California Riverside Mission

Our hearts will be in California for the next 17 1/2 months, because Catherine is there serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Her first area is Corona and she arrived there in early June of 2013.  After careful study of a map, we've determined that we've never been there. Driving from Utah to Disneyland or to Grandma's we've always skirted around Corona.  So far, I've learned two facts. 1. Corona used to be the lemon capitol of the world and 2. it still holds the record for having lost the most time capsules of any city. I have no idea who is burying these capsules---the city? But they have lost 17 capsules so far.  Oooops.  At the moment Catherine is staying with a family in a nice part of town. I wonder if she should dig up their back yard?

Wish my house looked this good!! The trailer I lived in in my first area on my mission certainly didn't!

Sister Tucker and Catherine.

Catherine and Sister Tucker with corn from Juan the corn guy.

Love my girl!!!

A bit of an obesity problem in the stake perhaps?

CALIFORNIA REDLANDS MISSION!!

On June 17, 2013 the California Riverside Mission split into two missions and Catherine was sent to the new mission, which is the California.  She's in Yucaipa with Sister Gonzalez, her MTC companion. That's unusual because both of them are still new--not out quite 2 months yet. They're the first sisters this area has ever had. Yucaipa looks beautiful and has this interesting fact. In 1991 the Rugrats (cartoon series) featured the character Didi going to work at Yucaipa High. 

One of the first people Catherine met was Mike White, little brother of one of my best friends!

Missionaries always love letters, feel free to write to Catherine anytime at:

Sister Catherine Byrd

California Redlands Mission Office

7000 Central Ave.

Highland, CA 92346

July

Oh our poor girl!!!  The first thing she did in the MTC was to catch cold. The next thing was was to feel sick to her stomach. This persisted and persisted and persisted. She was finally able to see a specialist--who took a look and sent her straight to the ER. The next day her gall-bladder was GONE!!

I love this picture! I think the name tag on the gown is priceless.  The one good thing here is that at least we got to call her and have a nice long talk.  She says she's feeling better, and I believe her because she's now in a prank war with the elders. 

I don't know who started it but the elders did send the sisters this letter:

Pretty convincing, I think.  The elders fully deserved the pickup of fish the sisters gave them. 

 Fish in the pick up truck--hiding to see what their reaction will be.

Enjoying Oreo's on her car,  She's feeling better. 

Pictures from Yucaipa, August 2013, with Catherine's subtitles:

Archery at TJ's he's a member of first ward who lives way up in the mountains and has all sorts of fun stuff for missionaries to play with :)

Sisters Ferry and Magley made me and Sister Gonzalez breakfast for our 3 month mark...with vegan bacon. it was gross. but everything else was good

Sister Magley and I made heating pads

Ferry, Magley, Gonzalez and I got matching dressings at Ross

Elder Wolff, one of the Zone Leaders last transfer that went home

We found an Easy Bake for $1 at a yard sale. It's been great

Dan's baptism

Yucaipa A zone at the end of last transfer

Baby kittens at the Katompskis. Their eyes weren't even open yet.

August 2013

More fun at TJ's. I don't know why they're both wearing Sis. Byrd badges---maybe EVERYONE wants to be Sister Byrd!

Exotic Disney

Disneyland is our all time favorite place in the world. Someday I'll get around to posting lots of wonderful pictures of Catherine through the years at Disney. For now though, here is a summary of our most recent (2013) exciting trip to Hong Kong and Tokyo Disneyland!

Since this was the end of our trip to Hong Kong (see the China link) we were pretty good at subways. You take normal subways most of the way there and then transfer to the special Disney line which is marked on the map with Mickey Ears.



When that subway came the window were Mickey shaped!!! Cutest thing!!!! and the hand holds were Mickey too.
 

 

I LOVE Disneyland. We got there early to sit in the sun for about an hour before the park opened--fun fountain in the courtyard, but a truly scary flower Mickey face at the  entrance. We were literally the first in line, so we got to see Mickey come and greet the crowd!

