Our Trip to Disneyland!!

That's right! Disneyland! We never really planned on going to Disneyland, especially since we barely even make it to Salt Lake, but this Christmas we were visiting with our good friends, Brian and Natalie, who live in L.A. They invited us to come and stay with them anytime and maybe we could even go to Disneyland since they know someone who works there and might be able to get some of us in. Well, we just did the "Ya, that would be really fun!" thing, but didn't really discuss going. But then. . .after Christmas we found out we would be welcoming another Riley into the home in July and figured we just gotta' do it now--there will be no summer vacations for us!

After coordinating work, schedules, etc. we found out we were going to Cali and spending about 4 days with some of our favorite people and would even be able to go to, that's right, Disneyland.

We packed up our very cozy Honda Accord (yes, we know, we will be needing to get a van in the very near future) and headed on our way with lunches packed, activities and homework situated, and fingers crossed that Paige would handle the 10 hour drive.

About 100 miles into our trip, in Fillmore, UT, we saw this:

Not a big deal, we just checked the owner's manual, shook some spark plugs around, and then pulled over to the nearest shop to get a diagnostics done. Everything looked safe to continue on our way, so we jumped back on the interstate and then, DING, the light came back on! Back to the shop we went and got a tune-up, ate some 5 buck pizza next door, and then loaded up and got back on the road. Back on I-15 and shake, shake, shake, light comes on. Uh-oh. Back to the shop. We're baaaaack. After a long while, still unable to find out what's going on and can't even get back home. We're stuck! We can either stay the night in Fillmore, rent a car from the only place in town (which only rent round trip at not-so-great rates) or rent a U-Haul and tow our car back home. We choose the latter, but the only problem is the nearest U-Haul is an hour away. Urg! But wait! In walks a man who is headed in that direction and gives Julian and Ogden a ride. Sweet! Meanwhile, me and the girls spend a total of about 5 hours (between all the figuring out and hitching of rides) at 5 buck pizza. Alas, our hero returns, and we all cram into the u-haul for our 100 miles back home.

Not exactly how we had planned our vacation to go. And not the funnest thing to tell your kids Disneyland is cancelled. We will try again in a couple months. I guess these things just happen sometimes. I had gotten the safety and emissions completed the day before and oil changed 2 weeks ago--everything fine. I guess sometimes, despite how prepared we try to be, we just can't control everything. I'm not sure why this had to happen. Maybe it was just our luck. Maybe there was a reason for us not to go. I don't know. Turns out our car needs a new catalytic converter. Turns out we went without a family car for 6 days, and we did just fine. Turns out we're getting a van sooner than we had planned.

Bye, bye Honda. You have been such a great, reliable, low maintenance car.

We have learned some lessons throughout all this. The last couple months have been (from our perspective) fairly bumpy. The process of building a house has been quite difficult, and still is. We are trying to save as much as we can for this, but every month something has come up to prevent this from happening. Nothing serious has come up though. And every time I get discouraged about our road bumps, I am reminded that I have so many blessings. Every member of our family is healthy and safe. We have a warm place to live; we can feed our family; we can keep the lights on. Even though our plans are not going as we had hoped, we are so blessed.