Walt Disney World

This was the view of my entryway this morning.

Depressing, isn't it?, but oh, it's typical KS weather, 80 degrees one week, a snowstorm the next. Just the perfect time to reminisce and imagine myself a month ago when we were on vacation in balmy Florida...

Every February there's a neonatology conference in Orlando, and since we've never been to Disney World, we figured this was the perfect excuse to pull the kids out of school for a week of fun (well, o.k., it may have not been fun for Chris to sit through some of the lectures, but for the rest of us)...

That's right. We've NEVER been to Disney World. My poor, deprived kids are probably the only ones in their school who hadn't been there before (Disneyland yes, Disney World, no). Here I will remind you--in case you forgot!--that while we've lived in Kansas City for almost 14 years, Chris is from Seattle and I'm from Boise, and both of those places are really far from Florida. Growing up, everything was Disneyland and California. And we went there. Oh, sure, a few of our lucky friends actually went to Florida, but as a child the big golf ball at Epcot seemed like a million miles away.

Of course living in Kansas makes Florida a whole lot closer than California:)

So off we went! Sunshine poured through the airplane windows and the girls HAD to pull out their sunglasses. Sunny and 20 when we took off, sunny and 82 when we landed. Enough said.

Now in my naivete, I had envisoned Disney World to be a whole lot like Disneyland. Hahaha, those of you who have been there are saying! Disneyland is a PARK, and Disney World, well, it really is a WORLD. I don't think I need to say that we absolutely LOVED Disney World. It was like a magical, fairy tale land (does that sound Disney enough?) Everyone friendly, everything clean, so many activities to do, things to see, rides to go on...here's a little bit of what we did for 7 days...

After landing we headed to Downtown Disney.

First stop: ice cream at Ghiradelli's! Yum yummy yum yum. Just the smell of freshly baked waffle cones and melted chocolate was enough to make anyone more than happy to fork out $9 for a sundae and shake!

We had free passes to Disney Quest, and spent the evening trying out virtual reality games, playing old arcade games, and just having a good time together. Abs, Lisi and I learned how to draw Pluto,

While Kierst made a virtual roller coaster, then rode it. I think that was one of her favorite things on the trip. That, and going on real roller coasters. Aargh, matey, we fought ships for treasure and plundered their gold (say that with a piratey Jeffrey Rush ala Pirates of the Carribean accent) on a virtual adventure.

They love playing mariokart on the wii, so it was fun for them to try out the arcade game. We met Chris one night in Hollywood Studios for dinner. He took Kierst on the Tower of Terror...We lined up for the 9 p.m. showing of Fantasmic. Such a great show, but look at the line behind us, taken on Chris' phone, and this was an hour before the show, there were probably 700 people in line in front of us. C-R-A-Z-Y!!We found a little Mickey waiting for Fantasmic, too.It just so happened that Chris' conference fell on the third busiest week of Disney World. You can imagine that the parks were really really crowded and we stood in a lot of long long lines (yes, we used fast passes, but they can only get you so far).

One thing we learned early on was to take breaks whenever we needed to. While Chris took Kierst on Mission Space, the rest of us cooled off in the shade, played, and ate snacks.

Test Track was definately worth the wait, for everyone except Abs, she spent most of the ride screaming.

Oh, Canada! You know that when you go to Disney World with little kids part of your time will be taken up getting character signatures. Chris didn't believe me when I warned him (it's been a really, really long time since he went to Disneyland!), but quickly learned I was right! And oh, what fun it was to see our children's faces light up when they hugged their favorite characters! Especially Lisi, who doesn't yet realize that it's not really Mickey Mouse. Mexico! Thanks to Chris wearing a BYU hat we learned that Mulan goes to BYU--she asked the girls if they choose the right! Haha! We really didn't make it through most of the countries at Epcot, we spent so much time everywhere else! We did splurge and have a couple of character meals. Chip and Dale are without a doubt my kids' favorite Disney characters, we ate at the Garden Grill to see them.

Don't you love how everything at Disney World is shaped like a mouse?

Our reservation was pretty late in the evening and the restaurant wasn't half full, which meant the girls had plenty of time with Chip and Dale, all the characters circled by our table a few times.

This says it all. Lisi was like this every time we saw a character.

We spent a day with Chris in the Magic Kingdom. Abbie's favorite ride was Splash Mountain.

