We're Baaa-aaack!

Disneyland was so awesome and I'm wishing we could have stayed for much longer; but alas, all good things must come to an end! Here's the low-down on the trip. If you get bored, just scroll down to the end!My sister got to our house Sunday night. After they arrived the snow began to fall. That night I was putting Elly's carseat back together (I had washed it) and was missing the clip to clip her in. I couldn't find it anywhere, so our trip began with a bit of an inconvenience of buying her a carseat. My sister and family were ready to hit the road before us on Monday, so they left. I had just shut the door (after asking Morgan to make sure all the windows were locked) and then stupidly asked Richard if he had my keys. They weren't in my purse when I shut the door and usually he uses my key to drive the suburban because his key is inconsistant. I guess I should have asked first before shutting the door. He lost his house key and without my keys, we were locked out of the house. Morgan did a very good job securing the windows and we were totally left stranded outside our house! Good thing: No one could break in! Bad thing: Neither could we! Not really a way to start a vacation.Morgan did remember that the tiny little bathroom window downstairs was still unlocked because she couldn't reach it with the towel cabinets in the way. Sure enough we were able to open it and we got Addison to squeeze through and jump off the cabinet and procede to break into the house. Now that we knew we could break in when we got home, we left an hour behind schedule! ... but who has a schedule when you're on vacation?!! We then went to Wal-mart and put ourselves another hour behind schedule by getting a carseat and winter boots on clearance, then setting the carseat up. By now we decided that we might as well eat since it's almost lunch. All this and we're only 3 miles from home!!Snow continued to fly in flakes and about 4 inches accumulated on the road. We sure hoped California would be sunny! We got to our first pitstop just as my sister was coming out from check out at hour hotel. We got awesome deals at Circus Circus ($25.00 a night) and had a lot of fun. We watched the circus act in the hotel, and checked out all the things a casino can pack into their facility. We ate dinner and then went down the strip to see the different shows the hotels had. I had no idea there were so many shows! We weren't able to see the Pirate's show (one of my priorities) due to cold and wind, but we enjoyed an awesome volcano show at The Mirage and I loved the water/light show at the Beliagio. We did find out while trying to tape the shows that I also forgot to bring the charger to the camcorder. I was so mad at myself!! I had hoped to find something at Wal-mart, but no such luck. I just used the record feature on the camera and am relying on my sisters videos!After putting kids to bed we left Rylan in charge and Annette, Richard and I went to gamble a little. It was my first time ever gambling (if you don't count being 7 and putting my $2.00 allowance towards one of my Grandpa's race horses at Whoop-Up-And-Down days in Calgary, Alberta, Canada!) I'm not much of a gambler and didn't really understand the slot machines, so I can be rest assured that I will never have to attend a Gambler's Annonymous meeting. I was shocked at how fast $10 went!! Maybe I should have tried Craps or Blackjack, but I didn't want to waste the $20 minimum!Tuesday we split up from Annette's family. My kids wanted to do the Adventuredome in the hotel and her kids weren't interested. We let each kid pick a ride. It was hard to put that much money on rides when we spend so much on tickets to Disney, but it was the whole experience we were going for. Addi and Morgan chose the trampoline that you are strapped to so you can do tricks and stunts. They guy gave us a buy one get one free deal, so that was cool. It looked like so much fun I wish I would have tried it. Tuesday evening we arrived at our hotel and they denied my credit card!! We only have one credit card, and we only have it for emergencies. Apparantly, since we seldom use it, the company put a freeze on it since it saw all of a sudden charges in Vegas, etc. I had to answer 7 questions about my life not relating to my Visa. I would be a terrible game show contestant. One question asked me about a house we owned 10 years ago, which we didn't own a house 10 years ago and I was sweating bullets!! What if I answered something wrong? We had no hotel, no credit card, nothing!! Fortunately I answered all my questions right and they re-enstated the card so it all worked out. The next morning was our first day at Disney. Everything worked out wonderfully! We got pictures with Mickey Mouse as soon as we walked in and went straight to Pixie Hallow. Everyone we heard told us how hard it was to get in to that. It was the longest line we had at Disneyland!!! After that a Star Wars Jedi training show starting about 30 min later so we got the first seats and ate our lunch while we waited. We were so excited that the 3 kids that REALLY wanted to get chosen did!! It was a blast to watch. That night