Overflowing with Gratitude

We're back from a wonderful time in Orlando,Florida. Wish you all could have been their with us. We pounded the pavement for 4 days going from theme park to theme park, seeing, doing, and riding. What fun, new, and exiting adventures for all of us. The first day we went to Animal Kingdom and it was a lot of fun. We noticed after waiting in line for an hour and a half for a couple of rides Andrew was not going to do well, (but really who wants to wait that long), so we needed to come up with a different game plan. So the next day Lisa somehow got us these passes that, from then on at any park, enabled us to get right on the ride. They were used similar to a fast pass ticket except we could use them on every ride at any time we wanted. In the Beginning we felt bad for getting on the ride so fast, but after we got over feeling bad after watching people watch us get right on a ride and then back on if we wanted we felt very grateful to the Lord for this one small blessing; after all Dan and I have done our fair share of standing in long lines with 5 small children. The next day we went to Epcot and rented a wheelchair for Andrew to ride around in so he wouldn't get as tired as he did the day before walking around. Andrew did great. it was interesting to see the changes in his eating patterns. His eating pattern went like this: he would eat about every 2 hours and he would only eat 7 to 8 bites and then say he felt so full he felt sick. Then 2 hours later he would say he was starving and say that I never fed him. Beyond that he would get cold easily so we had a jacket for him. Food, jacket, wheelchair, front line passes what more could you ask for? Dan, Alyssa, Sarah, Spencer, and Shayla were happy just riding rides as fast as they could. We were pretty happy except for when my children would fight over who was going to push him. Shayla sprained her ankle and rode in the wheelchair and Andrew put up a fuss because it was his chair.....oh my! other than that it was wonderful.


Top highlights in Disney World were the Safari ride, the Expedition Everest ride, the water rapids ride in Animal Kingdom, the Rockin Roller coaster ride, the Tower of Terror ride, and the stunt shows at MGM, and the Driving test car ride at Epcot, the splash mountain ride, and the space mountain ride in Disney's Magic Kingdom.

We loved the Disney cruise, it was our very first one and we hope to do more in the future. Top highlights were of course the food (the bad part now is trying to lose what weight we put on), I've never eaten such good food every day for days. they had an all you could eat from morning till evening. Pinocchio's Pizza where you could eat all sorts of pizza, they had a Goofey's snack shack where there was hamburgers, hot dogs, fries etc.. and this ice ream place, my kids ate a ton of ice cream! every time I turned around they were eating ice cream, oh well.... in addition to that they had a breakfast buffet (yummy) a lunch buffet (yummy) and then a sit down dinner in a nice restaurant style with 5 star food menu's and dessert. We ate in 3 different restaurants on the ship, the Parrot Cay, King Triton's Lounge, and Animator's Palate. Another highlight was the shows at night! o my gosh the theater was beautiful and the stage was amazing, the props and costumes were incredible, and the talent of these actors was incredible. each night after dinner we would see a Disney play, if you ever get to see "Disney Dreams" do it, it was incredible we loved them all. There was a Mickey pool for the little kids, a teenager pool with hot pots for the teenagers, and an adult pool and hot pots for the adults. They had a huge screen t.v. at the teenagers pool site where you could watch Disney movies, a teen loft with licensed counselors, a nursery with licensed counselors, and an age group activity center with counselors and you went to your age group up to age 12 and did various activities such as make flubber, cookies, art projects, and play x-box and other games. We had signed Andrew up for the 10-12 age group but he hated being confined so he hardly spent any time there. We went to Disney's private island at Castaway Cay (pronounced key) and snorkeled and rode water bikes and hunted for seashells and ate more of their amazing food and got some sun. We also went to Nassau, but that was the coldest day of our entire trip so we toured for 2 hours and got back on the ship. The weather was perfect. high 70's and about 83 one day. Well enough about our trip which we our so grateful to the Nelson's for I hope they know that.
we came home to another surprise that our wonderful Neighbor's and friends and ward members and some other people I don't know and that surprise was a finished family room in our basement. We are so overwhelmed by the love that we have received, the basement is beautiful and done perfectly with a BYU wall new furniture, t.v., a little table like a coffee table I'm not sure what you call it. This is all so new and unexpected for us, and new pictures that are darling, and curtains to boot, and a air hockey table that turns into a pool table and a ping pong table you would have thought we had won the million dollar lottery they way my kids screamed with excitement, they even went as far as to have our kitchenette put in (cabinets are still coming). I'm not sure how to thank everyone, I was speechless (yes I know its shocking) but I was the night we came home to a beautiful new sofa and a finished basement and Andrew had a makeover in his bedroom with a tent that fits over his bed to make it look like a camping tent to sleep in and the cutest camping lamp that hangs on the wall for a lamp and darling logs that are now a bedside table and a chair, Andrew loves it he rolls the little door up and rolls it down at night just like in a tent when we camp. Not only that there was a hot meal to eat and our fridge was stalked full of what we needed now that we were home. (the soup and cornbread were delicious by the way). Just when I thought it could not get any better their was a knock at the door and someone had left a basket with a set of new homemade pajama pants and a t-shirt for everyone in our family. Thank you mystery sower, we loved them. I cried all day on Tuesday and had to keep going downstairs to see if it really is real and pinch myself. I don't know if you can understand, I've never really experienced it myself before but we are so full of love and gratitude for everyone, it feels like their is no more room for love in our hearts it is so full and so it comes out in tears of joy and gratitude. I'm not sure how to thank everyone I feel overwhelmed trying to figure it out. I'm not going to mention any names because I don't know everyone who helped and I don't want to have anyone feel bad if I left out their names, and besides I'm not even being told all who so I feel safer to leave names out and you know who you are, we are aware of who you are and we love you all so very very very much. I have prayed continuously that you will all feel our love and the love of the Savior for your selfless sacrifice on our behalf, for your prayers and the little secret things you do. I pray you will experience an overflowing heart of gratitude and the love of service and much much more, I pray you are blessed beyond your ability to understand as we feel. Whatever it is you are all in need of may you receive it. We feel so spoiled, and its time to spoil others in need, but may you know how grateful we all will feel for the rest of our lives. The Arnold Family