Adventures in Disneyland: part 2

So how does a family entertain themselves in line at Disneyland? By day three the park was pretty crowded and the lines were a bit longer. We would collect our fast pass for a ride but still had to wait in line at other rides without fast passes. First of all, Matt discovered the coolest app for the iphone. It would tell us how long the wait is at each ride! There was only one time that by the time we got to the ride the wait time had dramatically increased. But this was a very helpful app as we chose which rides to hit nearby. Most of our wait time involved deciding who was going to sit beside whom for the ride. A decision would be made, people would be informed as to where to sit, and then somebody would change their mind and we’d start over on the decision making. A couple of times, I was assigned to each person in the family before a final decision was made. Once in awhile, I even got to sit beside my sweet Matthew, though this was pretty rare as we often were assigned to sit beside a younger child in order to comfort them if needed.

We are a very musical family and I knew the kids would eventually miss their practice time and instruments. For example, during one particularly long line, which of course was also a noisy wait, Sara decided to do her vocal warm ups. Not quietly, either. I don’t blame her. I think she should have broken into song after her 40 minutes of warm ups were done. She’s got tons of music she’s working on and heaven knows she sings like an angel. We totally could have done full fledged performances while in line. I will admit we got some weird looks. Zack, our drummer, beats on everything and everybody as he constantly hears rhythms in his head. One of our very favorite parts of Disneyland is the Innoventions Center. SO cool we could spend days in there. In the basement they have a dream home tour of futuristic technology we might like to have in our homes. One of which was a beautiful player piano with a computer monitor showing the guy playing exactly what was being play on the piano, as it was being played. I was very intrigued by this. Zack figured out how to pause the player piano so that he could have a turn and of course he played a very difficult piece by Jon Schmidt that he’s been working on this month.

At one point in line, the kids broke into a game of rock, paper, scissors. But of course that’s not enough of a challenge so they add in the “lizard, Spock” part as seen on The Big Bang Theory. And they played it very loudly. I wasn’t going to stop them, it was entertaining me, but they sure got some funny looks. Obviously not everyone at Disneyland is caught up with the seasons of The Big Bang Theory. That’s serious business at our house.

My youngest child is Joshua, who is seven years old. He’s a big kid for only being seven, but this was his first experience on roller coasters. He declined the opportunity to ride CA Screamin’ even though he’s tall enough. Holy Cow that ride is fast. Elijah loved that roller coaster. So Joshua’s very first roller coaster was Space Mountain. Not necessarily a good one for his first, as most of the ride is in the dark and you don’t know if you’re going up, down, or sideways. He was sitting beside me and I could tell he had reached a point of anxiety. I couldn’t see him at all to see how he was doing, so I reached over and touched his hand during the ride. When we got off the ride everyone asked him what he thought of it and he said very exuberantly, “That was awesome!” I was a bit surprised by this, and then we saw the picture of our family on the ride. Five of us have our heads up, our eyes wide open and our mouths wide open, probably screaming. Joshua had his head tucked down and you can’t see him at all. I thought this was so funny I decided I had to buy the photo.

Josh thoroughly enjoyed other roller coaster rides, but there was one more that put him to the test. But I have to tell you that background story. About five years ago, Sara was on a competition dance team in Tooele and we went to Disneyland as a dance group to dance in the parade. Just Sara and I took the trip. To avoid the lines we did several of the single passenger lines that gets you on the ride pretty quickly. We decided to do this on Splash Mountain. Sara was going first and climbed onto the log with a family of five. Their youngest freaked out and they all got off the ride and the log left with just Sara on it. I bought that picture all those years ago because it was a priceless expression on her face as she’s alone, on the back of the log, going down this huge water slide. So, knowing how Sara had reacted, I figured I’d want to buy the picture again, this time with the whole family. But for it to be a good picture, we placed everyone shortest to tallest. Unfairly, this puts Joshua on the front of the roller coaster ride to get soaked and shocked as he sees what is to come. As I suspected, the picture is hilarious. I posted it on my FB page last week and if I ever get on the ball, I’ll post it here as well. Everyone voted we do this ride again on day 3 and Josh begged to be at the front of the ride again. Apparently he had a good time.

