A Last Hurrah

Ok,ENOUGH vacation pictures already, right?  Hey,we only do this once every four years, so we gottta make it count.

After the beach, we went back to Disneyland for one last day, mostly, to redo all our favorites, plus catch a few attractions we had missed previously.

Like Snow White!  We had been waiting and waiting to meet Snow White.

Then we spent a good hour trying on silly hats.  Olivia opted for trading pins over mouse ears, but we were sorely tempted by this fitting topper...

A spin on the teacups which were right next door, and which Olivia refused to ride again because she was worried about me getting sick.  Guess I moaned a little too much the first time we rode them.

And then it was off to Small World!  This is the first time our family has ridden this ride, because Dan hates it so much, and would  never let us on it before.  I finally insisted this time, because I knew a certain someone would love it.  And she did.  It's her favorite ride now. HA.

These purple flowers looked fake.  I was sure they were fake.  So I touched them.  Nope. Real.

Toon Town.  The dog pound. Anpther traditional picture.

Dan and Olivia waited in line for more than an hour to meet Rapunzel. She is so popular she is her own attraction.  Thank heaven for daddies.  I would not have waited that long.  Me and the other kids took on a few bigger rides while they were in line

Audrey finally got these cute little pin-in mouse ears. 

Then we headed over to California Advcnture for an Aladdin musical, more Tower of Terror, more Cars and more Ariel.Oh, and some roller coasters.

When we got back to Disneyland, the River Boat was open!  The island was closed, but it was still fun to take a ride around it.

Dad and Duncan headed over to hit Star Tours again, and the rest of us opted for SMALL WORLD AGAIN!! Mom win.

This was our last ride of the night.  Of our trip.  Of the year.

Will was THRILLED to be there, as you can tell.  He may not be as big a fan as Olivia.

One last shot on the way out, and that concludes Disneyland 2012 for the Metcalfs.  See ya in a few years, Mickey. Maybe.

The next morning, we had planned on hitting the road bright and early.  Then we heard that the space shuttle was going to be flying right over our hotel, and the pool was calling our name, so we decided to hang out for a bit.

The wait for the space shuttle turned out to be longer than we thought. 

When we finally saw it, it was higher in the sky than we thought it would be, and it was gone in a flash. Kind of a letdown.  Oh well.  The pool was fun, and we had it all to ourselves.

After a looong hot drive, we hit Mesquite about nine that night.  The next morning we were back in the pool, soaking up the last of the sun and the palm trees.

We got back to Terri's house just in time to go with her to a neighbors to pick raspberries.  They also have a huge apple orchard, so we came home with bags and bags of delicious apples.  Nice people, with a beautiful spot to live in.

This is a view of Kolob Canyon from New Harmony.  Gorgeous, no?

After raspberry, picking, Terri, Audrey and Olivia went to visit the horses.  They didn't have time for a ride, just for a quick hello.

Those girls do love horses.

Me and Will opted for a relaxing moment in Terri's backyard. Yep, that is the view from her backyard.

How would it be to look out at that every morning?

We hit the road for home much later than we had anticipated, but we still took the time to drive up Kolob.  Terri and Kim live literally right across the road from this canyon.

Goofballs

Our poor old car.  We may have broken it's spirit. It made it there and back again, but it has not been the same since.

And that is the end.  I didn't take any pictures of our dinner at Sizzler in Cedar City at eight pm or of us pulling into our driveway after midnight.  The crazy thing is, I could repost this whole series over again with all different pictures.  But don't worry.  I won't.  I will safely store them on a disc somewhere for a cold rainy Sunday when we have nothing to do, and we haven't looked at them for a while.  Right now, it's still kind of painful to look at them and realize it's all over, and we are back home and back to getting smacked around by life. But it was great while it lasted!