Happiest Place on Earth

This past weekend we took our youth group (Jr. high and high school) to Disneyland.



Youth group Disneyland trip....and this happens....

• 85 of us Load up on two charter buses around 4:00 Friday afternoon


• First bus (not the bus I was on) right out of the church parking lot...goes the wrong way (first affirmation that this was a bad idea)...proceeds to do a u-turn in front of the church (not a wide street, especially for a bus to attempt a u-turn)


• Our bus begins shifting funny and it seems as though we might break down...but our bus driver rocked and just kept going...


• Driver number one takes the most random routes...costing us about an hour


• Stop for dinner...Stu gets dinner at Quiznos and McDonald's...Gray tells us he wants to run for president and wants to have a female vice-president... we try to talk him out of it when Amelia says "I'll be your running mate....then I'll plot to kill you and take over..." point proven....


• Matt found a mega-nuggie at McDonald's....


• Continue with the drive...driver number one pulls over as soon as we get on the freeway because his door was not closed all the way (affirmation #2)


• I take Benedryl to force myself to sleep for a while...


• Stop at the bottom of the Grape Vine and when we get back on the bus we do a head count and come up one short...count again...same thing...I get off the bus with Pappa John check the bathrooms...no stragglers...get back on the bus...still one short...have a group huddle, realize the driver did the first count and assume she was wrong so we just decide to leave...(no one ever called so the count must have been wrong...or Matt is going to get a call from one angry parent today!)


• Finally get to our hotel at 1:00am....yes, it took us 9 hours and it should not have...


• Check into our rooms and get to sleep around 2.

Saturday Morning:

• Meet in the lobby at 7:30....


• Nick was mad after having found "love stains" on his sheets at the Super 8


• Students arrange themselves in groups and off we go....


• Arrive at Disneyland around 8:30


• Get to ride on Indiana Jones and Pirates right away before lines start to form....


• Matt gets a call from the charter bus company and needs to go back to the hotel to buy extra time for the drivers...and the (not so) Super 8 doesn't authorize credit cards over the phone...


• Dave, Jenna and I eat a nutritious breakfast of churros and coffee...Disneyland has the best churros!


• We meet back up with Matt and go on some more rides...one of those being Splash Mountain...mind you, I hate Splash Mountain...the ride itself is great but I hate wet socks and shoes and I also hate wet jeans which both are likely to occur on this ride but Dave and Matt convince Jenna and I that it won't be that bad and we foolishly listen. It was that bad...actually worse. Matt looked like he peed his pants and my butt was wet for a few hours.


• We took a break for lunch and it was then that I realized I was ready to go home yet still had 7 hours left....


• Went on more rides until Aaron called us to let us know that one of the girls in his group was sick so we met up with them, bought the girl an apple, gave her some Advil and told her to suck it up...well, a little nicer but those were the thoughts in our head....


• Had another churro


• The lines got longer and longer and let me tell you...people are pushy in lines even when they aren't moving....I'll post more on that later....


• We had some dinner, took care of more sick kids and walked around trying to pass the time...


• I did get a caramel apple which was delicious by the way and we waited for another hour until we got to meet up with the group...


• John Stamos did a reading of the Christmas Story which was really cool...what a captive audience there was...he even read from Scripture and it was beautiful.


• Kids started to meet up to head back to the buses....


• Gray showed up...15 minutes late...and not with a leader but with his family members that met him there....not sure who's idea that was... but he showed up soaking wet and it was then that we found out that Splash Mountain had some technical problems while he was on it and they could not stop the ride...so he ended up going on the ride 12 times in a row and he was in the front seat. He was drenched...and that is another reason I don't like Splash Mountain.


• We finally loaded up on the buses after rounding everyone up and by this time I am extremely frustrated and more than tired...one of our leaders went back to the buses without telling everyone else so we wasted 15 minutes waiting around when they were sitting on the bus already...not cool...so we head out....
  
• The driver of the first bus gets on the wrong freeway...actually the right freeway just going the wrong way...yeah, towards San Diego, oh and then he doesn't turn around for over 20 minutes. So we got to Irvine and he finally decided to turn around and start heading North...(affirmation #3)
• I realize that I really can't handle many more affirmations and take a benedryl to help me sleep...especially since one of our students got sick and was having stomach problems just thirty minutes into our nine hour drive
• Suddenly, as I try to sleep curled up in an uncomfortable bus seat I hear the driver yell "I need coffee" now, I am half asleep and in an antihistamine daze and I'm not quite sure why our driver is yelling this but soon realize she is letting the other driver know that she needs to stop because...as you guessed it, she needed coffee.
• It turns out the other driver needed coffee too as we found out later that he was pouring cold water on his head while driving to try and stay awake. (affirmation #4) Two of our very dedicated leaders were taking turns talking to him, asking him questions and trying to stimulate his brain.

Sunday Morning:

• We rolled into the church parking lot around 7:30 am...just in time for Matt to rush home, take a shower and return back to church in time to give the announcements and communion thought.
• I went to church and then spent the day attempting to write a paper and not being very successful after having only about 9 hours of sleep for the whole weekend. (affirmation #5)

I've had a lot of really great times at Disneyland so I know it can be the happiest place on earth...tell me one of your favorite memories from Disneyland