Nineteen

When I asked her why she was wearing her hood for the picture she said, "I didn't choose the thug life, Mom.  The thug life chose me."

Amidst all the everything Emma's birthday celebration was a little segmented.  Sunday we celebrated at home though.  She likes cherry chip cake and the only place to find a cherry chip cake mix is Ridley's which is a sort of ghetto grocery store around here.  Saturday Adam and I went and I bought three mixes.  "Do you need three?" Adam asked.

You never know.

Here are nineteen things I love about my girl:

1-She knew I had a cold and called me from the store to see if she could bring me juice.  She's a caretaker.

2-I don't know anyone who can rock lipstick like she can.

3-She is loyal to her friends.

4-She figures things out.  It makes me feel confidence in her.  She'll get it eventually, whatever it is.  She'll get it.

5-She listens.  You're not always sure she listens because no one tells her what to do, but she's listening all along.

6-She's super funny.

7-She's super weird.

8-She gets some things about me that no one else gets on the same level.

9-She has beautiful handwriting.

10-I love the songs she writes and then plays and sings on her guitar.

11-I love to watch her sing because she sings with her whole soul.

12-She has a symbiotic relationship with her brothers.  They take care of each other in different ways.

13-I love the ways she is like Adam.  She's smart and insightful and adept at technology and systems like he is.

14-Injustice makes her angry and she's not going to let it slide.

15-She loves art and philosophy and beautiful things.

16-When she shares her secrets with you, you feel like you won the lottery.

17-She can be counted on.  She does what she says she'll do.

18-Winnie the Pooh is her spirit animal.

19-She is a complicated blend of sweet and sassy and standoffish and loving and self-deprecating and confident and easy going and ready to set the world on fire.  I'm glad she's my girl!

Magic Kingdom and the rest

I have to condense days here because Stella is coming tonight and I'm going to spend the rest of the week with her (mostly trying to keep up with her at RootsTech).

I'm excited to see her!

But back to the trip:

We went to Magic Kingdom on Monday sans Adam who had his conference to attend.  (Which I can't complain about because the conference got us his airline ticket and our hotel.)

We did miss him though.

The sun was bright and the humidity was real (check out Braeden's tight curls!) but we were at Disneyworld and all smiles!

I loved spending the day with these three:

Taking kids this age to a theme park is the way to do it.  Braeden would chide me every time I picked up the backpack to carry.  "What are you doing?  Let me carry that."  So I felt really lucky compared to all the mothers whose children were whining and crying and begging to be carried.

There was a mystifying amount of babies and toddlers.  At one point we were in line and the lady behind us had a teeny tiny baby.  Someone asked her how old she was.  Thirteen. Days.

Thirteen days.  Are you kidding me?

People are crazy.

Disneyworld food is expensive and we were there for the long haul so I told my charges that I wasn't going to be buying them a ton of food.  "I'll bring snacks," I said "and I'll buy you a little food but there's no complaining about being hungry."

I bought them the iconic turkey leg (which I thought was kind of gross) and a hot dog to split for lunch.  If you knew how much food Mark and Braeden put away you would know that it was sort of a loaves and fishes situation.

My favorite rides are the gentlest ones and our kids gamely went along on Small World, Peter Pan and the Carousel.

I promise Mark was happier than this picture suggests.

 Maybe the 21 year old is too old for this when his feet touch the floor of the carousel...

...but probably not.

I checked the weather at home.

I felt a little smug in my t-shirt and sandals.

Adam joined us after his day at the conference was over.  We went on a few rides, including Dumbo.

There's Mark and Adam taking a picture of Emma, two elephants behind.

So between the two pictures, it's a regular family portrait?

There's also this picture for posterity:

I eventually ran completely out of steam but Braeden and Emma were still going strong.  Adam, ever the one who takes care of me, got Mark and me back to the hotel (an Uber because the hotel shuttle wouldn't be until later) then circled back in the rental to get the big kids so they could stay until the bitter end.

He's quality, that one.

He also got up in the 4:00 hour to drive them to the airport Tuesday morning.  I am the lightest sleeper in the world (OK, tied with my sisters) and I barely moved when they left.  I was exhausted!

Mark and I spent a leisurely morning then went back to Magic Kingdom during the hottest, busiest part of the day.  Not the best plan we ever had.

Sunscreen makes me shiny!

We still had a good time though.  Mark is fun to be around and very pleasant--until he isn't.

Wednesday we stayed at the hotel and he swam and I read.

It was a beautiful place:

Mark did the breath stroke for two hours in the lazy river and then he was starving.  And when Mark is hungry, it isn't pretty.

We were in the midst of a regular standoff--me refusing him more food until he had done a little of his homework when Adam showed up with a big plate of food.

Mark's amiability was restored and after he'd done some homework and Adam and I had gone to the store to buy dinner for the airplane, Mark and Adam swam some more.

I very happily read my book and took pictures of lizards who like the music coming out of the speakers apparently.

I wonder how they describe it to their friend lizards....

All good things must come to an end so Adam dropped Mark and me off at the airport Wednesday evening.  (He stayed another day for work.)

I only took sandals because I didn't want to use the suitcase space for shoes.  I did have some brightly colored socks I brought to wear in the hotel room in case my feet got cold.

I donned those in the SLC airport before going outside, as well as Mark's flannel shirt and my BYU sweatshirt.

What can I say?  I was super fashionable.

While we were standing in the 20 degree night, a 65 degree drop from Orlando, waiting for the shuttle to take us to long term parking, I decided I was never leaving home again.

But then I did.  The next day.  I had to go to the grocery store.

Vitamin Sea

notice the seashell Mickey Mouse

On Saturday Braeden asked:  Are we going to swim in the ocean tomorrow?  Because I want to wrestle a shark.