High Adventures

It’s hard to remember all the details of the trip I hope to remember. But there are certain things that stand out that I hope to never forget.

The first two days we were in Anaheim were Saturday and Sunday. Matt had been fighting a headache so we pulled out the new bottle of Tylenol in hopes to get rid of his headache. Shortly after taking the meds, Matt collapsed. “I’m not sure why, but I’m extremely tired. I’m going to take a nap.” After this happening two days in a row, we figured out that he had been taking Tylenol PM, which has a sleeping agent in it. So…I guess we won’t be taking this as a pain killer while in Disneyland. LOL! So funny! After walking through Disneyland for a day, we were very tired and very sore. Matt and I distributed Tylenol PM to four of the six of us and we slept great!

To save money on lunches, we packed a picnic lunch two of the days. Once you reach Disneyland proper, you go through bag check stations. They didn’t mind that we were bringing food into the park, but they don’t allow rolling bags of any kind. Nothing can be pulled behind us. The first day we were sent over to a locker area. I was strictly instructed to not set down the bag, I had to carry it across the way to the lockers. These lockers were smaller. We had to take stuff out of our rolling cooler and stuff it in to the locker. Lovely. That evening after leaving CA Adventure, we had to cross to the other side and go through baggage search again where they proceeded to chew us out for using such a big bag in those lockers. “But that’s where they told me to go this morning.” So the lady told me about the “right” place for larger bags where there are larger lockers. Hallelujah! Except that the lady escorted us to the other baggage search to make sure our rolling bag did not touch the ground.

The next morning we knew where to go. At the baggage search, they sent someone with us to make sure once again that our rolling bag did not touch the ground, AND to make sure we actually put it into the locker.

On day three we decided to skip lunch, leave the bag at the pad, snack a lot, and have an early dinner. heavy sigh What a relief it was to not have to deal with the roller bag cops.

Just in case roller bag cops was not enough, there are also shoe cops in Disneyland. On the first day we were in CA Adventure. We were so excited to be there that we walked fast everywhere we went. Elijah’s feet started to hurt, so he took off his socks and shoes and stuffed them into his pull string bag to carry on his back. I was thrilled he’d found a solution and I didn’t have to carry his shoes. A few minutes later, apparently one of the Disney workers told him to put his shoes on. Matt didn’t see it happen and neither did I, but he was scrambling to get them on. Okay, whatever. Day two in Disneyland Sara took off her shoes and put them in Matt’s little backpack. I knew this would come back to bite us. Matt, Zack and Eli headed over to the Tower of Terrors while Sara, Josh, and I went to It’s a Bug’s Life. While waiting to get in, Sara sat down on the floor. There weren’t many people around and sure enough, the Shoe cops show up. “Put your shoes on.” We explained they’re in dad’s backpack in another part of the park and we’ll get them on as soon as we can. He repeated himself like ten times and would not let us in to the show where you just sit and watch. UGH. We back tracked out the entrance and waited for the guys to arrive.

At one point in the day I also took my shoes off. It felt so good to not have them on. But only a few minutes later, somebody noticed and told me to put my shoes back on. Nice try.

Sara and I had only brought our Vibram’s to Disneyland and our feet were hurting and swollen. I had a huge blister as well. We made a quick trip to Ross Dress for Less and found shoes to accommodate our swollen feet. I have wide feet anyway and I was worried we wouldn’t be able to find anything that would fit. After trying on more than a dozen pairs of shoes, I found a pair. They were DC’s. Yes, they are the skater shoes that are so very popular. They’re cute with stripes and wide enough for my feet. Hurray! Sara also found a cute pair to wear and we bought them. At the register Sara starts making fun of me. “Mom, something’s wrong with this picture. I think we have a generation problem here. Mom’s aren’t supposed to wear skater shoes.” Oh-well. Elijah thinks it’s the coolest thing that I bought skater shoes like his.

(more stories to come later!)

We can't afford to go to Disneyland...