Yes, yes, yes, the lines were long, long, long and we found different ways to amuse ourselves.

We saw a lot of 3-D shows, I must mention here that we HATED Bug's Life and that I loved watching Captain EO--yes, the 1980s 3-D with Michael Jackson, I'd always wanted to see it and hadn't and it was playing!! Kierst thought it was lame, I was dancing in my seat throughout the whole thing, today's 3-D effects certainly are better, but hey, it's Captain EO!!

What better way to end our day in the Magic Kingdom than by hitting the candy shop on Main Street for fudge, lollipops and cupcakes, then watching the parade go by?

On the way back to our hotel afterwards, I realized that I left my camera case--with my driver's license, visa, camera and phone in it--on Main Street, right outside the candy shop! How could I do that? Well, I had my little point and shoot camera, I kept it out while Chris carried around the backpack with all of our water, etc. and I put it down for some reason next to me while we sat on the steps outside the candy shop. I was a little panicked as you can imagine, not about the visa and all that but about all the pictures on the camera! By this time it was 9:45 and the bus driver called ahead to see what could be done, and got me back to the park as quickly as he could. A security guard walked me to the candy shop, the employees there said they found the camera case on a store shelf. All I know is that I was being watched over because I KNOW I left it on Main Street--the pics above were taken with it :) The security guard then took me to consumer affairs, got me to the front of the line, got all of my belongings, she was so helpful and kind. And was I ever relieved!

One morning we had breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and friends.

Kierst love, love, loved Winnie the Pooh as a little girl, she wouldn't watch any other movie but the classic Pooh bear ones, you know, the ones where Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit's hole when he eats too much honey? Or he acts like a rain cloud to try to get honey from the bee tree? She would carry a Pooh bear everywhere we went. My mom gave her a Piglet, she called it Pigalow.

On the parade...

More characters...

Cooling off at Epcot...

On the boat to our hotel...

Our hotel's pool complex was fantastic, with water slides, waterfalls, a kiddie pool, sand beach, it was great.

We all watched the skies from the pool for the space shuttle launch, it was so cloudy we could only see a few flames and a contrail before it disappeared--can you see it? Animal Kingdom.

Jammin' to the African music.

Another night at the pool.

For the first time Lisi wanted to wear a life vest so she could move away from the shallow end. We've tried everything to get her interested in learning to swim, but she's refused, I think we're finally taking a step in the right direction!

Hollywood Studios.

Loved Beauty and the Beast.

But my favorite was the stunt show. I would love to drive a race car, no, I'm not talking Nascar, I would just like to drive a car that's moving really really fast. Didn't know that about me did you? :)

Our last night was a sad time. The kids posed to show me how they felt. And yah, we were looking pretty scroungy by day 6 of our vacation.

Back to Magic Kingdom for a final day of fun before catching our plane for home!

We were so sad on the way home, Kierst was crying in the van on the way to the airport! Lisi kept asking when we were going back to Disney World, Abs was so tired out she fell asleep on the plane. Lisi, I don't know when we'll be going back, but you can bet it will be sometime soon!

Lisi's Birthday

As usual, life gets in the way of my blogging, I feel like I have so much to catch up on...but first the most important event..

Happy 5th Birthday--yesterday--to our Analise Renee, aka Lisi!

Lisi was born on March 3, and yes, that goes along with our lucky (or freakish?) number 3 thing (remember, 3 girls, all born in March, all three years apart).

I was induced a week early with her--with Chris doing his fellowship and unable to get away from the hospital quickly, and with caring for my mom and 2 other children I was pretty nervous about having another quick labor (Abs was 1 1/2 hours). And my doc agreed! The nurses joked that they all wanted to have me as a patient because they knew the baby would be here in time for them to eat lunch, haha! Sure enough, she was!

She weighed 7 lbs, 12 oz., and looked exactly like Kierst and Abs--and me!-- black hair, little nose, and chubby cheeks.

Oh, how quickly the last 5 years have flown by! I know everyone says that, but it's so true!

Birthday #1...

Number two...Number three...

Number four...

And now number 5! Hasn't she grown so much??

In our family, you get to choose your favorite foods for breakfast and dinner, so for breakfast it was blueberry pancakes!

Then presents!

Hot dogs, carrot sticks, strawberries and fries for dinner.

