Disneyland

We had a great time at Disneyland. It was raining when we left, but didn't rain on us once all day. It was cool and cloudy, though, which was nice. Usually by afternoon I tend to get hot and sweaty, but we didn't have that problem this time. We were able to fast pass many of the longer lines, and other than the Nemo submarines we probably averaged about 15 min per line. Thats pretty good for a fairly crowded day on Memorial Day weekend. Ben's highlight was definitely getting picked to be in the Star Wars show. He got to fight Darth Mal, and it totally made his day! Now MY highlight was considerably nerdier. Check this out...

New-fangled hand dryers!!

Dyson makes these things, and they are really cool. Some time ago, I had seen a documentary about how they were invented, and was intrigued, so when I saw them in the bathrooms on Tom Sawyer Island, I was *very* excited. They must be test marketing them or something, because they were not in any of the other bathrooms in the park. Anyway, they use some sort of "air blade" technology that just "zshoooooooop!" takes the water right off your hands. It was definitely an "Ooooooohhh.......aaaahhhhhh" moment. I know....pretty pathetic. My kids roll their eyes when Hooligan Mom gets excited over this kind of stuff.

So, we didn't get home till after midnight...par for the course....and woke up to find the refrigerator had stopped. *again*. Grrrrrrr. We have a fridge gremlin that make our fridge stop for 2-4 days at a time every 6 mos or so, and then start again just when we're ready to get it looked at by the repairman (more on this later). So we pretty much ignored it, hoping it would start up again. Darryl kindly took us to Hometown buffet after morning church along with my parents, and after we got home I took him around to find a new camera (his old one broke). He found a good deal on a Nikon point & shoot at Sam's club. Yay! After night church we went to see Prince Caspian. It was pretty well done, although Kendra (aka spock) had her points of contention with Walden's adaptation. Ah well, so be it. She did agree that it WAS better than the old BBC version, even if Susan did kiss Caspian at the end ("How could they DO that?????").

We slept in Mon, then went up to visit Ruth and Robin (Nettelhorst) in Lancaster. A vegging day for the most part. I forgot the camera. The kids had fun playing Wii and jumping on the trampoline inbetween eating brownies. That about sums it up.

I got Darryl off to the airport in good time this morning, but when we stopped at the unload spot at Burbank airport, the 3 cars ahead of us got done faster than us, and the policeman was tweeting his whistle at us. In my hurrying Darryl out the door with his stuff, I made him forget one really important item. He left his book (leisure reading?) on the front seat which had his drivers license, money, and boarding pass in it. Oooops! Fortunately I noticed it right as I was leaving the airport, so I turned right around. He called Kendra, who called me. It took me about 1/2 hr to find him, however, because I didn't see him right off waiting outside, so I went INside to look. Well, after schlepping around in there for awhile, I went back out and found him. Sorry Darryl (sheepish grin).

Well, home to tackle the refrigerator problem. Before I left with Darryl, I called the fridge guys. They were supposed to come out between 10 and 1. Ok, fine. Well, they called saying they were about 20 min away at about 10:30. At exactly 10:45, the fridge started again. *head banging on wall*!!! 2 days this time. I decided to go ahead and have them look at it, just on the off chance that they were more inspired than they had been in the past. Well, I have now learned that if the machine is running, they have NO idea what to do. "If its not working we can find the problem....if it's running we can't find it". The standard $50 conclusion. This is the 2nd time we've paid for nothing. I felt strangely like Jack Aubry in Master and Commander, being chased by the "Phantom" - "He's done this to me 2 times......there will NOT be a third!!" We do know it is NOT the compressor (it gets nice and cold....when it's running). Which leaves the computer board, or the thermostat. Maybe....... So, praise the Lord. everyone is healthy, and God is good, whether the fridge works or not.

I ended this interesting day by going to pollworker training for 2 hours of utter tedium. I won't even begin to describe how exciting this training session was. Not.

And so the hooligans are creeping back to the real world.