First Day of School 2014

The kids started school on Tuesday!  Everyone is in school all day except for little Levi, who is not yet in preschool yet.  Harrison started middle school (!) in the 6th grade, Noah is a 3rd grader, and Olivia made the jump into the all-day realm as a big 1st grader.  They were all super excited (and a bit nervous) about the new year.  Each came home with a big smile, and happy comments after the first day.  I think it's going to be a great year!

Someone was a little sad they were being left behind...

We had to take photos extra early this year - with Harrison leaving at 7:15 to catch the bus.  So, this was round 2, with the elementary schoolers ready to go! I love how this image captures the feelings of the day.  Nervous excitement!

Her hair is getting so long!

I drove the kids to elementary school so I could take pictures of them by their classrooms.  It was so cute to listen to Noah give Livie all the details on full day school, recess and lunch schedules, etc.  I'm glad these two have each other!

SoCal Trip Part III - Legoland

Originally we had planned to take a one day break between Disneyland and Legoland, but the weather forecast for the end of the week was getting worse by the minute, and by Wednesday, it was likely to rain and storm all day Friday, so we made the decision to go to Legoland on Thursday.  It was raining in the morning, but we were prepared with ponchos on loan from the Mitchells, ready to have a good time no matter what.

Our first few rides were a little bit damp.  But we walked right on to everything, and nothing was shut down.

About an hour after we got to the park, the clouds parted, and the sun shined the rest of the day.  And the park was practically deserted!  It was perfect.  The kids really enjoyed driving school, and we went the "The Big Test" which is a fun live show about fire safety.

The highlight of the day was going to The Lego Movie set.

Everything is Awesome!

There were all kinds of treasure hunts you could do "Can you find all 12 Emmetts?"  The kids could have spent hours there.  Levi wanted to play with all the legos all over - most of it was behind plexiglass, but the movie set was from the live action part of the movie - so the basement of Lord Buisness.  So it felt like you were actually in the basement - there were huge bins along all the walls filled with legos, and big cars, trucks and planes built out of legos on top of all the cabinets.  Levi could not understand why I would let him play with them.  He also loved looking at all the scenes behind the plexiglass.

Legoland is great for little kids.  There were lots of fun rides that he could enjoy, and he really loved playing on the duplo playgrounds, and the duplo brick play area.

The kids all loved mini-land and looking at the intricate models of real cities and places.  A new addition since our last trip here was the Star Wars scenes.  The kids wanted pictures by almost all of them.

The boat ride through some of the huge lego sets is pretty fun. It's always nice to have a ride that the whole family can enjoy together. Here's Noah at Mount Rushmore.

The boys really enjoyed the technic test track roller coaster, and at the end of the day, Olivia and I discovered the Dragon roller coaster.  She really loved it, and was able to ride it 4 times in a row - there was literally no one in line when we would finish, and they would just let us ride again and again. The boys and Sam came and joined us, and were able to ride it one last time with her, right before the park closed.  When the park closes, it only means they don't run any more coasters.  So we meandered through miniland again,

 and then headed to The Big Shop - the lego store.  The kids each got to pick out something to take home, and we tried to find the Shakespeare minifig Harrison had been wanted, but to no avail.  The boys did manage to score some fun new finds, as you can read about in the mini fig swap post.  We were all kind of glad that the park closed at 5, because we were all pretty exhausted at this point.  We stopped at Panera bread for dinner (why don't we have one of those in the tri-cities?  Or Zupas?  Something?) and then headed back to the Mitchells, looking forward to a more relaxed Friday.  That evening I was able to sit in on Ruth's book club - they were discussing Pride and Prejudice, and it was so nice.  There's a great group of ladies involved, and everyone interesting comments.  It made me think about reading it someday...  Another friend Ruth was there, and it was so good to see her too.

lego minifigure trading at legoland

At Legoland California Noah and I traded minifigures, the little Lego "mini figurines". we brought along ones we thoght we had too many of, like one of our 4 or 5 original Kai(s). We then traded with "model citizens" (legoland employees) (they had minifigures on their nametag) for ones we thought were cool and we had none of. we traded all of the 8 we brought. we got in return: a guy with headphones,

a pirate with a mini musket pistol,

a mummy

, a small clown (a little bit different from the minifigure series one)

, a robber

, Velma StapleBot,

 a knight

, and a weird girl that had a messed-up expression. That last one was Olivia's idea. we lost in trading: motorcycle mechanic (we had a duplicate of), flaminco dancer (duplicate of), harry potter (like 4 of), Kai (like 4 of), Lasha(three of), cowgirl (three of), and two others. we would have traded one of our three viking women if we could find her dress.
overall, we had a great time trading.

