Ross Girls' Disneyland Trip 2010

Note: I've decided the most stressful part of a fun trip is deciding which pictures to post on your blog when you get back. After realizing that there's no such thing as the "Best 25 Pics" when you have 350 really fun pics, I just quickly chose some and tried to make sure I had pictures of everyone that went. (Anyone who wants to is welcome to come by my house and see all my pics!)

Last Monday I hopped on a plane to California. I got to spend 3 1/2 days with my sister Ashley and her family by myself. Then my other sisters and my mom showed up to join the party for the last 2 1/2 days. We took our annual trip to Disneyland. Lots of fun!

My nephew Marshall and I were stylin' in our sunglasses together and getting ready to do some serious grocery shopping:

Our Disneyland day started out with a fun surprise: We were chosen as "Guests of the Day." Apparently the computer randomly picks a time every morning. The first car to drive through the pay booths after that time is the "Guest of the Day." There were all sorts of things that happened on our way there -- such as getting out of the carpool lane too soon and getting stuck in slow traffic, and Ashley leaving her wallet in the trunk of their car -- that suddenly became things we were grateful for. It put is through the pay booth at just the right time!

A guy on a bike drove us to a parking spot that was the closest one to the trams. They had cones there to make sure no one else was in "our" spot. We also got to park for FREE! Yeah! We were so excited! Here is Alyson and I right after we parked. You can see the "Guest of the Day" certificate in our windshield.

At the end of the day, we took one more picture with the "Guest of the Day" certificate. Such a fun surprise (especially given that it was a packed day at Disneyland)!

My mom had the fun idea of getting us all matching shirts for this trip. Great idea, Mom! Getting ready to get on the tram: Alyson, Mom, Me, Lindsey, Ashley

Taking a trip on the Jungle Cruise: Ash, Aly, Linz, Me, Mom

Lindsey and I on Autopia:

Lindsey took this picture of me while I was busy taking pictures of everyone else on Autopia (you can see we had a very steady young driver at the wheel!):

Marshall is one lucky kid! He got to go to Disneyland with a bunch of his aunts and with Grandma Ross. All the other kids got left behind with the husbands.

Having Marshall around was usually lots of fun. There was that one time, however, when he had a blow-out accident just before some of us were getting ready to get on Big Thunder Railroad. That wouldn't have been a problem except that we had the diaper bag with us. Lindsey ran to get the bag from us just before the train took off. Way to hustle, Linz! :)

All us sisters together -- Me, Ash, Aly, & Linz

I rubbed the lamp, but no genie appeared. Bummer.

Me and Mom getting ready to ride on Big Thunder Railroad (one of our favorite rides that, unfortunately, closed down early at the end of the day):

Funny thing, that darn sword doesn't come out no matter how many girls you get to pull on it at the same time!

Alyson and Me on Big Thunder Railroad:

Whew! We made it through the ride in one piece! :)

Our other favorite ride is Splash Mountain. I offered to ride in the front (thinking I'd have a chance to dry before it got dark and then someone else would have to be in front when it got a bit colder -- unfortunately, I got REALLY wet and didn't dry before dark...)

It's a little hard to tell how soaking wet I am in this picture...

...but a lot more obvious in this picture! :)

It's always so nice of Ashley and Derek to let us crash at their apartment on these crazy, fun trips to California and Disneyland! I think Derek enjoyed himself a little extra this year -- we went on his birthday; but more importantly, we went two days after he finished his first set of boards for optometry school. Good job, Derek!

Ashley and Derek left around 10 pm to get little Marshall into bed. The rest of us left when the park closed at midnight. What a super fun, long day!

The next day, we took a trip to the beach. It was in the upper 70s and really nice. I got to play in the sand with little Marshall:

The only problem with the beach is that the water was freezing! We opted instead to play in Ashley's pool after the beach. Lindsey and I were working on helping each other get adjusted to the temperature of the water. :)

Lindsey, Alyson and I had several swim races. In between races, we relaxed on the side of the pool:

We're not sure if we'll be able to make the trip next year or not, since Ashley and Derek will be leaving for rotations about the time we usually take the trip. Thankfully, we have lots and lots of fun memories to last us a lifetime (including rolling on the floor laughing outside the bathrooms -- love you girls!)!

Horray for Wicked!!!

Here are the pictures I promised in my last post about our wonderful "Sister's Vacation!" Here's a picture of all of us (Me, Ash, Aly, Linz) outside Ashley's house just before going to Wicked.

