A Few Favorites

These are a few favorite photographs from our trip. I brought my backup SLR Canon Rebel along a couple of the days so I could get a few nicer shots of the trip. I think the picture above was actual my little point and shoot, but it ended up being a favorite. (o:

A shot of each of the girls in their Minnie hats while waiting to ride It's a Small World.

A fun action shot - I think this was running back to the hotel because the girls were so excited to go swimming in the Peter Pan pool.

The view of the fireworks from New Orleans Square.

Angela was often apprehensive when waiting in line for a new ride. Even Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Princess Natalie

Sarah's cute Mickey picture after a lesson in animation at California Adventure. Being the perfectionist that she is, she was upset and thought it didn't look perfect. It stinks to always be aiming for perfection. I thought it was pretty darn good!

Sarah with some flare and her trendy Mickey hat.

Man, she looks grown up in this picture.

Nattie's cute fuzzy ears as we enter It's a Small World.

Lollipop Lollipop

Do you want a souvenir that makes a statement, but doesn't break the bank?

These humongous lollipops were the cheapest souvenir we bought, but were a HUGE hit!

Everyone we walked by commented on them and every child we walked by ogled and drooled. These things lasted our whole trip and by the time we through them away after we got home, they still looked like they hardly been touched.

Sarah liked to pose in front of the mirror with her lollipop. (o:

I often found Natalie hiding under the sink at our hotel with her lollipop. (o:

And . . . I think Angela liked hers too. (o:

Hey Mickey, Long Time No See

Oh was it a happy moment when we got out of the car at the Disneyland hotel! And boy do we love the bell hop service! The last time we were at Disneyland was three years ago. Angela was 1 year old. We stayed at the Disneyland hotel, but for some reason we couldn't find a bell hop (it was later at night) or didn't know where to get cart, so poor Melvin* walked the very long distance from our van to the hotel room 3-4 times to bring everything to our room! This time, we were smarter and made sure to use the bell hop service! While we waited for daddy to park the car, the girls pretended to jump into Disneyland (like on Mary Poppins). They were very, very excited! So was I!
Hey there Mickey - we've missed you!

We love staying at the Disneyland hotel. Besides being very convenient, it's just fun to keep the Disney magic the whole vacation! We love the princess bedtime stories, the fun Disney decor, the awesome Peter Pan themed pool - which we made a point to visit this time even though it wasn't exactly a warm day. It is a beautiful place to stay and they have rooms that perfectly accommodate a family of 5.

The girls getting into a story by Belle.

Natalie getting "comfortable".

These pictures are a little mixed up. This was our dinner the first night at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. It is a fun restaurant with a lot of ambiance. It looks like a rainforest inside and every few minutes the animals come alive and a big "rainstorm" happens. Before we were even in the restaurant and the first rainstorm hit in the gift shop, Angela freaked out. She was terrified. Natalie took the cue and started getting scared too. This was not a good start on a vacation full of pretend things. I didn't know if we were even going to get through dinner, but Neville* has a way of talking the girls into calming down and trying new things. So it was a little tense for a while, but we ended up having a fun dinner. I hoped this would not be a theme for the trip...

Unfortunately, the next day it seemed like it would be a theme...

We did our Magic Morning entrance the next day. (Early entry into the park.) It was a rough start, for some reason Natalie's tummy was hurting and Sarah felt queasy too. I think it was all the excitement and anticipation. (Sarah had also been dealing with ongoing nausea for a few days before the trip as explained in the "Finally Getting Into the Swing of Things" post. This problem continued to haunt us at least once a day on our trip. That first morning, as we waited in line, I just prayed everyone would feel good and we could just have fun! Luckily, it wasn't long before Sarah and Natalie perked up. We headed right toward the Nemo submarine ride just as RideMax suggested to avoid horrendous lines. (I'm so glad we did, every other time we walked by during our trip the line was ridiculous.)

As we waited to get on our first ride, Angela began to panic. "Is it going to be scary?" "Will it be dark?" "Do we have to go down in there?". Here little heart was racing and no amount of consoling was helping. As we descending down into the submarine she panicked and screamed. It was a little claustrophobic to her. This probably wasn't to best ride to start with for her. I thought we were going to have to get out and panicked a little myself when they closed the door above us. Natalie started getting scared too as the lights dimmed and it felt like we were losing all control. Angela finally listened to my reasoning and when we started seeing the cute fish from Nemo, she started peeking out the round windows and realizing this was fun. The volcano part was a bit scary for her, but in the end the verdict was that Nemo was a fun ride. Phew! That was a very stressful start to our day at Disneyland.

