Happily Handicapped at the Happiest Place on Earth

We left for Disneyland on Tuesday morning (the 10th of June, 2008). Ashton had arranged for an aiport shuttle to pick us up at home -- parking at the Seattle airport is so horribly expensive, that it was about the same cost to get picked up at home. He suprised Jacob with having a limousine pick us up instead of the van. It was fun -- we kind of felt special. The little kids were thrilled to not have to be sitting in car seats and wanted to try out all of the buttons and knobs.

We had a couple of hours to kill at the airport before our flight left. We sat in front of the windows and the kids watched the airplanes take off and land.

Our flight to LAX went really smoothly, and we got there earlier than planned. We met Ashton's mom, Jane, at the baggage claim area. What a nice reunion! We used to see her weekly, so seeing her every few months isn't quite the same.

We took another shuttle to the hotel. We arranged the shuttle through the Disney travel company and paid for it before we left -- we just had to present our vouchers to the driver and give him a little tip :).

As Ashton already mentioned, we stayed at Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel. We got two rooms, and hooray, all the phone calls paid off, and we had adjoining rooms. While Ashton and Jane were checking in, Josh and Anni mauled the Goofy statue in the lobby.

After getting all checked in, we went to dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. One of the things that we did that were great, that saved us a little money, were signing up for a club membership at the Rainforest Cafe. I think we paid $15 for the membership, and it gets us a free appetizer or 10% off our bill -- everytime we go. So, that's where we ate the first night.

We had a good night sleep, and got ready to go to Disneyland for our 1st day! This was Annikah and Joshua's first trip to Disneyland, so we didn't know how they'd react to many things. The breakfast we went to was a character breakfast at our hotel, at the PCH grill. It's the Lilo and Stitch breakfast, but we also go our pictures taken with Goofy, Minnie, and Daisy. Anni loved meeting them all, and the food is really good there, although expensive. Another thing Ashton did to help us save money was to apply for the Chase Disney Reward Visa card. It gave us 10% off on a lot of our purchases, which was great!

How exciting to be at Disneyland, yay! The first thing we did was to go into the town hall at Disneyland. We knew that we could get a Guest Assistance Card because of Annikah and Joshua's handicapps, so we went to Town Hall to plead our case. We have read that some people who try to get this special card are turned down, so I was nervous. I told Ashton I would do the talking -- I think, so that if it didn't go well, it would be my fault, and I wouldn't be able to blame him. It went so well though -- they gave us these fabulous Guest Assistance Cards -- one with Josh's name on it and one with Anni's name on it. It allowed up to 6 of us to go with them on rides.


We got to skip the whole line with these great cards. We just went in the exit and showed our card to the person running the ride, and they'd put us in a line right next to where the ride loaded. The longest we waited in any ride line was 10 minutes, but most were 5 minutes or less, some we just walked right on.


That's why I named this post happily handicapped. I have never felt so great about having handicapped children as I did going on this trip. These people at Disneyland got it that it was hard for us to be there with handicapped children, and they gave us really special accomodations because of it. Yay! What a blessing.


The first day of rides was tough -- Ashton and I didn't agree on whether or not we should get strollers for the kids :), so we didn't. Anni and Josh cried a lot of the day because we took them on rides that were too scary for them. We didn't know what would be scary for them until we discovered it while we were on it. For example, Anni is afraid of the dark and Josh is afraid of thrills, so Pirates of the Carribean and Splash mountain were horrifying for them. They both cried. It was sad.


The next day, Thursday, was much better. We went to Disney California Adventure, and realized that because of our Chase Disney Rewards Visa that we could get two free strollers every day we go to either park! Yay. Each of our little kids got a stroller, and things were much smoother. Another perk of the card was a free 5x7 photo every day. They had a photo op every morning with different characters. These are the photos we had taken.





Thursday, we went to the Aladdin show -- which Josh loved and had so much fun going on the rides at "a bug land."



Anni and Josh loved going to see the Princesses at the Fantasy Faire, and I'll have to admit, that it was nice for me to have them somewhere where they were happy and it was shady. We stayed there for over an hour, with Grandma, seeing the princesses tell stories and attending the coronation ceremony.




We were thrilled to find out that we could go on the new Woody ride -- Toy Story Midway Mania at California Adventure. It's official opening date wasn't until the 17th, but we went on it on the 13th and 14th. Hooray! Don't you love soft openings? It was Annikah's favorite ride, but I'll have to admit that we all loved it. Ashton was just like a little kid -- as soon as we got off of it the first time he said, "Let's go on it again!!" So, we did.



