California 2013-Day 3

Day 3: After spending the night near San Diego, we slept in a little and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast. A short car drive later, we were inside the San Diego Zoo and admiring some pretty amazing animals. 

Poor Ryan did 99% of the pushing with this massive double stroller, often up (and down) some pretty steep inclines. He definitely got in a workout on that day. 

These koalas were my most favorite. Gosh are they cute!! There was a baby koala atop its mama, and the caution that the mother took as she made her way down the tree branch was impressive. We all just wanted to cuddle them, they really looked so adorable. 

These vibrant pink flowers were everywhere. I couldn't believe their color. I could have taken pictures of them for hours, but the girls lasted long enough for just one quick shot :) 

Ryan's favorite was the rhino. We were actually leaving the park, when we realized we missed the rhinos. He pushed that double stroller a quarter way back around the park to find them! 

It was another long day, as we spent over 5 hours on the paths of the San Diego Zoo, but it was well worth every second! 

California 2013-Day 2

Day 2: We made it to Disneyland bright and early and opened (and later closed!) the park. Yep, we lasted 10 hours at Disney. All 4 of us. About half way through our day, is when our plans took a turn and we had to quickly 'think on our feet'. We thank our lucky stars for Ryan's cousin Maddi and her wonderful help in securing us a hotel for the night (and subsequent nights). Our plans to stay with Ryan's cousin Danny fell through in an instant when Danny came down with the flu. Not exactly in the plans. And boy oh boy did we fret, for about a second, and then sprang into action. In the middle of Toon-Town, while Ryan went on a roller-coaster with the girls, I talked with Maddi and she got us a place. Talk about panic! 

Here is our day in pictures (and a few captions): 

Both of the girls have announced this ride was the highlight of their trip. Splash Mountain. They LOVED it!! I was scared to death for Sidney, fearing she would be in a tizzy about the drop off. Instead, she hopped out of the boat and screamed "lets do that again!". Our little dare-devil. 

They got to play a game of duck-duck-goose with Meredia from Brave. 

Oh man did Sidney feel special! 

Our attempt at a family picture; aboard the ride "It's a Small World"

After the panic of the day and my lack of eating dinner, I treated us to some yummy ice cream while we waited for the most amazing parade ever. We can thank Sidney who begged us to stick around for the late night parade. 

Disney clearly does a lot of things right. But the one that stands out most to me is their work with colors. Simply stunning. 

It was a very very long day, but one we will all remember forever!

California 2013-Day 1

We spent the last week in sunny, hot, California. And it was lovely! Simply gorgeous weather, and a great family vacation. We had a few bumps in the road along the way (more on that later), but in the end, it all worked out and we all were sad to come home! 

Day 1:

We departed early in the morning, but the girls leaped out of bed, got dressed and talked non-stop! It was adorable. They were soooo very excited! 

Upon arrival to the airport, we had THE very best check in experience. Ever. 

I'm telling you, Delta stepped it up a notch, giving us complimentary bag check, super friendly staff and a speedy check in. The girls were so excited during take-off, this is how they responded to the acceleration of the airplane! 

We landed in sunny California and it was sunny and gorgeous weather. Since it was only noon, we headed straight to a nearby beach and aquarium to soak in the sun (though the ocean itself was a bit too chilly for me). 

The girls didn't mind once bit. Before I knew it, they were in the water and covered in sand/mud having the time of their lives! 

Cabrillo Aquarium has a 'touch pool' that is completely interactive. It was a great experience for all of us, especially for Regan who is working on an "oceans" unit in school; talk about timing. 

They learned so much from the speaker and enjoyed touching all types of underwater species: starfish, anemones, and more. 

Inside the aquarium there were tank-fulls of various creatures. Loved the colors.

The jellies always seem to awe all of us. There were even baby jellies. 

The girls had fun with all sorts of these cut-out deals. We had to laugh at this one though: 

There was a fish tank that allowed us to crawl through and stand up on the inside; how fun! 

It was a wonderful first day in California!

Catch up

I'm going to play catch up, as I realize I haven't posted much in the last 8 days. My bad. I don't have a good excuse, other than life has kept us busy. 

Last weekend, we took the family out to the track for a run. It was a practice run for Regan as she prepped to run the mile in school. The practice went great, the mile in school?.....well, that's another story.