So how was it possible for the Barnson’s to go to Disneyland? Holy Cow, I never thought it would be possible. I’m quite the bargain shopper and couldn’t imagine spending the rates to get into Disneyland. Three days for four adults and two children would cost us $1088. Ouch! That’s crazy. Not to mention the cost of a hotel stay for several nights costing another thousand dollars. Then there’s the cost of gas and food for several days as well as souvenirs. Here’s my trick.

Several years ago Matt and I paid off our credit card and switched it over to a “Rewards Visa,” which raised our interest rate by a couple percentage points. We decided we wanted to use it to fly places when the opportunity arose. We used it two or three times and then didn’t use it again for years. Trying to keep our credit card purchases within our usual monthly budget, we charged everything from gas to food expenses on the card. Typically in December the bank offered double points for purchases since people are spending so much extra money for Christmas. When we looked up how we could use our reward points, there were so many options! Gift cards, hotels, air fair, gas cards, tickets to anything you could imagine and Disneyland!

This trip has been a couple years in the planning and the timing was everything. Matt and I are owners of a resort club that allows us to use our points at any of their several dozen locations. We had some leftover points from last year that were about to expire so Matt said to me, “Book something fun.” Well, we’ve had fun at all the resorts we’ve visited, but having points from last year to use, this year’s points and next year’s points available to borrow, it was the perfect time. I got on the website and found one room available that sleeps six at our resort just around the corner from Disneyland. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I booked the room and called Matt. “We’re going to Disneyland!” I had booked it six months in advance so that our trip would be during cooler weather in CA and during UEA so that the kids wouldn’t miss much school.

Then a couple months before our trip, Matt called the rewards company and got us tickets for two days at Disneyland for FREE! Plus $500 cash to cover gas money. They didn’t offer children’s tickets so when we got to Disneyland we wanted to add one more day to our stay. At the ticket counter, they credited me the price of 6 adult tickets for two days and subtracted that from the cost of 4 adults and 2 children for three days. I paid the difference of $274. Woohoo! That still amazes me. Essentially, we got into Disneyland and California Adventure for three days at the cost of $274. Amazing!

That doesn’t cover all our concerns. With four children, plus Matt and myself, we needed a game plan to pay for personal expenses. For FHE the Monday after we told the kids we were going to Disneyland, we decorated plastic bins with Disney scrapbook paper for each person to have a place to stash money to be spent in Disneyland. This gave us approximately six months to save our allowances to have spending money in Disneyland. My younger two boys saved about $50 each, my teenagers saved about $75 each, Matt saved $150, and I saved $250 to spend.

The next concern is meals. The cost of food in Disneyland or CA Adventure is pretty much ridiculous. For example, Matt paid $10 for a cup of coffee and a muffin. Multiply that times six of us per meal, plus 50% for dinner pretty much blows the whole idea of a cheap vacation. Our game plan was created with the help of our FB friends’ suggestions! Staying at a resort allowed us to cook breakfast before we left the condo. We brought tons of snacks to eat throughout the day. Two of the days we took our rolling cooler full of lunch foods. The difficult thing about this is Disneyland has very strict rules against rolling bags in either of the parks. So we ended up renting a locker to the tune of $12 a day. That was cheaper than feeding us all lunch so it was a good option. They provide a nice picnic area by the lockers so you don’t have to go anywhere with your rolling bag. Then we bought dinner. On the third day, we took extra snacks and left our rolling cooler at the condo with the plan to snack more, then have a late lunch/early dinner. Then if we needed more food we could eat back at the condo at the end of the day. This was still pretty expensive, but was a happy medium for us.

We decided for Thursday to be a relaxing day after having spent three days on our feet mile after mile. We decided to go to the beach to watch the sunset and eat at a restaurant that is at the end of a pier so we were surrounded by the ocean! UGH. Another expensive meal to pay for. The resort tries to sell us more points every time we take a long vacation. They give an incentive of an American Express gift card just to listen. This time around the gift card was worth $75, which is what dinner cost! All we had to cover was the tip. Not bad, if I do say so myself!

So I was able to bring the cost of a several thousand-dollar trip down to $1000 or less. For us this may be a once in a lifetime trip. I’m so glad we found a way to do it!

