Disneyland with Shannon

 It's already been a couple weeks since Shannon came for a visit.

I think she called me at work on a Tuesday and said she wanted to come for a quick weekend visit.

Then she texted a few minutes later and said she wanted to include a day at Disneyland.

She left work early on Thursday and pulled into our house after midnight.

We left Friday morning and headed to California.

 All buckled up and ready to go.

Brian is not a fan of Disneyland. He stayed home to do other manly things.

 I was able to find this great hotel about 10 minutes down the road in Orange, CA.

One room had two queen beds and this room had a double for the kids. 

 Here we are in the doorway between the rooms.

 We were able to enjoy the pool after we had Wendy's for dinner. 

Here we are in line for the tram from the parking garage to Disneyland. 

 Now on the tram. 

Ticket and Picture Time. Oh Fred got tickets with his military discount thru the Shipyard.

We stopped at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas on our way to CA.

I tell you his decision to work all those years in the shipyard continues to be a blessing.

Our retirement benefits are such a blessing. I hope we don't ever lose them. 

Picture Moment!! 

 First thing Shannon stopped one of the Disney Workers to lay the groundwork for the kids to understand who to find and talk to if they got lost. 

Princess Tiana is the only Princess that we met.

She walked out just as we finished lunch. We followed her to the river boat.

She was quite lovely, of course.

 I did like taking pictures of Shannon with Fred. 

I think they are quite the buddies.

 One of our treat times. It was hot.

  Horsey time. These two were so good. 

There was no whining or any fit throwing.

 See - pretty happy.

This picture of Fred and Buddy is on the Jungle Cruise. 

The guide for some reason was just not funny. He talked too fast and he kept ragging on us that we weren't laughing. Well who's fault is that?

Another treat time. This was during Mickey's Magic Map Show.

Fred and I didn't go on this ride with them. 

I always think of Tracy Freckleton at this ride.

She used to work at Disneyland and I can totally see her working this ride.

No monkeys here.

I think this was one of the favorite rides of the day.

It's hard to get a good picture of the carousel. A moving target.

Splash Mountain was closed the first half of the day.

We didn't think we wanted to wait until late to ride it. Plus the line was a couple hours long or longer as the day wore on. We did go ahead and get a Fast Pass just in case.

Well, as you can see we did it. It was going on 10 PM. 

It was the last ride of the night.

I really don't know how the kids felt about it.

It doesn't really look like they loved it by this picture.

 At first, I could tell she didn't appreciate me touching her, but I felt like I needed to keep my

 hands around her a little bit to keep her steady.

I didn't care. By the time we got to the end, I held on to Mima for dear life.

  I'm pretty sure deep inside she was glad.

We had a great day. 

I love that Shannon is willing to make that long drive all by herself 

and bring her family to see us. It's times like these that I wish Fred and I 

were retired. It would be nice to spend time with all our children and grandkids 

without worrying about getting time off. I do know that short is sweet though. 

For now, this is how we work it and I feel like we do a pretty good job of

seeing the kids and their families. Plus we still have parents of our own 

to keep track of. So I'm happy for these wonderful short visits that we enjoy.

Our First Phoenix Visit

 Fred and I decided to fly to Phoenix instead of driving. We flew out of the St. George airport.

It is a luxury to do that. Ten minutes to the airport. Leave our house about 45 minutes before the flight instead of two hours of driving to Las Vegas and arriving two hours before the flight.

The flight was less than an hour long.

First things first ~ We stopped at Smash Burgers for lunch.

Right now Scott and Jess are renting a home. It is quite lovely. 

They are smart to take their time shopping around for builders and where is the best place to build.

Right now they live within a mile or two of Scott's office. After his long commute in Texas, they are very happy that Scott is able to get to and from work so much quicker. 

I think commuting is just a horrible thing.

Evan was very helpful with Grandpa's suitcase.

I would say we spent the majority of our time in the family room.

It's a great place. Evan's toys are here. A very comfortable HUGE sectional to lounge on.

Close to the food/ice cream/M&Ms.

The necessities.

Jess and I went to Charming Charlies and we picked out some really nice pieces for her.

Now she has wonderful pieces to work with. It was really fun shopping together.

Fred and Scott and Evan went to Best Buy. 

Fred and Scott share a passion for home electronic gadgets.

 Both Scott and Jess are very hands on parents.

Evan is very involved. 

It's great to watch. 

 I gave Scott a crash course right before he left on his mission on

how to iron a short, do the laundry. Maybe a few other things.

