we would finish the basement and stick around for quite a while longer.

We never expected the actuality, which was that we would have 4 offers within a week, and end up selling for more than our asking price.  This just confirmed to us that all of this was supposed to happen.  I just knew that that other deal was going to fall through and we would end up getting the house we had both felt so strongly about.

So we moved.  Quickly.   From the day we listed it to the day we closed was less less than a month.  We put most of our worldly belongings into a storage unit and moved in with my mom and dad, who have been so gracious and welcoming and patient as we’ve made ourselves at home with our little herd of rug rats.  And while I did prepare for the possibility of being here for several months (I remembered to get the kids’ stockings out of the Christmas boxes before sending them to storage!) I was pretty confident that we would get a phone call saying that we could make a new offer on the house we loved.

And then . . . we didn’t.  It sold.  People move in.  People who weren’t us.  I have to admit – I had a good cry that night.  I felt a lot of confusion.  And I second-guessed this whole decision.  And I cursed hind-sight.  If only we had known . . . how quickly our house would sell . . . the price it would sell for . . . that another offer was coming in on the new house . . . so many things we could have done differently.  But we didn’t know.  I think we did the best we could with what we did know.  And it didn’t work out.

And so by the morning I stopped crying.  And now I CHOOSE to believe that this is still happening for a reason.  And I am CHOSING to be patient and trust that Heavenly Father, who knows me and loves me and my little family, has something in store for me if I am patient enough to receive it. 

And so that’s where the story ends for now.  I’ll admit – I’m stressed.  I didn’t expect the feelings that not having a home of my own would trigger.  When our agent called last week to tell us the sale had funded, she said “Congratulations!  You’re homeless!”  I tried to laugh but the really knot in my stomach was tightening. 

I am anxious to get into a home.  But I really do think that I need to be patient with Heavenly Father’s timing to see how this is all going to play out.  I know there’s a reason, even though I can’t see it yet. 

Londyn turns 5!

Londyn had a fantastic birthday yesterday!  She reveled in the fact that it was her special day.  I even heard her tell Jacey “Mom will always say yes to me today, because I’m the birthday girl.”  She’s right though – there wasn’t much she asked for that we didn’t accommodate.  Granted, she didn’t ask for much.

Londyn’s birthday has a way of sneaking up on me.  I wanted to make this birthday special since last year was kind of chaotic.  Unfortunately, our lives have kind of flipped upside down these last few weeks, since we sold our house last week and are in the middle of packing and moving.  (More on that later.)

Londyn had been talking about having a party at Chuck E. Cheese, and I decided to encourage that since our house is in disarray, and my free time has been eaten up with packing.  We invited her cousins to join us and it turned out to be a pretty great birthday.  Which kind of humbled me and reminded me that a successful birthday for my children has very little to do with how cute I make the invitations or how many hours I spend making a cake.  Londyn was in heaven with her store-bought Tangled cake and the full attention of Chuck E. Cheese himself. 

(Pardon the messy faces and unedited pictures.)

Londyn also had her 5-year well child visit this morning.  I was surprised to hear the Dr. say that she may need glasses within the next year or so.  Other than that, she is doing awesome.  He asked me what concerns I had for her and I honestly couldn’t think of anything.  In the past, this is the part of the appointment when I would bring up the parenting challenges I was having with Londyn, and how I couldn’t figure out a discipline method that works for her.  But I am pleased to say that life with Londyn has been pretty nice lately.  I’m not sure what has changed, maybe a little more maturity, or maybe a little more patience from her parents.  But whatever it is, she is pretty delightful these days. 

A few observations of Londyn at 5:

Londyn is a great helper with Calvin, and they are pretty good buds.  She loves to put on music and see him dance.  He loves to play chase with her. 

She is loving being back in preschool.  Which is making it even harder for me to decide if I’m going to leave her in and drive her down, or pull her out when we move.

Londyn is in a major phase right now of playing with action figure type toys for HOURS and HOURS.  I honestly can’t tell if she prefers to have Jacey there or if she’d rather play alone.  She’s pretty content to play by herself.  Listening in on her can be pretty amusing.

We had a ward activity on Saturday and Londyn’s primary teacher came over and talked to me for a while.  She was telling me how much she was going to miss having Londyn in class – that she is always reverent and well behaved.  I can’t tell you how much exchanges like that mean to me as a mother. 

I’ve caught Londyn teaching herself to read.  She’s started writing “notes” that actually resemble real words, which tells me she’s trying to sound things out.  And every once in a while she’ll just read a random word.  I’ll say “How did you know what that said?”  And she’ll say “I just looked at the letters.”  I have done absolutely zero teaching her how to read, so I assume she’s teaching herself.   It makes me a little sad, since I know she would have been ready for Kindergarten this year if only she hadn’t missed the deadline by 12 lousy days.  I’m hoping that once the dust from this move settles I can work with her a little bit more.

And finally, a little observation of what is going on around me as I write this post.  Londyn is dancing in the living room with the giant Chuck E. Cheese mylar balloon that came home with us last night, singing a made-up song.  “Oh Chuck E., you’re my prince.  Who is the Chuck E. Cheesiest?  Chuck E!”

I love her imagination.  I love being her mom.