Disneyland 2014

We just got home from a fun-filled 10 day trip to California.  Since Bryan spent 14 weeks there last year for work, he was able to earn lots of hotel-points.  We decided to cash some of them in and take a trip all together as a family!  We did not tell the kids about it; we spent the day before trying to sneakily pack for everyone without anyone seeing--that was quite a challenge!  (We just gathered up everything gradually throughout the day and put it in our room and locked the door.)  Day 1:  We decided to do the long drive all in one big day instead of stretching it out over 2 days.  It made for a pretty long day, but I'm glad we did it that way.  We woke the kids up at 4:00 am and just told them to hop in the van.  We made great time and stopped in Vegas for lunch (we made sure to eat at a Mexican restaurant in honor of my mom's 66th birthday.)  We got to our hotel in CA by 5:00 pm, enough time to play in the swimming pool before bed.

Here is a picture of Bree on the drive there.  She had a cookie sheet to do activities on her lap.  I tried to give the kids one thing every hour on the hour.  Sometimes they were snacks, sometimes they were activities, puzzles, or toys.  We looked back and noticed that Bree had used her granola bar wrapper as a container to hold her crayons before she fell asleep.

 Day 2:  On our first day of Disneyland we wanted to do the Jedi Training Academy.  When we were in Disneyland a few years ago, we noticed that the kids who got picked were generally in costume, or at least had a Star Wars t-shirt on.  So we decided to bring Miles's Darth Maul costume from Halloween, to up his chances of being picked.  And it worked!  He was one of the first ones picked.  We planned to come back for another time and let Tess wear them, but luckily she got picked to go up during the same session.  It was so much fun for the kids.  They give them Jedi robes and light sabers, then teach them some fighting moves to fight Darth Vader (Miles took off his mask for the battle.)  After they know their moves, Darth Vader comes out, followed by Darth Maul.  (I'll try to embed the video of the kids fighting, but here are some screen shots.)

We lucked out to get a great view from our camera of both kids!

Miles fought Darth Vader...

...while Tess fought Darth Maul.

Tess & Miles were tall enough to ride every single ride and they loved all the rides a lot.  We did the Fastpasses, plus since one of us had to wait with Bree in the stroller, we used "Rider Switch Passes" also.  It is a pretty awesome system where the kids got to ride a ride three different times using only one Fastpass. They loved Space Mountain, Star Tours, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Indiana Jones the best.  Bree's favorite ride at Disneyland was Winnie the Pooh.  We also enjoyed watching the fireworks that night.

Day 3:  We went to Huntington Beach.  We love to play at the pier and eat at Ruby's Diner out of the end of the pier.  The water was too cold to swim in, but we did play in the waves a bit and caught lots of sand crabs.

Day 4:  We went to California Adventure.  We were really excited to see the new Car's Land (which we missed by only 2 months when we were there a few years ago.)  It's really pretty impressive.  The biggest ride in Car's Land is Radiator Springs Racers; I waited in line just for Fastpasses for about 45 minutes!  It was crazy.  All the Fastpasses for the whole day were gone in one hour.  It really is a fun ride (but I don't know if it's that fun!).  We also got to meet a few characters--generally we don't like to wait in line to meet characters because we feel like it's a waste of precious ride time, but we did stop for a few that had short lines.  Here we are with Sully:

And later in the day when Bryan was with the 2 big kids, Bree and I saw Minnie Mouse.  It was just adorable how excited she was about Minnie.  She got kind of shy, but was SO giddy to be able to touch and hug Minnie.  She hugged her for a very long time; it was precious.

 That night we caught the show "World of Color" which is quite impressive to watch.  It's a water show, similar to the fountains at the Bellagio in Vegas, but with clips and music from Disney movies.

Day 5:  Back at Disneyland to do what we didn't have time for on the first day.  Poor Bryan gets way sick on the teacups, so I took one for the team. (I'll admit that I have to ride the whole thing with my eyes shut or I get way sick too.)

Day 6:  Back at California Adventure again.  Here we are in our 3-D glasses, ready to watch "It's Tough to be a Bug."  I really like that show.  They have 3-D effects, but also other sensory effects, like spraying stinky smells when they show a stink bug, and the seats poke your back when they show hornets, but the worst (or best?) part is at the end when they tell you that the maggots, worms, and beetles are leaving the theater and you feel these creepy, crawly things on the seat under your legs.  Ew!  It's so gross but so fun at the same time!

 The favorite rides at California Adventure were Radiator Springs Racers, Grizzly River Run, California Screamin', and the Tower of Terror (which is my all-time favorite ride at both parks.)  Bree also had a favorite (that she went on over and over and over again)--Little Mermaid.

