We Survived "The Magic"

We've just gotten home from sunny California, where the kids and I have spent the last 10 days soaking up the sun and trying to forget the long hard winter we've had in Kansas City. Jeff, unfortunately, had to stay home and get maced.
The point of this trip was three-fold:

1. To visit with Grandma, Grandpa, and "the Uncles".
2. To go to Disneyland.
3. To see Dan off to England for his mission.

Visiting With the Fam
My kids LOVE visiting with relatives. They are both totally in love with grandparents in general, and it's like a neverending parade of people to play with who AREN'T boring old mom and dad. I, as most know, have 4 younger brothers. My kids refer to them all collectively as "the Uncles". My brothers like this name a lot. Maybe it makes them feel like some sort of underground syndicate, I'm not sure. None of them are married or have kids yet (they know my feelings about this already) so they aren't worn out from taking care of their own families and have the desire to actually play a ton with my kids. And of course they think my kids are the CUTEST kids in the world, and I tend to agree.

Disneyland (Or as I like to call it, the most magically exhausting place on the planet)
About a month and a half ago Capri saw a commercial on tv for Disneyland. She of course immediately decided that she HAD to go to Disneyland right away. I told my dad this, who being a big fan of Capri's decided that she SHOULD go right away. So when it came close to the time for Dan to leave for England Dad invited us to come and see him off with the added bonus of a promise to make it to Disneyland.
We got up early last monday and drove the 2 1/2 hours to Anaheim. The kids were great in the car, and we arrived in good spirits. Our spirits were a little dampened however when it took us 1 hr. 20 min. to get from pay to park to actually parking. The line was atrocious. The line to buy tickets was equally as bad, it took us another 30 min to buy them.
But after all that we finally got into the park and headed for the Pirate's of the Caribbean ride. The kids had been looking online at all the rides for weeks and decided that this was the ride they wanted to go on first. One of the days priorities was getting the meet the characters, especially Ariel and Mickey Mouse. And my mom bought an official Disney autograph book for Capri. Right away we saw Mary Poppins and Capri wanted to meet her. But that woman moved like she had rockets on her shoes. We'd discover during the rest of the day that meeting the characters wouldn't be as easy as we had thought.
We got the the pirate ride and it was just as fun as we hoped. Capri and Rome have never been to Disneyland (Capri did for a few minutes after we went to Disney's California Adventure years ago, but it was too dark to do anything). And I haven't been for years so everything was pretty much like doing it for the first time.
After Pirates, Capri went on the Big Mountain Railroad with grandpa and Mom took Rome off to find some rides he could get on. I of course was on baby duty but was happy to see my kids go off with their grandparents so joyfully.
Even though it was a non holiday monday Disneyland was of course VERY crowded. This made for long lines, but not as long as I'm sure they get. But we went on as many rides as possible. We TRIED to get to meet some characters but they don't really walk around the park anymore. All the princesses are hidden behind a large wall and you have to stand in a HUGE line to meet them. Mickey is in a house and again it's a line. And not like a 10 minute line, more like an hour. The only character we saw walking around - except for Mary Poppins and her rocket shoes - was Goofy. He was literally doing everything he could to keep from having to stop and visit with kids. I am not joking. Kids were RUNNING after him trying desperately to visit with him or get an autograph. Finally after spotting him for the third time and not being able to get him to stop I swooped Capri up in my arms and RAN after him myself. I stood right next to him and yelled at Grandma to take the picture. But then the coolest thing happened. I put Capri down and suddenly Goofy's attention turned right to her - even thought there were literally a dozen other kids around. He knelt down, hugged her, took her face in his hands and blew her a kiss. He signed her autograph book and then like a flash was off again.
Our only other character encounter was after we got off Space Mountain - yes Capri rode and loved it. Capri got to meet Minnie Mouse because Grandpa, Uncle Josh and Uncle Rob had the presence of mind to jump in line to meet her while Capri and I were in the bathroom. Unfortunately we never got to see Ariel or Mickey except in the parade. As a parent this was tough for me. It's hard to see your kids be disappointed, but Capri took it like a trooper and we declared "next time we WILL stand in those lines and meet them!"
So Disneyland was on the whole a grand success. We had a ton of fun, didn't lose a single kid, and were exhausted by the end. Rome fell asleep as we were exiting the park and didn't wake up til about 4 hours later when we were back at the house and put him in his bed. He said he was hungry, ate some food, and then said he wanted to go back to bed.

Dan to England
Hallelujah!! After quite a long wait after getting his call, my littlest brother Dan is off to Birmingham, England. I seriously could not be more excited for him. It is going to be an amazing experience, and I've got to admit I'm a bit jealous.
To see Dan off at the airport we all had to get up BEFORE the crack of dawn because his flight left at 6:00am. Fortunately Spencer's roommate was willing to come over and crash on the couch so that I didn't have to wake and take Capri and Rome. But Sable had to come and she was such a champ. She pretty much slept the whole time, even though it involved a noisy car trip there, breakfast at the "Celebrity Cafe" in the airport, hugs and sniffles when we said goodbye to Dan, and a raucous car ride back involving Josh, Spencer and myself laughing hysterically about Josh wanting to be an astronaut and the use of the word mathmatics about 157 times. Everything is funnier when you are SUPER tired of course.
Actually I didn't cry at all when I said goodbye to Dan. I was too happy for him. I know that he made the right choice in going and that he is never going to regret it or the work ahead of him.
The sunday before the goodbye was Dan's "farewell" at church and Dad, Josh and Dan all gave great talks. I'm not usually all that impressed by the boys in my family (wink, wink) but that day I was.
Dan sent an e-mail from the MTC in England the saturday after he arrived and it was a really wonderful thing to read. Keep it up Dan, we love you so much!!!
This was also the day when Jeff got maced. He was a tough guy and lived through the awful experience. He said it was better in some ways than he expected and worse in some. The burning in his eyes, though really bad, wasn't as bad as he imagined. But the breathing, or the lack thereof, was far far worse. They filmed all the EOs (Entrant Officers) and Jeff said that he was happy he didn't look like a big baby - like some of the others. He just did what he was supposed to do, fighting a guy and then calling in on the radio. I know he's OUR hero! Capri always feels a little better at night when she's scared knowing "my daddy is going to be a policeman".

We had such a great trip and were very sad to leave. But the kids were PERFECT on the plane ride home and we were so happy to get to see Jeff. He said it was very lonely being home all alone, but he got to take a bunch of naps so that was good!
We're so grateful to my mom and dad for buying our plane tickets, and giving us so many amazing memories. We love you!