After that, if a ride showed any signs of being dark or questionable, Angela would ask a million times, "Is this ride scawy?" She learned to trust us and realize that most of the rides were fun. There were a few exceptions. She did not like Pirates of the Caribbean, but she tolerated it. She hated Splash Mountain and the big hills, but did much better than Natalie - who I was afraid was going to throw up on the lady in front of us. And every time we did a rider switch on Space Mountain, Angela reminded us several times that she was NOT going on that ride. (o: Other than those times, she did great. The thing that actually scared Angela the MOST in Disneyland were the automatic flushing toilets! More on that later...

The Astrorbiters were lots of fun, especially at night.

Some of our best memories on the trip were our experiences with the characters. We LOVED our visit with some of the Disney villains! The queen from Snow White was a total crack up and ended up being one of my favorites. She was so talented at scowling and her reaction to Sarah's comment that she was prettier to Snow White was priceless. She broke into a huge grin and gave Sarah a big hug. (This comment was daddy's idea.) And Captain Hook was hilarious. He liked to use the girls' heads to sign their books and in one of the girls' books he wrote, "Tinker Smells - Captain Hook" (o: We love the Disney characters!!

Disneyland or BUST!

Sometime in August we could start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for Earl's* 'start up' at work to finally be finished. During this 6+ month period no one was allowed to take vacation, unless it was for an emergency. And prior to that, we hadn't been on vacation outside of trips to the beach in over a year. We hadn't been on a family trip that wasn't to Utah or the beach in years. So a family vacation was LOOONG overdue. I think it was back during Earl's sabbatical. Sometime around the last week of August, Earl and I booked a trip to Disneyland. We arranged for Mickey and his friends to call and tell the girls the good news. They were thrilled, of course. And from that day on we talked about Disneyland every day. We made a chain to count down the days. Each chain had something silly on it like a question. "Who is your favorite princess?" Or an activity: "Decorate your autograph books."

Because we only booked the trip a little over a month before leaving,

we didn't have to wait very long.

To milk it for all it was worth, I decided to make some "Disney Bucks" for the girls to earn their souvenir money. They got them for doing chores, homework, making good choices, etc. The Bucks had different Disney characters on them. For a while, Angela thought these were tickets to go on rides. One day she was looking at her cash and told me how many times she could go on Peter Pan and Buzz Lightyear, etc. by counting the bucks with those characters. (o:

We decided to drive rather than fly down. For several reasons. We love road trips, we love the time together and the extra anticipation. The girls are at a great age for a big road trip, we have a DVD player and our van is perfect for a comfortable, long drive. We also liked the idea of saving some money and splurging in other areas on the trip - like the hotel.
During this pit stop, daddy had the girls do some jumping jacks to get the old blood pumping. (o:

We found a wonderful Hampton Inn just outside of Sacramento in a great part of town. It was the perfect "halfway" point. We stayed here on the way back as well. A nice, relaxing dinner at Chevy's was a treat after 9 hours of driving.
The next day we had 6+ hours left to get to Disneyland. Did you know that driving through central California is extremely boring? Not far out of Los Angeles on I-5 there is NOTHING for a loooong time. And we've been through some pretty long stretches in Idaho and Utah.

Well, on with the fun part!

The Golden Girls

Both girls ended up on gold teams this year - the only two gold teams in the league. Weird. It made it easy to find them on the field. (o: Sarah looks extra happy in the picture above.

Sarah had a little issue with one girl on her team this year that really rubbed her the wrong way. That was interesting. Usually, she gets along with just about everyone. But she also had a couple good friends that helped balance out the stress of playing with someone she didn't like much. She loved playing soccer this year despite the personality clashes.

Natalie liked the idea of soccer more than actually playing, but she got into it way more than last year. She had some great moments where she really got into it - usually when daddy or I were cheering her on to encourage her. Otherwise, she just liked wearing all the soccer stuff and talking and playing with her teammates on or off the field.

I caught this with my telephoto lens - she had no idea anyone was watching her - I had to stifle a laugh as I took it. Not sure what she was doing, but it doesn't look like soccer! (o: Funny kid...

This is more of what Natalie did at soccer when she wasn't on the field. She liked goofing off the best.

Sarah's wish comes true...

This adorable paper was hanging up at Back to School night. I am including the text because it's hard to read...

The paper on the left says...