(He didn't really want to wrestle a shark.)

(But he did really want to swim in the ocean.)

They all did.

Sunday, after sleeping much better (at least I did), we went to church.  We were immediately welcomed and it felt really good to be there and feel like we belonged.  It was the most culturally diverse ward I've ever been to.  We've always sat on the front row during sacrament meeting.  When we moved to Pleasant Grove and were going to church for the first time, I told the kids not to sit on the front row.  I preferred to slink in the back and get the lay of the land.  Our boys are fast walkers with long strides and impossible to keep up with.  They walked right to the front row.

Sunday morning in Orlando I said, "We are not sitting on the front row.  This time for real."

We sat in the back.  And it's a good thing we usually sit in the front because I get really distracted watching people.  There was the cutest little boy in America sitting right in front of us.  He was also super mischievous with an older brother who slyly knew how to get him riled up.

What?  I listened to the speakers too.

After that and lunch at Wawa (an East Coast convenience store/sandwich shop Braeden frequented on his mission--it was good!) we hit the road for St. Augustine.

When we got the rental, Mark had ideas about which car he wanted (of course he did) but we vetoed him and got a minivan.  It was a good call because everyone had plenty of space for the drive to St. Augustine.

By the time we got there, I decided we didn't have enough time for a lot of sightseeing and also swimming so I voted we go to the beach first.  I know these people.

The boys headed straight into the surf.

Water has an irresistible pull to them.

But not just them.

Adam watched them and said, "I want to go out there too.  But I don't want to get sand everywhere and there's no shower.  I don't have another shirt to wear.  I am not going to go."

Then after a few minutes he went.

Sorry you have to squint to see them but I was standing here:

Emma stood next to me and watched Adam and the boys play.

She said, "I want to go out there but I don't want to get my hair wet or lose my hat.  I'm not going to go."

I told her she sounded exactly like her dad.

She said, "But I'm definitely not going."

Then after a few minutes she went.

They can't resist.  And I know that so I had packed a small towel to wipe sand off of feet.

Even though I'm immune to the siren call of the ocean, it makes me happy to see them happy.

There was still a little daylight left for seeing St. Augustine.  It's a beautiful little place and I'd love to spend more time there sometime.

Emma posed for this picture to send to her friend Omar (Elder Castillo) on his mission.

It was all fun and games until the drive home.  It happened to be the same day as the Daytona 500.  We took some mysterious backroads to avoid traffic and here's a tip:  if you're ever driving in central Florida on some backroads through towns that seem big enough to have restaurants, don't count on it.

Don't plan on eating.

We finally, finally, after exhausting every snack in my arsenal, found a Wendy's.

The painfully slow and inefficient service was only matched by our famished impatience.

I'm telling you.  Central Florida = don't plan on eating.

Epcot and Emma turns 19

Buckle up for some digital scrapbooking for the next few days.

Last Friday, Adam and Mark and I flew to Orlando.  I like it there.  I love seeing palm trees and my skin loved the humidity.

My hair did too.

We went to Walmart first thing, like you do, for provisions and a birthday cupcake for Emma the next morning.  (She never did eat it--Mark did eventually though.)

None of us slept well and we were going to have our big kids, on the red-eye flight, take an Uber to the hotel (Do you take an Uber or do you take Uber or is Uber a verb, like google?  I don't get out much), but Adam decided it would be more efficient if he just went and picked them up at the airport.  So he didn't get much sleep at all.

Braeden and Emma laughed at my stumbling staggering self when they got there.  I wanted to hug them, especially the birthday girl, but I was pretty out of it.

We all attempted a little more sleep and then on to Epcot.

Braeden promised us that the power of Disney would sustain us.

This is one of the only pictures of all five of us from the trip.

I was really glad that I was able to spend the entire day with my birthday girl:

She is awesome at figuring out systems and she had fastpasses on lock.  We relied on her for our itinerary and she did not disappoint.  In addition to that she was funny and pleasant (despite the exhaustion) and I realized this is my grown up girl:  grown up Emma is wonderful.  I worry about her while she's at BYU.  She strives to be so independent and I want to help her more.  Spending a few days with her made me realize that grown up Emma will be just fine.

I love that girl!

We enjoyed Epcot.

We did a color activity where you use these red, green, and blue levers to try to duplicate a color shown.  Mark, the one who's color blind was maybe the best at it.

 When you say look over here and this is what happens....

At the Space Training Center there was a sign that said, Expectant mothers should not ride.

Braeden said:  You're OK though, Mom.  You have really low expectations.

When the lens popped out of Emma's sunglasses.

There were spurts of water that seemed to jump from pad to pad.  Little kids were playing in them, trying to avoid the water.  A few big kids did too (although they didn't seem to be avoiding the water).

The manatees were fun to watch and I had no idea that a diet of Romaine lettuce could make something that fat.

We liked visiting the different country exhibits.

This building looked a lot like the restaurant where Emma and I ate our last night in Paris.

Everyone loved the Japan exhibit.  Braeden said, "Did anyone else notice that United States is keeping Japan separate from the other Axis powers?"  The order was Germany, Italy, United States, then Japan.

A topiary panda in China

Topiary Captain Hook and Peter Pan in England

I think my favorite country to visit was Mexico.  It was inside and dark so the pictures don't do it justice.

In Norway we ran into the Noll family who used to live in Seattle and were in our ward.  They live in Florida now and we live in Utah and there we all were in Norway.  It was fun to see them.

The amount of drinking in Epcot surprised me.  It was basically a pub crawl from country to country. Not really our scene.

According to Adam's phone, we walked about 10 miles.  Coupled with the lack of sleep, it was quite the day.

This is what tired Davises look like:

Adam took these pictures so he's not in them.  So Braeden took this picture of him: