California Adventures Day 6--4th of July!

Today after picking up the kids, we trekked over to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and museum, where Reagan's Air Force One is housed. Marty and Kayoko went as well. Our kids had such a good time with their Rhees cousins. They watched Back to the Future 2 and ate pizza. Julia fell in love with Buck (our doggy cousin). In the morning, Kayoko took good care of our kids and even packed snacks for them to take to the library! What a fantastic auntie! The library and museum had a lot of interesting things, but the most exciting thing for the kids was the airplane inside. Since it was our country's birthday, there were lots of fun activities for the kids, as well as live music. They got their faces painted and played hard. Pom leaving the museum, we drove towards Malibu to see where Charlie Harper lives (if you don't watch Two and a Half Men, you wouldn't understand). On the edge of Malibu, we found a parking spot with beach access, so we played in the sand some more before going back to Marty's house for dinner. Somewhere along the eay, James proclaims from the bakc, that he wants to "experiment with different liquids." When we arrived at Marty's, James emerged with a water bottle half full of s ome yellow liquid. Obviously, we knew right away that James had peed into his empty water bottle. Ugh!!! After disposing of our hazardous waste, James got to go for a ride in Marty's sporty BMW Z4, with the top down! What a thrill that was! Matt brilliantly decided to send his brother a package from Omaha Steaks, so we had the best hot dogs and hamburgers. After dinner, we played outside before watching the fireworks show. We had extra glow sticks we got at the Mailow concert the previous evening, do the kids had great fun playing with those. Marty's house is in close proximity to the Rose Bowl, where Pasadena's fireworks display is held. Across the street form their house is the primo spot for fireworks watching, so we pulled up a blanket and watched the spectacular display from the city of Pasadena.

California Adventures--Day 5--BARRY!!!!!!

Fairly relaxing day today, no pressing engagements until evening hours. We lounged in our hotel room for a couple of morning hours while the kids watched Spongebob and daddy took a nap. We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant near our hotel. Te food was early quite good. The kids were not impressed. I remember being a kid and going to a Chinese restaurant. I always had what my grandpa called a "tube" steak (hot dog). They survived and ate at least some of what was in front of them. Matt and I enjoyed in. After lunch, we went for a swim in the hotel pool. That was so much fun for everyone! Julia even went in and enjoyed every second of it! We were the only hotel guests in the pool today. How nice to have the pool to ourselves! After dring off and getting sufficiently cleaned up, we went to Marty and Kayoko's house to drop off the kids. Marty had been working and got home just after we arrived. Of course, this merits mention because he drives an amazing BMW sports car. He was gracious enough eo take James around the block in it with the top down!! That was a very happy boy! After dropping the kids off, Matt and I headed over to the Hollywood Bowl to see Barry Manilow! How exciting! I had never been to the bowl before. It was just spectacular! What an amazing piece of history and to be able to see it and Barry Manilow was incredible!!! I was so excited, I think I had a goofy grin on my face the whole evening! It was a great show with the LA Philharmonic as well. What a spectacular night!!!

California Adventures Day 4--Disneyland!!!

Disneyland, the stuff kids dreams are made of, for sure. We started our day at 5:30. We were he first ones in the breakfast room this morning. Everything was fresh and hot. It was too early for the kids to eat much, none of them seemed hungry this morning. We hit the road by 6:30 am-- took the 210 to the 57 all the way to Anaheim. All things considered, traffic was not too bad. It took us right around 45 minutes to get to Anaheim. Once there, we went into the ginormous parking structure and parked on the Mickey level, row 10H. We took the tram to the park and we were off and running! We rented a heavy duty stroller and checked into a locker to store a few things for the day. What a good idea that was! We checked out Main Street USA and then went straight to the Princess castle. We immediately had a princess sighting with Ariel, aka the Little Mermaid. Julia was a bit awe struck I think. She wasn't sure what to think of her. Ariel was very nice (they train them well at Disneyland!). She talked to Julia and even the prince and pirate Julia was with (Jacob would be the pirate). We rode Dumbo, which Julia absolutely adored, Peter Pan's flight and Mr. Toad's wild ride (neither Julia nor myself liked this one). From there we walked on to Tomorrowland. The boys went through Star Tours while mommy and Julia had a snack and went potty. When the boys finished, we through Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters ride/game. That was really fun, especially for the boys. I think there were too many flashing lights and loud sounds for Julia. Fantasyland was next. It's a Small World is and always has been amazing. Everyone adds that ride. Mickey's Toon Town was next. That was fun. Everything looks like you are in a cartoon. We got to meet Goofy and Minnie Mouse. Julia loved the cartoon cars on the street. She especially liked meeting Minnie. Our lunch stop was in Frontierland--Big Thunder Ranch Barbecue. Very, very good ribs and BBQ fare. We stayed in the frontier and got fast passes for Thunder Mountain Railroad. When we returned to ride it, it was temporarily closed. We rode the ship Columbia and got fast passes for Splash Mountain as well. We did the Haunted Mansion in Frontierland, the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Enchanted Tiki Room in Adventureland. Those were all outstanding rides. Pirates was so awesome! Once James got over the initial fear factor of the unexpected, he loved it. The first part was a little scary, as there was a small portion of complete pitch black darkness that ended with the first drop of the ride. Both exhilarating and frightening at the same time--it was awesome! We took a snack break and split up for an hour or so. The boys went back to Frontierland to ride the railroad and Spash Mountain, while mommy and Julia went to the Princess Fantasy Faire. We waited in line for around 30 minutes to meet three real live princesses. We didn't know who it would be until we got there. I was hoping for Cinderella, as that is Julia's favorite. Cinderella wasn't there, but we did get to meet Princess Tiana, Belle, and Jasmine (Julia's other fave). Julia was so cute. Tiana and Belle were first, ending with Jasmine. Julia wasn't completely sure what to think of the first two, she just kind of stood there, frozen. When we came to Jasmine, though, Julia ran right to her and smiled. It was very sweet. I don't know if she'll remember any of it next week, but we have some nice pictures to show her later. We also went though Sleeping Beauty's castle before meeting up with the boys again. It was then time to find a parade spot. The parade . . . What an amazing spectacle that was! Al of our favorite characters right there in front of us! Post parade, we took the tour train around the park and mommy and James made an attempt to ride Space Mountan. Unfortunately, it was temporarily closed and we were unable to get on it. Dad took the younger two back to Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. Jacob decided at the lst minute (after they had already boarded their space ship) that he would not, under any circumstances, ride it without his mommy. Aargh!!!! Apparently, they had to shut the whole ride down for a few minutes, so Jacob could get off. Post ride disasters, we attempted to find a suitable place to watch the Fantasmic show. What an amazing display of Disney ingenuity!!! That was a truly awesome show! Immediately following the show we took in the fireworks spectacular. Also really good, but nothing compared to Fantsmic! It was neary midnight when. Returned to the hotel to go to bed. When we pulled into the parking lot, all three monkeys were completely asleep. That is a sight you never see in our car and might I add, a very welcome sight as well.