"My name is Sarah Elizabeth ______. If I was not named Sarah, I would have been named Madeline, Emma, Claire or Matthew if I was a boy. My parents named me Sarah because Sarah meant princess in Hebrew. They also named me Sarah was a cute name for a little girl but also an intelligent name for an older woman. Elaine was a strong competitor with Elizabeth until the birth certificate was given out. So she quickly chose Elizabeth. Elizabeth was also the middle name of my great grandma J. My last name was the last name of my dad so that is how I got my last name." (you can tell Sarah did some research in her baby book!)

On the right page it asks a few questions some of them are...

"Favorites. Food: edamoma (edamame), Color: Light blue, TV show: iCarly, Book: The Grim Grotto (Series of Unfortunate Events), Hobby: reading, Subject: math, One of the best things about me is: I can usually be friends with anybody, One word to describe me is: myschivas (o: , If I could have three wishes I would wish: 1. I had magic power. 2. I could come to school really late. 3. I could have a giant white board in my room."

Aren't those the cutest responses? (o: What a cute girl.

One really cool thing about that #3 wish.

The day after Sarah turned this paper into her teacher, I got an e-mail from her. She told me about Sarah's wish and said that she had a huge whiteboard that she no longer needed. She asked permission to give it to Sarah! Isn't that so sweet? The best part is that I picked it up during school when Sarah didn't know and I put it in her room. When she came home that afternoon, she found the whiteboard that magically appeared in her room! On the board I wrote, "Wishes do come true. Love, Mrs. E." She was thrilled! That put Mrs. E. way way way up in my book. What a sweet thing to do!

Preschool Rules!

Oh how Angela LOVES preschool. I love getting to teach her and see how much fun she has learning and being with her friends. This year, friends are even more important to her and she talks about them ALL the time. Tyler is one of her very good buddies who is also in her primary class. They are such cute little friends.
The kids were hilarious when we did body tracings for our All About Me lesson. They giggled as I outlined their whole body and loved decorating themselves with faces and clothes.

Angela is making strides in eating at preschool. She is trying new things. I think having friends around that eat things she won't normally eat helps. She wouldn't eat these English muffin pizzas when I made them a few months ago, but for preschool she ate it and loved it!

A colorful parachute, a ball and preschoolers are a great combination. Sort of. (o: The coordination is a bit tricky.

Just an Ordinary Night

I took these one night just for fun. We love to hang out in our living room after dinner, when there isn't anything pressing to do and when we aren't bad and watch TV. This was just a nice, cozy night that I felt like documenting. Natalie looked cute wearing daddy's hat while playing Legos with Angela. . . Both wearing their raggedy, worn out Barbie pajamas that have been passed down from Sarah and Natalie (on Angela).
Sarah studying Hindi with daddy, who got a book to learn the language so he could have fun with his Indian co-workers. Sarah loved learning a new language and even started learning how to write some of the characters/letters in the language. She continued with this fascination for about a week until homework and other things started taking over her new hobby.

Utes Football

Well, a big part of fall for Neville* and I is college football. We love to watch our teams every Saturday and the build up to the game of the year in our household. BYU vs. U of U every November.

The Utes have had some great games this season, and as usual, it drives the girls nuts when I go crazy and cheer and yell. I am starting to teach Sarah a little about how the game works - as much as she'll let me, so she can see how fun it is to watch. Mostly, though, she still thinks I'm crazy and often teases or jabs to get me back for all the raucous I cause. One night she made this funny paper doll with a goofy face and a gravestone (see below) and a tiny football. She showed me a little skit where the football player kicks the ball and it comes back and hits his head - or something along those lines - and dies. A big dramatic, but she thought it was hilarious. I guess it was her way of saying that she thought football was annoying.

Another night, when I stressed out about a game and cheered and yelled and cheered and yelled, she couldn't take it any more. She decided to hit me where it hurts. She took my U of U pillow that I got from my brother and sister in law last Christmas and put a paper "B" and "Y" in front of every single "U" on the fabric. At least 15-20! She laughed and laughed and actually, so did I, it was pretty funny. But I hope this doesn't mean she's actually leaning to the Blue... ?!?

Biking to School

One brisk morning in September, I thought it would be fun to ride with the girls to school for some morning exercise. It was a lot of fun, but man did I underestimate how long it would take and how hard it would be for Natalie. It would have been fine if I gave us more time. It doesn't seem like that far when you drive. (o: And I've ridden it on my bike with Sarah, but usually Nat has been in the trailer, not riding on her own. We'll try it some more and get Natalie used to it and leave a lot earlier next time! The ride home was much better - nice and warm and no hurrying!

Does Nat look like she's having fun?