A/N Whew! Well, everything has been transferred over to the new computer and my old one was sent back for trade-in. This chapter has been written on five different devices. My old iMac, my MacBook Air, my iPad, my iPhone, and finally, it was finished on my new Mac Studio (Yes, I'm a fan of Apple, but I just happen to like the way it all works together. I do have a Dell monitor, rather than an Apple Studio Monitor. If you don't like Apple, that's fine with me.).

As for the story of losing my files. All of my writing has been up on the cloud from my phone plan. This way, if I'm away from the house, I can work on chapters on either my MacAir or my iPod. Well, after doing the OS update on my MacAir, in preparation to try to use it as my main computer) I found that all of my files on the cloud were gone. All my writing, back to Chew Toy, just disappeared.

I was able to get some of it back, through various measures, but what I will have to recreate, from scratch, is my transcript file. I had all of the transcripts of each episode, for the entire show, in one file. That way, I could do a search using a single word (or group of words) and find what season or episode it came from. That is gone too, including all of the individual episode transcripts. So, it's back to the beginning for me on that one.

As for this chapter, enjoy.

Chapter 6 Disneyland and Caltech

4 August 6:00 AM

The alarm went off and Leonard and Penny had gotten up. After each of them visited the bathroom, they both went to the twin's room and found the twins were both awake. Penny first fed Annika and after she finished handed her to Leonard, to burp and change. While he was doing that, Penny started feeding Jesika. They had timed it so Penny finished feeding Jesica, just as Leonard finished with Annika. Leonard took Jesika from Penny, who then started dressing Annika.

Leonard then dressed Jesika in the outfit Penny had laid out and when they were both dressed, Leonard and Penny took them downstairs and placed them in their playpens. Leonard then got both of them a cup of coffee took them into the living room and gave one to Penny, while they watched the twins and talked about their day. Around 7:15 AM, Leonard went out to the kitchen to make his French Toast for everyone's breakfast. Penny's parents were planning to get up around 7:30, so Wyatt could eat and then get ready to go to the Japanese consulate. He had a car coming to get him at 9:00 AM.

Leonard gathered the pans and utensils, along with the ingredients, and first started cooking the bacon. The bacon had been on for about five minutes when Wyatt and Susan came down the steps. Penny got them each a cup of coffee and brought it to them at the table.

4 August 10 AM

Just after Wyatt had left, Louise came in and Susan, Penny, and Louise had taken the twins out in the stroller for a walk. Leonard took this opportunity to stay in and look over his email from the university. While he was on paternity leave, Tom and Keith were making the decisions and, as a courtesy, sending the decisions to Leonard, so he could look them over. So far, he had found no reason to override their decisions. But, he had some questions about the experiments being set up to test new material for the number of reactions and Leonard had sent those questions to the two of them, telling them he would be in on Friday.

Just before noon Penny and Louise fed and changed the twins, while Louise watched. Leonard gently kidded her about having an easy week. Louise kidded back that she deserved one after the first month, considering how inept Leonard and Penny had been and they both laughed. Penny and Louise then laid the twins down for their nap while Susan made several sandwiches and heated up a couple of cans of soup, for lunch. The four of them then sat at the dining table, for lunch.

Around 2 PM, Wyatt came back and he was extremely happy. His group had gotten the high end of the payment range that they originally had offered. The Japanese companies were expecting a lot of production this year and offered even more for the extra soybeans the co-op had to sell. In addition, they would be able to swap some of their corn, locally, for extra soybeans to sell to the Japanese. And, with everything settled, he would not have to meet with the Japanese on Friday.

After Wyatt finished explaining everything about the sales, Penny and her mother took off for the store. Her mother was planning on making a few of Penny's favorite dinners while they were here. Penny and Leonard objected, saying she was on vacation, but Susan was adamant. Leonard had hooked up his Nintendo Wii and was fishing with Wyatt. Wyatt had mentioned how he enjoyed playing it, so Leonard brought it out. While playing, the two guys watched the twins, who were together in a playpen, just on the other side of the coffee table.

When the women came home, the guys, along with Louise, stopped to help bring in the groceries. Which Leonard then put away. Penny offered to let Louise go home, while still paying her until six PM. But, Louise said she would stick around as she had nothing pressing to do at home. Susan then offered to have her stay for dinner and Louise accepted. For the rest of the afternoon, they all sat around talking while the grandparents played with the twins. Around 5:30, Susan started dinner, and they all ate around 6:30. After dinner, Leonard and Wyatt cleaned up and Louise left for home. Afterward, he finished cleaning up Leonard put on Star Wars: A New Hope, because Wyatt had said he had never seen it. Much to Penny's surprise, both her parents both enjoyed thoroughly enjoyed it and they talked about it with Leonard until bedtime.

