This was a fun and fulling day.  We all woke a little late at 9:00am, I guess we just needed the sleep as it has been a flat out week.

I had some free time so the family took a tour of the new conference centre here in SLC and went to the top of the Church Administration Building.  This was my 1st time to tour the conference centre and it was quite spectacular.  I had done the top of the administration building before but today was the weather was great for photos.

Back for Convention proper and the afternoon session was with Bob Proctor "Author of the Secret"  he also produced the movie.  This was one of if not the best self help sessions I have ever attended.  The company graciously arranged a photo op for all the International G.M's which was great.

We put the kids into Kid's camp for 3 hours.  I think Genna and Tammy loved it.  Thomas and Courtney not so much.  But they got to mingle with some of the kids of the other distributors from the USA and made some friends.

We came back to the hotel to get all frocked up for D.Gary Young Foundation dinner and auction.  This was a fun night with items auctioned to raise funds for the Foundation in Ecuador where Young Living has built a school close to it's farm.

The Simpsons (Diamond Leaders from Aust)  and me representing corporate office Australia started bidding on a 1 hour conference call with Gary for some distributors.
I got Genna to stand up on her chair and be the bidder  she had a blast!!!!!  I have included some photo's here of that.  We won the bid with $7000.  We will then use this as a promotion in Australia and hopefully raise more money for the foundation.

We then left and came back to the hotel to pack as tomorrow we have the farm day and then we drive to Rigby Idaho to meet our friends the Kilpacks and go camping in Yellowstone.

Today was a full and busy day with a general session in the morning were Marc Shroder presented on our slique tea product.  The had a challenge here in the USA and had 3 division winners they all got $5000 dollars.  Not bad for 12 weeks of competition.

They also recognise all our new leaders at this convention.  They do this really well.  This convention we recognised 2 new Crown Diamonds.  Brenda & Mark Shuller.  Just the nicest couple and really down to earth.

All the G.M's got to have a business lunch meeting with our owners Gary & Mary Young.  We all reported on our specific Markets and I think they were pleased with my report on Australia.  It was a long meeting but worthwhile.

In the evening we had a leadership dinner.  When we got back to the hotel we went for a walk around outside for a bit and I went to Walmart to but some supplies. 

Well after 2 days of intense leadership training for our distributors we began the convention proper today.  There are 3,500 people at this convention so as you would expect it was a major production.

The convention kicked off the a rousing musical number  "Transformation"  with a full orchestra and Mary Young our co owner coming out and singing the last few bars, fireworks, Gary Young appearing on stage from beneath the stage, a new logo revealed for our company.  Pretty impressive stuff.

After convention we took the kids for a drive to BYU.  I really think Courtney is seriously considering going to Uni there.  We stopped at JCW's on the way home and bought the kids shakes.  This was another cultural awakening for them.  You see the shakes here are not like the shakes at home.  The shakes here you eat with a spoon.  The kids had 'cookie dough', 'Kit Kat', and 'Marshmellow' shakes they thought it was awesome.

We got back in time to host a welcome reception for our Aussie's who came to convention and then attended a Ningxia Red party at the convention with aerial artist and a band etc.  it was a full but fun day.  Here are some pics.

I woke long before the family did this morning and headed down for business meetings over breakfast.  I think the last 4 days of theme parking in California  has taken it's toll on the kids. They all slept in till about midday.

The "International Grand Convention"  is an extraordinary sight.  Light boxes at the airport giant billboards driving into town and the whole front of the Salt Palace convention Centre decked out in Young Living Livery.

Today was training with the leaders.  I got back to the room about 5:00pm and just crashed. Woke at 9:00pm and we went for a walk up to Temple Square.  Courtney got some great pics which I will post later.  We were all really hungry so we went to find a place to eat but it was all closed.  The we found the cheese cake factory open till 11:00pm.  It was a great place to eat with some really healthy meals.  And of coarse some really health cheese cake.

It all begins in earnest again tomorrow.

We woke early to allow plenty of time to get to the L.A. Airport.  Being a Sunday morning traffic was quite light and we made excellent time.  At L.A.X the hire car depots are a long way from the terminals, not like in Australia  so you end up taking a bus to the terminal.

We managed to get all checked in nice and smooth, Delta Airlines charge $20USD a bag so it cost us an extra$100 USD to check in the 4 bigs bags, we ended up taking Tamzyn & Genna's bags on board with us.

I bit of a rough old flight which we all slept for the most part but coming into Salt Lake was rough.  Tammy, Thomas, Genna & I were right up the back so of course we felt every little bump.  Poor Tammy gets travel sickness easy and really did it tough the last 30 mins or so.

When we got to Salt Lake we encountered our first real hassle of the trip.  Thrifty had given away our hire car  that I pre-booked.  They eventually got us a Honda Odessy which is a lovely car with leather interiors and all the nice trimmings. So it worked out well in the end.  Although it did take over an hour to finalise, the que at the counter was so long.

