Disneyland Part I

Okay, so here is my first installment of our recent trip to Disneyland. We stayed at the Fairfield Marriott which is right outside the main gate of Disneyland. Best place I have stayed to date in my journeys to Disneyland. Noting the close proximity to Disneyland and also that there is a McDonalds in front of the hotel, a Pizza Hut/snack bar inside the hotel , leads me to my four star recommendation. I am also a little particular about how clean the rooms are and what the bathrooms are like- once again passed the test.

So our first day, we hit McDonalds for breakfast. While there, I placed a call to my Australian friends, the Preston family, who had flown in from Brisbane Australia the day before and were staying at another hotel further away. They had flown nonstop 13 hours with 4 adults and three kids, a six year and two year old twins. They had told me the evening before that they were heading to bed at about 5pm, so I am thinking that my call at 7:30 am would be appropriate given that we were to meet at the Disneyland gates at 8am. Come to find out, everyone was still asleep and we rescheduled the meetup for 10am(and who could blame them for being a little tired!). So that left myself and the boys free for a couple of hours to enjoy some rides together. I decided to hit Finding Nemo first as it can be a lengthy wait later in the day. This picture of Luke and Adam are of us waiting in that line. It was overcast and very cool (lucky I brought jackets even though it was June!) but the wait was only about 30 minutes. Luke was scared and would not look out the window for the first few minutes. After Nemo, we headed off to drive the cars. I was not sure if I would be able to get us all in one car but it turned out great. The boys took turns driving and loved it!! I was in charge of the gas pedal. Then we headed back to the main gate to meet up with the Prestons. More on our time with them in my next Disneyland installment

Luke + Pictures

Is like oil and water. They just do not seem to mix well together. For some reason Luke finds it difficult to look natural in pictures. That is just him. So when I do get a great smile out of him and he looks great in a picture, of course it is in front of a sign advertising for Margaritas! Sometimes you just can't win in life. But he does look great in this picture. We were eating dinner at Chili's in Valencia on our way to meet our Australian friends at Disneyland. Of course the boys were very excited and just had to have some pictures taken at the restaurant. I think they ordered corn dogs, with apple slices and root beer. The picture of Adam (who by the way is very photogenic and almost never takes a bad picture) is us waiting in line to get into Disneyland. He took along some drinks from breakfast just in case he got hungry between McDonalds and Disneyland(note, this was all of a five minute walk, but it always pays to be prepared just in case you get hungry or thirsty!!) Also note Luke in the bottom of the pic doing one of his normal picture poses.

Parents With Daughters, You Have Been Notified!

Kodak Moment Captured

The boys love to pretend that they are superheros. This picture is the result of them "getting into costume" and pretending to be various superheros. Luke is Batman and Adam is The Incredible Hulk. After posing for this picture, they then proceeded to engage in a superhero wrestling match. Luke being at an obvious disadvantage decided to switch superheros and become the Incredible Hulk as well. This switch then enabled the boys to pound on each other at will. Pretty much any excuse to punch and wrestle with your twin brother will do. I just sometimes wish that I could confine those "wrestling, kicking, punching" moments to appropriate venues. Unfortunately those tendencies tend to come out at church, school and public areas. We are working on that but I really think it is a boy thing in talking to other parents. I feel successful when the boys limit their wrestling moves to one another and don't try it out on anyone else not related to them! We will see how that goes anyways.

Little Red School House 2008/09

This is Adam and Luke's school picture for the 2008/09 year at Little Red School House. Both boys absolutely love going to preschool, albeit for different reasons. Adam is all about recess and Luke is all about what happens in the classroom. Adam also loves popcorn day, ice-cream day, baking day.... I think the picture is clear in what those days have in common. Luke is currently working hard on trying to complete ten book reports by July. He is doing fairly well on reading and writing. Adam can also write his name. Both boys love to practice writing, so I have bought numerous little notebooks for them this year. Both Adam and Luke are VERY excited about going to kindergarten. They ask daily when they will be going to big school.

I asked Adam the other day if it would be okay for him to stay my sweet little boy. He told me no that he needed to grow big and strong like the Incredible Hulk. So I guess that means I can't make him stay little and cute forever. Oh well, I tried.

Just a few more snow pics

A couple more pics from the snow that I could not add to the last post!

Trying to be Good!!

Me that is... I am trying to be good and post regularly to this site. If only so that I can remember all the funny things that the boys do!

So from basketball to the snow. This year myself and the boys went with my sister Kari and her family to the snow. We stayed in Sacramento and met up with my sister Jenny's family as well. The plan was to drive to a snow park about 40 minutes out of Sacramento and go sledding and tubing. the park had a tubing hill which you could pay admission to get in and use their escalator to avoid having to drag the tubes up the hill; That was worth the price of admission! The drive to the park turned out to be almost a bigger adventure than the actual park. The weather on the day we went to the park was very snowy. In fact at one point, we were stopped by CalTrans and told to put on snow chains. Peter, Kari's husband, is a fix-it guy and was able to put them on relatively quickly. The unfortunate part is that because it does not snow very much in Bakersfield, Peter and Kari did not know that the chains were supposed to go in the back, not the front. Needless to say, about five-10 miles into the journey, the chains had to be removed because of the damage they were doing to the car. Miraculously we made it to the park even though we had no chains. I like to think of it as destiny.

Once we got to the park, it was evident that the driving conditions deterred many from getting there as we almost had the place to ourselves on a Saturday! The downside to having a snowy snow park day was that the snow was very soft and almost up to my waist in parts. So walking to the sledding area was really difficult. Here is where the twins personality really shone through.

On the tubing hill. Luke went down once with me and then absolutely refused to go again. He stayed in the lodge with his Aunt Kari and Cousin Hayley. Adam loved the tubing so much that he cried when we left. Walking to the sledding area, Luke whined pretty much the whole way. When we got there, I was so over his whining that I almost turned around and went back. Adam meanwhile was having a ball and only got upset when he got buried almost up to his neck in a snowbank. The boys tried to sled but because the snow was so soft, the sled really did not go that fast.

I took a few pics of the day to remind me of all these details. In summary it was a fun trip and hopefully we can make it an annual event!