5 August 9:00 AM

Wyatt was riding with Leonard to Caltech. They had been talking about Leonard's work at breakfast and Wyatt mentioned he'd never seen where Leonard worked and Leonard said, "Do you want to come with me today? I'll give you a tour." Wyatt agreed, but Susan demurred, so it was only Leonard and Wyatt heading to Caltech. When they arrived, Wyatt followed along until they arrived at Leonard's office. Wyatt was impressed with the size and asked if this was the normal size of an office at Caltech.

Leonard said, "Well, team leads and other full professors tend to get bigger offices. Do you remember Sheldon and Amy?

Wyatt grinned but nodded.

"They both have larger offices than me," said Leonard. "But, they both won a Nobel, so there is that."

Looking around, Wyatt said, "Are all these books yours?"

"A lot of them are, yeah," said Leonard. "Some belong to the department, some were left here when the last person left, I brought a lot of them over. Textbooks, some popular science, a few from areas I studied, but no longer work in…'

"Hey, Leonard, what are you doing here."

Leonard looked up and saw Keith in the doorway. "Just showing my father-in-law around. I've known him for almost ten years and he hasn't been to Caltech yet. Keith this is Wyatt, Penny's dad."

"Well, I figured that," said Keith. "I don't think you have another wife. Nice to meet you, Wyatt."

"Nice to meet you too, Keith," said Wyatt. He then grinned and said, "And, he better not have another wife."

Leonard shook his head, getting ribbed by either of them was bad enough, but with both of them doing it…

"Hey, you want to go over those questions I have?" Asked Keith.

"Not today," said Leonard. "I told you I'd be on Friday, we can do it then."

"Okay, well, I gotta run, I'll see you Friday, Leonard." Said Keith. "Nice to meet you, Wyatt. Bye." And, with that, Keith turned and left.

"Bye," said Wyatt and Leonard together. "Come on, I'll take you down to the experiment room."

They walked down to the room where the experiment was run and walked in. The people working in the room were surprised to see Leonard and they all gathered around to ask him about the babies and when he would be back, among other things. Leonard explained that he was only here for a short bit to show his father-in-law where he worked. He also explained he would be back Friday for more questions. With that, everyone went back to work, while Leonard explained the different things to Wyatt, although Leonard could see Wyatt wasn't following the explanation.

They were getting ready to leave when Tom came in. Leonard expected to be asked several questions from Tom, but he said, "I talked to Keith, so I know you're not here to answer questions until Friday, but I just wanted to say hi." Leonard thanked him and introduced Wyatt. They both said it was nice to meet each other before Tom left and Wyatt and Leonard left the campus.

5 August Noon

Wyatt and Leonard were about halfway back to the house, when Wyatt said, "Leonard, I'm sorry, but I didn't understand what you were trying to explain."

"Yeah, I thought so, from the look in your eyes," said Leonard. "Think of it this way, We're trying to measure how photons interact with each other in very specific ways. It can be difficult and before this year, the most anyone was able to measure was 10 interactions. We have been trying to get that number higher, and we have."

"We were supposed to get 10, 14, and 18. What we got were 13, 18, and 23. We found out that the material we were using was giving us more reactions than we planned. We did some testing and calculations and now know why. We are doing even more calculations and making changes based on those calculations to see if we can get even more."

Wyatt smiled at Leonard, "Well, I still don't understand what you are doing, but that makes a bit more sense. I kinda understand what you're doing."

"Well, that's good, at least," said Leonard. "I'll leave it at that. I don't think we have anything else for today. Tomorrow we are going to Disneyland, so you may want to get a nap in today, you won't be able to tomorrow."

"Good point," said Wyatt. "I'll do that after lunch.

6 August 7:00 AM

They had all gotten up at seven AM, with Leonard making breakfast while Penny and Susan fed and dressed the twins. At 8:00 AM, Louise arrived, she was there an hour early, so the others could leave at 8:30, expecting a 90-minute ride to Disneyland. They arrived at 10:00 AM and spent the day going around the park. They started in Fantasyland and rode several well-known rides. After Fantasyland, they went to Tomorrowland and after a bit, Penny and Wyatt wanted to ride Space Mountain. Leonard and Susan, however, didn't. So Leonard suggested he and Susan walk along Main Street, looking at all the souvenirs, while Penny and Wyatt rode Space Mountain.

