13 Years of Wedded Bliss

I'm a bit slow on this post, as our anniversary was on Tuesday (October 7). This is #13 for us! And what a great 13 years it has been. There have been ups and downs, highs and lows, joy and sadness and blessings galore.

For those who don't know "our story," here is a condensed version. Wayne and I met in June 1995. I had just returned home from Ricks College for the summer and he was freshly home from his mission. We met at Boston Pizza following an Institute dance. I met Wayne through a mutual friend, Ryan Hart. My best friend Natasha and I hung out with Wayne and Ryan in the parking lot of the restaurant until 2am. We saw each other nearly everyday after that.

Wayne proposed in August, a mere 6 weeks after meeting. And we were married 7 weeks after that! And we have (thus far,) lived happily ever after.

Some memories of the last 13 years:
-Buying our 1st little house 1 year after we were married
-Wayne graduating from the University of Lethbridge
-Emmy being born in January 1998
-Wayne applying for Medical school twice and being rejected
-Azia being born in March 2000
-Wayne finally was accepted to medical school in Utah
-Moving to Utah with our girls and living with Brian and Noi for 2 months in Lindon
-Moving into "the village" (University housing)
-Parker being born in January 2003
-Wayne surviving/graduating from medical school in 2004
-Going to Disneyland
-The big move home to start family practice residency in June 2004
-Buying house #2
-Cardiff being born in July 2005
-Wayne starting in his own practice in 2006 and being a "full" practice in 4 weeks.
-Going to Mexico for a week - my first holiday without ANY kids!
-Building our dream home (which is still not done; 12 months later!)
-Sawyer completing our family in January 2008

I am still so in love with Wayne. I appreciate all he does for our family. We have been so blessed these past 13 years. I'm sure there were people who thought we were foolish to be getting married so quickly and so young, but things have worked out wonderfully! Happy Anniversary, Boy!

The Happiest Place on Earth

We recently returned from a week-long vacation/family reunion in sunny southern California. We had planned on going to Disneyland with the kids quite a while ago. It started out as just our family and we had invited our good friend, Deb Duncan (our pseudo-grandma), to come with us to lend an extra pair of hands. Then Jade heard we were going and she thought it would be fun. Then my parents felt like they would miss out on all the fun, so they wanted to come along as well. I hadn't mentioned it to Rylan because they were planning on visiting earlier in the summer (since Molly has never been here when there has been green grass and leaves on the trees), but mom thought I had better offer the option. So before we knew it, it became a full family affair and with that we decided to make it an official Chan Family Reunion.

We all decided to meet in Anaheim. On Tuesday, September 23, we flew out of Great Falls with an unexpected stop in Helena and a plane change in Seattle. What a long day. The kids all did pretty well. This was Emmy's first time flying and she was a bit nervous, but no one got sick and everyone stayed relatively happy. We had one fellow traveller who was assigned to sit next to me on the flight from Seattle to Los Angeles. As she approached our row, Sawyer was a bit upset and crying. The lady looked at me, who was scrambling to get Sawyer settled, and said, "Oh, no way! There is no way I'm sitting there!" All the better! I didn't want anyone sitting next to me anyways as there is not a lot of room to feed a baby flanked by two other people. Thankfully, it was not a full flight and she managed to find an entire row all for herself.

Rylan, Molly and their girls were already at the hotel by the time we arrived. We awoke the next morning, and made our way to Disneyland. The heat and humidity were a bit overwelming. I had thought by going at the end of September, we would miss the hot weather...not so. It was HOT!

Jade, Mike and their boys arrived later on in the day. We met them at the hotel after a fun-filled day at Disneyland.

The next couple of days were spent driving down to San Diego. We went to the zoo on Thursday and Sea World on Friday. Again...hot, hot, HOT! The highlight at the Zoo was seeing the giant pandas. They were way too cute! We also made a quick jaunt to Mexico...so now the kids can say they've been to 3 countries in 1 week! Sea World was also a lot of fun. We caught the dolphin show and the Shamu show. We also spent a good chunk of time at the Sesame Street/Elmo play area (not a surprise when 6 out of the 9 kids are 3 and younger.) The kids also got a kick out of touching the stingrays and lifting up star fishes. It was pretty fun. On the way home, we stopped by Mission Beach. I think the kids (and adults) had more fun in the 1/2 hour we splashed around in the ocean than they did all day. After getting our clothes drenched and sandy, we made our way to the stunning San Diego Temple. It really is a beautiful building (and as some of my friends stated, THIS is one of the happiest places on earth!)

Saturday was our big Disneyland day with everyone. We all donned our custom designed reunion shirts (by yours truly) and made our way to our favorite rides. Some of the favorites of my family: Buzz Lightyear ride, Toy Story Mania, Soarin' over California, California Screamin', Space Mountain, the rocket ride by Tomorrowland, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Grizzly River Run, all the rides in A Bug's Land, Mickey and Minnie's houses...well, pretty much any ride was a winner.

The next day we went to Universal Studios. I was bit disappointed with this park. It was not very "young" family friendly and there wasn't a lot of stuff for little kids to do. I would've been fine NOT to have gone here and spent it somewhere else. We did see, however, the houses from Wisteria Lane (tv's Desparate Housewives), the plane crash scene from War of the Worlds, Shrek and Fiona, Curious George and Dora and Deigo. Jade and Mike also left to go home.

Monday was our final day at Disneyland. Wayne met up with an old mission companion, Roland Schmeidl, who now lives near by. He brought his 2 daughters with him and we had fun hanging out with them. We hit our favorite rides once again and stayed until the parade.

We flew home on Tuesday and once again, the kids did great! Sawyer was able to sleep most of the way home, despite cutting his 4th tooth while on our holiday. (And there were no cranky old ladies on our flights!) We loaded up our van in Great Falls and headed home. We rolled in at about 2am!
What a wonderful week full of great memories. I'm so glad we were able to do this with all of our kids and have the added bonus of spending time with Ry, Jade and their families. We really have some pretty cute nieces and nephews! This is such a fun time in their lives, with so many little cousins. I'm sure this will be a trip that they will remember (well, those that are old enough to remember!)