Saturday, July 31, 2010

More Trip... Wednesday, June 16th

 Wow. I have not done a whole lot of anything today. I had plans for laundry, dusting, and bleaching the kitchen counters, but instead, I played Wii with Trevor, goofed around with Elise, and caught up on Facebook a bit. I also got a baby fix when my cousin brought her little guy, Andrew, over for a bit. It's amazing how fast babies grow!

Anyway, I don't want to interrupt my nonproductiveness (is that even a word?? Oh well, it is now!), so here I am. I am almost done with documenting our California trip. It's only a month and a half later!

So, Wednesday, we were able to see Robert's grandma and Aunt Joann. His dad was there also, of course. We met up at a park near his dad's home, and just snacked & chatted for a couple hours or so. The kids had fun playing at the park, and it was such an enjoyable time. Not to mention, a beautiful day!

That evening, my parents, Robert, and I went to Claim Jumper at South Coast Plaza to celebrate our anniversaries. The last time we ate there together was before we moved to Iowa. They have some yummy food and awesome zucchini spears!


There's an awesome bakery there that always has really cool loaves of bread in their window...




I was there, too, but Robert always seems to forget I use back button focusing ;)



And our yummy dinner...


Mmmm... it's making my mouth water. Well, except for Robert's fish!

And speaking of Andrew earlier, I don't think I've posted his pictures yet, so here are a few of my favorites:





Thursday, July 29, 2010

Abby's Birthday & Adventureland!

 Tuesday was Abby's birthday, and we celebrated with the traditional cake and presents. In a very nontraditional way!

Since we were going to Adventureland that day, we had to get the ball rolling earlier.
So, breakfast was in bed (well, for Abby, anyway). And breakfast was birthday cake!
(I know, I didn't ice all the way around the cake. I was in a hurry ;))

We sang to her, she blew out her candles, then we jumped right into opening presents. I don't know what's worse for a kid: to open gifts that you can't even play with until the next day, or to wait until the next day. Since we knew Adventureland was going to be so much fun that she would totally forget about her new things back at home, the presents were opened.

After the whirlwind celebration, it was time to go!
I can't tell you how many times someone would ask, "Are we almost there?" How quickly they forget we live in Iowa, where everything is two hours away!

But we made it...


I have to say, even though it was a super-duper hot day, it was a blast! It was so much fun to go with older kids who could go on any ride, or even go on rides alone when Mom & Dad wanted to take a breather! Afterall, I think we deserved it after every other time we took the kids to Disneyland or Knott's Berry Farm, they were little, I was nursing or pregnant (our last Disneyland trip, Sierra was almost 5, Caitlin was 3, Trevor was almost 2, and I was about 8 months pregnant with Abby. So, I will hear NO 'guilt trips' about how easy we have it, because I've been there/done that five times over, and think we're entitled to enjoy it now! ;)).
ANYHOO...
We had a total blast! Abby, Elise, and Trevor had their first roller coaster experiences and LOVED them!! Except for Abby's complaint about when she went upside down, she couldn't hold her head up. That upset her a bit, but I guarantee you, she'll be back on that one next time! At least she loved the other ones! Caitlin wouldn't go on any roller coaster, so she sat out. Maybe we can talk her into going on them next time.

Here are the videos from a few rides. One of them is sideways - sorry. The one with Elise is hilarious because of her expression on the drops, but it's mostly recording Robert because I wasn't paying close enough attention to where I was aiming - sorry again. The Silly Silo video takes a few seconds of blurry video, then I start trying to pan with the spin. It was so funny to watch in person... though I could only handle looking for a second before feeling sick!
*Turn off the music at the bottom of the page*








Here are a bunch of photos. Don't know that I'll caption them all...

Yes, I took this photo. How could I not??


Mommy with the birthday girl


A lady offered to take our photo, so after giving her a quick lesson on how to take a picture, I forgot to teach her the technical part about checking the meter for proper exposure. So, I did edit this photo's levels a little, just to bring the brightness down a bit and make a crop. And why I felt like I needed to explain that for a simple snapshot taken by a stranger, I'll never know.

The sky was full of beautiful rays throughout the day...

Half way through the day, we needed a real cool down from the heat! Kokomo Kove was so much fun, and it really hit the spot! There's not a whole lot of photos from it since I couldn't bring my camera in the water with me, but I did manage to snap a few right before we went back to the rides...

Ok, so we're at the end of the night, and Robert & I had purposely saved riding the ferris wheel together as a family until the very end. Caitlin gets closer to it and decides it's way too tall for her, and she'd be too scared to go on it. She wants to do the Sky Ride instead. Picture a ski lift, but over cement. Yup. Somehow, that was less scary for her, but Robert & I were freaked out the whole ride across the park. No seatbelts, just a straight drop to certain death. I did NOT move an inch, so there are no photos or videos of that ride, but I did take a photo of the ferris wheel all lit up...


After closing, we drove around to find a place to eat. We lucked out at Perkins, because Tuesday was their kids eat free night!

Today, I took the kids to the park and decided to grab Abby's 6 year portraits while we were out. I think I might still take her out another time to get a few more, but for now...





Here's the 'I've got a bug bite on my nose now and I dont like that, can we be done?' look.

I also took a couple photos of the other girls. Trevor was wandering around, so he lucked out missed out on the fun...

Abby, we love you tons, and are proud of the sweet little girl that you are! You'll always be our little 'B.'

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