Quotes of the Week

"Listening is being able to be changed by the other person." 

 -- Alan Alda 

"I'm touched by the idea that when we do things that are useful and helpful - collecting these shards of spirituality - that we may be helping to bring about a healing." 

 -- Leonard Nimoy 

"Most of the successful people I've known are the ones who do more listening than talking." 

 -- Bernard Baruch 

"Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was." 

 -- Richard L. Evans 

Disneyland Day 4 - Red Cars Shirt Again

We thought all the little boys in the family would be happy with a re-run of the red Cars shirt on day 4 at Disneyland. They look happy about it, don't they?!?

Glen took the day off of cooking this morning. It was cereal all around so we could get out of the house quickly.

Brooke and Madison were having cheese balls with their breakfast. It was the family favorite treat two years ago. Brooke made the request for the big barrel of cheese balls again this year. Her grandpa made sure her wish was granted.

This bunch of boys don't look in any hurry to get on with their day. That's what happens when an electronic device makes an appearance. 

No matter what the reason for them congregating into such a tight knit of boyness, I always love it when the cousins mix and mingle. Too cute!!

Here are a couple more minglers playing together up in the toy room.

I wanted to get our picture taken by that mural this particular day to see how it looked. It is apparent (a little pun) the castle wall downstairs by the front door is the best place to take departing family photos.

The boys in the Excell family were obediently standing by the castle waiting to be photographed.

Don't quite know what happened to make Carson so sad when Sarah stepped into the picture.

This is a cute bunch of people. Look at Natalie this day. She was finally feeling much better. 

Sunscreen a must for all people spending entire days outside in the sunshine.

We got delayed a few minutes as we were leaving the house. Both Rebecca and Glen took turns talking with someone trying to get a loaner microwave, trying to get the broken light in the bathroom fixed (Jacob's family had to take a cell phone flashlight in there whenever they had to use the bathroom), and trying to figure out how to get the cable on the television to work.

Thankfully we weren't still waiting to get the air conditioning fixed. Four days without it was p.l.e.n.t.y.!!

Ahhhhh, peace and quiet with everyone gone!! Glen dropped off the Excell family at Disneyland and he came back to the house in Jeff's vehicle. We were waiting at the house for FedEx to deliver our spare car key. It was scheduled to arrive around 10:30 that morning.

We made our (almost) daily grocery store run in the morning instead of our usual nighttime excursion. This is how Glen chose to spend the rest of his waiting time.

I heard a thud at the door and opened it to find our special delivery.

Our neighbor had pulled through for us and we had our spare key she got from our house now in our possession. Hurrah!!

Off we went to the park and hooked up with the Golden family. They had found a cool place (literally and figuratively) to hang out in some building. It was swelteringly hot every day we were there, so anytime we could find a reprieve from the heat, we loved it.

Along with the coolness of the atmosphere, there were cool things for the kids to do in different areas of the building.

And here we are back outside in the sweltering heat. But don't we look so happy to be there?

Ben and Haley on the Toy Story Midway Mania ride.

Brooke wanted to stay close to Glen for part of the day because she likes to go on the roller coasters with him.

We're back in Cars Land where we got lots of approving comments about our shirt design.

Speaking of cars...look at this happy guy! At the end of the day we went back to the parking lot where our car had been sitting overnight for two nights. We found our car and it didn't have a parking ticket and it hadn't been towed.

Hallelujah!! WE LOVE DISNEYLAND!! If it had been anywhere in San Francisco--our car would have been towed!

Another bright spot in our day was we finally had a working loaner microwave after being without one for several days. And Glen had figured out how to make the cable on the t.v. work.

Things were looking up for the Thomas family!!!!

Disneyland - Day 3 - Light Blue Shirt Day

Third day at Disneyland was light blue Olaf shirt day.

The words on our shirt are a play on the Love Is an Open Door lyrics sung by Hans and Anna in the movie Frozen:

Our mental synchronization
can have but one explanation
You and I were just meant to be.

Looking so cute in our synchronized matching t-shirts.

Disneyland was all decked out in their Halloween decorations in mid September.

First thing inside the park we spotted Goofy in his Halloween costume walking right by us.

Emma and Luke spotted a Disney team member who had a collection of pins they wanted to check out to see if they wanted to make a trade with her.

I watched over Claire while the group went on the Matterhorn. She had found one Minnie Mouse glove at the house and insisted on wearing it that day.

Yippee skippee!! We went on It's a Small World again. I love that ride! It is a ride everybody can go on, it is a long ride, it has lots of colorful things to see and it is in an air conditioned building. Ecstasy on such a horrifically hot and humid day!

Look at that stash of candy Jeff was carrying around. It saved the day a time or two during our days at Disneyland when some child became unhappy.