Here's a picture of Ash and me in front of a Wicked ad/sign at the theater. This picture proves that we made it safely even though I was driving. It turns out Utah drivers who learned to drive on their mission to Toronto can really hold their own in the California craziness. :)

And here's all of us again outside the theater. I had no idea how good of a production I was about to see! Alyson had better seats than the rest of us, and we all offered to trade her seats at intermission so she wouldn't have to keep sitting by herself. For some reason, however, she didn't want to trade with any of us. :)
As a side note: I was the only one with dark hair growing up -- all my other sisters had blond hair. In time, however, Ashley's and Lindsey's hair also grew dark. Now we look like triplets with a cute blond sister. :) (Stay tuned for the picture in five years when all of us have white hair...)

A Sister Vacation in California

Wow, what a week!! The girls and I spent four days in Rawlins with Lee and my parents (my sister Lindsey also went with us). Then Lindsey and I drove back to Spanish Fork where we met up with my sister Alyson. The three of us left early Wednesday morning for one of the best vacations I've ever had! We went to California to see Ashley, and the four of us sisters lived the life for a few days.

We got to California in time for Derek's birthday (Ashley's husband). Yea! :) Then we spent all day Thursday (8 a.m. until after midnight) at Disneyland. We took bunches of pictures, but I selected only a few to share. The first one is all of us as we arrived at Disneyland. We had Ashley's son, Marshall, with us for the first half of the day. That kid has been in Disneyland more than anyone else his age, I bet! :) In the picture it's Alyson, Ashley, Marshall, Lindsey, and me.

This next picture is of Ashley and me. It was actually taken later in the day --you can tell by the fact that my hairdo has about had it. :) This picture was taken during the one time we stood in line for a long time -- it was the line for Space Mountain and we waited 65 minutes. Other than that I don't think we waited much longer than 30 minutes for most things, and a lot of the waits were less than 15 minutes (thanks to fast passes and staying there late).

Here's Lindsey and I at the beginning of the day. The funny thing is that when I saw this picture, I didn't recognize the dinosaur in the background. I finally figured out this was in line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which we rode on three or four different times, but I somehow never really noticed the dinosaur. Oops.
Here's Alyson and me riding on a boat. I think it's the Queen something or other. I'm sure one of my sisters will comment with the correct name. I have an awful memory (and am apparently not very observant either). We rode the boat around Tom Sawyer's Island, which you can see in the background.
And here's a picture of Lindsey, Alyson, and me all together on the boat (I think it's the Queen Mary???). Ashley had gone to meet up with Derek so he could take Marshall, and she got back just in time to snap this lovely picture for us.

After this ride we went to Splash Mountain for our first ride of eight for the day. I'm going to have to do another blog when I get more pictures from my sisters because I don't have any from Splash Mountain. We went on it four times in the last hour, and we all took turns sitting up front and getting drenched. We figured it would be okay to head home totally wet. Very fun!!!!!!

The next day we slept in, went for a run, showered, and then went to watch the Broadway play "Wicked." Alyson and Lindsey have been wanting to go for a long time, and Ashley and I agreed to go along. Little did I know what I was getting into...I haven't been able to get those marvelous songs out of my head since that night. I have got to find a place to buy the sound trek because it's really frustrating trying to sing a song and not knowing the words!!! (Right now You Tube is my best friend!) It was well worth the cost of the ticket and then some -- absolutely wonderful!!!

I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed our trip. I fell asleep at the end of our ride home and woke up about 30 minutes before arriving back in Spanish Fork. When I woke up, I just wanted to smile. I felt so happy as I thought back over the previous days. It was a perfect vacation, and I LOVED being with my sisters!!! (Now, if the transition back to motherhood could go just as smoothly...)

"I got laid off, so I'm going to Disneyland!"

The title from this blog is a direct quote from Lee. I overheard him on the phone saying this to one of his friends while we were in California. A trip to Disneyland is something we'd been promising the girls. We hadn't planned to go so early in the year, but we realized the week between Lee's jobs was the only time he'd be available to go with us. It was the first trip to Disneyland for Lee, along with the girls. We were disappointed to find out the teacup ride was closed for the day, but we managed to have a wonderful time anyway. Here are a few pictures recapping the trip. There are only two problems: 1) The pictures got all out of order when I uploaded them, so enjoy anyway. 2) I somehow escaped the whole trip without any pictures of my sister Ashley along with her darling son, Marshall, and husband Derek. They came with us and let us stay at their house. Their being at Disneyland was an important part of our trip, so I'll have to see if Ashley has some pictures of them...So here we go:

Sorry, I don't know how to turn pictures the right way. This is a picture of the girls by one of the caves on Tom Sawyer Island. They had a chance to take a picture with Jack Sparrow (is that his last name?), but they didn't want anything to do with him. :) I have fond memories of running through these caves when I was a kid...

