Disneyland

How sweet it was to fully assemble Team Henderson for an assault on Disneyland last Friday. Three of us flew into Ontario airport to meet up with Hannah who had been visiting.. a friend.. in SoCal. From there it was, thankfully, a short ride to Anaheim and Disneyland.

Any great adventure starts with a vision and a goal.. and Hannah shared hers with us early on. She was going to get her picture taken with 20 characters! With that fire fueling our entry into the Magic Kingdom.. we donned sunscreen (for you folks in Michigan - sunscreen is a product that protects you from the Sun's rays)... and began our journey.

It was just great to see Joel and Hannah enjoying being together and making their dreams come true.

It was nice to just see Julie breathing! I say that because the day before she was running a temperature of 102.5 and was flat on her back on the couch. I'm not exactly sure how she did it. It was definitely an answer to prayer that she made it through the day and was really enjoying herself. Since the entire trip was her idea it was great that she had a chance to enjoy it.. even while coughing up her lungs.

Of the many fun times throughout the day (including planning the big picture at Splash Mountain).. one of my favorites.. actually occurred in the car driving to the park. You see - we had told Hannah a couple weeks ago that we were going.. but were planning a big surprise for Joel - so don't tell him. And, of course, we had done the same for Joel - telling him Hannah had no idea.. and that we were surprising her. Then we just sat back and waited for them to ask each other how surprised they were.. which happened in the car.

It's fun having really smart kids.. because it doesn't take them very long to figure things out. When they figured out we had snookered both of them.. well - let's just say they commented.

It's nice to know we still got it!

Another very memorable part of the day was capturing a picture of the illusive Peter Pan. To be honest, we weren't completely sure that Peter wasn't just an overly eager guest the way he flitted through the park with obviously glee trying to avoid capture. And, he almost did avoid capture by Hannah - until he made the big mistake of taunting her. At that point it was "game on" - and with big brother Joel executing a textbook flanking maneuver in advance of Peter.. well, Peter went down.. as you can see!!

Finally - we did find out that Team Henderson has an interesting affect on Disney characters.

It seems that whenever a member of our team entered a picture line for one of the characters.. they would develop an interesting need to .. "wet their fins" or "take a honey break" .. or whatever cute way they had of saying they needed to "take a break". We dubbed this Team Henderson Urinary Disease... or THUD for short!

Okay - enjoy the pictures of our journey. And.. if anyone tells you the US economy is hurting and the price of gas is killing travel. Have them go to Disneyland. The crowds were huge!!





BTW.. yes! Of course! Mission accomplished! Hannah got pictures with 25 characters (horses count! right?)! Score!!!!