a smile that's still too big for my face

Robert and I just got back from a wonderful week-long trip to Anaheim, CA where we visited family and spent a day at Disneyland.  This post may be a little rambly and weird due to being a little tired.  Our plane sat on the ground for three hours to fix a repair, so we got in SUPER late last night.  We spent over seven hours on planes yesterday.  

Naturally, it was the perfect time to come home to an unholy mess.  Due to a storm, our electricity was off from Friday midday to Sunday evening.  Thankfully it came on just a couple hours before we got home!  Unfortunately everything in our freezer was soup.  After only a few hours of sleep, I realized I needed to get up and empty the freezer before our trash was picked up.  Thankfully today is our trash day!  The first thing I grabbed was a tub of ice cream, which went PLOOP when I grabbed it.  It didn't quite have a chance to refreeze.  If there was any question whether we could save anything, that ice cream moment answered it.  

After racing around emptying the fridge and freezer, I literally ran to the doggy daycare to pick up the girls, who looked at me and said, "Oh it's you, our favorite lackey. Please walk us the heck out of here and get us a cookie."  Literally zero excitement.  Only demands.  "You left us here.  Now you must pay for it."

They only got a short walk because I realized I might have time to clean up our back and front yard before the yard waste truck came around.  Thankfully it comes around later in the day.  We didn't have any damage, which is miraculous as there are many fallen trees, branches, and utility poles in our neighborhood.  Our trees are standing, but it looked like they threw one heck of a tantrum.  It took me over an hour and a half and seven bags!  We were so lucky to not have any damage and also have electricity by the time we got home. 

Adulting at its best.

I am so pooped, but I'm also so happy to sit down and take a breather to blog about our exciting trip to Anaheim.  I love reflecting about happy moments almost as much as I love living them the first time.

Here are about a million of my favorite pictures from the trip.  I decided to try a few collages since I have so many pictures.  If you right click on the pictures, click on the option to view them in a new window.  They'll come up full-size.  Enjoy!

Robert and I flew in last Sunday and spent the evening flying fighter jets at Flightdeck.  Even with the canopies closed I could hear Robert giggling like mad (usually after each time I died, so who knows if there's a connection there). 

This was taken right before I died 23 times.

Robert and I spent our first two days exploring Anaheim, Fullerton, and Los Angeles.  One of our first stops was the Fullerton Arboretum, which was a gem.  

I captured this special moment of glorious California sun and equally glorious Kansas nerdpie.

We also visited Santiago Oaks Regional Park for a sunny hike, turtle-watching, and pond dancing.  A mysterious parrot made an awful racket when we arrived, and as we left he briefly flashed in the trees before disappearing.  I know he's likely an escaped pet, but for me, he was a sparkle of magic.

We oohed and aahed our way through the Central branch of the Anaheim Public Library where they had a magical children's area, memory kits for families looking to preserve a loved ones' memories, both a teen and adult zine section, and song props kits for littles that included eggs, scarves, activities, and CDs.

Robert whisked me away one afternoon on a wild journey through LA's fashion/garment district.  Holy moly, I couldn't tell if I was more overwhelmed by the shoppers or the merchandise. 

You may not be able to see the Robert in this next picture as he is so perfectly camouflaged in what is clearly his natural habitat. 

While Robert and I were wandering around, my brother Scott and his crew were exploring Disneyland.  Robert and I joined them on their third day, and they still had more energy than us!  It took only one 14-hour Disneyland day to completely exhaust me.  We were also joined by Scott's in-laws, who were really sweet.  Though I felt like I spent all 14 hours walking around in an intense fog of magic, color, and sound, I tried to soak up every moment of everyone's joy and excitement.  I'm pretty sure Autumn spent the entire 14 hours talking about the previous two days and also the time she came to Disneyland when she was four.  Even though Savannah is only twenty months, she is going to remember moments from this trip.  