The stinker proudly recalled how she and her buddy walked it.

Walked. 

Let's just say she lost some privileges for her lack of effort this week.

Her teacher gave her another chance and she redeemed herself.

This parenting gig is tough!

I got me some girl time (plus Milo) with my dear friend-Angie. We headed to the mall as she helped me update my wardrobe for the summer season :) Always fun. 

And Milo took a nap after his trip to the groomers. I love how he rested his head on the side of the van. 

A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E

Although this spring hasn't allowed for a whole lot of ball games, we did get to see a great double header last weekend. With this weekend's rain, we missed out on playoffs. 

Happy to have gone to the games we did get to this year! 

Go Logs! 

Sidney has had some sleepovers in big sister's room. We try to discourage them during the weekend (because inevitably they rise much too early when in the same room), but we encourage the fun on week nights. I know, seems a bit backwards, but as we have always said "we do what works so that everyone sleeps". And this works for our family. 

Sidney is getting accustomed to all that room in a BIG twin bunk bed. 

I found her like this one evening: 

On one recent sleety-snowy spring day, I mentioned to the girls "we might as well have Christmas again if it's going to snow!". Much to our surprise, we later ran into this in the grocery lot parking lot! Boy were the girls over-the-top excited thinking about all the presents! 

I have piles and piles of pictures of the girls. Sometimes it seems like our photo albums are taking over the house. I've even had some shelves installed in the spare bedroom just to accommodate some older photo books. But let me tell ya, both Sidney and Regan just love flipping through these books. They grab one after another and page through photos of the past years. They laugh at silly ones and ask questions about adventures. 

It's been a lot of fun on these past cold-snowy months. 

Poor Sidney still thinks nap time is over-rated. Yet she can't seem to make it through the day without sneaking in a quick 10 minute snooze. My brother just cringes as he sees pictures like this, wondering how her hands don't fall asleep. But it must be comfortable, because we find her like this a lot. 

We continue to find fun art activities via Pinterest. This weekend's fun was "coffee filter flowers". There was a lot of fun in these bright and cheerful flowers.  

And finally, finally, finally, it warmed up today. I think we spent nearly 8 hours outside! It was simply beautiful and no one wanted to come inside. 

Not to eat. Not to bathe. And certainly not to go to bed.
Here's hoping the sun and warmth are finally here to stay! 

Dancing Queen

This girl cracks us up. All day long. 

Tonight was like no other, except that I caught it on video as I pretended to be looking at my phone when in fact I was using the video record :) 

Sneaky mom. 

She's in love with dancing while watching her shadow. 

Enjoy this adorable 4 year old still in her gymnastics outfit after dinner on the patio. 

But don't forget to clap at the end (listen to her holler at the end "clap"...."CLAP!"). 

cracks me up.

S-P-R-I-N-G!

Man it was gorgeous today. Simply lovely. We dropped off Regan at school this morning and headed straight to a park. Sidney couldn't get out of the car fast enough. She bolted for the play ground equipment. And that sunshine felt just so wonderful. 

It was so early in the day that all the slides were still wet from the night before. Sidney thought it was great that she could sit down on a blanket and fly down the slides as a method to drying them off. 

She moved around the park with ease and I could tell she was happy to be back outside. Sid is the kind of kid who doesn't like to be cold. So it was a very very long winter of being cooped up inside. 

We even ran around the tennis courts, and while we didn't actually play tennis, it was a perfect spot to practice some gymnastics! 

I think she wore herself from all that outside play today. I know she wore me out! 

Year end wrap ups begin

Regan finished up her religion class last week, and with it came a celebration and graduation. I'm proud of all that she has learned this year, and what she has brought home to teach us. Let's just say she pays a lot more attention in church these days. She also made some new friends whom she looked forward to seeing each week. 

I'm also crazy proud of Sidney. You see, we live a fair distance from our church and Sidney/I were forced to find things to do each week during Regan's class. Often, we would spend the hour just sitting in the car talking, working on hand-writing or doing flashcards. Sometimes when it was too cold to sit in the car for an hour, we would stop for a Caribou, or wander the aisles of Walgreens (the only store in the area). And sometimes she would score and we were able to find a wifi connection and she could watch a show on the iPad. Nonetheless, we are all very thankful that the church class school year has ended.

Congratulations Regan, we are very proud of you!