I drove Jodie & the kids around downtown Salt Lake and showed them Temple square, the beehive house, Brigham Young gravesite, capitol hill.  We then drove up to ensign peak where you can over look the whole Salt Lake Valley.  The kids really loved the city and even Courtney said that it was one of the nicest cities she has been to. All the kids said it felt like home to them.  What an interesting observation!!!

We then checked into the Marriot Downtown hotel at Citycreek.  My company kindly booked us adjoining rooms which is great and we have the chance to spread out a little.  Shortly after arriving here there came a knock on the door and the company had organised these lovely fruit and cheese platter and juices for us.  Which was most welcome, as it was the sabbath and we didn't want to have to buy lunch.

We rested for a bit before heading out to my mission reunion.  What a lovely, lovely night.  My good friend and flat mate from Tacloban, Patrick Abenoja & his wife Ling opened up their home.  (Lin's brother was my companion in Tacloban.) We were all there with our kids.  My mission president Pres. C. Elliot Richards was there looking great.  He is 89 years old and still going strong. Driving himself around, playing tennis 3-4 times a week.  He is a lovely man and had such a great impact on my life.  His wife died 5 years ago and you can tell his misses here deeply.  The had 12 children, 69 grand children and over 238 great grand children.  So he spends his time with them.

It was great to have my children meet my mission friends, we sat around for hours reminiscing about all of our adventures in the mission field.  Our kids played together in the back yard as if they were long lost friends.  I liked it because the kids heard Dad's mission stories from someone else, which gave all those crazy and all those wonderful spiritual experience I have told them about validation.  

It is marvellous to think that 2 years spent serving the Lord in a far away land has bound me to these wonderful people for eternity.  We were just like we were 25 years ago in the mission field.  I will cherish that time and these people and thank the Lord daily I got to serve.

I could tell the whole day has had an impact on my kids in many wonderful positive ways and trust it has strengthened their faith and testimony.

My work convention starts tomorrow so Jodie and the kids will spend the day sight seeing and shopping.

Disney's California Adventure.  Wow I didn't know 4 days of theme parks could be so tiring.  Today was a new park even for me.  Disney's California Adventure.  A really great park.  They have just opened up a new section called "Cars Land"  based on the movie cars.  As this was brand new and it's school holidays here it was absolutely packed or "chockers" as we say in Australia.  The feature ride there is a ride called Cars.  We got to the park early and the wait time to get on was 3.5 hours.  So we decided to join the single rider que.  The wait time was only 45mins. When we got up to the front we all managed to get on the ride as doubles which was really fortunate and the ride was fun.

Thomas got his wish here and we rode lots of roller coasters.  The have a number of parks, within the park, Hollywood land, Critter Country, Paradise Pier, Cars Land, Condor Flats, Bigs Land, so there really was something for every one.  The day finishes with a spectacular 'water & light show' with the giant mickey ferris wheel and lake as the back drop.  Cool parades and even had a live band playing in the "mad hatter" part of hollywood land.

We got home after 11:00pm and all the family was excellent packing all their bags for our flight up to Salt Lake City Utah tomorrow and the 'Young Living International Grand Convention"

I'll post the photos when we get to Utah.

This was a great day.  Our 3rd full day in L.A.  It's started pretty exciting too.  We were awoken just before 6:00am with a fire alarm and it as getting yelled at us through the P.A. System to evacuate the building.  Jodie & I just had time to grab the passports, kids and wallets and get out.......  Pretty hairy stuff, until we found out an employee in the kitchen burnt toast which set the alarms off.......

Not to worry it got us up early to eat and take off through the legendary L.A. traffic north to Universal Studio's.  It was a great day full of exciting rides and shows with the animal actors show proving to be one of the hits of all the family.  I got to be an extra in the Special Effects Show, which we have on video.  I will post when we get to Utah.

I had been to Universal Studios before so I was concerned if it was going to be boring, but no, the kids made it come to life.  They have a new ride/attraction here Transformers 3D.  This is the whole new generation of amusement park rides.  It was unbelievable. It has only just opened this summer.

I have two bad parenting reports to make on this day.  

1. Genna was scared out of her wits on the Mummy ride a forward & backward roller coaster.  She never wanted to go on it again.
2. Courtney got the living daylights scared out of her in the House of Horrors.  Literally to the point of tears.  Jodie did too.  I was doing the brave thing and waiting outside with Genna.  This attraction has real live actors dressed as all sorts of horror characters who literally jump out and scare you.  They had guys with chainsaws and everything.  It took poor ole Courtney a while to settle down after.

We went to nearby Universal City a large shopping mall next to the park and did a spot of shopping and had dinner @ the "Bubba Gump Shrimp Company"  made famous in the movie Forest Gump.  When then headed to the car park to drive home.

The excitement of the rides carried on outside of the park for us too, with me getting pulled over by a L.A. Police woman, for apparently running a stop sign !!!!!!  I didn't see it and she let me off with a warning.  Why the Aussie cops don't do that???

Tamzyn has taken to photography quite well, and the photo's on this post are from her camera.  Enjoy, tomorrow we do Disney's California Adventure. 