This picture was meant to be the last one. This is Lee carrying Brynne to the car at 10:30 p.m. At about 9:30, she told me she wanted to be at Aunt Ashley's house so she could sleep. She was a trooper, though, and didn't fall asleep unti the tram ride back to the parking garage an hour later.

Morgan with Lee on the Flying Dumbo ride. (There is one of Brynne and me further down.) This was one of our longest lines, but the girls loved it.

Speaking of the line for the Dumbo ride, here is a picture of us in the line. I don't think Brynne minded the lines as much because she usually talked Daddy (and sometimes Mommy) into holding her during those times.

The only picture I have of Lee, Morgan and Brynne's first visit to the Disneyland castle. The sun was right in their eyes, so Brynne is looking down. Ashley let us borrow the stroller Brynne is riding in. Let me just say that the stroller was a life saver!! This kid of ours isn't big on walking.

I asked some nice stranger to take this picture of our family just as we were preparing to embark on the Storybook Land Canal Boat. It was already way past bedtime at this point, but you can see that my kids were still having a great time! I think Brynne looks so cute in this picture!

It wasn't all happy faces. Brynne was sad because she wanted to ride in a cage on the Casey Jr. Circus Train. Luckily, there was room in the monkey cage, so Brynne and I went back to the cage. She was very happy after that. In fact, she giggled with delight throughout the whole ride -- one of those precious moments that made the whole thing "magical"!

Brynne waited the whole day to get to meet a princess. Aunt Ashley was nice enough to wait in the long line for us while I took the girls to listen to Snow White tell a story. Then Brynne joined Aunt Ashley in line while Morgan and I attended a Coronation Ceremony where Morgan (along with many other kids, mostly girls) learned how to be princes and princesses. For some reason Morgan wasn't as big on needing to meet the princesses in person.

I love this picture. You can tell that Brynne is trying to get her fingers to cooperate in correctly indicating her age. She must have been successful because "Belle" is correctly indicating the number "four" with her fingers. Brynne was cute giving hugs to the princesses, but was also her shy self. Other than with Belle, whom she warmed up with, she was reluctant to talk to the other two (I think they were the princesses from Mulon and Aladdin). Anytime the princesses asked what Brynne's name was or how old she was, Brynne pointed up to Aunt Ashley and indicated that Ashley should answer the question for her. I'm just glad she enjoyed Belle so much to make Ashley's long wait in line worth it!

One of Morgan's high points was driving the cars at Autopia. There was an unusually short line, so she went twice in a row. First with me, and then with Daddy. I have video of my ride with her. This was my "magical" moment with Morgan. She was so intent and cute. She really played the role well and I loved it. She actually drove well too! Now I just have to figure out how to get video on this blog...

Morgan, Lee and Brynne riding on the carrousel. I sat next to Brynne for the ride but caught this picture before it started.

Here's the one of Brynne and me on the Dumbo ride. There was a little lever you could use to make Dumbo go up and down. Brynne thought that was the greatest thing ever and had so much fun moving us all around.

After dinner, Derek was able to join us. At that point, the adults were able to take turns pairing off to do big-kid rides. I went on a few with Lee, and then he went with Derek on a few. I even changed Marshall's messy diaper while Ash and Derek went on a ride together. It was perfect. Another day would have been nice because we weren't able to do everything, but it was everything I hoped it would be. I kept saying that the girls wouldn't know if they missed out on any rides, we just had to make sure they enjoyed every moment -- and they did!

I was absolutely amazed at how well the girls did. Brynne only whined for a little while, but got over it pretty quickly (that's when she get to meet the princesses). And sweet Morgan never once complained about all the walking until shortly before we left when she started crying because her legs hurt so bad. At that point Ashley held Marshall and let Morgan ride in his stroller. We were actually ready to head home about that time, but then I realized we hadn't ridden on Pirates of the Carribean. That ride is an essential part of going to Disneyland in my mind, so we all went on that together just before leaving. It was a fitting end to a great vacation.