The first ride I went on was the Star Wars ride after Kristin assured me it wasn't too crazy.  Though she was terrifically wrong, I thought the storytelling leading up to the ride was excellent.  I buried my face in Robert after we were dropped, so I can't really tell you anything about it how it ended.  There were these creepy animatronic bad guys who were after us.  There was some shooting as we tried to get away.  I'm pretty sure we all died, but thanks to the magic of Disney, we all walked away.  After that, Kristin's mom, Debby, told me I needed to find my safe person, which is a person you can trust to tell you whether you can handle something or not.  As I learned the hard way, it's not the person with a bad-guy glint in their eye telling you it'll be fine.  My safe person instantly became Savannah.  I happily went on any ride she could go on, and the rest of the day was wonderful.  Though I didn't go on all the rides with everyone, I enjoyed listening to all their adventures doing crazy rollercoasters and being dropped one floor at a time on the most ghastly sounding ride, which I think was the Guardians of the Galaxy ride.  Savannah and I chose the pretzel-eating ride instead.

Disneyland has a lot of food options for people with food allergies.  I was super impressed by this thoughtful touch.  They had frozen juices, bags of ready-to-eat pineapple and pickles, and even dinner was easy.  I packed protein bars thinking it was going to be a protein bar day, but I didn't eat a single bite of them.

Other than being a part of everyone's excitement and ridiculously joyful energy, my favorite moment of Disneyland happened at the end of the day when we watched the World of Color, which consisted of Disney and Pixar movie snippets projected on tons and tons of water jets.  It felt all my human boundaries completely disappeared.  Here were all these movies that were so instrumental in creating the person I am today, and I could not only hear the music but see it too.  I thought I was going to die for the twenty-fifth time due to too much happiness.  It was one of the best moments of my life.  

The day after Disneyland we all went to the beach and had a blast swimming and goofing around.

This picture perfectly captures everything about that day.  

Savannah, once again, was not a fan of the ocean.  In her defense it was a little chilly.  Thankfully Debby had the idea to build Savannah her own little slice of the ocean.  While Scott, Autumn and I gleefully chased waves, Robert happily built sand castles, and Savannah happily destroyed them.  They were the perfect team.

We spent the last two and a half days meandering, goofing around, and enjoying each other's company and excellent food.  We bowled, strolled through the Los Angeles Farmer's Market, and even visited a Barnes and Noble together.  While we were at Barnes and Noble, Autumn joined me at the literary journals section.  I love checking out the literary journals section when I visit different Barnes and Noble stores.  They usually have about five or six and they're always different.  This particular Los Angeles location had about twenty, which was incredible.  Autumn plopped down next to me and asked me what I was looking for.  She was such a great listener as I explained what they were and gushed about my favorites.  She then asked me if I had any poems about the trip and how many I had written about Scott.  She asked me what my favorite poem was that I had written, and you know what, I don't think anyone has ever asked me this question.  What a question!  I told her it was a poem called Mixed Media, which was a poem about a dream I had that had taken place in a thrift store.  Autumn then shared a dream and asked me how it could be a poem.  Another great question, which we explored together.  She then said she "hadn't been so inspired in at least four years."  I couldn't help myself.  I think I whooped with laughter over that.  We talked about her creative endeavors, which include making wildly entertaining videos of her family.  It was one of the best conversations about creativity I've had.  I can't get over how imaginative, thoughtful, and clever she is.  

When Scott, Kristin, and Robert moseyed off to fly fighter jets, I took the kids to an indoor play area, which was a dream come true for me.  Autumn set to work making both a fort and friends with everyone in the place while building it.  She even enlisted their help.  Savannah and I sat back, played with plastic food and crawled through impossibly small areas while dragging all the food around with us.  Strangely it kept accumulating even though we only had four hands between us.  Every so often we would wave to Autumn as she and her pals dragged enormous vinyl shapes through the tiny, never-ending mazes.  The cherry on top of the whole adventure was when Savannah and I were invited into the fort, even though I had overheard the kids talking about how it was going to be a kids-only fort.  It was a victory that gave me a smile that's still too big for my face. It was a fort journey unlike any other with lots squishing and giggles as we scaled mountains of fake food and dinosaur-sized vinyl shapes, and I'll be making withdraws from that bank of happiness for months to come, I guarantee it.