Hong Kong Disneyland is much smaller than the true Disneyland in Anaheim or even the Magic Kingdom. The first funny thing is that the castle (like California) is short. California uses forced perspective, but Hong Kong sure didn't and you can really tell the difference. 

It was as boiling hot and humid as the rest of our trip, but happily the park wasn't all that crowded. I don't know if this is because HK Disney simply isn't that popular, or if it's because others had more sense than to be there that day. Whichever, I'm thankful it wasn't both packed AND miserable. We both went with the idea that we'd just have to be content to see whatever we could, but we were able to see it all! We started in Fanstasyland. Not much there, Small world, Dumbo, the carrousel, Philharmagic, teacups and Pooh. Also hardly any strollers! and we only saw one moterrized wheelchair in either Hong Kong or Tokyo. (Disney cast members working in America will appreciate this. Our daughter worked at Disneyworld--loved the experience, but acquired an intense hatred of strollers).  Apparently Pooh is super popular in Asia, but for some reason they didn't translate the ride into Chinese! And the ride is narrated the whole way through--in English. Which was great for us, but a little sad for them. 

There isn't a haunted Mansion, but they do have an original ride called Mystic Manor that we both loved. The story is that the Mansion is owed by an explorer (about 1900's era), who has traveled all over the world with his pet monkey collecting artifacts. He keeps his collections in this beautiful mansion and the public is invited to view them. First you walk in and go to a room where there is a slide show narrated by Sir Alfred (in English) introducing you to the Manor and showing you his lastest find, a beautiful music box. Legend has it that the when the box is opened, inanimate objects come to life. The monkey is naturally, very interested in the box, but is told not to touch it. Then you're loaded into a doombuggy and the tour starts. First room has an interesting collection of stuff especially musical instruments. The monkey (surprise!) opens the music box and the room comes to life. The doom buggies then move through all the wings of the house and everything is alive. It's super well done. Greek vases are animated, an english crossbow is aimed straight at your heart, an Egyptian mummy starts to decay and bugs come out--the lights go out and they spray mist that feels a LOT like bugs. At the end of the ride, the monkey closes the box and everything goes back to normal. Sir Alfred has no idea what happened.  It's a great ride that we did several times.
 

Next to Mystic Manor is Toy Story land. It's darling, but it's all kiddie rides with huge lines.  I was very thankful that I didn't have a little kiddie with me that would have wanted to ride everything there. Any kid would want to. 

The other really terrific ride was the Mine Train ride. Much like Thunder Mountain, but with bears, 

and a part where the cable snaps and the train goes backwards. All roller coaster rides are much more mellow in both China and Tokyo. There's some neat theming all around the area too. 

 One funny thing--the rides have the usual warning--don't ride with back or neck problems etc. AND you must be sober.

 There were also warnings since it was so hot, to be sure to keep space between people in lines to let the air circulate. Dave thought this warning was necessary. I don't. No sane person would want to be closer than three feet to anyone else in that heat. 

The jungle cruise had an English line and a Chinese line. We took the English line, but it may as well have been Chinese for all we understood. Same as America, except at the end there is a big volcanic lava God that spews fire and then gushes water. Very cool.



We tried it again later and the english was a little better (got one word out of every four).  In this adventure land you take a raft to an island that has Tarzan's treehouse. Later in the day we did see the Festival of the Lion King also narrated in English.
 

There were snacks of ice-cream (normal) and squid (ummm) and popcorn through out the park--caramel or mustard flavored. Lunch was funny. By this point in the trip, we were tired of Chinese food. The plaza offered a really good looking American burger. It felt wonderful to sit there in the air-conditioning. We both ordered the burger platter and in time the waitress brought two platters out. She gave one to us and then vanished. We both sat staring at the one burger. Dave pointed out that I should get started since I was a much slower eater. Eventually, he got his lunch, but it took quite awhile.

I really wanted to ride the Autopia since it would be my only chance to drive in China. (They drive on the left). Thank goodness we waited till the end of the day. It wasn't all that scenic and it would have been unbearable in the afternoon. 

