The Sunshine State with Lots to Do

Our last week or so in Cali was pretty slam-packed: studying for boards, worrying about boards, taking boards, prepping for finals, giving/collecting finals, grading finals (ugh!), graduation!, finding boxes, cleaning my classroom, packing my classroom, packing our apartment, opening the gate for Mom and Dad to bring in the truck and trailer (clear from Eltopia, Washington!), cleaning, getting the fridge down three flights of stairs, loading the truck, hanging out with the youth, preparing a talk, worrying about a talk, giving a talk, saying goodbyes, picking up Britney and dragging her along for the 20-hour drive, . . . Oh! And visiting our favorite around-the-corner "Donu" shop, our last hurrah at Disneyland, ice blocking, Six Flags, Berries frozen yogurt, and the Young Men/Young Women combined water activity.



We haven't eaten at the kitchen table in a while . . .



Some of my students (Can you find me?) :)
I'm going to brag, but I don't feel as bad about it if I put it in a small font, so . . . :) The graduating seniors get two silver pins to give to people who have helped them along the way. All the teachers covet them. I suppose this is because just like most of their parents, teachers hope and pray all year that they have done something right. I only have about 5 seniors, so I wasn't really expecting to get one: a lot of graduates give them to their mom and dad. So I was really excited and felt like a million bucks when one of my students from last year gave me a pin. Now I have evidence--I must've done something right! Funny how there's no where on a resume to put "Graduate Pin."



My board--my "kids" wrote nice goodby notes all over it. One of my freshmen said to me, "If I'd known you were leaving, I would've been nicer." Ha. :)



Yep. That's what it says. Love it.


Michael took some of the youth from our ward to Six Flags. (It was my last day at work, but the only day it all worked out to go. That's okay with me--roller coasters kind of freak me out a little still.) Here they are resembling the superheroes behind them.





We packed until about 5ish and went to Disneyland to get our money's worth out of our annual passes. If we ever vacation at Disneyland, we are going to go on a rainy day in February, for sure. The lack of sun is totally worth the lack of people in lines. Anyhow, it was fine. We weren't really going for the rides so much as the shows this time. Well, and it was really hot, so I swindled Michael into letting me get the way over-priced Mickey Ears ice cream. :)


Celebrate! We've seen the street party parade enough times that if one of us starts singing one of the songs, the other can finish it and maybe even throw in a couple of the dance moves.


California Adventure's entrance. They were promoting their new show, World of Color, so each of the letters is a different color. It wasn't like that before, just so you know. We saw the show, from the backside, but it was still really awesome. It was fountains like the Bellagio, but with pictures/videos projected onto them, and colors on the lights, and Disney music. Very very cool.


California Adventure after the show.
We also got to see the Aladdin Musical for the first time. I loved it! The genie was hilarious! He would throw in all these modern references, for example, because he's blue, he said to Aladdin, "I'm your Avatar." Just funny, random things. It was great!

We stayed for fireworks, too.
And now for a totally unimportant story (skip ahead if you feel so inclined). . . A lady had a huge Minnie baloon tied to her backpack and it was kind of blocking the view. After debating over it for probably 15 minutes, I finally just went up to her and asked her if she could put it down somehow. Turned out, she didn't speak English. It made me wonder if other people had tried to ask and just given up or something. Do you think that's rude? Anyway, she put it down once she understood what I was talking about, and when I was walking back to Michael and I had just told the lady "Thank you!" some other guy said, "Thank YOU!" So, I think I will take that as we weren't the only ones thinking she should take it down.


Ice blocking with some of the youth. No one had to go to the hospital even! Can you believe it?! :) (If you don't know about Michael's ice blocking scar, well, he has a serious ice blocking scar. If you do know about it, you know I am not exaggerating when I say "serious." So, ice blocking is fun, but we are also glad when no one gets hurt.) :)

Doing a relay with the iceblocks

The gang

The "Chain Gang."
Right after Michael called them that, I started laughing a little, and he asked what that refers to. Isn't it the prisoners who had to work on a chain tied to each other? Like on "Holes"? Anyway, I thought it was a funny reference when it was about the youth.

The result of the Chain Gang

Most of these youth came and helped us load up the truck. They are awesome! We would've been there all night without them. Some of our other great friends came to help, too--Lana and Igor, Bro. Grigg, Hma. Mendez, and my parents and Britney. My parents and Britney drove all the way up with us, too, which was reallly nice to not have to do it all by ourselves. We feel so lucky to have such great friends and family to help us! On the other end, my Dad's cousin and her husband picked up our key so we'd have a place to sleep and even left us dinner and tons of great snacking/unpacking food! And Michael's parents, Angie, Tami, and Landon (Britney's fiance!) came and helped us unload and even unpack. As far as moving out and in, this move was our best one so far. THANK YOU EVERYONE!! There were so many other great people that were so good to us, too. Andrew and Mel got us travel snacks and Sherri cleaned my shoes from the mud run--they've never been whiter! And just many more little things we really appreciate. Thanks for making our California adventure wonderful!