The volunteer pumpkin!

If you follow us on FB, you know we've had an ongoing story about a crazy pumpkin. Here's the whole story!

This spring I was determined to finally have a garden! I have never been successful in doing so and figured since I finally had carpel tunnel surgery in February, I should be able to garden this year without the wrist pain. For FHE one night we planted a large variety of seeds into a little starter tray and left it on the counter to sprout indoors. Sprout they did and we were quite excited as the little garden began to grow.

Spring was very wet and I was busier than usual with the kids and we had trouble getting around to preparing the garden area. It was overgrown with weeds that continued to grow with each rain storm and no one was anxious to get out there and till it. But I wasn't ready to give up yet. We started having warmer days, but the nights were still cold, so I put our little garden tray of sprouts on the back step to get some sunshine. Then at night I would bring it back inside so the sprouts wouldn't freeze. We were doing good so far!

I have two cats that think they rule the world and everything belongs to them. Friday, our black cat, decided to use my tray of sprouts as a bed. He's a very large cat and he pretty much took up the whole tray. I think he must have liked the idea of sunbathing on the soft dirt and plants. Grrr, that darn cat. Of course the sprouts died and I was ticked that my garden was ruined.

The next day or so we had another spring storm with a lot of wind and that tray blew over to the other side of the stairs and the little dirt clods the seeds had been planted in were everywhere. I threw away the tray but never cleaned up the dirt. I was very frustrated with the whole situation and feeling quite like a failure as once I again, I would not have a successful garden.

Spring forward to summer. July arrives and suddenly a plant grows up from in between the concrete and the window well. It started growing very fast, several feet a day in fact. We had no idea what it was but guessed that it was a larger plant, considering it's rate of growth, maybe cucumbers, zucchini, squash, watermelon, or pumpkin. We had in fact planted some of each of these in our tray so this plant could be pretty much anything.

The plant started to take over the patio and even in front of the stairs. It had fruit growing on it that was round and buttercream yellow. One day, Zack and I sat on the back steps and just watched the plant. We were amazed by the little tendrels that were curled up on the branches. I told Zack, "If this were a movie, that plant would wrap it's tendrels around you, drag you in and eat you alive!" We both laughed.

The fruit started growing at an alarming rate. We had two large somethings and I decided it was time to figure out what they were. Thinking maybe they were spaghetti squash and we should be harvesting and eating them before they get this large, I cut one off the vine, took it into the house and chopped it in half. It produced a sticky sweat and Matt licked it and declared it to be pumpkin. Darn it! Then I was bummed that I had cut it off the vine. Oh well. There's one more out there bigger than that one had been. Now that it was the only fruit growing, it started growing faster every day. It was so crazy. We'd look at it in the morning and then look at it that night and be able to see that the pumpkin had grown an inch or two.

The coolest part about this style of gardening was that we didn't have to weed the garden! The sprinklers and summer storms gave it all the water it needed and it took over a huge section of the patio and part of the lawn. We decided to cut the pumpkin off the vine on October 1st in order to display our surprise prize on the front porch. After loading it into the wheel barrel, Matt got the scale and we weighed the pumpkin in at 110 lbs! Compared to prize winning pumpkins at the fair this pumpkin is very small, but compared to the pumpkins I normally buy, it's huge! Imagine how much bigger it would have been if it had started to grow three months earlier when most people initially plant their garden. It could have been at least twice that big. Amazing.

A couple weeks ago I was able to talk with my cousin on the phone for awhile and we discussed this crazy volunteer pumpkin. She reminded me that the volunteer pumpkin is a representation of hope. Planting a seed that seems so insignificant and then taking the steps of faith by living the way the Lord has asked us nourishes that seed and it grows. Once it starts to grow and we recognize it as hope and the Lord's love, it becomes easier to nourish it and it grows like wildfire. So does our love of the gospel and the blessings the Lord provides us as we follow His guidance. Our trials may be huge, but the weeds of discouragement can be kept at bay as long as we have hope. What a beautiful comparison that was for me!

