Herschend Family Entertainment

Last night I was notified that the new show on CBS "Undercover Boss" was sending Joel Manby to some of Herchend Family properties to see the job that their employees do. It was a very enjoyable show.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/undercover_boss/video/

My family and I worked for Herschend Family Entertainment. I only had the privilege to work at Celebration City but my mom, dad and brother worked for Celebration and Silver Dollar City.

Growing up Silver Dollar City was ALWAYS our favorite place to visit. They are voted #1 in the amusement industry. They are very God- Family oriented, friendly, clean and a joy to work for. The people who work for Herschend are a true family who pull together in the good and bad times. When my mom found out she had cancer all of my mom and dad's's friends/ coworkers at Silver Dollar City pulled together to help with funds, visitation and filling shifts so she could keep her job. Then Landen died and "the family" was there..including managers and such.

I began working at Celebration City at a time when nothing was working out for me...NO ONE wanted to give me a job not even Ruby Tuesday's...My brother suggested me working with him...so I applied...then Mr. Hunt gave me a job and all of my managers encouraged me and made me feel worth something and I loved my job until God opened the door for me to go to Minnesota.

The best company!!!

I don't think words could ever describe my thankful heart toward them. I pray God's continual blessing upon them as they try to do business the right way,

Next week I am going home!!! I get to take a friend with me and I am so excited to take her to Silver Dollar City!

Mary Poppins

One of mine and my brother's most favorite movies was "Mary Poppins". The first time we saw it was around Easter. We had just received colorful umbrellas in our Easter Baskets. Mine was Pink with Black dots. We used our umbrellas to float in the air like Mary Poppins, playing hours and hours then watching and re watching the colorful musical.

They summer of my internship I was alone for abit and couldn't sleep in the night. Landen was working at Celebration City so he was up late. I called one night and he said, "I am so tired I can't talk...but too tired I can't sleep." So I suggested watching a movie over the phone. The only movie we each had was "Mary Poppins"...so we started the movies at the same time to make sure they were sinqued then enjoyed the nostalgic children's musical together....TIMELESS!

This week I have been so tired I can not sleep and not long ago my friend Johnny gave me the treasure of "Mary Poppins", so I pulled it out and popped it into the DVD player and let Mary's world come alive and bring happiness to my heart!

Kim and Kimi

I must be honest….today is an extremely tough day. It should be no surprise because yesterday at GOkids we talked about Job and “I will worship God in the good times and Bad times”. I feel as though I have and as I said in Life Group last night, “I feel God has blessed me in a thriving environment as I continue to worship Him in the good and bad times.”. Today is just a tough day.
I woke up mad that Landen was gone. I felt awful because I thought that I was beyond that. I am not at mad at God…just mad Landen is gone. At the thought it feels like a knife stabbing my heart and my eyes are so stinking drippy.
I got up…spent some time with God…made a big breakfast…cleaned and as I was cleaning my office I found many momentous treasures. Things from friends, notes from loved ones and many little random items Landen had given me. One thing in particular I ran into was my little Kimi figurine from Japan. Landen had the Kim figurine.
Kim and Kimi are little red headed fairies from Japan who are believed to live in a specific tree. I can’t remember what the trees are called but they are smaller trees with wide trunks and have multiple branches going every which way! The fairies exist so that no child ever has to play alone. If a child feels alone all they have to do is call out for Kim or Kimi to come play and these little red headed fairies will plop out of the trees to play. Itsuko told us this story and laughed because she said Landen and I could be Kim and Kimi. (Kim is the boy and Kimi is the girl). We bought these little figurines to tie on to our cell phones but I ended up taking mine off to preserve it from the rough beating my cell phone seems to endure. I wonder what ended up with Landen’s “Kim”?
At Rumukub Village in Okinawa we took a picture hanging from the branches of a “ and Kimi tree”. Of course that was before we had digital cameras so sadly I have not a picture to post…only the lovely thought.
My prayer used to be, “Lord make me genuine and authentic”. I guess all of this has been shaping me to answer that prayer. In order for something to be genuine and authentic it must be tested and tried. I MUST endure! There is no option. I just miss Landen…but someday…SOMEDAY…we’ll get to spend eternity running and jumping, hanging from the trees in heaven.
I wonder what Landen is doing in Heaven today? Do you ever wonder that about your loved ones? It would be fun to know…maybe. Enough thoughts for now…