As always, we did a little shopping. I liked the clothing selection here much better than at home. We did not buy this though--the world's largest solid gold Mickey.

The park closed at 8 which was nice because we were both drained--although we look fantastic here of course!

 This day was the worst as far as going from super hot to super refrigerated over and over and over and over. We were both coughing by the time this day was finished. 

Sunday--a day of rest, sort of. 

This was the day we flew to Tokyo. We were in the hotel lobby by 7:00 a.m. to take a taxi to the airport express (a subway) to the airport. That subway had a wonderful service--they took our luggage so we didn't have to lug it all through the airport.  Once we were there and checked in and all we had a non pasta breakfast! McDonalds, and a muffin, and I had hot-chocolate since I was losing my voice. On the plane I slept--only interrupted by a really mediocre lunch--the beef tasted fishy.  Once in Tokyo the trick was to figure out how to get to the hotel. We knew it was near Disneyland, but it wasn't one of the official hotels, the area where Disneyland was didn't even appear to be on the subway map. Luckily, the girl at the airport limo station knew our hotel. She said if we took the limo to the Disney Ambassador hotel, our hotel would only be about a 10 min walk from there. So we found some seats to wait for an hour for the bus (the limo was a bus) and then it was about an hour to the hotel.


The airport smoking box.  Can you imagine what the air is like in there?

The Ambassador hotel is fabulous. The service is great and we weren't even staying there! Japanese people on the whole don't speak English as well as the Chinese, but the bellhop knew our hotel--Mystays.  Probably because it was visible from the Ambassador. Our hotel looked a little creepy on the outside, but had a very helpful giant blue box on top that said Hotel MyStays.  I don't think the walk was even 10 min. It was just across a big parking lot. The inside was very nice and the staff hardly spoke English at all, still they found our reservation and sort of communicated how to use the room key. The room was small, but clean--the beds were still singles so we still slept separately, but they were a whole lot softer than the platforms at baptist hotel. Best of all was the FOOT MASSAGER in the room. This has simply got to become standard issue for any hotel near Disney.  

The first thing I did was explore the tiny bathroom. The toilet was quite the engineering wonder. There was a panel of buttons. I pushed the one labeled 'bidet' and a little nozzle came out from the depths and shot a spray of water out of the toilet onto the floor, causing us both to push all kinds of buttons while yelling, "stop!" stop! stop!"



 After cleaning up this adventure, it was dinnertime. There didn't seem to be any restaurants in the area, so we decided to go back to the Ambassador hotel to see if they had anything. They sure did! They are connected to the Ikspiri shopping mall which had everything including a RainForest Cafe!
 

 

The food was almost normal--that is, there were at least a few items on the menu that didn't involve pasta, fish or eggs. Although the humans didn't really speak English, the menu had pictures and English. We ordered the fajitas, and then, because she was taking menus away and we knew we couldn't ask for them back, we also ordered the volcano for dessert. Daddy left to go to the bathroom, and Presto! Here came the volcano!  I enjoyed the sparkler by myself,



and then we had a little ice-cream as an appetizer.  The fajitas were quite good--again, fajitas only. No chips or beans or rice or anything. Probably a diet secret there. We went home early to be ready for Disney in the morning. Then we heard fireworks! Outside of our room, there wasn't the greatest view in general, but we could see the Disney fireworks! I love seeing the fireworks before we even get to the parks.

The room also came with a real Japanese bathtub--meaning DEEP. If I ever get to build my own home, I will insist on a Japanese-style tub.  I had a good soak with Agatha Christie and went to bed.
 

Now it was time to go to Tokyo Disney! The first day we spent at DisneySea. We were up at 6:30. The hotel served breakfast, not for free, but it had some American stuff. Best was fruit cocktail! Also croissants, rolls and COLD milk and juice, a green salad bar and some meatballs. Tokyo was MUCH MUCH cooler than Hong Kong.  

