Elvis?

Uh...has anyone seen Elvis lately?

This was at a guitar store in California with my Dad and sister Sarah. Of course you have to notice the pregnant lady with the Slurpee in hand. My addiction to Slurpees has been seriously curbed since we live 3 hours away from the nearest 7-11. So anytime I'm with my Dad...it's a given that he'll make a stop at 7-11 for me to feed the addiction! Gotta love it! (And gotta love the guitar store hoppin' in 70 degree sunny weather!)

Yes my sister is good lookin'...and available! HA! I'll hear from her about this one...

Our ward had their annual talent show called Beans on Broadway. It's a chili cook-off night, with a talent show to boot! The girls sang I Am A Child Of God in English, and then in Portuguese. I should have moved the mic closer, because they did a stellar job! It's amazing what little kids can learn. They got off from the piano a little bit (I only recorded the Portuguese verse), but I was so proud of them!



The only other new thing to report from the home-front is that Abby now has Giardia. The Health Dept. is looking into things a little more seriously now that it's 4 months later, and another person in the same household has it. Luckily I took her in early, and she's on the treatment medication, so she didn't get near as sick as Caitlin did. Hopefully we'll find out where this is coming from! Gotta love the small-town life, eh?

Oh...and I've been 'tagged' for several things lately, so I'll catch up on those soon as well.

DISNEYLAND!!!!!

Here they are! (All million-and-a-half of them!) I probably should have put them in a slide show...but I didn't think about that until about halfway through loading them all on. So here's the quick synopsis of the trip....

[WARNING: 'The 'quick synopsis' turned out quite long...so if you're bored by our vacation explanations, just check out the pics...no worries mates!]

We had to leave the day before our flight, because a huge storm was supposed to hit our area, and we live 3.5 hours from the airport. So we left the night before, and stayed at a hotel near the airport. It was torrential rain/sleet the whole drive, and the only mishap along the way was the windshield wiper (on the passenger side....LUCKILY) decided to alienate itself from the van, and started going crazy out on the side of the van. We had no tools, so Nate (being Mr. Super-Handy) used scissors and the tire gauge as a wrench, and just took that whole wiper off. And then we were on the road again. These are pics of the flight out there. (One of the 2 long flights. We had a layover in Atlanta, which isn't exactly on the way to LA.)



We had 3-day park hoppers, and it was Disneyland-bliss! Even on Saturday, the longest wait for any ride was 25 minutes, but we stuck mostly to non-thrill rides anyways. The weather was between 70-75 every day, 100% sunshine, and it was wonderfully laid back. We stayed in a hotel right across from the crosswalk to the parks, so we went home every afternoon to recharge, and nap.

I thought this pic was so cute of the girls waiting to get in the gate!

The 1st ride...Peter Pan! What a classic...and favorite. We visited this ride several times.


And of course, Dumbo the Flying Elephant. It just wouldn't be a Disneyland trip without a few spins on this classic.


Dad and the girls on Heimlich's Chew-Chew train. Adults may find this ride overly boring, but for kids it is so cute! You even get sprayed by 'watermelon juice' that Heimlich is eating.

My good friend Amy and her cute little family are living in Southern CA while her husband does his ER residency. They made the drive with Micheal (4) and their twin 2-year-olds to come and play with us at the parks! It was so fun, and I must say there was a little romance 'blossoming' between Micheal and Caitlin. It was so cute, and so much fun!

This ride they were still re-acquainting themselves with each other. But from what Nate tells me, on Soarin' they held hands the whole time! Ahhhhh...the simple childhood days.

Caitlin, Abby, and Micheal. Oh, and those look like cute festive chairs for Bugs Land...but you slide right out of them when you sit on them.


It's so fun to have 2 girls at these ages, because it was all TRUE magic for the, especially the Princesses. I can't tell you how much fun they had!!!

No explanation needed!!!

This is at the Princess Fantasy Faire where you wait in line (usually over an hour...but we got in line before it opened) to go meet and talk to 3 Princesses. A favorite for the girls, and the 'characters' were SO sweet and nice to the girls!

Spinning with Cinderella...
Posing with Cinderella...
Hugging Sleeping Beauty...
And ENTHRALLED in conversation with Snow White. She was such a sweetheart and kept the girls there for 5 or 10 minutes just engaged in Princess conversation. She was the nicest of all 3, but then she asked the girls who their favorite Princess was, and they both chimed "Cinderella" at the same time. No tact, I tell ya! ;o)


This was hands down both of the girls favorite ride. The 'rockets' (why would any kid call it the 'Astro Orbiter'?) were so fun, and they loved that they could control them and make my stomach go into my throat 10 times by the end of the ride.


Nate on Grizzly River Run. He lucked out by missing the huge geyser that soaks everyone, even though we were standing on the side cheering for the geyser to blast him! (It was so warm this day, and I really missed being able to go on this ride!)

Nate and Caitlin on the Go-Coaster in Toon Town. They are the 4th car from the back, Nate has a dark blue t-shirt on, and Caitlin is holding onto him for dear life. This ride ALWAYS has a long line, and lasts less time than Puff the Magic Dragon (at Lagoon).

The girls exhausted after the 2nd day in the parks. They thought the fold-out bed was THE coolest thing ever. Which was good, because they were sold out of the rooms with 2 double beds!

Caitlin in front of Big Thunder Mountain. She rode this with Nate the 1st day, and although she came off it smiling and Nate said she liked it...she looked quite pale after the ride. She didn't want to ride it again, so I think it was a little fast for her taste.

