The Happiest Place on Earth

Sorry for the quietness on the blog the past few weeks.  We’re at the tail end of our whirlwind tour of the States and definitely feeling it.  We’ve packed more into this summer that I ever thought was possible and the coming days are no different.  We’ve got dinner meetings every night for the next two weeks and are headed down this weekend to visit a new church.  We’re speaking at two youth meetings, teaching Sunday School, and Caleb is preaching.  We’re excited about the opportunity and exhausted just thinking about it.

We’re back in Arizona now after a week in California.  We went for my sister’s wedding reception and had planned on meeting with a few supporters while there.  Plans fell through last minute which meant we had a free day for the beach and some nice family time.  My mom’s side of the family all came down from Oregon for the reception and it was so fun introducing Caleb and the girls to all my cousins and their families… some of whom I hadn’t even met yet!

For months, we’ve been planning a huge surprise for the girls.  All of the girls’ grandparents and many aunts and uncles were all there to experience their first visit to Disneyland.

Isla had no idea what was coming.  My mom and I made cute little outfits for the girls (technically, I described and she made :)) and as we were walking up to the park, Isla was all excited because “maybe there will be a slide there?”  She saw the ticket booth at the entryway with a Rapunzel poster and thought maybe that was Rapunzel’s house.  All the adults were just giddy with excitement at what was to come.

Through a little Disney magic and a lot of wasta, all of the princesses knew Isla and Ruby by name.  I definitely cried when Snow White blew a kiss and said, “Hi Isla” from her parade float and when Flynn Rider waltzed into a room full of little girls and called out, “Hi Isla and Ruby!”  So special.

The rides were fun (except for the scary ones, I mean Walt, what were you thinking with Pinocchio?  Does anyone like that ride??), the churros so yummy, but seeing a little dream come true for my 3 year old was priceless.