Once we knew we were going down to Southern California for Keaton's wedding, I decided I wanted to take the kids to Disneyland. I love Disneyland. It is all magic for me. But we bought a house in November and extra money for things like Disneyland is hard to come by. I think the term is "house poor" all of our money is in our house. So, we decided we would enlist the kid's help in earning money for Disneyland. Every time they agreed to go without something (not getting a treat when we were out, doing extra chores, and finding extra change) we would put that money in a mason jar. We had several big house clean up projects that we paid the kids to participate in. Slowly, the jar filled up with cash. By the time the wedding rolled around we were about a hundred dollars shy of our goal. Will decided to give the kids one big job (clean the whole house) to earn the last chunk of money. The kids were all eager and worked hard to get the job done and Will had a hundred dollar bill ready to put in the jar. It was right down to the wire but they made it! We had Disneyland money!
It was so nice to have all of the kids contribute to earning money. They were totally sold on it. Colter was all about that last hundred dollar bill. He has been the biggest driver for Disneyland. He doesn't really remember the last time we went. He was always happy to do an extra job and he even took money out of his own piggy bank to put in the mason jar on several occasions. He really deserved this Disneyland trip.
We decided to give Disney California Adventure a try this time around. We always do one day at Disneyland, no park hopper tickets. When Lorien went on her orchestra trip I gave her the job of deciding which park we should go to. The high school trip included park hopper tickets so she got to check out both parks. She also went with a few kids who were seasoned Disney veterans. So she got all of the ins and outs. She decided Disney California Adventure would be really fun to try. Unfortunately, Lorien was still sick by the time our Disney day rolled around. She decided to stay at Aunt Colleen's house, in bed, again. Poor kid. She was really sick.
We all enjoyed the new park. We liked the newer Disney movies and the newer attractions. Cars Land was a big hit with everyone...Colter included. Will and Colter scored a couple of fastpasses for the Cars ride and hopped right on. The other kids and I waited in line for over TWO HOURS for our turn. Sigh!
The rides were different and fun. Colter had the exact same reaction to every ride, it was fun but he wouldn't watch while he went on the ride. He insisted on hiding is face in my or Will's lap. The girls liked the Silly Symphony swings the most. I think Wyatt liked the big roller coaster (I cannot remember what it was called). He and Will got to go on it a few extra times. The park wasn't very crowded. It was easy to make our way around the park and the lines were not very long for any ride...except for the Cars ride...that was brutal.
Jennifer and Clara came along to the park with us. It was so fun to have them there too. Clare and Clara were attached at the hip for the whole day. On this trip they were inseparable, every night was a sleepover, they even both lost a tooth (the same tooth) on the trip. We sure love cousins!!!
Adell loved these ears the last time we came to Disneyland. She liked trying them on again this time around but decided she didn't love them as much anymore.
The day was very fun. We went on plenty of rides, ate good food and walked our legs off. It was unremarkable except for two reasons:
1) we missed Lorien very much. It is weird to have family activities when one kids is gone. I always feel like I've left someone some where. I felt bad for leaving my sick baby at home basically alone while I went to Disneyland with everyone else.
2) this one is longer. Before we left for Disneyland Clare's friend, Sophie, gave Clare her Disney pin lanyard. Apparently, it is a thing to flag down any Disney staff member and offer to trade pins with them. You of course have to buy pins to put on your lanyard so you can swap but the trading is supposed to be fun. Sophie wanted Clare to give it a try and Clare agreed. The lanyard came with us to Disneyland. Clare wore it all day and didn't try and trade with anyone. It just isn't in our regular Disney habit to remember so it didn't happen. When the day was just about done, I think we were just getting off our last ride and suddenly Jennifer, Clare and Clara were gone. When we finally tracked them down we got the whole story. When Clare had gone to the bathroom before getting on the last ride she left the lanyard in the bathroom! They had gone back to try and find it but no luck. Clare had taken it off in the stall and hung it up on the purse hook? It was G-O-N-E. We asked an employee and got the skinny on how the lanyard could best be located. Clare was distraught. Her friend had trusted her with a special thing and Clare had lost it. In tears Clare was pretty inconsolable. A little girl and her mother came up to Clare and gave us some more tips on how to track the lanyard down. Then the little girl offered Clare a couple of pins from her lanyard. Clare tried to politely decline since the little girl only had three on her lanyard and was offering Clare two. But the girl said "Its ok, I have over a hundred at home!" so Clare took the pins.
Armed with lost and found info we made our way out of the park. Before leaving we stopped to let the kids picked out their souvenir. Will and I checked out the lanyard displays to figure out how much it would cost and what we would have to collect to replace Sophie's lost lanyard if it wasn't in lost and found. By Will's calculations it would cost about 250 bucks to replace Sophie's lanyard! The lanyard alone was fifteen bucks and each pin was between 8 and 20 dollars! Sophie had a ton of pins on there. We were sick. We didn't count on having an extra $250 expense at the end of our trip.
We made our way through the park and found the right lost and found place. We explained the situation and the helpful employee gave us an email. We just needed to send a picture of the item to a lost and found email account with our name and address. If the lanyard showed up, they would mail it to us. Thankfully, I had taken a few good pictures of Clare wearing the lanyard. After seeing the picture below the employee said "Well, since you have such a great photo there I'm going to go check in the back right now. I might be able to find it." The lost and found was closing so we understood if it wasn't going to be possible to find it that night. In a couple of minutes the employee was back...with the lanyard! Oh the relief, oh the joy, oh the gratitude! We were all so thankful! Disneyland is a magical place. Another staff member had just turned the lanyard in and with our perfect picture they were able to pull it right out of lost and found. A miracle! With the two pins from the friend in the bathroom we felt like we had won the lottery in being able to return Sophie's lanyard whole...with two new pins...we wont be trying that out ever again.
With the lanyard found we loaded up and went back to Aunt Colleen's house to collect Lorien. It was ten o'clock at night but we decided to go ahead and drive back home that night. It was not comfortable. I ended up getting so sick and barfing twice. None of the kids were comfortable, least of all sick Lorien. I don't think I will ever be able to drive through the night again. I am too old and enjoy the comforts of life too much. We ended up having to take the next day off anyway so it wouldn't have saved us anything if we had stayed the night and left early the next morning. I guess it probably saved us some time in traffic because there wasn't any in the middle of the night. But I hate throwing up so very much...it just isn't worth it to me. Disney success, drive home reevaluation.
I am sorry it had to be a secret but beyond grateful that she is safe. I am sad she didn't have her sisters and all the trappings she deserves, but glad she had someone. 
