The CA Cushings conquer Disneyland

Here are some pretty cool pictures from our first day of vacation...enjoy!

Getting ready for the Indiana Jones ride, 1st Visit Pins, and Star Tours awesomeness

Nemo Ride, Princess Aurora, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters

Mad Tea Party ride--Jason was having a pretty good time spinning us on that one!

Mr Toad's Ride, Carousel, a glimpse of It's a Small World, and Toby the Tortoise!

Fun with Traci and Max at Mickey Mouse's house, plus Woody in the Christmas Parade

Wade enters the Jedi Training academy

How's that for a view?  Everything looked amazing lit up at night!

Making memories together!

This week was one of those memories-to-last-a-lifetime weeks.  We packed so much in 4 days down in Anaheim and had a blast.  Sunday night we drove down in lots of rainy, foggy weather, and then we woke up early on Monday and got to Disneyland when it opened.  I'm not joking when I say it felt like everyone had the same idea we had to go there at Thanksgiving--it was packed and got exponentially more crowded as the day went on.  Because of that, we felt pretty good about all the rides and experiences we got in.  Many thanks to Derrick, Traci, Max, and Maggie for hanging out with us and showing us the ropes, too!

I'll say right off the bat that we didn't go on Space Mountain or It's a Small World and just caught a glimpse of the Christmas parade.  The kids weren't feeling the roller coaster, and I was trying to avoid getting that song stuck in my head (plus long lines).  But here are all the things we did get to do:

Indiana Jones--first ride of the day, we walked right on and loved it
Jungle Cruise--did this at night, short wait, HILARIOUS commentary on this cheesy boat ride
Haunted Mansion--very long line, we did this at night and it was pretty cool
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad--FUN!!!  I screamed my head off on this coaster
Hungry Bear restaurant--the sweet potato fries were fantastic
Roger Rabbit ride
Mickey's House--long wait wasn't too bad as we walked through his house and saw fun things
Autopia
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters--we got to do this with Traci and Max--fun!
Finding Nemo Sub Voyage
Star Tours--EXCELLENT and funny!
Jedi Training Academy--Wade got picked to be a Jedi!
Astro Orbiter
Mad Tea Party teapots
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride--for old times sake for Jason
King Arthur carousel
Matterhorn Bobsleds--fun; Rhiannon really wanted to do this one--we loved it!
Fireworks at night!!!

We did use the FastPass system several times--it was easy and saved us a lot of time at "The Happiest Place on Earth!"

A hint of blog posts to come...

The CA Cushings finally meet Mickey

We really enjoyed our time with the Anaheim Sheens, too. 
Traci's Thanksgiving Extravaganza was AMAZING!

Today we dropped in on Oscar to see how he was doing.  He's SO much bigger and getting cute and scraggly!  His dad Zachary is in the top right, and his mom Rosie was chillin'.  Oscar perked up when we walked in the door and started whimpering when we left--we are just in love with the little guy!  (We should be able to bring him home in a couple weeks, too.)

This week has been epic.

More details coming soon!

Merry Christmas!

November is flying by!

Here's what's been going on at our house!

From Wade:  "We've been preparing for a dog.  Today I got some Super Star awards from an assembly at school--8th place in Accelerated Reader top 10, and 2nd place in Accelerated Math.  Last night was busy--I went to flag football practice and then to Cub Scouts where we learned about making cartoons.  My good friends right now are Nick and Elijah R., and at lunch recess I like to hang out at the library and read."  (Mom's addition--I'm really proud of Wade for being a good sport and a good example at both football and Cub Scouts.  When we started Cub Scouts a few weeks ago, we were both a little worried because many of the other boys in his group were CRAZY.  We've hung in there, though, and the boys have settled down and are pretty fun to be with on Thursday nights.)

From Rhiannon:  "My life is awesome and boring.  I'm excited about getting a dog, and I miss my friends from school already (we get a week off for Thanksgiving).  I play the piano all the time and really like the Pirates of the Caribbean songs.  I bought some good aviator shades at Wal-Mart.  In English I carved a sea turtle out of soap to go along with this book we read called The Cay.  I'm in love with paranormal books and scary books like The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfield."  (Mom's addition--Rhiannon plays the piano ALL. THE.  TIME.  She loves to get free songs (or at least the first pages of songs) on musicnotes.com.  She's doing great with that!)

Jason was in Dayton, OH this week and got back last night.  He's had to travel more this fall but plans on taking some use-or-lose days for vacation during Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it's going to be great having him home!  Jason took us on a rock-and-roll drive in the truck on Veteran's Day to the "Burro" Schmidt Tunnel with friends--it was awesome!

I subbed three times this week and have to say they were all pretty good jobs.  I've learned to pray specifically for "a happy sub job" instead of "patience."  Things go a lot better for me when I do that!   Our ward did our Primary presentation last Sunday and it went really well--I knew we'd done a good thing when I was talking to my friend the next day about it, and she got teary-eyed expressing how many times the Spirit was felt during the program and how touched she and her husband were by it.

Next week we are going here:

 

and here:

and we get to spend Thanksgiving with these guys!

It's going to be an epic week of Thanksgiving!  And then 2 weeks after that?  We are bringing home

Oscar, the 8-wk-old labradoodle puppy!



He'll be a LOT bigger when we bring him home even though he's the "runt" of the litter--this is an old pic.  Yes, we think we're ready for potty training and sleepless nights and chewing, and we CAN'T WAIT!

It really doesn't get too much better than this!

On Saturday, November 5th, 2011,  Wade Cushing got baptized and confirmed!  We are so proud of him for making the decision to become an official member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was a wonderful day, made even better with lots of family and friends coming out for it!  I'll write more about it later--my heart is too full!