we saw the Fantasmic show. That was probably one of my favorite parts!! We got there about 45 min before it started, got awesome seats, and sent out the men for our dinners. It was a fabulous show. By the time it ended it was 8:00 p.m. and the park was closing. Thurs. we got to Disney and went straight to the Princess meeting line in Fantasy Land. We were about 3rd in line. We got to see several more characters and pretty well finished off Disneyland by closing that night. Friday we went into Disneyland and got our Souveniers we wanted. Everyone got mouse ears with their names on the back (including Richard and I and Annette's family) and got a really cool shot of us with the Disney castle in the background, with our matching Disney shirts. I felt a bit like an idiot, but it was a moment, so I sucked it up. My sister found shirts on sale at the Disneyshopping.com site and her family got different Disney characters, while I made all the girls in my family where Minnie Mouse shirts, and all the boys wore Mickey Mouse shirts. They were only $3 something a piece on sale at that website. After our souvenier shopping we went to California Adventure. The two days before had been really nice at 64 degrees, but Friday was chillier and at about 1:00 it started to POUR rain! The park totally emptied out, though!Fortunately at CA Adventure, there are many indoor activities at their "back lot" so we saw Playhouse Disney Live, and some 3 D shows in theatres. By then the rain stopped and we finished off the park. We left about dinner time and had planned on putting kids to bed and leaving Rylan in charge while the adults went back to the park (it closes at midnight on weekends) but I was so tired that we watched my sisters kids and let them go. It would have been fun, but Annette said it was really busy and cold. I wouldn't have had too much fun! I was starting to get grumpy with lack of sleep and complete busy-ness! I would have loved to see the fireworks over the castle, though!Sat. we all slept in and then played at the pool. By the time we got done with that it was lunch and we even took naps. A friend of mine that we were stationed with in TX lives in San Diego, so she came and met us at our hotel and we went to the beach. It was pretty cold and windy, but the kids still loved chasing waves and playing in the water. Poor Elly got her feet swept up from under her and fell forward in the ocean. She stood up and fell b ackward in the ocean again. Fortunately a couple walking along the beach saw and happened to have their hotel towel with them. They gave it to us to wrap her up in. We stripped her and wrapped her up and headed back to the hotel. Annette caught up with us as we were leaving. They beach hopped for a while and we met up with them the next morning. Sunday was time to end the vacation and start our tip back home. We pulled over in Vegas again. I had hoped to see the Pirate's show, but it didn't start until 5:30 and we were way too early for that. I didn't really want to hang out for several hours, so we drove up to the temple and then checked out the base. Glad we aren't getting stationed there! After Vegas we drove on to St. George and stayed the night. We stayed at our most expensive room there, and it was definately the crapiest!! We got up the next morning and went to see the St. George templed and then got a tour of Brigham Young's house there. It was really neat.We got home at about 4:30 in the afternoon. It was good to be home, but we had a busy week. I had the kids I babysit the next morning and Richard and I both had talks on Sunday and I was in charge of Sharing Time. Nothing like vacations!!-Richard's situation has changed once again!! He got a notice that they extended his report-no-later date! He was also told that his orders did not authorize packing or storing our household stuff so if I sell the house I have to take care of EVERYTHING on my own. That sucks!! We're trying to get it changed. If not, then I don't think I'll put the house up for sale until closer to him coming home. So anyway ...back to th e report no later! He went to sign his change and they said it was because he had training in route! What?! The training in route is for the A-10, which Osan has, not Kunsan. So they are sending him to train on a plane for a base that he's not going to, on a plane that he won't be working on! Ugh!!! Oh well, it gave him more time to let his stuff get there! Of course, I don't really trust it yet. Things here have literally changed every few days, so it may catch up to them that he's not going to the base anymore that they're sending him training for and he may have 2 days notice that he's flying out! He is getting packed out on Thursday. Wed, Thurs, and Fri are 1/2 days for the kids, so it should be GOOD TIMES I thought the year in Korea was going to be bad, but I'm beginning to think that GETTING him to Korea is going to be worse! Well, my videos aren't uploading right, so I may post again tomorrow with a few videos I took with my camera. Check the slideshow again before you log off. Sometimes it takes awhile for all the pictures to download and come up. Sorry so long!!

