The Happiest Place on Earth, part 3

Every day that passes, I get further behind in 'journaling' the goings on.  In an effort to wrap up our little vacation, I'm resorting to bullet points and then some pictures, with captions, from the vacation.  Enjoy:)

* Huz was pooped on by a bird not once, but twice

* as we walked past a convenience store, the automatic door opened.  Four announced, 'my ghost had to get something at the store.'

* Three got sick on Day Three.  As in I was jarred awake by her yelling, 'mom!  I'm throwing up! (heave).'  Love that.  Poor kid.

* We had a great time.  It was actually pretty uneventful.  Well, except for the first day.   And the day that Three had the stomach flu.   

* The not-so-lovely swimming pool at our hotel (not to be confused with the very super awesome swimming pool at our Vegas hotel, pictured below) was at least as big of a hit as the theme parks.  So basically, we could have gone to the Motel 8 in scary cityville and the kids would have been in heaven.  And we would have saved a ton.  Not that they didn't love the parks, they just also loved the pool.

* We placed bets to see who would see someone they know at the parks first.  We all bet Huz.  Including Huz.  We all won, no surprise.  It is a HUGE surprise though, who it was he saw.  On the last night of our vacation, while we sat by the pool watching the kids, Huz happened to glance up and look through the window into the hotel lobby only to see, get this, his uncle and cousin.  For reals.  Evidently they had been on a cruise that was cut short due to a hurricane, had to make an unplanned docking (or whatever it's called), cut their cruise short, and were all spread out at various hotels around the area.  Seriously.  What are the chances?!  They had no idea we were here, so they didn't choose the same hotel on purpose.

* While in line for cars (see pic below) Four had to pee.  Like way bad.  And we were way stuck in a line that we had been in for about 80 minutes.  Because we were all too tired of waiting to argue, Huz instructed us to form a human 'shield' and he held Four in the bushes behind us to pee.  Fast forward another FORTY minutes when I was FINALLY climbing into the ride.  Huz, One, BoyOne, BoyTwo, Two, and Three were in another car that had just taken off.  The woman in front of me commented that they had waited over an hour and a half.  I told her that I felt her pain; we had waited nearly two hours after four other kids decided they HAD. TO. PEE. 90 minutes into the projected 90 minute wait.  When it was clear that we still had quite a while to wait, Huz had taken them to use the bathroom and planned to meet up with us further up the line.  Of course, miraculously the line suddenly surged forward and we were required to wait while allowing other people to go in front of us until they returned.  I told this to the lady (only in much fewer words) and she said, 

'Well, at least he took them to the bathroom.  Some other guy held his little girl in the bushes to pee and had his family try to block it.'

I hurried and turned around and sat down, hoping she didn't recognize me.  

* All in all, it was a great trip.

 Four, my sis Shalyce, Three, BoyTwo, BoyOne, Two, One 

 Two

 One

 Three

 Four.  Don't panic.  It's not as dangerous as it looks.

 BoyOne.  The one moment he ventured away from his brother and smiled.

 BoyTwo.  This is the farthest he is ever away from me.  You can't really tell by the picture, but I could reach out and touch him.  We pretend there is a 12 inch string connecting us.

 Proof that I was there.

One, me, Three, Four, Two, BoyOne, BoyTwo

 hiking the red rock

 This is as close to swimming as BoyTwo was this second day of our vacation.  On restriction for shoplifting and some other thing.  Initially I was going to ban him from the happiest place on earth, even though it would require banning myself, but I changed my mind as he cannot seem to make connections with things very easily and I didn't think that he would be able to associate something that happened three days ago with what was taking place right then.  Hard to explain, but he just can't make those connections.  Everything has to be as immediate as possible, thus the visit to the St. George Tar.get.

 Three was also having a consequence for an epic meltdown in the car the night before.  It was c.r.a.z.y.

 One.  So lucky to get these action shots.  It was tricky with this camera.  Speaking of, did I mention that I forgot my camera at home?  Yeah, I know.  Almost as bad as forgetting one of the kids.  Somehow the camera didn't even make it onto my packing list which is why it was left behind.  After texting everyone on my phone who lived in my state to find out if someone, anyone, was coming to CA and could possibly bring me my camera, I was unable to find someone.  Really??  No one else went to Dis???  Sheeesh.  Luckily, upon arriving at the red rock park, I happened to find One's camera in the burb!  What are the chances?!  Hip hip hooray!!