What more can I say about Lisi than she is just a sweet child? She makes us laugh, she gives us hugs and kisses, she loves to help clean and cook and play tennis and dance and sing.

Happy 5th Birthday!

The Sleepies

We are officially a house full of sleep-deprived zombies.

At least that's the word from the sleep doc.

In January we took Abbie in to see a sleep disorder doctor. Why?

Her teacher told me she fell asleep on the way home from a field trip (how does anyone do that with a bus full of 2nd graders?), she's actually done that twice. And within about 5 minutes she's usually out cold whenever we go anywhere in the car (and I mean out cold, music could be blaring she doesn't hear it, and I mean anywhere, even to the grocery store). Add to this that we know she's up here and there through the night, is constantly exhausted and hard to rouse. We've seen a big swing change in her personality over the past year or so, she does well in school, but crashes the minute she walks through the door.

So off to the doctor we went.

She asked us questions like, are we consistent with bedtime? Yes, except on vacation! Otherwise it's 8 p.m., maybe 8:30 on the weekends (let me tell you we don't have a choice unless we want grumpy children, these kids never sleep in!).

Does she move around a lot in her sleep? Well, that depends on what your definition of is, is. You see Kiersten is a bed thrasher, arms and legs fly everywhere all night, and Abbie, well, she may move around a lot but not like Kiersten.

Does she sleepwalk? No, but Kiersten does, usually 4-5 times a week.

You get the idea. She checked Ab's throat, her tonsils were so small that the doc could barely see them. Since Abs has relatives with sleep apnea, she recommended a sleep study. More on this later.

Then she recommended we bring Kiersten in! We hadn't even thought about it, although Kierst can be pretty lethargic too, and constantly seems to have evening headaches.

We brought Kierst in and after talking with her she ordered blood work to check her iron levels, I guess low iron levels can contribute to restless leg problems, a good place to start. Then she told me that I need to see an adult sleep doc! Haha! A little revelation, but really not a surprise, I'm a terrible sleeper, always have been, and am always exhausted, restless leg? You know it!

Kierst's pheratin levels were low, she's now taking iron which has cut down her sleep walking to maybe once a week, her focus has improved, and her headaches seem to be gone! Hooray!

Abbie's appointment for a sleep study was scheduled for May, but thanks to a cancellation we were able to get her in Monday night. It took an hour for them to hook her up to all the wires and machines, I wanted to get a picture but there was no way she would have that!

(Side note here: Chris was on call Mon. night--we were so desperate to get the study done that we decided to chance him having to go in, usually it's only about 1 in 5 calls that he actually has to go the hospital. Haha! He got called in right after I took Abs to the hospital, took Lisi and Kierst with him, they watched a movie while he attended to the "this will only take 30 minutes" procedure. That led to a delivery, which led to other things, 3 hours later the girls were still watching movies in the waiting room, they didn't get home until 10 p.m. Of course he got called throughout the night but didn't have to go in. I was worried that he would get called in right before school, I knew Abs and I wouldn't be home until late, and someone needed to get everyone ready. Wouldn't you know that he got called in at 5:30 a.m.? Fortunately my sis was here and Chris got home by 7:30 to get everyone off. Whew. Talk about sleep deprived :)

Anyway..they did order labwork right after the study to check Abbie's iron levels. Turns out Abbie's legs were moving all night!

No surprise there, (at least if you know Abbie), and apparently the rest of our family!!

I guess each sleep study generates about 1,300 pages of data that have to be interpreted, things like carbon dioxide and oxygen flow, dreaming, heart rate, etc., that are measured every 30 seconds. We won't have the results for another 2-4 weeks, so it will be a while until we know exactly what's going on.

So hopefully in a couple of months we'll all be sleeping better! All of us, that is, except for Chris. Nothing he can do about call!

Baptism

Last weekend I made a quick trip to Salt Lake City for my nephew's baptism, no kids, just me. What a fun time I had with my sister and her family!

Side story: Without kids I thought I'd have peaceful, relaxing flights there and back, just me, my laptop and kindle. Haha! The airline gods were consipiring against me! My flight to Denver was delayed 25 minutes, I only had 30 minutes between flights in Denver. So I spent the first flight biting my nails, hoping to make the connection, once I ran to the other gate I learned the other flight was delayed, too. Yay! Of course, then we spent 45 minutes on the runway while waiting to be de-iced.