One of our adventures involved dinner at Sur, which is the setting for one of the programs Kristin has watched for years.  Only she can tell this story, so you'll have to ask her about it.  While we were walking to a dinner that was hopefully going to be filled with drama and celebrity sightings (neither happened btw), we stumbled upon the West Hollywood library, which was eerily sterile and modern without a single bulletin board or display in the children's area.  It was still a library, however, and a surprise one at that.  There were even tennis courts on its roof, which is not something I've seen before.  Almost a dream come true.  If my library built tennis courts on its roof that would be it for me.  I would lose my mind.

I can't speak for Scott and Kristin, but Robert and I had a donut every day we were on vacation.  Every day.  Apparently Anaheim is donut central.

Though we enjoyed Friendly donuts, which is open 24 hours a day, Robert I both agreed Oliboli had us at "strawberry donut."  Both Friendly and Oliboli had vegan donuts, which just doesn't exist in Kansas City.  We have one place who makes them on the occasional weekend, but they are wildly inconsistent about when they make them.  About once a year they make them on a Saturday when I'm not working.  

I've never eaten so many donuts in my life, and I think I'm good with not having them for a while.  

On our last day in town we got a little more than donuts and coffee when we stopped in at Oliboli.  

We had a lot of great food on this trip.  Some of it didn't make it long enough for a picture.  

Best coffee: Phin Smith and Contra.  Both offered to adjust the flavor if I didn't like their first attempt. Dear Kansas City, take notes.

Best breakfast: Aunt Yese's 

Best ice cream: Hug Life (which serves only vegan ice cream and also had some of the best music too)

Best sandwich place: Cortina's Orange. Dear Kansas City, why is it so hard to make a good sandwich?

Best sushi: 39 Degrees

One of my time wasters is checking my Apple watch app too many times a day.  I enjoy the maps and graphs and all the numbers that tell me I'm doing a good job.  I love swimming but don't get a lot of opportunities to do it.  I was thrilled we were able to squeeze in so much swimming on this trip.  Can you tell which map is the one where we swam in the ocean?  Hint - it includes a hilarious trip to find a bathroom where I forgot to pause my watch.

These maps are a visual representation of happiness.  Each frenetic dot or slash is a cannonball, chasing a wave, splashing, all those irresistible underwater flips, an accumulation of joy.  And one long trip to a terrifying porta potty and the race to get away from it and never see it again.  

I always come back with treasures from our travels, and this trip was no different.  Bookman, which is located in Orange, was the best bookstore I've ever been to.  Hands down, the VERY best.  They are insanely organized.  They had a section for everything and one of the best poetry sections I have ever seen.  

I also walked away with about half a dozen literary journals, a few of which I need to renew my subscription to.  I also couldn't walk away from LA's fashion/garment district without lots of beads.

Robert and I also visited The Last Bookstore, which was a lot of fun.  Didn't find too many books, but the place itself is an attraction.

At some point we all talked about our favorite moments of the trip, and though I didn't mention it at the time, I'm going to share it now.  As crazy as it sounds, I enjoyed being squished in the backseat with Autumn and all her books while we drove around trying to visit everything.  We all played one of my most favorite games, Mad Libs, and Savannah chucked things at Robert, who was a good sport and happily gave her toys back each time.  Every once in a while someone would make a song request to DJ Scott, and it was little bit like a moving fort of family and comfort.  So yes, I went to Disneyland with family and loved it, but I also equally loved being in the car with them.  Family makes just about any place special.  But maybe not the Star Wars ride.