You may be aware that we live on an acre of land (much to our chagrin). An acre is a lot of land to have to take care of. While we'd much rather live in a neighborhood and have more people around us than farm animals, we're currently stuck trying to make the best of it. After seeing how little effort it took to grow this huge pumpkin, Matt and I have decided it would be a lot of fun to use our back third of an acre grow literally tons of these pumpkins next year. When fall comes we will sell them and then use our pumpkin money to pay for Christmas! It would be a family business adventure. Matt loves to research and has learned a lot on how to grow these pumpkins to be huge. Come spring I think we'll be more anxious to get the garden and the back third of an acre under control so that we can begin our first pumpkin patch! I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Sunday vacation: Day 2

One thing I forgot to mention last night was that Elijah is so excited to have neighbors. On our way to the elevator, Elijah says, "When can we meet our neighbors?" He wanted to start knocking on doors to see who's here on vacation. It seemed odd explaining to him this is not appropriate behavior when on vacation.

This morning we got up to go to church. Matt helped me look up the times at the church house closest to us. I had figured we'd go at 9am, not knowing wether or not there was a second meeting or what time it might start. Matt found the meeting times, and it's a good thing! We would have ended up going to the Samoan ward at 9am and listened to the meeting in their language. It would have felt like we had gone to a foreign country on vacation. As it turned out, we went to sacrament meeting at 11am. After we sat down, a family with six kids filed in and sat in front of us. I noticed their boy Joshua'a age looked familiar, so I looked over at the parents and found that I recognized the dad. Turns out it was Joshua's soccer coach and his son who is on the team! Talk about a small world. There were several other families visiting from Utah who came to the ward we attended today.

It's so nice to have a day of rest while on vacation. Matt gave me a back massage to help my aching back and the kids watched a lot of TV. There's a TV in the living room and the master bedroom. The kids found Myth Busters on TV and started watching it in both rooms, which cracked me up. While I napped, Matt and the boys went down to the pool to play for awhile. I brought one of our freezer meals for dinner so we didn't have to spend much time cooking! We baked some potatoes and had continental beef on top of the potatoes. YUM!

After dinner I took some time to read my scriptures and have a few quiet minutes, then went down to the hot tub to relax my aching back. The hot tub helped a ton. I'm thinking I might need to hit the hot tub every night after Disneyland. Tomorrow is the real deal! Wohoo! I have missed Nanna immensely. I hope she's doing okay.

Family Vacation 2011

It's been awhile since we've taken a family vacation. Six months ago I needed to book a resort so as not to lose our points with our resort membership and Matt said, "Book something fun." No pressure, right? Like the other resorts we've stayed in hasn't been fun. Fun. Okay, so I got online and looked up Disneyland. The last time I did this they were booked solid. This time, expecting they would be booked solid, I was overjoyed and practically bouncing on the bed with excitement as I discovered there was one room that sleeps 6. I booked it as fast as I possibly could, then texted Matt, "We're going to Disneyland!!!"

I'm pretty good at keeping secrets, but this secret I could not keep. That night at the dinner table, we announced to the kids that we're taking the family to Disneyland. A chorus of "Hurray!" sprung from their seats and then the loaded question, "When are we going?" "In six months," was my response. "Ohhhhh. I thought we were going this Saturday." So sad.

For Family Home Evening (FHE) a couple days later, we each decorated a container for personal Disneyland savings! The kids and Matt and I diligently fed the containers as much money as we could sacrifice out of our allowance. This was particularly hard on the younger boys since they love to spend their money right away. I'm happy to say they each saved over $50!

After a week of great preparations, including vehicle maintenance and tons of laundry, the blessed day arrived. Our sweet dog, Nanna, was safely tucked away at the neighbor’s house with their dog in the kennel in the backyard so that Nanna had a friend to hang out with, and we all went to bed. At 3:30 in the morning, Matt and I arose, took a quick shower, and awoke the kids. We have found that nighttime driving helps the hours go faster for the kids since they sleep for about half the time we're in the car. But if we leave too early in the night, we arrive long before we can check in and we're too tired to do anything while we have to wait.