And while I'm on the subject of flying I might as well say that on the way back my flight out of SLC was delayed 45 minutes, I (again!) only had 30 minutes between flights. Somehow we made up time in the air, landed 5 minutes before my other plane was to depart, I ran the 20 gates to the other plane (this is when you learn how truly out of shape you are, or at least I am!), fortunately, they were "unofficially" holding the plane for the 3 of us who just arrived. Whew!! Maybe next time I'll just pay the extra $ for non-stop flights!

The first stop after the airport? Dinner from Red Iguana, of course, for the best Mexican food in SLC! (Yes, Cafe Rio is scrumptious, but yum yum, almond mole from Red Iguana, nothing can top you.)

Friday I spent the afternoon with my sister at the BYU Art Museum. I love going to museums with my sister, she's an art junkie, too, we spent our time analyzing, critiquing and just absorbing the art.

The main exhibit at BYU right now is about Carl Bloch. He's a once-famous 19th century Danish painter who fell into obscurity, but whose work was seen by someone at LDS Church Headquarters who felt that his paintings would be perfect for gospel teaching, they've become almost iconic LDS pictures.

If you want to learn about the exhibit, here's the link:http://carlbloch.byu.edu/

If you're a member of my Church, you're probably familiar with Bloch's work, you just might not know that he painted them. I like his use of light and dark (chiaroscuro for art historians like me), his classical figures that portray a scene from the scriptures in a viewpoint that isn't necessarily "classic" (yes, he seems to have been heavily influenced by Caravaggio, he studied in Italy for 5 yrs, again for you art historians). Here's a sampling of his altarpieces, one belongs to BYU, the others are at the exhibit on loan from Lutheran Churches in Denmark:

Christ Healing the Sick at Bethesada:

The Doubting Thomas:Christ and the Young Child:

And my absolute favorite of all--Christ in Gethsemane:

I don't think the reproduction does the piece justice, it really takes your breath away.

Then we went to a delightful Dorthea Lange exhibit entitled "Three Mormon Towns." Here's the link:http://moa.byu.edu/fileadmin/moa/lange/exploring.html. Click on the link for the original Life magazine layout and you can see most of what was in the exhibit.

If you don't know who she is, Lange is a well-known American photographer, her Depression-era photography taken for the government is the most famous of her work. This exhibit showcases her photographs of three southern Utah Towns taken in the 50's for a Life Magazine piece. There were shots of canned vegetables, people attending church, women in aprons, Utah cowboys, I love looking at photography anyway, and this was just a delicious treat. Here are a few images, not necessarily my favorites, but the ones I could get off the BYU website:

Saturday was the main event: my nephew's baptism!

Here are my bro-in-law and nephew, ready to go to the church.

Now ready for baptism!

My nephew is the only grandchild on my side of the family--besides my kids, of course. He has autism, and my sister has really done a great job working with him on her own. He was so excited for his baptism he didn't want to have to wait for talks and singing, once the clothes were on he was ready to go! I love his enthusiasm! The Spirit was so strong during the service, I started crying during the opening song, so did my sister's sister-in-law I was seated next to, we were the ones giving talks and had to keep it together somehow!!

Afterwards, pics of everyone, then a reception at my sister's house.

The Nielson/Decker side who was there: L to R, my cousin, my aunt (not by blood, but love) and her husband, my great-aunt, my 2nd cousin and his wife, me, my sister.

My bro-in-law's family

My sister and me. I guess we've changed a little as we've gotten older, but we still look a lot alike! When we were younger, people would ask if we were twins, but we're six years apart, either I looked older--umm, never happened to me with my chubby cheeks--or she looked really young!

The rest of the visit was spent with Steve's family going swimming, o.k., me watching my nephew and sister swim, going to church, and of course, eating chocolate cake!

Can visits ever last long enough?

Free Time

A couple of weeks ago I was released as primary president at our church. I only served three years but wow! did the time go by quickly!

I know that everyone always says their favorite calling is the one they currently have, but I loved primary! What could be better than spending your Sundays teaching little children about Jesus Christ and how to live a good life? I loved the simplicity in primary, that we talked about the basics of the gospel like believe in Jesus Christ, be baptized, be nice, be honest, pay your tithing, say your prayers, read your scriptures, serve others. Those simple truths are what being a Mormon is all about.