Day 7:  We went back and forth on this day, seeing anything we hadn't seen yet.  I was starting to get sick (Bryan and I both ended up with sinus infections on this trip... boo...), so I didn't want any fast rides.  We did calm stuff and saw some great shows (Aladdin, Mickey and the Magic Map, etc.) that day.  We were all pretty pooped out.  Disney is exhausting!  (But it's sure worth it.  We all had a blast.)

Here's Miles in ToonTown.  There are warnings all over this door to NOT open it, no matter what.  So of course it's great fun to open it and see what happens.  It has sounds and lights like you're being electrocuted.  I told Miles to make a face like he was being electrocuted (or, as he calls it, being "electric-ed.")

 Day 8:  Each time we would ride Indiana Jones, Miles would ask me about the movies.  He wanted to know all about story lines and what adventures Indy goes on.  Well, what do ya know, we happened to turn on the TV at the hotel that morning and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was just starting!  (Which, in my opinion, is the best Indiana Jones movie.)  The kids loved it.  We may have to do an Indiana Jones marathon one of these days.  Then we bought some souvenirs and went back to the beach.  This time we put the kids in their swimsuits so their shorts didn't get soaked like they did the first day. :)

Day 9:  We went to the Discovery Science Center.  It is a very cool children's museum, which was focused on engineering since it was National Engineering Week.  They had tons of neat exhibits and experiments that were hands-on for the kiddos.  Here they all are, laying on a bed of nails... 

Day 10:  Bryan had to go out to Edwards Air Force Base (his "home away from home" during flight test this year) for a quick test to get his flight line drivers license renewed.  So I got to see where he spent so much time, and there were some pretty cool airplanes to check out also.  Since he had to be at Edwards that morning, we didn't get away as early as we did on the way to California, so our drive home seemed extremely long.  And poor Bryan had the sinus infection hit him hard that day; he was miserable on our whole drive home.  We made it home around 10:00 pm that night.  We were all super tired, but it was so worth it!  We had a great trip and the kids are already wanting to go back.  :)

BINGO!!!!!!

Bryan's family has had a tradition for years and years (I think even before Bryan was born) of playing Bingo together on New Year's Eve after "pigging out" at dinner beforehand. (Great Grampa Terry even gave it the title of "The Pig Out.")  They originally went to Chuck-a-rama each year, but as the family has gotten bigger and bigger, they've changed it to pizza at the church.  But it's still a "pig out," which is really all that matters, right? :)   Bryan's grandfather's birthday is New Year's Day, so it was a big celebration of that.  Over the years, the dates have changed a bit, but it's always near New Year's.  Anyway, this year Bryan's grampa passed away so we didn't know if the tradition would continue or not.  It was a little later than usual, but they still had it, and it was lots of fun as usual.

One rule of Bingo, Terry style, is that you have to YELL your BINGO loud and long!  If it's not loud enough it doesn't count and you don't get your prize.  It's fun to hear everyone, especially the kids, shouting BINGOOOOOO!! at the top of their lungs.  Everyone brings a bunch of White Elephant gifts to exchange and it's fun to see what you end up with.  Some gifts are great, and others are, well, not as great.  (But those ones are usually the funniest.)

Our two best gifts this year were:
    First, Bree got this cake decorating kit to make a castle cake.  It's got spires and windows and fancy turrets of different sizes.  She loved it!  She asked to sleep with it last night.  I guess I'll be making a princess castle cake this year for her birthday...I hope it works out!

And second is this awesome t-shirt for Bryan.  It says, "THIS is what a GREAT FATHER looks like!" complete with thumbs pointing back at himself.  And the greatest part of all is that it looks like it was made for a 12-year-old kid.  It's pretty tiny.  Ha!

This pic shows just how small it is.  (And am I the only one who sees a bit of a Jerry Seinfeld look to Bryan here?  I totally see it.  And I LOVE me some Seinfeld, so that's a lucky coincidence, huh?)

A Milestone for Miles!

Well, our boy lost his first tooth!  That's always such an exciting thing for kids, don't you think?  First they notice the wiggle, then they mess with it and wiggle it like crazy for several days, always keeping you up to date about the wiggliness of the tooth, then when it's inevitable that it's going to come out, they get nervous and kind of sweaty because they don't know how much it's going to hurt, then they get the offer from Mom or Dad to yank it out with dental floss (or worse, the slamming door method) and they immediately refuse...but they know it needs to go.  Then they wiggle it some more and eventually pop it out themselves!  Yay, victory!  But then they look in the mirror and see the blood--there's always more blood than you think there's going to be--and they freak out a little bit.  But of course the best part is now to come--the Tooth Fairy visit!  Wahoo!

Miles's story basically went just like that. :)

Love that hole-y grin!