Vacation #2: Disneyland

Posted by Mark: (it's another long one!)

Kimmi's work arrangement at the hospital, 7 days on and 7 days off, definitely has its advantages. The greatest being the obvious bonus of being able to go on vacation at the drop of a hat during her allotted week off. This happened to be that kind of situation.

We have some good friends, Ashley and Tim, and for a great deal of time during our many years of friendship, we've never been on vacation together.....but not for lack of trying! It just never seemed to work out for one reason or another. Luckily this all changed this month when they announced to us their intentions to go to the happiest place on earth! At first Kimmi and I weren't sure if we were going to go.... but circumstances presented itself to the point that at the last second we decided to tag along! We are very glad we did. We had a blast. And much like our last vacation to tell the story I will do so through pictures.

Now one thing I thought was fun was that we had quite a few different legs within this journey. Like mini vacations amongst one BIG vacation. Our first leg, even before meeting up with Ashely and Tim, took us to a little town over in east Idaho called Menan. I'll explain why we were there in a second but first I wanted to point out that we reached a mile stone during this initial drive, and I was fortunate enough to see and take a picture of the event. Its not every day your jeep turns over 100,000 miles!


Leg #1:
The reason for driving to no-where's-ville Idaho was to go visit and say goodbye to our friends Megan and Kendall Asper (plus their son Lachlan of course). Kendall got into medical school down in Arizona so they are leaving us and moving far far away. We shall miss them. Fortunately our schedules coincided enough that we had this chance to go visit them while they were visiting Kendall's parents who live in Menan. We spent the evening with them greatly enjoying their company.

First off I have to say that we were extensively grateful that Kendall's family was gracious enough to allow Beatrice to come and stay at their nice house. Not many would do that. Beatrice was grateful too. She LOVED their big yard and spent a great deal of time just running endlessly around the large, well tailored lawn.




While at the Aspers we went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. Though I enjoy the HP movies greatly I really am more of a purest. They just grazed the surface of the book and I decided that they should start the movie production all over again and instead just make a mini series of like 30 dvds so they can act out the books word for word.....that would be better I think.

What else did you do in Menan you might ask? Well we did what every other self respecting tourist visiting Idaho should do! We went and drove to the top of the volcanic Crater! (Mt. Kilauea eat your heart out!) Megan and Kendall's lean mean Pacifica was rugged enough to carry us to the top of the mountain.




Sadly in the place of molten hot magma is just a hay field.....oh well.


Plus you can't miss the Elk Farm! (sadly the elk preferred the sprinklers to coming and visiting us at the fence)


Leg #2:
After our over night stay in Menan, we drove down to SLC where we had a Mormon Tabernacle choir concert to get to. It was their annual 24th of July celebration, and as always, the Mo tab was AWESOME. They never cease to amaze me.

Fantastic view from my Grandparents new apartment balcony.


Later that evening, after playing some cards with Kimmi's parents, Lindsey (Kimmi's sister)walked in the house and announced those 4 words everyone loves to hear, "Who wants a pedicure?" Lindsey is going to school to become an estitician, so she needs to hone her pedicure skills. Kimmi and I were more then willing to volunteer. Although I'm not sure how excited Lindsey was to work on my water skis called feet.


Leg #3:
We finally met up with Ashley and Tim and began our journey to California. We really didn't want to drive the 14 hours in one fowl swoop, so we made a pit stop for the evening in Sin City. Ashley and Tim both have siblings that live in Vegas so they stayed with them. Kimmi and I stayed with our friends the Leppert's. Even though it was a very short stay, we were very glad we stopped. We were able to see Chris and Taylor's cute house and most importantly we were able to see their even cuter little daughter, Claire.

Best part of going on road trips with multiple people? Multiple drivers! The leg from SLC to St. George was my responsibility.


Kimmi kept occupied with her embroidery.... she does fine work....


Ashely and Tim relaxing in the back.



After a very delicious dinner with the Lepperts I asked sheepishly if we could be touristy and stop in front of the Las Vegas sign to take photos. I was happy to hear that they were more then willing to stop and actually they had never taken photos in front of the sign even though Taylor grew up in Las Vegas. I guess it's kind of like my own mom who grew up in SLC with some of the greatest skiing on earth, yet she's never even gone near the slopes.
Thanks again Chris and Taylor for letting us stay over!


Leg #4:
Now that we're well rested it's ON TO DISNEYLAND!
It was quite fun to go to Disneyland with Kimmi. Thanks to her many visits she's become an expert as to where to go and which way to get there. Me on the other hand haven't been to Disneyland in 15 years or so. I was prepared though and brought my own hat. Kimmi's sister Lindsey came home from Disneyland a few years back and gave me a Peter Pan hat. Generally when I get these kinds of gifts I don't have a clue what to do with them so it just went up into my closet to gather dust. But when packing for this trip I knew that this was as good a time as ever to bring it. I'm glad I did too because it appears that the peter pan hat isn't a well known item because I got a lot of attention from wearing it. A lot of people complimented me on it and pointed it out....although the attention wasn't always welcome. At one point we were walking down Main Street and the Mad Hatter caught sight of me (pretty easy to do when im already over six feet tall and then have a 12 inch red feather sticking up from my head). Anyway he started chasing me down and making quite the scene. Nothing like being accosted by a Disney character.



On Buzz Lightyear....one of my more favorite rides


On It's a small world...one of my least favorite rides


After the Mad Hatter attack I made sure the rest of us bought hats so I wasn't alone anymore. Kimmi got a cute Mickey Mouse hat.




I'm proud to say that we single handedly broke the Matter horn. We were the last bobsled to go down the mountain before it shut down for 45 minutes. What was dumb was that we were about 10 feet from the unloading point yet they still made us sit in the car for 15 minutes before they finally came and let us exit prematurely. I still kind of wish we broke down IN the mountain so we could see the inside. oh well maybe next time.


One day we ate lunch in this restaurant thats actually INSIDE the pirates of the carribean ride. While eating you could see the people in their little boats drifting past. Quite a cool restaurant with a great atmosphere.


My poor wife got the front seat on splash mountain one day and this is what resulted after heading down the big hill.


Waiting in the longest line we ever waited in. It's the new Toy story ride Woodys Roundup. Well worth the wait. Plus they let you wear these spiffy glasses as you wait.


My cute wife


Leg #5:
Lastly on this fun trip we went down to Sea World. Well worth the 1.5 hour drive from Disneyland. I will be the first to admit that I was always one of those kids who made fun of other kids who brought to school Shamu binders or shamu T-shirts, but now that I'm grown up and actually went and saw Sea World for myself I will say that I thought Shamu was pretty dang cool! If I was still in elementary school, I'd probably be sporting a nice shamu binder myself!

I enjoyed the little pools where you could play with the star fish and the sting rays.


Flamingos...Kimmi's favorite animal


Kimmi and Ashley had a bit too much fun in the gift shop. Im sure all the asian tourists thought we were nuts.





I preferred the more docile manatee


I tried to take a few photos of the shamu and other whale shows but my camera was too slow and couldnt capture the whale in mid air. These are my best two.



Anyway, we had a great time. Sure our feet took a few days to recover from all the walking we did. I wished I had a pedometer to tally up how many miles we walked, but still none of us really minded. It just made for a painfull walk back to the hotel after the daily festivities. But hey, its Disneyland, everyone walks funny there!