Our first full day in the USA.  Well it seems everyone got lot's of sleep.  Infact Thomas doesn't even remember waking up to eat dinner.  After coming back to the hotel from Disneyland everyone pretty much crashed.  So I went out and did some shopping.  We bought an inflate-able mattress for Thomas to sleep on.  Our intention this trip is to book only twin double rooms and have Tom sleep on the inflatable.  The mattress and pump only coast $40USD from the legendary Walmart.  I took the opportunity to buy 2 USA mobile phones again from Walmart for only $40.  This makes calling here in the USA really cheap. $50 for the month with unlimited calls and text.  All the kids wanted USA candy so I tried my best to cater to their needs.

We pretty much got to do everything we wanted to do at Disneyland today.  Got to the park early and managed to get photo's with some of the main characters.  We also got to watch the Parade which is world famous.  Here in California Disney they do not have the night parade with the floats all lit up anymore.  Nevertheless Genna loved all of it with floats that included movies such as Aladin, Snow White, The Princess & the frog, Peter Pan (Courtneys favourite --  because the guy playing Peter was 'HOT' -- her words not mine), Tangled, Beauty & the beast and Mary Poppins.

It is summer here and the middle of the school hoildays so the park was packed, but we used the fast pass system to our advantage and got all the rides in.  Some of our favourites included, Space Mountain (an indoor coaster in the dark), Indiana Jones, Splash Mountain, Star Tours (based on star wars).

On the way home I treated the kids to "In - N - Out" Burger a unique healthyish Burger chain here in the USA.  They really enjoyed it.  We came back to the hotel and zonked out.

We are staying at the Howard Johnson in Fullerton  about 5 miles from the Parks.  It is not the best but when you get home late at night you pretty much just crash.  They include breakfast which is basically, powered eggs, potatos, rice, juice, a little fruit mainly watermelon.  The Table cloths at the b'fast table looked like they hadn't been washed in weeks and there was eggs on the seat when I pulled it out and we were one of the first to eat breakfast so you get the idea.  But it does have free wifi internet  which is how I can make this blog.  Enjoy some more pics.  Tomorrow is Universal Studios.

Well as some may not know whenever you fly from Aust. to the States you cross the international date line.  So the benefit of that is you pick up an extra day.  Hence the heading 20 June Again.  Everything went really smooth with the flight, although a long one this time 14.5 hours.

As I had used my Velocity points to buy 2 of the kids tickets, the only rewards points  seats available on this flight was in Premium Economay.  So we drew straws and Thomas and I got the nice seats.  But what was really cool is that the Flight Manager let 2 of the kids come join us between meals as there were lots of empty seats in Premium.

I don't think the kids got a lot of sleep.  The excitement of a new adventure, 1st time in a plane etc.  Infact I know Thomas got no sleep.  Courtney told Genna 10 hours into the flight that she needed to go to sleep.  Literally within 3 mins of closing her eyes she was out of it.

We arrived at 8:30am picked up the hire car and headed straight for Disneyland.  The plan was to go all day there and then after 14 hours flying and 12 hours @ Disney the  kids would crash.  Well it didn't quite work that way.  By 6:00pm the kids were trashed we all fell asleep in the Captain EO ride.  So we decided to head to the hotel.  The kids slept all the way home in the car and have not woken since.  It's 5:00am while I write this blog and they are still snoring away.

I have been to the USA many times but it is great to see it through the eyes of new people especially kids.  Thomas was being the total tourist taking pictures of every little thing from the car.  Signs, shops, homeless people etc.  We came across a car that had this sign on the back window......."Jesus is my homeboy & heaven is my hood!"  of course Thomas had to take a photo and encouraged Courtney to do the same. To which she replied....."No! I don't want to get shot!!!!!"  We all laughed and laughed.

It's been a great trip so far.  The whole family has been awesome.  Getting on great.  I think it is funny to think that what I'm really doing is living out my childhood wishes and dreams and maybe guilty of using the kids as an excuse.  But they don't seem to mind.  It's amazing that in a large loving family when individuals have dreams, desires, goals or wishes they become the dreams, desires, goals and wishes of the collective group.

Genna just loved Disneyland and immediately on entering the park took the map and took control.  We went straight to Fantasy Land.  All Thomas wanted to do was ride roller coasters.  He saw Pirates of the Caribbean and said lets go.  Was really disappointed to discover it was a gentle easy boat ride.  He got his wish tough in Frontier Land.  Here are some pics.  Enjoy.

Leaving the house for the airport.  Jodie and I got to bed at 3:00am to wake up at 6:00am.  We packed all the luggage in the car and our son-in-law kevin drove us to the airport.  The kids eyes were wide open as this is there 1st time in an international airport.  As a Platinum Frequent Flyer with V Australia they allowed me to bring all the family in the lounge with me.  So we are here relaxing and enjoying the nibblies.  The kids asked me; "Dad is this what it's like when you fly to America all the time on your business trips."  I said, "No this was something special they organised just for you."  Genna said, "Wow."   :o)