And how I love those children! I think they're the best ones in the whole Church, not that I'm biased or anything! I loved watching the 11 year olds advance to Young Women and Young Men, then seeing those smart boys pass the sacrament, I loved attending the baptisms of the 8 year olds, hearing the children sing songs of the Gospel, giving talks, bearing testimonies, sharing their experiences, asking questions, looking up scriptures, giving hugs. I loved feeling the Spirit bear witness of the life of Jesus Christ and the truthfulness of the Gospel during sharing time, the entire room quiet and peaceful, the children feeling the warmth of the Holy Ghost.

My Sundays just won't be the same.

I've had quite a few people ask me what I'm going to do with all of my free time. Let me just say I never have a problem filling time!

Along with all the other things I normally do, since being released I've painted a bathroom, study room, sewn 2 sets of curtains, helped Chris finish installing a pocket door in our laundry room (including painting shelves, the laundry room, the hallway, down the stairs, can I say how bad oil-based enamel smells?), reframed pictures, worked on taxes, organized a cupboard, volunteered to help out with more hoa and pta things, to name a few. I don't have problem filling my time, I always feel like I don't have enough time do everything I'd like to!!

I'm heading out this morning for a quick trip to Utah to attend my nephew's baptism. Can't wait! I'll post pictures of the laundry room renovation when I get back! Who would have thought we would do renovations on a 3-year old house?

But boy, do I miss primary!!

Follow-up

Yesterday I talked to the person who invited us to play on the Friday night mixed doubles league. She's also in charge of the whole thing.

Turns out the level of play is supposed to be 7.0.

Whew.

I wasn't going to submit Chris to an 8.0 match again, but it looks like we'll play the rest of the season after all.

Yipee!!

Nothing Like Baptism by Fire

There is nothing quite like baptism by fire.

Especially in tennis.

And yes, this is a rambling post about tennis, feel free to skip if you just started yawning. I just have to get it out.

A few weeks ago I was asked to join a Friday night mixed doubles league with Chris at our club. Me: Well that sounds like fun, but you know that Chris has NEVER played a match before, that he just started playing 6 months ago (because of his schedule he's lucky to get in 1 day a week of play, sometimes 2 with a lesson and hit and run), right?? Other person: That's no problem.

When I said yes I was thinking that this must just be a fun, non-competitive league (O.K., does that actually exist?) where we'll be paired up against an equal team, otherwise, why would she have even asked us?

Wrong.

Last night was our first match. We're waiting for the courts to free up when I run into the captain of my USTA 8.0 mixed team from last summer. He's playing with the same person he played with over the summer on the 8.0 team. And it turns out we're playing each other.

Seriously?

So I proceed to tell him and his partner (remember, I played on their team this past summer, played with this guy as a partner in a match, have played with the girl in hit and runs and she invited me to play on world team tennis last year but I just didn't have time, so I do know them) that this is Chris' first ever match, that he just started playing this past summer. The guy's response was, "You know we're going to kill you, right, haha."

Again, in my naive head I'm still thinking that this is non-competitive, that I know these people and they'll be "nice." Umm, no. This IS competitive. They served their normal serves and hit their normal strokes. I have to admit I was ticked off last night, to say the least, maybe because I'm protective of my partner, maybe I was just mad not to be paired with equal opponent, probably because I felt like it was poor sportsmanship. I want Chris to enjoy tennis. I mean hit those to me all you want, but sheesharoni at the very least slow down your serve to Chris who is a BEGINNER.

Well, if you were playing someone that you knew was a BEGINNER (Chris) and you had played in COLLEGE (the other guy) how would you play against them?

I know, all's fair in tennis. And, since I learned last night that this is a competitive league, I can understand why they didn't hold back. But...

Out of the corner of my eye I'm watching the court next to us and the ball is going back and forth about half speed and I'm wondering why we're not playing the people next to us???

I was very proud of Chris. By the end he was getting some of their serves back, he hit some winners at the net, he had some good serves, I was just proud of him in general. For just starting out he's doing really well!

We won 2 games out of the match and brought 5 or 6 games to deuce. We stayed after and played for "fun" (that's in quotes because the pace of the game didn't change) and won a few of those games. Considering everything I would have to say that's pretty good.

Bottom line: we're going to carve out more time for him to play. Next summer when we go back to Destin I want him to join in the fun (and non-competitive!)round robin play at Seascape, haha!

I'm just happy to have him on the court with me :)