We had ordered the tickets online, and it took us awhile to find the place to pick them up

Finally got tickets. It was the 30th year park anniversary and the whole park was decked out for Easter, after all, it was only June. Close enough, right?

Once we did get the tickets,  the monorail was right there. But it wasn't free!!

The park opened at 8:30 and there was a HUGE line to get in. By the time we got through the line it was 9:00.

 We had the idea to start with Toy Story Mania and work our way around the park from there. NOPE! All fastpasses for the day were already sold out and there was a FOUR HOUR standby line! So we went to the Tower of Terror, which had about a 2 hour wait and got fast passes for that.

Tower of Terror

Continuing from left to right around the park, there was Turtle Talk with Crush.

Nice nautical/Easter theming.

We waited well over an hour for that. Super cute, even though we didn't understand a word of it. Based on the mobs in the park, we figured we'd only be able to ride about 4 rides, but we actually ended up doing much better than that and rode just about everything except Toy Story.

Next ride was Storm Rider which "only" a 60 minute wait. However, it was already time that we could get another fast pass. (In Asia the time between fast pass availability seems to be shorter than in America). I waited in the world's slowest line while Daddy went to get passes for the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride, which really was pretty much in the center of the earth---the main feature of Disney sea is a huge volcano that smokes and catches fire from time to time. This ride is inside.


 

Storm Rider was a disappointment. It's like Star Tours. It's a bit too realistic, you go straight into the middle of the storm and so most of what you see is fog; mostly you bounce around in the swirly fog until you crash in the ocean. Onward from here to the Journey of the Crystal Skull Ride--which is Indiana Jones and about the same as America. Best part here was the single rider line, so we didn't wait much. Now there was about an hour before we could go on Tower of Terror, just right for lunch. So passing the popcorn carts that sold, Milk Tea, Sea Salt and Black Pepper Popcorn we went back to T of T area for lunch. Not bad, I had a turkey on ciabatta and Daddy's sandwich came on pink bread. To our great disappointment, there weren't nearly as many funny T-shirts as there were 20 years ago, but there were still a few.

Tower of Terror very similar.  The best part about Disney Sea for me was just the flat out fantastic scenery everywhere.


I loved the big volcano, but there was also the lake with beautiful bridges and even gondolas from venice to ride (alas, didn't get to do that).



There were also some decorations that we didn't understand such as this.



30th anniversary garbage can maybe? Must be a Japanese thing.

We poked around the shops and saw these seriously weird popcorn earrings. The ones on the right are Donald Duck.



Then we went to ride journey to the center of the earth. This whole thing was neat. Also inside the volcano is King Triton's kingdom--gorgeously underwater themed little kid rides all inside out of the heat.





King Triton's palace at night.

 Also there is what we came for--Journey to the Center of the Earth---super fun--there are monsters in there, and 20,000 leagues under the sea which is the submarine ride.



 We took a rest inside the nice cool volcano and then had a nice Italian dinner, noting that the Toy Story ride was down to a mere 140 min wait. We still hadn't gone to the Mediterrainian area, there was the neatest double layer carousel! No line, so we rode.



To my great delight, Jasmine's flying carpets (like Dumbo) was also line free so we rode that too!  We walked through back to the Crystal Skull ride which we walked straight onto with the single rider line, and then rode the roller coaster (nifty archeological theme on the coaster) which has to have the smallest, tamest 360 loop in the world. America should adopt some of these coaster for a geriatric theme park somewhere. On our way out we saw that the Aquatopia ride wasn't long!!!! I'd been wanting to ride this all day because it looked so cute. You get into a big round floating vehicle and the ride drives you (you have no control) around the pond. Naturally you almost bump into people and nearly get sucked into whirlpools etc.



The last thing we did was to find the store to buy the Shellie Mae Bears.  Duffy and Shelly Mae are hugely popular! Lots of people brought their bears to the park because there were many places to take your picture with them!

Daddy was completely wiped out. Happily, we found the shuttle--look how cute these are! to the Ambassador hotel and fell into bed.
 

