On the way to Mexico!

We are so sneaky! When Bruder turned 8, we surprised him with a trip to Disneyland. When Lucy turned 8, Lyle just happened to have a dental continuing ed in Orlando, so off we went to Disney world. Both times we completely surprised the kids. With Lucy, we told them they needed flu shots in Tacoma. They were so totally sure that's what was happening, that even after they read the final "clue" while they were in the airport, they said, "Soooo....we go to Disney world and THEN we get flu shots?"

This time, (now that the kids feel it's a tradition to go to Disney when you turn 8), we had to be even more sneaky. We did let the big kids know the plan, but wanted to surprise the littles. Luckily for us, the kids knew we had a trip planned to Idaho next month. We told Rose that we just wanted to make sure we were ready this time and that I wanted all of our bags packed early. Rose also completely believed me when I said it was extremely hot in Idaho and that she needed to pack shorts. Whenever we'd mention the Idaho trip Bruder would do his Kronk (from Emperor's New Groove) impersonation and say "Riiiiigggghhhht." Rose never suspected a thing.

On the morning of our trip, I told Rose that we needed to do a test run for Idaho and make sure that all of the luggage fit in the car. I had to go that morning to traffic court---- O.K., this deserves an explanation. Right before Christmas Lucy and I were at a service project (it's important to throw that Good Samaritan bit into this story) when everyone was told to go home because the weather was turning scary. We left and were slipping and sliding and slid right through a red light that took a very uncomplimentary photo of our car. The ticket was quite hefty and I felt I had mitigating circumstances. The judge agreed, but I left the courtroom and told the kids that the most RIDICULOUS thing had happened! The judge said that she'd take my licence away if I didn't go see Judge Lawrence Mikey in California. He's the only one who could take care of it.

I was indignant. "Can you BELIEVE this?! It's our Spring Break and now I've got to go see a judge?!" Lyle agreed that it was completely ridiculous, but what can you do? Since he had the time off, and since we already had packed bags in the car.......why didn't we all just go? Rose started to cry. This was totally unexpected. She sobbed that she'd had things planned for Spring Break! Now it was all ruined. Maybe we'd laid it on a bit thick.

She was clueless until we walked up to the Disney gate. Her smile was priceless. We so love our almost 8-year-old Rose. We had one whirlwind Disney day where Bruder managed 3 back-to-back heave-free rides on California Screamin'. Cholita loved Monsters Inc and Soarin' Over California made me very happy.

Sunday morning we went to church in Anaheim where we found that the people had better tans, but still seemed to preach the same gospel, and then we boarded our cruise to Mexico.

We are being spoiled. Life is good. Internet here is expensive. Forgive the typos.