Like Mother, Like Daughter

I don't know about all of you, but I have always loved the music of ABBA. I have extremely fond memories of dancing and singing along with their songs as a child with my 3 sisters. "Dancing Queen" was our anthem as little girls. Both my parents remember very well how much we loved that song and would put on performances in the back seat of the car (back when seatbelts weren't required!)


One day a few weeks ago I decided to rent the movie "Mamma Mia" that recently was released. Eddie was out of town, so there was no worry of resistance to the pick. It was a fun movie, filled with all my favorite ABBA songs. I admit I starting singing along multiple times. The greatest thing about it was Emma's reaction to the music. When the movie was over Emma immediately asked if we could watch it again. I just smiled and gave in! We had a ball the second time around, Singing and Dancing. Emma told me, "Mom, we definitely need to get that movie!". She was upset the next day when I told I had returned the DVD already.

The girls and I went to Utah a couple days afterwards for my brother Erik's missionary farewell. All my siblings were there, which hasn't happened in really long time. It just happened that me, my girls, and my 3 sisters all stayed at my mom's house together. I told them about Emma and the movie. Emma insisted on a performance. So I pulled out my Zune and with Phillips help as DJ we all danced and sang ABBA together again with my mom included. It was probably hilarious to watch, but it brought back a lot of memories and added one more to the book. This time my daughters were included. Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Disneyland Fun!

Sorry I haven't gotten these posted earlier. I actually still have more photos, but have decided not to prolong this post. We went to Disneyland with some of Eddie's family January 2nd to 5th. Complements of Eddie's parents, it was our christmas gift from them. The girls had a great time being with their cousins, Milo and Mason. Both girls are still talking about their experiences at Disneyland.

One of their highlights was being invited to have a privae meeting with some of the princesses. As we were walking to the long line of people waiting to see some of the princesses a Disney employee approached us and told us the wait in line was currently 1 1/2 hours, but she wanted to offer our girls an opportunity to privately meet with 2 princesses. I of course thought that there had to be a catch. However, there wasn't. There was no cost hiding around the corner. She said it was the last day of "A Year of a Million Dreams" and she had an opening in 20 minutes that she wanted to give our girls. We of course accepted! The girls got to go back stage in the Princess pavillion and privately sit with and talk to Snow White and Sleeping Beauty/Aurora. It was a very special moment.

Another fun experience was the character breakfast we went to. Goofy's Kitchen! We went Monday morning and had a good time. There were hardly any other people there because everyone was back in school, so we got to have lots of interaction with the characters. Most of them kept coming back to us over and over. The kids were able to spend good times, and the food was actually good. I definitely recommend it. It was fun for everyone that morning.

Emma got to participate in Jedi Training. They taught them the basics of how to use a light saber and each child had the chance to fight Darth Vader. Emma was awesome! She jumped up trying to hit Darth Vader in the head with her light saber, because he was towering over her. It was fun to watch.

It was also nice to spend multiple days seeing the sights and going on the rides, rather than doing it all in one day. I've always just crammed it into one full day, so it was a new experience for me. Next time we'll try to visit Calfornia Adventure too. We didn't get a chance to see the sites there. Another thing that was fun was that Disneyland changes things for Christmas time. It's a Small World sings Jingle Bells and the Haunted Mansion turns into A Nightmare Before Chrismas. They add snow and icicles to the castle and have a big fireworks show to holiday music. I never knew that Disneyland did that for the holidays.