Panera Hazlenut Cofffee = Sleepless Nights

It is 2:41 in the morning and I am WIDE awake!
…Why?...
…Because of endless cups of Hazelnut coffee at Panera this evening. I can not sleep and a thick fog of endless thoughts now looms about me. I remember this happening a time before. I was in college and I had been studying at Panera drinking one cup after another of delicious Hazlenut coffee. I watched every hour pass throughout the night and the next day I still surged with energy. I can only hope to be so fortunate once again tomorrow. Many times I studied accompanied by coffee late into the night and my sleep was rarely hindered;however Panera Hazlenut coffee seems to affect my sleep. Although I enjoy coffee ‘very muchly’ it always seems to take quite a while for me to accomplish a cup from Starbucks and the like. I usually conserve about 1/3 to ½ of a cup for later. Panera is about the only place I could seriously sit down and drink cup after cup of warm, delicious coffee.
Many times I would be walking holding a cup of coffee to my 7:25a.m. class of the semester ( for I had not one semester without an early class) and run into Landen. One day Landen shook his head and said, “How in the world do you find time to race to Starbucks before an early morning class?” When I expressed how I had warmed it from the night before Landen was thoroughly disgusted.
I don’t know if I shall watch every hour pass tonight or if I may get a couple of hours of rest. Rest would be good. I was laying here thinking only moments ago about another time I was sleepless. That particular time I rose to the bathroom to make a change about myself. I chose to cut my hair. That night I eliminated about 5 to 6 inches of my red hair. I had started out with the thought of putting some layers into my hair…then side bangs…then chop-snip-chop-snip…I had a full-blown haircut! Alarmed at my own randomness I phoned my brother immediately even though it was 3 in the morning.
“I just would like to tell you that I am not crying but I am quite alarmed with myself.”
“What did you do?”
“I cut my hair. 5 to 6 inches. Layers…side bangs… and everything!”
“Right now? It’s 3 in the morning!!! Larissa this is why you should not make decisions at late into the night! Well…how does it look?”That night I discovered that I had a surprise gifting of cutting hair because it looked pretty good and was completely even. The next day I even received many compliments. I only told a select few that I was the one who randomly cut my own hair in the middle of the night.
Landen and I loved to stay up late together. The summer we both worked at Celebration City we didn’t get home until 11:30 or midnight so we were terribly hungry and awake. We would make stuff to eat and watch some Feature Family Film movie or talk. I am so glad for that summer. That was also the summer that Landen and Joyanna started talking…so I had to share Landen for part of the night. As the summer progressed the phone conversations grew longer and I lost more time with Landen but he was happy. The most memorable of phone conversations was the night Joyanna was house-sitting for some people and the dogs got loose and she spent hours trying to get them back all the while being on the phone with my brother. While he talked I would shower or play the piano (which I am positive my sleeping parents thoroughly enjoyed).
Wow…that all seems a lifetime ago! An entirely happy lifetime ago. God has been turning mourning into dancing and sorrow into joy. I will ALWAYS miss Landen and ALWAYS wish he could just be here for EVERYTHING but God has been so good in the midst of sadness. I am happy. God has blessed me with a great job and excellent friends - new and old… I have my mom and dad who love me so very much, a wonderful extended family and a lovely sister-in-law…An incredible church and so much more…it’s just a different chapter in life or sometimes it feels like a whole other book! There is so much I would love to get Landen’s “take” on or that I want to tell him but somehow this crazy little blog helps with that. I could use a “Landen hug” right now. A “Landen hug” was firm and made me feel like everything was alright. It is alright…just miss him…that’s all.
I am afraid I am going to have to just MAKE myself close my eyes… I have chatted about everything from coffee to haircuts to phone conversations and sentiments… It is now 3:27 and I can not allow myself to loom in this fog any longer. I am now starving and I may just have to pull out the Buttercream Gang (a Feature Family Film if you are not familiar with such a movie title) to land myself in dream land.

"Perm"

So...Justin and I were riding to church this evening and I was talking to her about the sign in between Ford's Colony that reads,
"Please do not play on the hill (berm)".
Justin said that she had thought "berm" was spelled b-u-r-m...
but no...
definitely b-e-r-m.
"Oh, like 'perm'?" she asked.
I laughed because I recalled "perm" being a word that Landen very much enjoyed hearing me say. I still have no idea why...he just enjoyed hearing me say "perm" and would try to trick me into saying it. When I would forget and speak out the word he would laugh and laugh and say, "Say it again. What do ladies put in their hair to make it curly?"
"A perm."
He also loved going to candle stores and opening the lids to candles, then smelling them and passing them multiple times under your nose to see how many times he could get you to smell without you noticing. My Aunt Debbie was the greatest smelling glutton!

March 1st

This weekend I journeyed to Charlotte to celebrate my little cousin’s birthday. On the way there my mind was filled with memories…of course! I remembered this one Fall Break Landen and I went to Manhattan, KS to visit our cousins Lyndsi and Grant. It was his Freshman and my Junior year. We had such great conversation during our traveling time. We stopped in Topeka and shopped a bit. I remember he bought a pair of dress shoes. I can’t remember why? I bought Strawberry Shortcake pajama bottoms. I am so thankful for these times to look back on and feel that warm ooey gooey brownie feeling inside.
Today is Landen’s day of birth. I remember the day he was born…I believe I shared that story in the first post…
Happy Birthday, Landen.
You know out of the millions of celebrations given to me over the years I can only remember a handful of celebrations for my brother. I actually pulled off a surprise party for him when we were in college but very few memories of Landen celebrations.
March was always an interesting time to have a birthday. He never cared if we made a big deal out of his birthday or not. A lot of times my parents resorted to the Chuckie Cheese Birthday parties with a couple of friends. A few years it snowed on his birthday so we had sledding parties and they were fun.
There is one birthday in particular that I remember. I was in 5th Grade and had become a finalist in a spelling bee with an invitational to State. I was so excited and so proud until I discovered the Spelling Bee was on March 1st. I decided not to tell my parents, yet somehow they found out that I had been hiding my accomplishment. They asked me why I hadn’t told them. I told them that I didn’t want my brother to have to spend his birthday at a stupid spelling bee. Landen found out and was insistent that I attend. March 1st came around. We went and I did not win. Landen put his little 2nd Grade arm around my shoulders and told me that he thought he had the smartest sister out of all the others. (I have a picture somewhere...I'll have to locate it.) We then went out to celebrate Landen’s birthday.
This was Landen…selfless and absolutely incredible!He would be 25 today.
It seems absolutely impossible that he is not here but he is not.
I loved him.