Adventure Mouse

If you know my family, then you know that I am probably not the bravest kid in the bunch.

I blame it on the fact that I'm so much smaller than the rest of them.

I mean, I'm not saying I'm a total pansy... but I tend to be somewhat risk averse.

As the oldest kid, though, there was a time when I was the bravest kid by default. And that was the case when we went to Disneyland back in 2000.

Little us in Disneyland

Dad grew up in LA, so he'd basically been to Disneyland a hundred million times. (I was born in Orange County and my parents took me to Disneyland a couple times, but I was so little that I couldn't remember it.) My poor mom gets pretty motion sick on a lot of the rides in the park, so between that and having a small child with him on his most recent trips, it had been a while since he'd gone on any rides besides, say, Peter Pan.

During our trip in 2000, Dad quickly recruited me, as the oldest child, to accompany him on all the "big kid" rides. You know, like Space Mountain, the Matterhorn, that kind of thing. (Occasionally Jason joined us too--but that didn't always go so well. Poor little kindergartner Jason got so scared on Space Mountain he attempted to climb out of the ride. :) I was a little scared going into some of them, because I didn't know what to expect. But it turned out none of the rides were scary. I liked them, in fact. And I was so proud to be the brave kid that Dad took with him on all the "high adventure" rides. He called me his "Adventure Mouse." :) Which at the time seemed a little weird to me, because mice aren't brave really... I think I just realized right this second that he said mouse because we were at Disneyland. Duh. Haha, can't believe it took me this long...

Fast forward now to last year, 2015. Our family (minus missionary Jason) ventured back to Disneyland for the first time in over 10 years. Dad, Kristie, and I went on several of the more intense rides (ha, intense... well, you know, for Disneyland) but not all of them. I offered to go on Tower of Terror and California Screamin' (California's big roller coaster with one of those big loop de loop things) but in the end, I wimped out. I remembered how as a child, I hated Splash Mountain because of the drop. Why would I want to go on a ride that was all drops?!? And as silly as it sounds, it was the Ferris Wheel in California Adventure that convinced me not to go on California Screamin'. Being up in that Ferris Wheel for so long triggered my fear of heights BIG time, and as I sat up there, watching the roller coaster shoot past even HIGHER than the ferris wheel, I lost all my nerve. (Somewhere Melissa is reading this and laughing... she's seen how I think I love ferris wheels until I get on them, and then I FREAK out. :)

On the Ferris Wheel of doom

I knew my dad was a little disappointed, but I told him I couldn't go on those rides after all. I thought Kristie might, because she is an unstoppable force of nature, but she got so shook up on the Star Tours ride that she opted out of the other rides out of fear of getting sick.

So, this year! This year I was DETERMINED to reclaim my title as the Adventure Mouse and go on ALL the rides! And I did. :) It's dumb, but I'm super proud. I went on Tower of Terror twice and California Screamin' twice. And I loved them! Who knew?!?!? I think what I'm most proud of is that somehow, this time I wasn't even afraid prior to the rides.

This was the second time, where I was even brave enough to give a thumb's up before we dropped.

California Screamin'. You can tell I didn't know where the camera was because I didn't smile haha.

We even went on Splash Mountain again and it didn't even phase me. I like it now. :)

Anyway, basically I am celebrating overcoming some of my childhood fears. :D I have officially conquered all of Disneyland. I can go on basically any ride without fear! (Except for the Teacups... those would make me puke.)

We'll see if I hold on to this title in the future. I don't know when/if we'll go to Disneyland again, but we spent lots of time talking about what Jason and Kristie would do if we had them with us... whether they'd come with me and Dad on Tower of Terror and California Screamin' or not. Not really sure how it would go. But I think seeing their wimpy big sister rock those rides would convince them to give 'em a try. :)

Disneyland!

They call Disneyland the happiest place on Earth, and for me, it definitely ranks in the top 5. Going to Disneyland relaxes me like nothing else. It unlocks my inner child at her happiest and best, no cares in the world and no reasons to stress. No matter what happens, I am happy and determined to have a perfect day.

Our family is back in Disneyland this week! We landed in CA late yesterday, and we'll be spending 3 days in the park. Today was probably the busiest I've seen Disneyland. Most of our trips have been in the off-season, when we could walk on to rides as many times as we wanted, and laugh at the ridiculous size of the waiting area. Today we got to see what those waiting areas look like filled with people.

This was a big surprise, because today was forecast to be the least crowded day all year. Of course, we probably weren't the only ones to hear that, so maybe that's why it ended up pretty busy haha. And when we were here last year, it was IMMEDIATELY after last year Disneyland measles scare, which probably helped clear out the park!

The Radiator Springs Ride

We still got to ride on lots of rides. There were several open that weren't last time we were here, or even the last few times I was here. I don't think I've been on Splash Mountain since 2000. That ride used to TERRIFY me!! I was so proud to ride it again and realize I'm not scared at all anymore. Bring on the big drop!

Today I was even brave enough to check out the Tower of Terror, and miracle of miracles, I liked it! Tomorrow I want to go on California Screamin', the big roller coaster in California Adventure. If I survive that ride, I'll have conquered Disneyland--no more rides that scare me. :)

Photographic evidence that I was on Tower of Terror. :) Dad and I are in the second row, farthest to the left.

Journey to the Happiest Place on Earth!!

So, my family went on a semi-spontaneous trip to Disneyland at the end of January.

If you know my family at all, you know this is very unlike us. :) But it was a good time to go. Shauna had just graduated BYU and was still job hunting, Kristie has the semester off school while she prepares for her mission in March. And we'd heard that January is a great time to go to Disneyland to avoid the crowds. With the measles outbreak going on, we had a pretty good shot at an empty park.