Now this picture is the one that makes me sad that I missed. I have ALWAYS been a Splash Mountain lover, and I'm sad that I didn't get to share Caitlin's 1st (2nd, and 3rd!) ride on it! She liked the ride, except for the drops! I wish I could zoom the picture in...but Nate is in the middle with the red ballcap on, and Caitlin's clinging to the side for dear life in front of him. The ride used to be that you just sit one person in front of another, but now they installed separate seat back-rests, so Nate wasn't right behind her. Before the big drop, Nate lifted her over, and put her right in front of him, and they stopped the whole ride until he put her back in her own seat. Ooops!

Couldn't resist the A for Abby...
The C for Caitlin....cheesy, I know.
My Dad and sister ended up driving out while we were out there, and they were gracious enough to watch the girls while we went out to dinner on our anniversary. They also took Abby for us the last night, because we wanted to watch the fireworks show, and she is TRAUMATIZED by fireworks. Thanks Dad and Sare...it was fun! I better see some Elvis pics soon...if you know what I mean....
Hanging out outside the Orange County airport, soaking in a FEW more rays of the sweet CA sunshine.
Our trip back was a little more eventful than the trip out. We had arrived at the airport 1.5 hours early on Sunday, and had JUST dropped off our rental car when Delta called and said our flight was 1.5 hours delayed. We were so bummed, because we were only 15 minutes from the beach, but had just kissed our transportation good-bye. So we stuck it out, only to get more calls from Delta that it was delayed longer. We were getting frustrated, because we chose the flight with a 3.5 hour layover in Salt Lake, so that we could go to my Mom's house for dinner, and visit with her and Joseph for an hour or so. Finally, they delayed it past the point of being able to make our connecting flight to St. Louis. They wanted to put us up in a hotel in S.L., and fly us out the next day, which we would have LOVED to stay overnight in Utah, but Nate had a make-up quiz Mon. morning. So Delta switched our tickets to American Airlines, and shuttled us to the LAX airport, for a direct flight to St. Louis. When we got back to St. Louis, it was 10 degrees without the wind chill. We were shuttled to the hotel to pick up our van, only to find the back wheel wouldn't rotate. (The cold is brutal on vehicles!!) So it's almost midnight, all Nate has is a hoodie, and he's out there in 10 degrees taking the wheel off, and banging some things around to try to get it fixed. Oh yeah...I forgot to mention AA forgot to put our double stroller on the plane with us, so that was lost as well. When we finally left the hotel, it was 12:30am (and Caitlin had just thrown the biggest and longest tantrum in public I'd ever lived through.) We were cold, and exhausted, and frustrated, and still had 3.5 hours to drive. But we got home safe and sound, and Nate got about 2 hours of sleep before starting his schoolweek again. I think I've sworn off EVER living far away from an airport again!

All-in-all, the trip was BLISS, but the traveling was a little bit of a pain. I've never enjoyed Disneyland with so little stress. I honestly think it's the best Disneyland trip we've ever taken, and we're excited to be only 5.5 hours away when we are in Arizona. Sorry about the long post, and overload of pics! There's still 3 movies to go...if you've got the time!

The girls on Flik's Flyer's in Bugs Land...

Dumbo fun...

Abby on Teacups while Nate and Caitlin made a restroom-run...

P.S. You can pause the music on our blog just by clicking on the play button, if you can't hear the movies. Just a little FYI...

Aaaaaaaaaaa!!!

We're back..the trip was AWESOME....and I ruined my blog! I was trying to change to a different background, and apparently deleted a lot of things on my blog. More pics and videos to come...and a more organized blog...sorry!!!!!!

P.S. I'm slowly adding your blog links BACK to my blog...please email me or post a comment with your blog address if I don't have it on there yet...that will save me a ton of time! Thanks....

A Success...and Blessing!

Caitlin's 'surgery' to get tubes in her ears on Thursday went well. Can you call it a surgery if the actual procedure only takes 10 minutes? ;o) We got to the hospital at 7 am, and they took her back at about 9am for the procedure. They had to put her out, but no IV this time, so that was a huge relief. She had a hard time coming out of the anesthetic, which is always gets me all worried, but she calmed down after a while. Luckily Nate was done with his test before she went back, so he was able to run over for a little while too! We were at the hospital for 5 hours, and came home with a different child!

Lately I have spent many nights in tears feeling like Caitlin treats me more like an enemy than a friend. I have tried all different things, and spent a lot of time on my knees trying to figure out how I can become a better Mom for her. Her behavior lately has been so unlike the normal Caitlin we know. I knew that her hearing was getting worse, so it all makes sense that her behavior was being majorly affected by her hearing loss.

The ENT came in after her procedure and said that she not only had fluid-filled ears, but what they term as 'glue ears'. He said rarely they'll get a child that has so much 'stuff' behind their eardrum, that it is like thick glue, and they have to do several rounds of saline before they can even get it out to put the tubes in. She had 'glue ears', and basically she couldn't hear anything below 35-40 decibels (which is common background noise). After she came out of the anesthesia, I took her to the bathroom, and she covered her ears in pain when I flushed the toilet. She is just not used to hearing things like that! At home she walked by our bathroom and kept looking around in there, like she was looking for something. Then she looked at me and said, "What's that noise in the bathroom Mom?" It was the bathroom fan...a noise she hasn't heard for so long. The doctor said things like birds chirping, the a/c in the car, and normal background noises are things she hasn't heard for a long time. We are so blessed with modern technology! I am so thankful to have my sweet Caitlin back, and I can't say how happy I am that her behavior is back to normal! (And she doesn't have any pain from the tubes, so that is a huge plus as well!)