It took us awhile to get settled in, but we finally left the house. Matt takes the first shift and the kids and I are supposed to go back to sleep. Since I was up 'til midnight finishing the packing and some house cleaning, I was very anxious to go back to sleep; however, the kids and Matt are awake and excited and begin visiting. This I can handle, but then matt requests a song, one that is a family favorite when traveling, titled, "Are we there yet." You've got to be kidding me. One of the lines in the song says, "We can still see the house!" So funny. Somehow I talked Matt into waiting 'til later to enjoy the song so that I could go to sleep.

As I fell asleep, I start remembering everything we have forgotten to pack: Matt's pillow, my extra tennis shoes.... and the list goes on. We will have to live without those things for a week. And if we can't, I bet CA has a Walmart. We can always make a purchase for whomever's toothbrush got left behind. Somehow I think we managed to get everyone's toothbrush packed. There's a small miracle! I slept all the way through Utah. When I awoke, we were nearly to Vegas. Wow!

After passing Vegas, we decided to stop for an early lunch. Matt requested we have our picnic on a grassy area that's not at a gas station. We pull off the interstate, take a potty break and fill the gas tank, then head across the street to the last casino around in hopes to find a patch of grass. Luckily there was one, and it included large trees providing nice shady spots! After carefully unloading the trunk to unbury our cooler, we dig out all the lunch items and snack items and spread out on the grass to make sandwiches. While sandwiches are being made, the kids were picking car snacks for later so that I could be left alone to my driving while Matt napped. Then all of a sudden, “Spwesh,” and “Oh, you’re kidding me,” with a response from Matt, “No, not kidding.” The sprinklers were coming on full force. Matt thought quickly on his feet and covered up the sprinkler head with his foot so it wouldn’t pop up while the kids and I frantically grab all the picnic fixings off the lawn. So much for a relaxing lunch. Everyone takes their seat in the van to eat their sandwich or wait their turn to make their sandwich. Then instead of a lunch in the shade of the big tree, we hit the road and off we went.

Minutes later, Matt was fast asleep in the passenger seat and the kids were involved in a movie as we approached Baker, CA. I noticed a sign that said, “The largest…..in the world.“ I missed something. I managed to read the next sign, “The largest temperature gauge in the world.” So I pointed it out to the kids. Elijah says, “Why did you want me to see that?” My response, “Well, just in case you wanted to see the largest temperature gauge in the world.” Silly boy. Or maybe, silly me.

Once the movie ended, we kicked on some Bill Cosby to listen to. He is a great storyteller! The boys went back to sleep and time flew. We pulled into Anaheim much earlier than expected and realized we hadn’t figured in the time change to our travel plans. Needing to wait an hour and a half, we decided to find the nearest Walmart to begin our purchases of Disney paraphernalia.

Upon returning to the resort to check in, we piled all our belongings onto a cart and headed to our room. Normally we get a room that sleeps 8 so that no one has to sleep in the TV room, which typically has a murphy bed. But, as previously mentioned, this room sleeps six, so the kids weren’t sure how to divvy the space available. Then the concern was, “There’s no murphy bed.” Right, this room has a hide-a-bed. That is a new concept to my children who lead sheltered lives and they were quite impressed. Zack said, “I’ve got to get one of these for my bedroom!” I thought to myself, “Wait ‘til after you’ve slept on it to make a decision like that.”

So here we are, on vacation! Everyone has unpacked their bags and settled in. The kids turn on the TV and start flipping channels, which is lots of fun because there’s cable TV, which we don’t have at home. First thing I do is log into Matt’s wifi and check out my FaceBook! Ah, just like home. LOL!

Even though we brought lots of food, Matt and I were pretty worn out from the trip and decided to order Chinese. YUM! An hour later, dinner was delivered and we even have leftovers. After a nice shower to wash away the travel yuckiness, the little boys and I headed down to the pool. Knowing it was windy, I chose to sit at the side of the pool and not get wet. The boys probably only swam for half an hour and we headed back to the room. After changing clothes and bundling up a bit, we headed up to the roof to watch the Disneyland fireworks display!

One travel day down and everyone gladly hits the hay. Luckily there is no hay in my bed, otherwise I wouldn’t sleep very good.