Spring Break II: Disney Adventures

I am not a huge amusement park person. I get the pukes. That being said, I was pretty excited to take my kids to Disneyland.  It's been a few years. 

We spent one day in Disneyland and one in California Adventures. Some of us {Floyd} were super worried about the spring break crowds, but it wasn't bad at all. I don't think we ever waited more than 40 minutes for a ride even if we didn't use a fastpass. 

Molly was a trooper.  Really, she was a trooper the whole trip, but I was especially impressed with how well she handled being at the parks all day. She rode the rides, had some snacks, caught a quick snooze, and was ready for more. She's the best.

Favorite Rides:

Cole - Indiana Jones

Annie - California Screamin' (that girl is an adrenaline junkie - she loves speed!)

Ben - Big Thunder Mountain and Maters Mashup

Molly - The Carousel (she rode it 4 times in a row and screamed, "no, no, no" when it started to slow down) 

Next up: The Beach

Spring Break I

Whew! I don't know what was more work - going on a trip to California or downloading, organizing, and uploading all the pictures from said trip.

So Spring Break - it was great.  We told the kids on Christmas that we were going on a trip to Disneyland for Spring Break {it was supposed to be their Christmas, but somehow they still all ended up with a large amount of present}. We've been excitedly anticipating the trip ever since. 

We stayed at a house in Anaheim with most of my family (missed you JLKC). We were the first to arrive at the house and my kids were in the pool within two minutes of our arrival.  Seriously. Two minutes. An impressive feat considering they were not wearing swimsuits upon our arrival and their suitcases were buried deep down in our car. Makes me realize they totally dog it every single morning when it takes them half an hour to get dressed for school.

Later that evening, we cruised out to Huntington Beach to watch the sunset because Mom can never pass up a chance to watch the sunset on the coast.  We missed the actual moment when the sun dropped, but we did have lots of fun playing in the waves, so it all worked out.

Sunday was kind of not a restful day. We spent the morning trying to come up with good explanations of why we don't go swimming on Sunday while the kids longingly inspected the pool. Then, we headed into the heart of LA to Griffith Park Observatory.  It's supposed to have a great view of the ocean, but I think maybe the internet needs to realize that it's not 1910 and LA doesn't have pristine air anymore, cause this was the actual view:

So, we didn't actually get to see the ocean, but we snapped pictures with the Hollywood sign and had a fun time up there.  

Next on the agenda was a trip to Santa Monica. We "waded" a bit. Then, the seagulls stole our lunch which I suppose was fine since the kids weren't actually interested in eating it anyway.  And all our pictures from that particular moment of the trip look retro cause my phone had a filter on and it was too bright for me to actually notice that. 

Also, Molly, it was discovered, does not care even a little bit for sand. It's "duh-dee."

Just before sunset, we took a quick drive up Highway 1 to Malibu and watched the sunset on the beach. I told you I can never pass up a sunset on the coast.  'Twas lovely, as always. 

 The kids, of course, "waded" a little more.

Let's pretend you can see a dolphin splashing around in this next picture. You can't, but there was a little pod of dolphins that came splashing through just after the sunset. 

The sand was still "duh-dee" in Malibu, so Molly got held quite a bit. Good thing there were lots of holders on this trip, cause she recently hit twenty pounds.

Next up: Disneyland. Oh boy.

Globetrotter

We have a little Christmas snow globe collection.  Little Molly loved it. Every chance she had, she would have us wind them up and play them for her.  She even found a favorite - it had a little red truck that drove around the base and she would squeal with delight whenever the truck came into view.

And, amazingly enough, we made it through the entire season without her breaking one.  

Our House

No thanks to my help, our house is coming along. It's all framed up. We have a porch and the framework of a deck.  The plumbing is coming along. It's time to order doors and windows and choose the cabinets and flooring.

{the walk-out basement makes it look like a monster from the back - eesh!}

It's definitely rewarding to see it as a house and not just a piece of paper or computer program image. 

 Good job, Floyd.  I think we're gonna like it.

The January Blah's

January is definitely my least favorite month of the year. Except for the fun I have organizing in the after-Christmas purge, I don't like much about it.  But, my kids are doing their best to convince me it's not so bad.  Here are a few of our January adventures...

Ice Skating

Ice Cutting (a new hobby brought to us by the movie Frozen)

Snow Shoeing

More Ice Skating. Someone's taking lessons.

Skiing (or snowboarding, in Cole's case)

Dreaming.

And then there was this nonsense. Who knows what to call it, but it wore them right out for bedtime, so I liked it.

I suppose January has been treating us good this year.

But still, I'll keep on dreaming of spring.