All in all, it was the most fabulous trip. We used up a lot of kleenex and sunblock, and had really sore feet, and there was one point where I just wanted to walk away from the family and not look back, but we all had such a good time. I'm so glad we went, and we will still be talking about it for years to come.

Disney Trip Photo Album

Disneyland Trip 2008 - Initial Post

This is a blog hijack from Ashton, hopefully you all don't mind.


I just wanted to give some of the details of our recent Disneyland vacation. Kristen will fill you in later on more of the details as well as sharing some great pictures (including details of the some great discounts we got). I just wanted to give some quick stats on what we did.


Hotel - Stayed at the Disneyland Paradise Pier Hotel for 4 nights, and the kids loved the pool with hot tub and waterslide. We got 4 day park hopper passes to the Disneyland Resort, so that we could freely go to both parks

List of Rides we took at Disneyland:

• Disneyland Railroad (rode this a few times to get around the park)
• Haunted Mansion (just Grandma Smith, Jacob, and Ashton went on this)
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (Grandma Smith and Kristen's favorite ride)
• Splash Mountain (we put Grandma Smith in the front seat, so she would get wet, and she did)
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
• Jungle Cruise
• Mickey and Minnie's Houses
• Dumbo the Flying Elephant
• Disney Princess Fantasy Faire (Show)
• King Arthur Carrousel (Annikah's favorite ride)
• Mad Tea Party
• Matterhorn Bobsleds (just Grandma Smith, Jacob, and Ashton went on this)
• Peter Pan's Flight
• Pinocchio's Daring Journey
• Astro Orbitor
• Autopia
• Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
• Disneyland Monorial
• Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
• Space Mountain (Jacob's favorite at Disneyland) (just Kristen, Jacob, and Ashton went on this)
• Star Tours (just Grandma Smith, Jacob, and Ashton went on this)
• Star Wars Jedi Training Academy (Show)
• Fantasmic! (Show)
• "Remember...Dream Come True" Fireworks Spectacular
• Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams

List of Rides we took at Disney's California Adventure:

• Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (just Kristen and Ashton went on this)
• Disney's Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular (Show) (Joshua's favorite, he gave it a standing ovation)
• Playhouse Disney - Live on Stage! (Brand new version of the show, it was great)
• It's Tough to be a Bug! (Terrified Grandma Smith, we didn't tell her what would happen during the movie)
• Flik's Flyers
• Francis' Ladybug Boogie
• Heimlich's Chew Chew Train
• Princess Dot Puddle Park
• Tuck and Roll's Drive 'Em Buggies
• King Triton's Carousel
• Toy Story Midway Mania (we rode it three times during the soft opening previews) (Annikah's favorite ride, she kept asking to go on it, even after we were back home)
• Soarin' Over California (Kristen, Jacob, and Grandma Smith's Favorite ride)
• Pixar Play Parade (Great parade, be prepared to get wet)

List of rides we didn't go on (but really wanted to):

• Matterhorn Bobsleds (Kristen didn't get to go)
• Enchanted Tiki Room (Could of been a nice nap for the adults)
• Indiana Jones Adventure (It was broken down)
• Muppet Vision 3D (just didn't have time)
• Grizzly River Run (again, didn't have time)
• Redwood Creek Challenge Trail (Jacob loved this 3 years ago, great for kids)
• "The Magic of Brother Bear" Totem Ceremony (again, ran out of time)

That's all for now, Kristen will be back with more details soon, including having handicapped kids at the parks.

Trying to Sell our Home

We've been busy getting ready to sell our home. I painted and packed up a lot of stuff and tried to make our home look as staged and ready to sell as possible.



Our house has been on sale for over 21 days (the magic number for appropriate time on the market for sale) so I guess we'll be in for the long haul.



I spent the most time fixing up the staircase to our garage. Since it was so much work, I thought I'd show you what I did.

This is what our stairs to our garage used to look like:

This is what the stairs to our garage look like after paint:This is what I looked like after painting:Here's what the stairs look like after paint and carpet:

The Cleanest Birds in America

It's been raining non-stop here for what seems like months. I can remember a few sunny days, and a few sun breaks, but it has been raining a lot.



The upside? Beautiful green grass year round, beautiful flowering bushes and trees in the Spring, and beautiful evergreen and deciduous trees.



Also, quite possibly, the cleanest birds in America.