Same ole Crazy!!

This last week has been full of stress and fun. Richard was designated as having the Super Bowl Party at our house. Our tv has been going out for about 6 months now (lasted 14 years!!) and Richard felt that this would be the perfect time to get a new one. I wanted to wait until it was completely out, but he was afraid I wouldn't get one as big as he'd like and since this was most likely another 15 year committment he wanted to make sure he got what he wanted. Of course, he wanted a 72" car payment, which I was definately not down with. I had been looking at prices for the last 2-3 years knowing that ours was going out anytime now, but I hadn't really researched much about technology and Consumer Reports stuff. I spent the afternoon doing my research. Superbowl week is definately a great time to get a good buy, and there were many incentives. We got the top of the line Samsung (which oddly is the frontrunner on LCD tv's... who'd have thought?) with 1080 pi (best color and dots per square inch or whatever) and 150 HZ (how often it refreshes itself for clearer picture). I wanted more like a 42-46" tv so we comprimised at 52". It looks way too big, to me, in the family room, but it was incredible to watch a movie on and the Super Bowl was probably a lot better on it!

Richard found out on Thursday that he had to test for Master Sgt this Tuesday (Feb 3). He had been watching the dates to come out but the computer system was down for quite some time. He really assumed that it would be after he got to Korea so he wasn't nearly as diligent as I had wanted him to be in studying. To have 5 days notice was shocking!! He did say that he felt pretty good about it so we shall see. We won't find out until June.

I'm having an "I hate the military" year! Richard's orders have been screwed up for some time now. I am used to dealing with the idiocy of the AF, but we are just getting too close to him flying out. After Christmas the Portal said that his orders changed from Osan (good base) to Kunsan (not so good). He spent much time trying to get this changed to no avail. In the meantime, he was waiting for M-16 shooting to get hard copies and get the outprocessing process started. In the military, without the hard copies, you really can't do anything. So we are going to Disneyland next week, he still hasn't shot, and he still doesn't have orders, but is supposed to fly out 2 weeks after we get back. Shipment of his stuff takes 6 weeks and he can't make an apt for shipment until he shoots and gets his orders. Oy Vey!! He typed up a letter asking to have his assignment delayed by 30 days to give him more time to get ready to go. Yup!! How did you guess? DENIED!! He was hoping that this would give him more time to get ready to go, allow him to see 1 of Rylan's tournaments (in St. George at the middle of March) and change his return-no-later for the next place we'd move (which of course WOULD HAVE worked out perfectly because it would make the report-no-later for the end of May, which is when the kids are out of school and we could all go together!) Gotta love the military!

On the silver lining side ... have to count every one that comes! His orders now say Osan (good base) ... but I'll count on that when the hard copies are in his hands!! We shall see!! Right now I'm focusing on Disneyland ... where all my dreams come true!!

PS -- Got locked out of my house this morning with Elly and a stinky diaper and a husband at some meeting. I learned how to break in. Can't decide if I should remedy my break in possibilites or leave it for future mishaps. Next time you hear from me will be with my Mickey Mouse ears on ... and a slight tan! (I hope)