 

The next day, the last day of our trip

We planned to go to Tokyo Disney. It was a lot hotter, but it was also a lot less crowded.

 

 

  We went straight to Fantasyland figuring that the lines for those rides are usually huge and the rides themselves are very short.

 

 

Most of main street was covered. Nice that day in the heat.

 

 

 It was GREAT! Hardly anyone was in Fantasyland and we did just about everything twice!  Snow White is much better in Tokyo than in California--longer, beautifully done, and the story line makes more sense.

 

Much of the Small World line is indoors.

 

 The Pooh ride was our favorite! Again, much longer and more detailed than California. As you wait for the ride, the line winds through giant story book pages of Pooh--in English.
 

 

 In the ride itself, our favorite part was when Tigger gets introduced--the entire floor bounces as he sings his song. Pooh is justifiably, very popular so we got fast passes for it.

 

 

 The Haunted Mansion is in Fantasyland there, much like the California version, but it struck me as just a little gaudy--a shade too much glow in the dark paint. But I figured the real ghosts are in Anaheim and they were doing the best they could.
 

Well organized stroller parking.  Catherine would approve.



Another interesting message.

After Fantasyland we went toward Adventureland and Frontierland, it was strange because things are arranged a little differently than we're used to and so we were lost. Also, we were hungry and Japanese food has not improved in 23 years. Plus we were tired and coming down with colds, so we were in no mood for bean paste, eggs and seaweed. After considerable walking around we finally settled on a place on main street that sold hotdogs and fries.  Not real food in my book, but as close as we were going to get. We ordered them with avacado and saurkraut. Weird, but pretty good. 

They had the country bear jamboree. This was in Japanese, but it didn't matter, still just as darling as the English version. We were excited to go on the jungle cruise too, to see if the guides were as animated as we remember. The first one was a little mellow, but the second one was super--it was all in Japanese, but he was very expressive, and even lay down on his back and hollered in fear. We understood everything perfectly.

EVERYONE carries umbrellas around--even trader Sam.
 

 We took a nap in the Tiki-room, that had a really nice shady and cool waiting area, which was important. It was HOT out. Splash Mountain was the only ride that had a single rider line. The second time through I rode with a really cute family from Spain. There was a mom with two boys about 9 years old. They had waited in the full line for over an hour and the boys were asking if the ride was worth it? I said it was.  The kids were happy with just the first part of the ride and then it got better and better and they were so excited and happy, "This was SO worth it!"  The big wait for the day for us was Big Thunder. Again, a much mellower ride than in America.

Lots of school groups everywhere.

   We went to Tom Sawyers island and the thing that was cool about that was that it had lots of red rocks so it felt like you were getting to climb around the Big Thunder ride.






 About now we were getting hungry again. No way we wanted another hotdog--we wandered around finding things like curry popcorn, black pepper popcorn and soy sauce popcorn. We were also beginning to realize that we hadn't bought a magnet (we always pick up a good one) and there didn't seem to be any. Back in the western area, we passed on the curry restaurant, and finally settled on a fairly authentic American dinner--fried chicken, french fries, and coleslaw. 

   We found great seats for the electric parade, which we thoroughly enjoyed.










Then we discovered there was no line for Pirates of the Carribbean. The ride is just like America. It was late by then so we carried on with our quest for a magnet, finally finding one, but it wasn't easy!  Daddy compensated for his tiredness by buying the world's loudest Disney shirt.


This pic was actually taken the next day as we were waiting for the bus to take us to the airport.


We were also glad we got Shelly Mae Bear the day before, as they didn't seem to be selling her either. 

   What about Tomorrowland?  There is one, and we had walked through it a couple of times. But neither of us could muster up the energy to wait in huge lines this time (in our defense, we had just been to Anaheim Disney a few weeks before). Even still, it testifies to a serious level of exhaustion to get me to agree to skip anything Disney. Instead, we ran back to Fantasyland and rode Pooh twice more and the Haunted Mansion one last time. It was a perfect ending to a fabulous trip.