--harrison

SoCal Trip Part II - Disneyland

On Tuesday morning we headed up to Disneyland to meet up with Grandma Margie, Grandpa Brent, Aunt Sarah, and cousins Clara & Betty.  It was so fun to share our time at Disney with family!  We loved every minute of it.  I didn't take many photos at California Adventure - we were just too busy living in the moment!  Everyone had a great time.  Levi loved Carsland, and we got to follow Lightening McQueen down a road in radiator springs.  He was in heaven!

We've figured out how to strategically use stroller swap and fast passes, so we didn't wait in many lines, and the weather was perfect.  The girls and Levi all went and saw the Aladdin show, which was really entertaining.  At one point Prince Ali comes in on a huge puppet elephant, and Levi chanted, "More elephants, please!" for several minutes after that.  We managed to go on and see all the rides and attractions that we wanted to, and no one had  a major melt down.  We ate yummy bread bowl soup for dinner while the kids watched the Pixar parade from a distance.  Noah and Harrison both braved the California Screamin' roller coaster, and lived to tell the tale.  They both really enjoyed it, but said once was enough. The little girls loved Bugs Land, and Grandpa Brent had lots of fun going on rides with them.

Sarah and Clara on Lady Bug Bop.

One of the few pictures from California Adventure taken on Sam's ipod.  He took the girls on the carousel while Sarah and I braved California Screamin'.

 Grandpa also tried to take the boys on the Hollywood Tower of Terror, but they both backed out at the last minute.  We all went on the giant Mickey wheel together.  Harrison was not impressed.  He had read that it was like riding in a giant chicken coup, and couldn't get past that.

The next day we met up at Disneyland.  I resolved to take more pictures this day, and I managed to do that.  I'm still really bummed we didn't get a photo of everyone all together - I don't think I got a single picture of Grandma Margie or sweet little Betty.  We got this one on our way in - it's so nice the photographers at Disney will take one with your camera too.

Harrison was too busy looking at the map to smile for the picture.

Disneyland was a little less crowded than California Adventure had been.  Once again, we managed to not wait in many lines, and really enjoyed our day.  We had a bit of a scare at one point, when Olivia disappeared as we were going to sit down to have our Dole Whips.  She had just started heading in the opposite direction when no one was looking, and just kept on going.  Luckily Grandpa Brent spotted her little pink minnie mouse ears off in the distance, and took off sprinting to find her.  She had figured out she was lost at that point, and was in tears.  Thankfully it was a very short amount of time, and nothing a dole whip couldn't make her forget!
\

The trauma of getting lost was easily soothed with a Dole Whip.

Levi discovered Cheetos on our trip.  

 Levi and the girls had fun meeting Mickey Mouse, and touring his house, and everyone really loved the small roller coaster in Toon Town.

Grandpa with Clara and Olivia on a train ride.  

Olivia may not have a sister, but she's got some great girl cousins to hang out with!

Teacups!

Clara loved the rides, and after watching a really cute live show about Beauty and the Beast, I asked her if she liked it, and she replied, "Yes, can we go on more coasters now?"  Our very last ride with everyone together was the Jungle Cruise.  After that, Grandma and Grandpa, Sarah and Betty and Clara headed for home.  We went and hit the haunted mansion (just Harrison and I, but it really wasn't scary at all - I think anyone could have ridden it, well, except for Olivia, that is...) and then pirates of the Caribbean, which everyone enjoyed for the most part.  We had just a few minutes before the park closed, so I ran over to Astro Orbitor with the 3 oldest, and we rode that as the finale for the night.  Levi was already crashing in the stroller before we left the park, and Olivia joined him on our walk back to the car.

In line at Astro Orbitor at the end of the day.

We grabbed everyone a churro as we left for the day.  Yum!

 We drove straight back to the Mitchells that night, getting in just after 10.  We went straight to bed to get rested up for our big day at Legoland on Thursday!