 BoyOne.  We tried to get this picture about 10 times.  This one was the best:)

 Huz and Four.

 Two

 So beautiful

 'Mom!  What this is tree?'

'It's called a palm tree, BoyOne.'

'I no believe this!! I never know this kind of tree in Ukraine!  Take a picture of me touch this palm tree!'

 Although they have all seen 'this palm tree' before, monkey see, monkey do.

 BoyTwo, Two, BoyOne, One, Three

Four

waiting to go into CaliforniaAdventure

They are really excited, the sun is just shining right in their eyes so it's hard to tell

 Pretty cute bunch of kids!

 One and Four

 Two and Three.  They were actually fighting.  In an effort to stop them/distract them, I said, 'smile!  picture!!'  They VERY briefly stopped bickering, looked toward me, faked a smile and went right back to their argument.  sigh.

 Waiting.  Not one of their strongest suits.  It's a common misconception that former orphans will be grateful, humble, patient, etc. because of their past life where they had nothing, did nothing, received nothing, and basically all they ever did all day long was wait for everything and anything.  Just because someone has experienced something does not make them an expert at enduring it well:)

And for those of you who have been to Ukraine?  Remember the 'lines'???  Yeah.  Good times.  I do say this with fondness as I truly loved my time in Ukraine experiencing their culture.  For those of you who haven't had this opportunity, picture what it might possibly be like if your entire city had not had food for three days and suddenly a helicopter landed with enough food for 20 families.  Whoever could get to the helicopter got the food.  Imagine the absolute chaos.  (which word-chaos, by the way, One actually was pronouncing phonetically until I heard her say it last week and corrected her!!!)  Now apply this to any sort of line.  Line for the restroom.  Line for the checkout at the grocery store.  Line to get on the bus.  Line to get off the bus.  Line to have your baggage scanned at the airport.  Line to the ticket counter at the airport.  Line anywhere for any major OR minor, unimportant thing.  Even if it's not a line and you are just walking down the sidewalk.  It's not only completely acceptable to have your entire body touching the person in front of you or in back of you, it is expected.  And if you try to give yourself space, people will just come shove themselves in between you.  So, when in Rome, do as the Romans.  When we were in Ukraine, I had to learn to be a little more assertive:)  Now they're in Rome and they are learning to do as the Romans:)  Early on, we implemented a rule to help with this.  You have to be able to hold your elbow at your side, extend your hand in front of you and turn in a full circle without touching anyone or anything on anyone.  Which in my opinion is still too close for comfort, but this HUGE gap nearly drives them batty.  They still think it's a dumb rule, but are better about complying when reminded.  It's actually quite amusing to watch them hold their elbow to their waist, extend their hand, and scoot as far forward as they possibly can.

 Huz and Wif.  Waiting in line.

 Buzz and BoyTwo

 Waiting in line for TowerofTerror.  Pretending to be scared.  Except for Huz and BoyOne who for some reason decided to smile.  Probably because I didn't want him to.  haha:)

 TowerofTerror.  

Back row:  One, Two, Three, me

Middle row:  BoyTwo, BoyOne, Four, Huz

Please take a minute to notice the following:

Two is sucking her thumb.  Three is genuinely freaking out.  BoyTwo has no idea what is going on.  BoyOne is screaming like a girl.  Super funny.  Four is way too chill for a five year old.  Huz and I are laughing at two of the kids reactions (whose names I won't mention)

love, love, love the little kid in the front's expression.  hilarious!

 This is the line for the new Cars ride.  It showed an anticipated wait time of 90 minutes.  They were about 30 minutes off.  This was I don't even know how long into the wait. This isn't even them pretending or posing.  They were all just sitting here bugged and bored:)  

 First day at Dis.ney

Can you believe that BoyOne is now as tall as me?!  He's grown six inches this past year!!

 He's not really mad.  He just thinks it's cool to not smile.  Drives. me. nuts.  Which is probably why he does it.  We were waiting for a fast pass time to become available so we went on this WinniethePooh ride for Four.  This was One's favorite ride years ago.  In fact, we waiting 2 hours to go on this ride back then.  :)

 I have no idea which ride this is.  I was with Three behind these four.  Huz and Four were behind us.

 Huz and Three.

 Four driving in auto.pia.

What we came home to after swimming outside at 10:30 p.m. the night before.