The first day was the absolute best. The park was almost empty. We could (and did) walk onto any ride we wanted. Didn't even need to get a fast pass. We took a bunch of pictures with characters and we didn't even have to wait in line!

I quickly succumbed to the temptation to get a mouse hat, while everyone else resisted... which resulted (as usual) in people thinking I was the youngest in our family instead of the oldest, but whatever. :)

We got to see the parades in both parks (Disneyland and California Adventure). We waited for a little bit to see the Disneyland one, but we walked right up to the California Adventure one when it was starting and managed to find an awesome spot.

Waiting for the Disneyland parade

The second day, we mostly spent in California Adventure. There were a lot more crowds than the day before, and we had to wait in lines for rides, but never for very long. The longest was half an hour (yes, I made my family wait half in hour for the Peter Pan ride... okay, I didn't make them, but they knew I wanted to, so they supported me in my choice. :) And yeah, I know the Peter Pan ride isn't in California Adventure--we did some park hopping! It was still really fun, but not quite as perfect at the day before.

One cool and kind of funny experience. We wanted to try this Toy Story ride called Midway Mania, but Shauna and Mom get a little bit motion sick, and there was a sign out front warning that this ride could cause motion sickness. There was also a 30 minute wait to get on to the ride. There was much debating whether or not Mom and Shauna wanted to try it. Mom finally asked an employee about it, and when he couldn't quite convince us that the ride was good for everyone in our family, he offered to let me, Dad, and Kristie skip the line to ride it to see if it was something Mom and Shauna could handle.  Just like that, he whisked us through to the handicap access point and let us on the ride, no waiting. And once we were done, we collected Mom and Shauna, and he let us skip the line again to go through together.

Excellent customer service. Who knew motion sickness could come so in handy? :)

At the end of the day, we watched the Fantasmic show. We got fastpasses in the morning so we had a great place to watch. It's quite an impressive show--I liked it a lot. When it was over, we had five minutes left before Disneyland closed, so we frantically ran into Pirates of the Caribbean for one last ride. Pirates has always been one of our favorites, because it's awesome, and because it's high capacity so the line is always short. We probably rode it 5 or 6 times in those 2 days. It was a great way to finish things up.

On our last day in California, we headed to Huntington Beach. Dad grew up in California, and when he was a kid, his family brought visiting relatives to Huntington because it has fire pits there, so they could roast hot dogs when people got hungry. We had a great time just chilling at the beach.  I was too much of a coward to go into the cold water, but Shauna and Kristie had a ball wading in and looking for shells.

The whole trip was amazing and so relaxing. Disneyland really is one of the happiest places on Earth. The little kids that come there are so happy and so excited! For them it is a dream come true.

I've made some happy memories there myself over the years and I intend to keep going back. :) I miss it a lot already!

NARME!!!

So I am in the airport waiting to head back to Utah after an amazing week at NARME (National Association of Relationship and Marriage Education... conference... yeah). Dr. Hawkins has been trying to get me to go for years, but as a grad student I just didn't have the money for it, and it was usually far away.

I LOVED it!!! Everyone there was so nice, and so united in the cause to save families. Many people were very open in sharing that they felt called by God to this work. That's how I feel, too. It was like meeting the other members of God's army called to fight for the family.

I hope I get to go back in the future.

My coworkers are all amazing people. I don't get to see them very often in person--usually just once every two months, but it had been four months this time. Our meetings are typically one day, so spending four days with all of them was a new experience, and a very positive one. We are all friends at HRC (and also professionals, of course). I enjoyed spending time with everyone.

All the girls on the Comm Team even got to go to Disneyland together last night! We had a blast! They are Disneyland pros--they knew the best places to go and the best ways to avoid the lines. It wasn't very crowded, so we went on all the big rides (except the Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain, and the Haunted Mansion were all closed :( ). I will say Disneyland is different as an adult. I still had fun, but it wasn't quite as magical as I remembered... and it seemed a lot smaller, too. Still, I'd love to go back for a full day sometime! And I want to take my kids there someday. I watched all the cute little families running around--I think Disneyland is a lot more fun with kids.

Anyway, looks like my plane's here! Catch y'all later. :)

Lost at Disneyland

So, I am in Anaheim this week for a conference for the National Association of Relationship and Marriage Education.  Today, though, I had my in person staff meeting with my company. It started at 9. I knew I would probably be a bit late, because I was taking the 8:30 shuttle out of LAX. I rode the Disneyland Resort Express. My coworker said to get off at Disneyland, and it would only be a 2 block walk to the hotel where our meeting is held.

Well, my shuttle driver got a little confused when I said I wanted to go to the Disneyland Resort… probably because I had my suitcase with me. He dropped me at the Disneyland Hotel…. I didn't realize this was a bad thing until he was gone. I googled on my phone how to walk to my meeting, since I couldn't see the building anywhere. And…. Google maps informed me I had a 1.4 mile walk ahead of me… about 30 minutes.

Crud. I got off the shuttle at the wrong place!

I called my coworker Lucy in a panic. She was a sweetheart and drove over to pick me up. In the meantime, I wandered about Downtown Disney dragging my suitcase, attempting to find where she wanted to meet me. (I couldn't find it. My sense of direction is terrible.)

You should have seen the looks people were giving me. :)

The whole irony of the thing was amusing to me. Of all places to be lost in the entire world, I managed to get lost at Disneyland.

My life is awesome. :) ...Except for the part where I got to my meeting an hour and a half late. Fortunately everyone was very understanding (it helped that two of my coworkers' flight got canceled, and they literally showed up exactly when I did!)

(I cut off the camera too fast at the end because people were looking at me funny for talking to myself... That sign says "Downtown Disney".) :)