They agreed to meet, for lunch, at the Holly Jolly Bakery Cafe. Penny had texted Leonard when they got off and the four of them arrived within a minute of each other. Leonard and Wyatt got sub sandwiches, while Penny and Susan ordered salads. After lunch, they walked through the rest of the park. Leonard was excited about seeing the new Star Wars area. While it had opened the previous year, this was the first time he had visited Disneyland, since it had opened. Wyatt and Susan got quite a few of the references since Leonard had played the movie the previous night.

By 7 PM, they were all exhausted and decided it was time to leave. On the way home, they had stopped for dinner at an In and Out Burger again, then finished the drive home, arriving around 9 PM. Amy greeted them, she had relieved Louise at 6 PM and was waiting for the four of them to arrive home. Knowing how tired they all would be, Amy had insisted on spending the night, sleeping in the downstairs bedroom, with the twins there in their bassinets. Susan and Wyatt were in bed by 9:30 and Leonard and Penny were in bed as soon as Penny finished feeding the twins. Amy made sure the twins were safe in their bassinets before getting into the bed and turning off the lights.

8 August 9:00 AM

Leonard kissed Penny and headed for the garage. He was going to CalTechand Penny would be going into Zangen, to show her parents her office, and to talk to Dan. Louise would also be going because Dan and several others at work wanted to see the twins, so Penny was bringing them. Bernadette had taken some time off. She would be driving because all the people and baby things were too much for Penny's car.

Leonard arrived at his building, it was still weird for Leonard not to be in his original building, but he had promised Tom and Keith he would talk to them, on Friday, about the experiment and some other things when he stopped by to show Wyatt the campus on Wednesday. Before going to his office, he stopped at the cafeteria and got a cup of coffee before heading to his office. Arriving there, he went through his email, which went quickly since he got most of it at home. On the other hand, his voicemail messages were overwhelming. He figured even with just scanning them, it would take 30-45 minutes. Single messages from those he didn't know went right into the trash. Multiple messages from those same people would cause him to do a quick scan, with most of them ending up in the trash.

Messages from those he did know were quickly scanned and either saved or put in the trash. Again most of them ended up in the trash as most were too old to do anything. After he finished he looked up and saw 40 minutes had passed. I'm going to have to listen to my messages every day, from here on out, he thought. He then called Tom and Keith, who were at his office in fifteen minutes.

Once there, they talked about the calculations from Tom's group on the various materials they hypothesized would work to increase the number of reactions. Keith talked about the progress they've had making the different materials into something they could use on the machine. They currently had four different materials ready and four more in work. He mentioned that they would be able to run the material starting in August. Tom talked about the calculations showing which materials looked like the best to use, along with the software changes his team was making, to make finding the reactions easier to see in the data.

Leonard nodded at most of this as he had been getting the updates each week. He had a few questions, with a few follow-up questions after hearing the original answers. Within 90 minutes, they had completed everything and Leonard reminded them he would be back in two weeks. He was putting away his papers, so Leonard didn't see Tom and Keith look at each other a bit guiltily. They collected their papers and headed back to their offices, both texting as they went.

Within minutes, before Leonard had a chance to close his office up, members of his team started showing up, asking how he was, how Penny and the babies were doing, and when he thought he would be back. After the first few groups, he texted Keith and asked him to come to his office. A group had just left when Keith came in and Leonard said, "Okay, what going on with all the visitors?"

Keith chuckled and said, "They just wanted to see you, Leonard. The members of this team really like you, are concerned about you, and their questions were legitimate. They can't wait until you're back."

Leonard had an evil grin when he asked, "Does this speak to how they don't like you and Tom?"

Keith started to sputter, but Leonard spoke up, "I know that's not the case, I've spoken with Dr. Gablehauser, he says everyone has been happy since I've been gone."

"They have," agreed Keith. "But, they do miss you and not because they're upset with Tom and me."

"I know, I just wanted to give you a hard time," said Leonard. "Okay, I've got to go, I have to check in with the daycare and see where we're at on the waitlist. See you in a couple of weeks."

"See you then, Leonard," said Keith and he turned and left. Leonard locked his desk, locked his door, then headed toward the daycare building, planning on going home after he finished there.