California Adventures Day 3--Newport Beach

California Adventures Day 2--the Vanguard

California Adventures Day 1

We had a busy day on the road today. We left our house at 5 am, while it was still dark outside! James was ready to go first. Matt woke up at 3:30 and ai followed shortly after. James woke up around 4, came into our room and told us how excited he was to be going on our big trip. We left as soon as the car was loaded and kids were up and ready. We had muffins and grapes in the car with special juice pouches. Road food is so much fun, even when it's same stuff you have at home--it just tastes better in the car somehow.

Jacob with his muffins and glow sticks.  We left the house while it was still dark, so the glow sticks added some excitement to the beginning of our journey.

Everyone got cool new shades for the car as well.

I tried to have something special for each of the kids that was theirs alone, to pull out when things started getting a little mundane or there was a long lull between videos or stops.  I didn't want them to watch videos for the entire length of the car ride, so we mandated that new videos could only be started after we had stopped for whatever reason (potty, food, etc).  Jacob got a Captain America toy, which he absolutely adored.  Julia got some little princess dolls.  James got a cool Gyro Wheel toy.

 We took highway 93 through Nevada. My experience with this road has been that it is a very desolate place. There was actually a fair amount of traffic with many places to stop. We made great time. Total driving time was right around 16 hours, arriving in Arcadia around 8:30 Pacific time. There were, as always, a few comical and interesting things along the way. When we were just a few miles away from the freeway to Las Vegas, traffic came to a dead stop on the highway. We could see the freeway in the distance, yet we could not move. When we finally started moving again and could see the problem holding everything up, we saw that a big rig truck had been on fire. Not only was it a big rig, but it was the very same big rig we sat beside while eating our lunch just a few hours prior.

This was the outside temperature as we approached Las Vegas!!!!

Summer Days Are Here at Last!

So all three of my kids are officially on summer vacation. We have been so lazy this week! W have had almost nothing going on, so I decided to let the kids lead the way this week. So far, they have watched a ton of Spongebob, played outside and become a little too familiar with the iPad. All kidding aside, it's been a really good week for everyone. Yesterday, we went to the neighborhood pond and caught a bunch of snails. Our neighbor kids showed us where to find them. We've lived here for nearly six years and never knew there were snails in our pond! Apparently there are frogs too! The neighbor bus will have to show those to us too, 'cause I can't find them! We rode bikes with the neighbor boys on Wed afternoon too. That was a lot of fun too! A the beginning of this week, we instituted the "kid of the day". Each day one kid gets to be the kid of the day. That child gets to choose what we listen to, what our snacks are, even choosing lunch or dinner if so approved by mom. This ensures that there is no fighting over the music we listen to! Hooray! Pure genius, right? I wish I could say that I came up with the idea, but I have Family Fun to thank for the idea. Today, Julia is the kid of the day and she will let you know it too!

Jacob is getting ready for our trip to CA!  Matt and I are going to see Barry Manilow at the Hollywood Bowl while we are gone (the kids will stay at their aunt and uncle's house for a cousins slumber party). Jacob is clearly getting into the spirit by rocking out to Barry.

"Sweaty James"

James enjoyed dumping water on his head to make himself look sweaty.  It was only 80 degrees outside, but he wanted to look like it was 100.

Our neighbor boys were playing in the circle with squirt guns when we went outside today.  The oldest, Ryan, wanted to drive the Mustang.  Never mind that he's twelve and doesn't fit in the car!  As you can see from the pictures, he managed quite well with his knees at his ears!

Julia loves riding her bike!!