10 thoughts on our California vacation

Thoughts on our trip:
1. If traffic laws were similar to pedestrian traffic at Disney Land, we would have a far less successful nation.
2. There are a lot of Mormons at Disney Land. Since only (roughly) 10% of church membership wear BYU sweat shirts, and I must have seen a dozen BYU sweat shirts, I'm guessing upwards of 25% of the people there were Mormon.
3. You can go to Disney Land just for the flowers. They are lovely!
4. Disney Land isn't such a happy place that kids don't ever cry. Nor that moms don't yell at their crying kids.
5. Captain E.O. is super stupid, but was Michael Jackson's prime time for looking good. When he appeared, everyone applauded, including me.
6. I had to take lots of pictures of the Dumbo ride because when I went to Disney Land with my niece Kaila that was the only ride she wanted to do, so as a 12 year old that was my Disney Land experience--Dumbo.
7. We opted not to go to Sea World and rather stay at the beach, and I think we had just as much fun.
8. Military lodges are the best place to meet friends, especially for kids. Every time my kids have fond memories of new friends they made.
9. My kids can spend hours and hours in the sand and not ever get bored (which explains our giant sand pit in the back yard).
10. Family vacations are the best. They are worth the long drive and the money spent. Really.

Rachel

Rachel has been home from school with pink eye for a few days this week. When she went back to school she decided that she needed to go to the nurses office. She LOVES the nurses office, something about being sick and having special attention paid is so motivating to her. She went to get her eye checked, since, well, it hadn't been checked in a while. She wasn't feeling sick and her eye had no pink it it, but somehow I got a call to come and get her. So today when she went to school I gave her explicit instructions to NOT go to the nurses office.

Yesterday I was doing her hair and noticed that all the clippies were not on the clippy board. I asked her where they were, and she answered as casually as possible "I know, I saw that they weren't there and wondered where the hell they were." I just laughed, so much that I didn't even correct her.

Today on the way home from piano lessons Rachel got a special treat from her teacher for practicing a certain amount of time. She came into the car and read the back of her gummy life savors. One was blackberry flavor. Now, I've been trying to teach my kids to try new things, even if they don't think they'll like them. Rachel is one of the worst at this. But when she read the flavor options she said very sweetly: hm, I've never tasted blackberry, I might not like it--but I'm going to try it. How brave of her, to taste a new flavor of candy. I'm getting somewhere.