Days 3 & 4 Disneyland!!

Get ready for the longest post in the history of mankind.

 

"The happiest place on earth!"

 

 Family picture in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle take 1:

 

 Family picture in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle take 2:

 

Family picture in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle take 3:

 

Come on guys it's only 8:30 a.m. ;)

 

The park was decorated SO cute for Halloween

 

 

 

 Cara, Travis and Dillon:

 

 

Even the Haunted Mansion was all decked out:

 

 

 

Visit to Toon Town...Mickey Mouse here we come!

 

 

 

 

OK we can go home now (just kidding)
Gotta see Minnie too!



Joslyn LOVES Mickey and Minnie on TV but in person, she wasn't quite sure. Hudson was at the perfect age for meeting the characters.

 

Playing at Minnie's house:

 

 



 







 

 

 

Some other characters we met:

 

Tigger:

 

 

 Pooh:

 Rapunzel:



 

 

I waited in line for 45 min for Joslyn to see Rapunzel. whhoooweee! It was SO worth it though. Joslyn loves the movie Tangled she even has Rapunzel's dress on! You can see how excited she is... HA! Once we were out of there she was so excited to tell daddy that she got to see "Rapunzeled".  I guess she is just a little shy around her favorite characters.

 

Rides:

 

Nate, Hudson and Joslyn on Dumbo:

 

The whole fam on It's a Small World:

The kids LOVED Splash Mountain we went on that one again and again! Look at Hudson having a blast, I love it! Nate is trying to not get wet.

 

 

Braiden, Travis Hailey, Jake, Cob and ?

Lucky for us Joslyn's favorite ride was right across from Splash Mountain...The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh we probably did that one 10 times, she LOVED it!

 

Another favorite was Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters which again was perfect because the little ones could go on it while the big kids went on Star Tours and Space Mountain, Brody was NOT a fan of Space Mountain though. :(

 

The Haunted Mansion was decked out in The Nightmare Before Christmas, I like the original mansion better :/ We all LOVED Pirates of the Caribbean they've added Jack Sparrow here and there since I've been.  We were Sad Sad Sad that Indiana Jones was closed. BOO! There's always one right?

 

A little down time after dinner:

 

Sword fighting with their Jack Sparrow Swords



Waiting for the parade to start:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The parade was awesome!! The perfect ending to a wonderful 4 days!

 

 

Day 2

Tuesday: California Adventure! First stop Cars Land!!!
Not only were the gas prices high the temps were high too!! It was hot hot hot!

We bumped into Minnie Mouse, what a fun surprise!

 

 

 Max!

 

 Cara, Travis and Dillon on Luigi's Flying Tires

 

 Brody. Nate and Hudson

 

 Ashley, Cob and Kylie

 

 Joslyn and Hudson with Lightning McQueen

 

 My little trooper on the carousel

 

 Don't look too close at this one, we'd been at the park for 12 hours and we are hot, sweaty and gross.

 

 This is after World of Color, such an awesome show! One of my favorite things of the week!

Nate drug me kicking and screaming on Tower of Terror, now I can do pretty much anything but the "straight up" and "straight down" thing... I don't know, I think I'll pass on that one next time.  When the ride got over Brody looked like he was going to hurl and I begged him to keep it together. He did, what a nice boy! :) Braiden LOVED it and all of the big roller coaster rides, maybe it comes and goes with age????
Cars Land was awesomely fun and awesomely packed. The Radiator Springs racers were way fun! They might have been a little much for Hudson (which is too bad) because he wouldn't go again...but now he's wishing he would have.
Joslyn's favorite ride at this park was Ariel's Undersea Adventure, I have to agree, it was the coolest ride, and I mean that in the literal sense. When ever we needed to cool down we would go on that one, and the best part, there was never a line!
Other family favorites on day 2, Soarin' Over California, Toy Story Midway Mania (totally worth the 25 min wait) and Braiden would have to say, California Screamin'! The kids were so tired at the end of this day it was the only time Miss Joslyn fell asleep in my arms on the way home.

Tune in tomorrow for Days 3&4 Disneyland!!

A Fun Week!

Did you hear that gas prices hit a record high in California? Yup we were just there buying gas...for our SUBURBAN!!!  Fun huh? Well everything else was super fun, buying gas was not, uh well.

We went with Nate's family to Disneyland last week and we had SO much fun!! The kids were amazing, they did great traveling, and they did great with all those long long days.  I will break up the posts because there are alot of pictures. ;)

We arrived in California on Sunday afternoon, so we mostly just lounged around in the hotel room. We went to check out Newport Beach that evening, we got there just as the sun was setting...

 

Lovely!

 



Oops got a little wet.



Monday: Corona Del Mar
Ready for the sand and sea!

First time the kids have seen the ocean!! They were a little leery at first as was I, after an hour or so we all relaxed a little and had some serious fun!!

Hudson and Jake are little buddies

Braiden and Kylie getting the hang of the boogie board.

This picture is hilarious! Little toothless goatee man!

Having so much fun playing in the ocean!

Preschool and Time Out

It's not what you think :)...

Hudson started preschool last Wednesday.

 

Sis couldn't be left out of the picture!

 

Cool backpack!

 

So- we tried preschool earlier this year and it was a complete failure! He hated going (but loved it once he was there, if that makes any sense.) He hated me leaving him, it was a fight every morning so we just stopped (that was in March).  The thing that I didn't get was the sweet teacher was my neighbor, and all the kids were in the ward and/or neighbors, so he knew everyone there. So I have been stressed for months how he would do in a preschool where he didn't know a single person, not even the teacher.  I was prepared for major drama. I was prepared to bribe like no other, I bought a movie for him and promised a trip to McDonald's. Guess What?

There was NONE of it!!! In fact he hopped out of the car and ran up to the door, had his shoes off and his backpack hung up before I even got to the door! I was baffled to say the least! He LOVES preschool and he loves his teacher, he asks every day if it is preschool day.

So what changed? I can't  figure it out either.  Maybe he's grown up in the last few months. Maybe it's because it's in the afternoon instead of the morning, I don't know, I'm just happy because he's happy.

Big boy!

 

 

 

 

 

I'm on a spiritual high right now because I just got back from...

 

 

This was a the first time I've gone to a time out for women event, it was SO awesome!

 

 

One moment of many that had me in tears!

 

A few of my favorite presenters:

 

Kris Belcher had you laughing one minute, crying the next.

Mariama Kallon- the same, she has an amazing story.

Emily Freeman

Anthony Sweat

Wendy Ulrich

Hilary Weeks- how lucky are we?

Brad Wilcox

 

 

Can't wait for next year!!!