The New Year's Eve Adventures of the Loves

Our Disneyland passes which Troy bought for Christmas last year expire on January 6th of this year. We wanted to try to use them again but it is just not in the budget. That's okay, Disney year passes pay for themselves even if you just use them twice so we went our two times and we are grateful for that.

We still wanted to get away together as a family and do something fun so we accepted Troy's Aunt Gayle's invitation to spend some time with them up in Mesa, AZ. We are so happy we did!

First fun activity on New Year's Eve...Organ Stop Pizza (click to go to their website here) I didn't know if the kids would find this entertaining or not. I had nothing to worry about. They sat for more than an hour...LISTENING TO ORGAN MUSIC!! It was so fun! If you click on the link you can see better pictures. The organ has nearly 6000 pipes and with the push of a button the organist can control several different percussion instruments, lights, bubbles, flags that drop from the ceiling and even dancing animatronic cats (yes, dancing cats - the kids loved it) The organist (there are three on staff) can literally play ANYTHING! He was taking requests and amazed us all.

The organ goes down into the stage like an orchestra pit so the organist can take breaks. When we first arrived he was playing Disney music. No way! Ben and Lizzy went crazy! They actually said "Mom, we did get to go to Disneyland!" (well, if that is all it took...) We sang along to "It's a Small World" and the kids cheered when a flag of Mickey Mouse came rolling out of the ceiling and bubbles filled the room. Then the organist took a 10 minute break and so he and the organ disappeared into the stage.

10 minutes later, the two of them magically came up out of the stage and what was he playing? "Star Wars"!!!!! I thought Ben was going to have a heart attack, he was so excited! We had lots of fun and the kids are asking to go back again soon. (BTW the pizza was good too)

This is part of my New Year's resolution to be in more pictures. I am so stupid and think that I have to be skinny, skinny to be in any pictures. DUMB!! I'm just gong to swallow my pride so that my kids can have documented proof that I was with them while they were growing up. :)

Next we went to see the lights at the Mesa temple. We had wanted to go to see the Christmas lights earlier in the month but it didn't work out. We are sort of glad we waited. The children weren't focused on Santa coming and so we just concentrated on the real reason for the season.

I begged Ben to be in this picture of Lizzy and the Christus but he was mad that he couldn't sit on Jesus' shoulder so he refused to be in the picture. Ben, I'm sure if the Savior were really there, He would have let you sit on His shoulder.

Soon after the statue incident, Ben found this smaller statute of the Savior and immediately wrapped his arms around Jesus. I, of course, LOVED to see that.

We did go outside to see the Nativity scene but as you can see, we were FREEZING!! Luckily Aunt Gayle had helped us pack blankets. The temperature had to be in the 30's which is

negative 30 to us hot weather pros!