Our Disney Vacation

Years ago when our children were small, we decided that it was time to take them to Disneyland. My elilelpsy was still giving me difficulty so we decided that we would take someone with us to help us drive.

Randy Vance had just come home from his mission so we asked him if he would be willing to come with us to drive and to help us with the children at the amusement parks. He agreed to come, and we were off.

Randy had just come home from a mission in Scandanavia and he had developed a love for cheese. Everywhere we stopped he check out the cheese to see if there was some type that we hadn't tried before.

Along the way, we stopped at the Grand Canon. I was in awe at the magnitude of the canon. No picture or film can begin to describe the magnitude of that magnificent place! It begs to be experienced in person.

We stayed with Bonnie and Emery when we got to California. They were living in Torrence and Shandi was a tiny baby that had cholic. She cried most of the time that we were there. They took us to Redondo beach which was a beautiful plalce. I enjoyed the ocean, but I did not enjoy the sand in my swimming trunks nor did I enjoy cleaning the oil from our skin after swimming in the ocean.

The trip to the Disney theme park was a trip that I shall never forget!! Emery drove the lead car and we followed. I had never seen anything like the freeway through LA. Somehow we took an exit we shouldn't have. We took the next on ramp onto the freeway at what seemed like a hundred miles an hour.

The amusement park was quite an experience! There was a death on the monorail the day we were there. Some teenage boys decided that they didn't like the ride and got off it in the middle of one of the tunnels and then were hit by the next car through the tunnel.

Many rides were not available to me because of the lights and were not available to Robert because he was too short. We ended up waiting while Randy and Andi and her mother took the rides.

Both of the kids enjoyed "It's a Small Small World". They thought it was cool when the ghost sat beside them in the Pirates of the Caribean, but Robert didn't like it when the explosions in the water were too close to the boat.

Robert and I went into the Haunted mansion. We went into the elevator and the walls began to grow taller and taller, he reacted. He turned to me in all the courage he could muster and said, "Daddy, I love you, but I won't come back in here!"

Neither Robert, nor Andrea liked the costumed characters.

Now that Betty and I are in our second childhood, we think that it would be fun to go to Disneyland ourselves. We can't afford it right now, but we can both return to the memories we have of the times we did go.