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!
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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!

SoCal Trip Part I - The Beach

We have been wanting to go back and visit San Diego since the last time we went.  Over Christmas break, we decided that going this February would be fun.  We figured it was the last time we could get away with taking our kids out of school for a week, and February is usually lots of blue skies in SD, and we were looking to escape this gloomy winter we had been having.  We stayed at Hotel Mitchell again - that is our great friends the Mitchells offered to let us stay at their home.  That was half the fun.  Staying with the Mitchells feels like you are staying with family.  Harrison and Noah picked up playing with John and Will like they didn't skip a beat from the last time they saw them almost 4 years ago.  It was great fun to watch.

We flew in late on Saturday night.  Our flights were pretty uneventful, we did have a slight delay in Salt Lake, which allowed for enough time to grab some Cafe Rio at the airport.  Yum.  We randomly ran into the Findlays, some old friends from San Diego that now live in Salt Lake, as they were returning from a trip to Guatemala. Random and so fun. We arrived in San Diego just about an hour late, and we were renting a van, so I kept the kids entertained at the airport (i.e. constantly nagged them to stop jumping off the concrete structures and do some of their make up school work, while I pushed a very tired toddler in a jogging stroller up and down the passenger pick up area, in hopes he would fall asleep) while Sam picked it up.  By the time we made it to the Mitchells it was past 10 o'clock.  They were gone at ski weekend, scheduled to get home about the same time we were arriving.  There was a bit of a snafu with Ruth's perfect planning, involving keys and mailboxes, and lots of confusion, loud knocking, and we all ended up getting to bed just a bit later than had been expected.  But it's little things like that that make life memorable.

On Sunday we enjoyed relaxing with the Mitchells at home, and attending church with them.  It was a lots of fun to see some familiar faces, and interesting to see how different the ward had become.  Monday, Sam was meeting with collaborators at UCSD, and so I spent the morning with Ruth.  I went running with her in the morning, and it made me wish I still lived near by - what a great life to be able to spend an hour with Ruth several mornings a week!  Colleen, I envy you!  In the afternoon, we headed to La Jolla Cove with the kids.  Levi loves seals, so we thought it would be fun to go see some down at the Children's Pool.  There were tons out, and even some on a nearby beach.  It was the same beach Sam and I had spent some time on almost exactly 12 years earlier on on honeymoon.

This is Sam on our honeymoon at the same beach we took the kids to.

  Good memories.  We had to watch Levi pretty close - I'm pretty sure he would have tried to pet the seals if we weren't holding him back.  It felt so great to feel warm outside - such a contrast to the snow we had been dealing with just a couple weeks earlier in Washington.

camping in the backyard

We looked at our summer bucket list and saw that we had not yet camped and watched a movie in the backyard.  We (the kids) cleaned up the great room, and then I read while dad set up the tent. Noah and Liv played together. After a while I got up from my book and went outside and got in the tent. Dad, Liv, and Noah came out. We all got into our sleeping bags, or in Liv's case, a "comf" pile of blankets and dolls. We then watched one hour of Mary Poppins.  Afterwards we all wanted to look at the  stars, so Dad got out his green laser pointer and showed us a few constellations.  I was surprised that the green laster could be a straight beam right up to the top of the atmosphere and point to a single star.  It was a neat way to trace out the Big Dipper or Draco.  There were enough clouds that I could not see everything that I wanted.  Only the Dippers, Draco and a few other stars were visible.

Then we all got back into the tent and went to sleep. Noah woke up at about 5:50 and Dad said to just go lie in his bed.  Then Olivia wanted to go also, and dad went with her.  So that left me alone in the tent.  I slept the last hour peacefully, and woke up just before dad came to get me around 7:30.

-Harrison

turkey trot

On Thanksgiving morning, we all went down to the Columbia River Park for the annual turkey trot. Mollie entered Harrison, Noah and I in the one mile race.  There was also a 5K following a different route.

It was a beautiful crisp morning.  We got there in enough time to find parking, get our packets, and find the start line.  The boys and I got to the start line about 10 minutes before the race was set to start, and there were only perhaps 30 people there.  I though well this is going to be fun.  As we stood at the starting line, the crowd came.   I actually started getting a bit nervous about getting out of the blocks quick enough, noticing that perhaps 300 people had filled in behind us.

The race starts with an abrupt left turn, and I told the boys that our job was to get out of the way as quickly as possible so that other people could run by us if they were faster.  I had flashbacks to my cross country races, where you seriously sprint the first 200 yards as the course quickly narrows to just a few people wide.

Harrison was out quickly, sprinting along 20 yards ahead of Noah and I (who held hands most of the race).  After 30 seconds or so Harrison looked around and noticed that we were not right by him.  I could see him and made eye contact.  He figured out it was okay and kept on sprinting.  He was funny, sprinting for 50 yards or so, and then jogging back to Noah and I who were doing a more consistent pace.  This went on the whole race, racing ahead and then either waiting or wandering back.

We all finished happy at about 11 minutes. I was pretty surprised at how many people participated.  I don't know official numbers, but people were passing us the entire time we ran.

Post-race with free water bottles.

 I would bet at least several hundred people ran the mile race.  Then as we neared the finish line (which was shared with the two races), I could see the people still taking off from the 5K race.  There must have been over a thousand.  Loads of people walking with their dog, pushing kids in strollers. Even 10 minutes after the gun, people were still working their way out of the gate.

New Bike

Last weekend Mollie got Olivia a new bike at a garage sale ($1 special!).  When she got home, Olivia immediately fell in love.  We got some training wheels put on (borrowed from one of the boy's bikes) and she spent all day on the bike.  On Sunday she woke up and wanted to ride the bike.

 I figured that by leaving the garage door shut she would be sufficiently deterred.  I guess not.