Let me explain. So I think I've mentioned that Greg was supposed to deploy to Afghanistan this fall, right? Well, just before we moved we found out his deployment was cancelled. (Huge sigh of relief!!!)
But back in July when we thought Greg was deploying, we decided we should go to Disneyland. Doing a Disney vacation is kind of out of character for our family*, but it just seemed like the thing to do. We settled on California (instead of Orlando)** and figured out a good week, but we didn't buy any tickets because there were still too many unknowns about Greg's deployment training schedule. Then at the end of July we found out Greg's deployment, like many assignments in Afghanistan, had been cancelled. It seemed obvious that we couldn't justify the trip anymore. We had never told the kids about the deployment--or the trip. Greg and I didn't give Disney a thought again.
Until one night, after we'd moved into our house here in Ohio, I was staring at the big ugly brown black-hole-of-a-couch in our family room. I was daydreaming about the brand new fancy high-quality long-lasting leather couch I had on order that would replace the worn beast I was looking at. I had been planning for months and month to buy the sofa, and I was giddy with excitement about finally getting it. But, somehow, and really I'm not quite sure how... the new couch morphed into a trip to Disneyland. The order for the sofa was cancelled and the trip to Disneyland was booked.
For the record, Greg sees the sofa and Disneyland as unrelated. He tells it more like this: "I was going to deploy, so we planned a trip to Disneyland. My deployment was cancelled, but we took the trip anyway." (Since our kids had no idea about the deployment and still don't, to them, the trip was totally out of no where and a complete shock! It was not even within their realm of possibility. In their words, "We were so surprised--we thought you would never take us anywhere famous!")
Okay, so maybe there is not a direct connection between the couch and the trip. But I'm not sure we could have swallowed the trip without first cancelling the order on the sofa. I guess I see it more as a test of all that happiness research out there that says that spending money on memories and experiences and vacations brings more happiness than spending money on possessions and things and fancy leather couches. We got back yesterday, and the result of the test?
I am very glad my couch looks like this ...
By the way, if you think these are the only pictures I am going to post, you are sorely wrong, my friend. I love what Diana said about taking a ton of pictures of their trip to Disneyland--the next time they go the kids might have bad skin and bad attitudes! (Her posts of their trip was timely. I read every word and showed my kids every picture!) So more details and pictures are coming throughout the week. It was really, really fun. Amazing. Really, really great. You might even say it was magical.
* It would probably be more like us to take our kids to a big city--kids love skyscrapers and museums and public transportation. Or to Central America--we even have an itinerary tucked away for taking the kids to Honduras one day. Or, most likely, we would go somewhere local-ish. We move enough that we can enjoy a lot of different places without traveling very far. You can see why the kids were shocked when we told them about Disneyland! We had literally never mentioned it before.
** Orlando is an easy 2.5 hour flight away and in the same time zone. So why would we even consider Disneyland in California? 1) The weather. 2) We liked the way the military discounts worked at Disneyland--a lot more than how they work at Walt Disney World. 3) I love that Disneyland is the first and original and I have more memories there and I am from the West and, frankly, Florida creeps me out a little. Fortunately, plane tickets didn't cost any more to fly to L.A. and the three hour time different ended up working in our favor.
