Bribery

My middle child has ADD. Getting classwork and homework done on time is challenging. Even with a 504 plan, there are still a lot of things that are REQUIRED. Even though my child does NOT want to do them. She tries to ignore them, she tries to make deals, but the assignments don't go anywhere, they just accumulate. The deadline was quickly approaching for the assignments to be turned in because the teacher needed to turn in grades for the first report card. We had something like 20 missing assignments that needed to be completed, and right before the assignments were due, a nice long 4 day weekend. I didn't want to spend my 4 day weekend yelling at my child to do homework, so I got this brilliant idea. "If you get all these assignments done before the weekend, we can go to Disneyland" I said to my dear child. Ohhh, was she excited. We haven't been to Disneyland in 3 years. She quickly got a couple assignments done and then decided it was hopeless. Somehow the idea of the trip got leaked to the other two children. I had not told them for fear they would kill the middle child if she didn't get the work done and prevented them from going to Disneyland. Now they knew and the pressure was on. "Get your work done, we want to go to Disneyland" they said. Slowly but surely she got one assignment after another completed. By Saturday night I felt that she could get the rest done on the way to Disneyland and back. So we went. Sunday night in the hotel she got more work done, and Tuesday when we returned she completed the last couple pages. It was amazing. Here are some pictures.

Everything was all decorated for Halloween. Growing up in California and having been to Disneyland bazillions of times, I had never been there when it was decorated for Halloween. It was cool.

The sign in front of California Adventure was decorated too. The A's were big candy corns. I like candy corn, lol.

Here are my kids standing in front of the R. We took a picture like this the last time we went to Disneyland 3 years ago.

See how much they have grown. Cool Huh??

Here are the kids as we are waiting in line to get in. Tiff was pissed about something, but Kimberly was happy. See the heart she is making with her hands?

Here's Aimee, annoyed that I'm still taking pictures while we are waiting in line. She couldn't wait to get rid of us. Some of her friends were there too. She was excited to spend the day with the other teenagers instead of the little kids.

This is a picture of me waiting in line. It's not the best picture ever taken of me, but since I'm usually not in the pictures because I'm always taking the pictures, I won't complain.

Kimberly and Tiffany got invited into the wheel house of the Mark Twain river boat. Kimberly got to steer the boat and blow the whistle and ring the bell. They were very excited. I didn't even know you could do this. There was a log book we got to sign our names in, and the kids got pilot's certificates when we were done.

Kimberly and Tiff in a cage made out of bones on Tom Sawyer Island.

Here are the kids sitting in a tea cup after we bought mouse ear hats. We just happened to bump into Aimee and the teenagers at the hat place. See Aimee's boyfriend sneaking into the picture?

Here is Kimberly ready to drive her Autopia car. Not too long after someone had to go rescue her because she got stuck out on the track.

Kimberly and a chicken inside Micky Mouse's house in Toon Town. Kimberly has a thing for chickens and ducks.

Waiting in line to ride Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters for like the 4th time.

This is a picture from the parade. They all came out kinda blurry because of all the motion and the night setting on the camera, but I thought I would include this one, because I couldn't help thinking that if they tried to make this movie today, I don't think a hookah smoking catapillar would fly with all the parents groups.

The kids lasted all day at Disneyland, from open to close, but within 2 minutes of our arrival back at the hotel, this is what we had.