I'm not sure why I didn't take care of those things along the way.

Now as I have watched him as a husband and a father -

I'm so amazed at his skills. 

I see Scott 100% involved in cooking, cleaning, taking care of his home, 

taking care of all of Evan's needs. 

Oh and he is an amazing husband. I imagine he's amazing because Jess is an amazing wife.

 They are working on the food for the BBQ for the big Gender Reveal.

 Grandpa Time.

Evan has several blankets that he loves. 

He has a little tongue soothing action that looks a lot like his Aunt Corinne did when she was little.

He's got quite a bit of the Daly gene going on. 

 Jess planned a Gender Reveal for both sets of grandparents. 

Nancy and I were both positive it was a girl.

When all the blue came out - I really didn't know what was going on.
SEE - I look pretty surprised and shocked.

I find myself in this old grandma position a lot lately.

Even little Evan got into the confetti.

After the confetti popping, Jess had bought a couple baseballs. One pink and one blue.
She nailed it. It took me a while to focus and actually take a picture.

Their neighborhood has a community center with a fun kiddie pool/splash pad.

It is a really nice facility. It also has a weight room where both Scott and Jess work out.

  Scott took Evan down the slide probably 25 times.

Sunday was church. Their ward is pretty big. Jess was just called as YW secretary.

That is a perfect fit for her. I went with her there for opening exercises and it worked out that the Laurels went to RS so we went with them for the lesson.

Scott was sustained as a Primary Worker teaching the 10 year olds. 

We spent the day in the family room.

I had this idea of taking pictures of Evan with us so we could print them and have them displayed in his room so he would remember us. By Sunday we really hadn't taken any. He wasn't afraid of us or had avoided us, but there definitely was no cuddles or snuggling going on. So Jess came up with the candy in the lap method. Even that was somewhat a struggle, but the reality of what it is.

Fred and I are totally okay with that. 

We had a delicious Sunday dinner before we headed to the airport. 

Our visit passed quickly. We hadn't been together since Thanksgiving.

It didn't seem like it though because we do Skype.
Hopefully they will make a trip to see us in August.

We are trying to figure out trips to visit two new babies this Winter.
We are excited to future visits to Phoenix as this family continues to grow. 

Bryce Canyon

Fred and I took a day trip up to Bryce Canyon. I learned after our last day trip to Brian Head not to wear capris so I wore jeans even though it was a beautiful warm spring day at home. We got about a mile from home and realized we both forgot to bring a jacket. It turned out that it was a great decision to go back home and get jackets. As we got further from St. George and nearer to Bryce we could see the cloudy skies and knew we were in for some cool temps and perhaps wet weather.

This is for you Jess. 

Fred has more hats than I have clothes. This one is from our Alaska cruise ~Juneau ~ 

This is one of my favorite looks of Fred. Picture taking. 

The other is when he is in his work clothes out in the yard or working in the garage.

What's that in his back pocket????

There it is again.

Closer.......

  Hmmmmm

Ah Yes - the magical Selfie Stick.

I was quite pleased that he brought it. 

 Still have to work on his skills. Like not getting the stick in the photo.

And not looking out the bottom of his bifocal lens. 

Now enjoy Bryce Canyon photos.

It did rain a bit and when it rained - it was COLD.

We drove through Panguitch to look at the home where Fred's Dad was raised.

Also ate at Henrie's Drive Inn on the way home.  

We sat in the last little booth way back on the left. Food was good. Nice crunchy fries.

I love road trips with Fred. I get him all to myself. I don't even mind sitting in the car all day.

When I think about a road trip, I don't think I want to go because I sit all week all day at work.

But then when we take off, I like it just fine.

The Last Day

On our last day we walked down to our neighborhood park.

We took our wagon full of toys.

 Fred bought these nerf ball shooters.

 Our BIG styrofoam gliders.

 Both of the kids played on the big playground toys.

  We also brought the bubbles. 

Whenever we go to the park, there are other kids around that watch with wonder at the great toys our grandkids play with. 

Fred always lets them join in. This time he didn't. 

It was mostly because the moms made absolutely no effort to corral their children.

They TOTALLY wanted Fred to take over the tending of their children.

It was so RUDE for these moms to sit back and expect that. Sorry - we weren't going to do it.

 Do you see the likeness of their posture here? 

Look at their right hands!

So we had such a nice time with these two.

They are at an easy age. They ate and slept well.

They didn't fight or whine. A pretty sweet gig.

Next is a trip to Phoenix!

We are very excited for that!!