Another highlight of this particular day was when we went to see the Aladdin show. Here we are patiently waiting for our whole group to arrive so we could go in together and be able to sit together.

The antibiotic Natalie was given started to help her feel better, but she still wasn't quite her normal self and chose to sit down to rest whenever she could. 

Jacob's family decided to go in so they could get in the air conditioned building while we waited outside for the others to join us for the show.

At one point I saw Sully from Monsters Inc. walking down the street. I hurried Carson over to look at Sully walk by. Thinking Carson would be impressed, he surprised me when he declared, "That's not a show!" 

Smart kid. We had been priming him to see a show and that little moment on the street definitely did not qualify as a show!

Turns out we didn't all need to go in together to get seats together because Jacob's family worked their magic in saving enough seats for all of us to sit together. The Goldens did not join us because they had seen the show earlier.

Notice the sleeping baby in Sarah's arms. He woke up just as the show was beginning.

Notice the sleeping guy next to me. He stayed asleep through the whole first half of the show.

Lincoln always made everyone who looked at him so happy because he always has the cutest smile on his little baby face. All of Sarah's boys have the prettiest blue eyes.

California Screamin' was popular with the big people. Haley tried it once and then was happy to sit out with me and the smaller children while some went on it again.

The roller coaster zoomed right past us just beyond the railing.

Eli and Claire took a little rest time eating some suckers from the Excell candy bag.

Roller coaster pose for those who survived the ride.

We called it a day at the park and made our way to the parking lot to smash us all into the cars to get back to Belle's Castle house. 

Abe's family had flown back to San Francisco the day before. We missed them!!

Disneyland - Day 2 - Green Shirt Day

Our second day at Disneyland we wore our green shirts again. This shirt idea came from Rebecca. I mentioned this shirt earlier on our beach day, but this close-up of the shirt will make things more clear.

Each one of the older grandchildren was assigned a letter from our last name to decorate. We all signed our first name on Dallas's computer. Then Sarah worked her magic to make it all come together in this finished product.

When we got to Disneyland, we found a big crowd with long lines outside of Disneyland. This is the crowd waiting to get through the security check before we could get in a line to get into the park. It was crazy busy that day. 

Not only was it very hot and humid, but it was also a random teacher work day at the local schools, so the park was extremely crowded all day long. It was a bummer because that week typically is one of the lighter weeks at Disney and we weren't expecting such crowds.

Look at everyone waiting so patiently in line for our first ride of the day.

This is the castle backdrop while waiting in line. It was the only castle picture I took. I kept waiting for a good time to get a group shot in front of the castle and it never happened. Sad!

We're on our way to the It's a Small World ride. I love that ride.

I especially love that ride when I am on a boat with this good-looking group of people.

No teacups ride for me, thank you! Spinning and twirling is definitely not my cup of tea!

Another one of my favorites is the jungle cruise ride. Glen and I took the little people who weren't big enough to go on the Indiana Jones ride. Natalie stayed with us because she was still trying to get over her bronchitis illness.

I loved the intensity of Eli, Logan and Carson's faces as they looked at everything in the jungle the guide was pointing out to them.

This was the day we had some excitement when we got back to the parking lot at the end of our Disneyland day.

Glen got this panicked look on his face as he was digging around in each one of the pockets in his cargo shorts for his car key. Each pocket yielded no key. He peered inside the car to see if he may have locked it in the car first thing that morning and no key was spotted.

This posed a serious problem since we couldn't just call Triple A to open the car for us. The key wasn't in the car, so that wouldn't help. We had no spare key with us.

Thankfully Jeff and Sarah were getting ready to exit the parking lot at that point and we flagged them down for a ride back to the house.

The problem was they had very little room for four extra people. Glen sat up front with Jeff. Sarah moved back to sit between Carson and Lincoln's carseats. Ben propped himself halfway on the seat where Eli was sitting. The other seat in the back had been taken out to make room for the double stroller. Haley wedged herself in the space by Eli's feet.

That left me perched precariously on top of the wheel well with the gigantic stroller as my armrest.

Thankfully the house is only about a mile away from Disneyland. 

Thankfully we arrived back safely at Belle's Castle with only a slight delay in getting dinner ready for the group. Looks like Madison enjoyed her dinner.

Glen made a call to the local Toyota dealership to see if they could make us a new key, but they needed the car to do it and we weren't ready to pay to have it towed at that point. We were still trying to figure out all our options.

Dallas suggested we have a neighbor send us our spare car key. That was a great idea!! Our neighbor Kathy Jacketta happily got the key and overnight FedExed it to us to solve our problem.

In the meantime, we were down one car for a couple of days and that was a bit obnoxious, but we made it work.