Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Oh say can you see!!!

uhm....I'm not even sure what to write....it doesn't really seem like anything much has happened around here....work, ballgames, work, repeat. :D Not much scrapping, because I just haven't been in the mood lately.....I know, I can't believe it either! :D

Saturday was Alaina's first introduction into the wonderful world of church camp! Out here in the St. Louis area, the campground for our church is called Woodland Hills. We've lived out here 11 years and I'm ashamed to say we'd never been there! When we'd go to church camps, we'd always go back to the campgrounds near my parents' home in southeast Illinois. But....we decided that it was time we start putting down some roots out here and getting to know other people in the area....and we figured the best way to do that was make our eldest child the guinea pig! :D she can handle it! :P LOL!

So Saturday was her camp. It was "Primary Camp".....and since it was an introduction to camping, it was only 1 night. No biggie really, but I totally forgot how much STUFF you have to pack for camp!! We dropped her off and as we left, she was jumping into the pool with her cabinmates and counselor.....so she was more than fine. That's our social butterfly!

I took a couple pictures of course before I left:

Here's where we left her....in the pool:
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The girls' cabin:
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Alaina and her counselor, Amy:
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and posing with the camp sign:
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She had a great time at camp! So I have no qualms about her enjoying the longer camp next year (4 nights!). She sang songs, made crafts, had lessons, and had a blast making some new friends! And as long as she wants to go, we'll probably send her to the camps here in STL and in southeast IL where I grew up.......because I know from experience that you can't go to too many church camps in the summer!

Sunday was the first cubscout meeting of the summer......so here's my little Tiger Cub Matthew.....and the Scoutmaster, Karl:
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I just LOVE the gigantic shirt on Matthew....it cracks me up (they have to wear it for 3 years, so you have to buy it baggy obviously!). Matthew is SO excited to be a Tiger Cub, because now that he's a Scout, Daddy told him he can carry his "Switch" Army knife in his uniform. That'd be the Swiss army knife that Karl brought back for him and Zach from his trip to Switzerland a couple years ago and has never let him touch 'till this point. So Matthew thinks he's a really big kid now!

AND, this is the last week of ballgames, so YAY for that! I love my kids being in activities and all, but gosh it's hectic while it's happening! Alaina and Matthew both have games on Thursday, and I'm going to miss at least the beginning of Matthew's 6PM game because.....

DRUMROLL.....

I'm singing the National Anthem at the Cardinals' game! :D I am SOOOO ridiculously excited about it it's not even funny. And it's not JUST me of course......I'm part of a choir at work. Okay, I'm not really IN this choir, but I'm in it this week! :D One of my coworkers sings alto in it and I overheard her telling someone else that they were short sopranos to sing the anthem at the game on Thursday, so if she knew anybody that could hit an F, let her know.....and I literally stood up in my cube and started jumping up and down screaming, "ME ME ME!!! I'LL DO IT!" Because I'm a big pathetic dork like that! :P

At work, they have a choir called the Boeing Balladeers (yes, I know that's totally cheesy) and they sing for special events (usually aircraft rollouts and big company parties, etc....mostly it's just a club of people that like to sing) and since Thursday is "Boeing Night" at the game (I didn't know that....why didn't we all get tickets I wonder?), they were asked to sing the National Anthem. And well...since it's a company of mostly MEN.....they are obviously light on the female parts....hence the need for a soprano......and that's where I come in!

We had our last (and first in my case!) rehearsal tonight. I'm one of 4 sopranos, and I'm scared to death they're going to put me in the front row of the group (there's like 18 total I think). I can handle the notes....I can handle the lyrics, but PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME STAND IN FRONT OF THE MICROPHONE!!!! please! :D

Actually, singing at Busch Stadium has been a dream for me for a really long time......I've been saying it's on my 'bucket list' (anybody seen that movie? GREAT movie, btw!) and I just can't wait for Thursday to get here. I'm hoping to get someone to take pictures and to video it so I can post stuff.

uhm, I have only scrapped 2 layouts this week....gosh that's sad! The first one is a redo of one I did before and didn't like..... this is with a template from Sya's "triple threat 4" pack:
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And this second one is a blessing.....to kinda/sorta catch me up? :D using Sya's new template pack "Somewhat Centered 2":
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ugh.....i'm way too lazy to retype that journaling....but you can get the gist of it, can't you? :D Those pictures were from Father's Day.....my parents were out here for the weekend and Karl was speaking at church.

I think that's it for me for now.......wish me luck on Thursday....anybody that gets Fox Sports Midwest, set your DVR! :D Go Cards!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Enough of this "excitement" please!

And I'm back after my first week back to "life" after vacation. It was a long week back at work, but then again, they're all long during the summer when everybody else is at home, sleeping in, eating popsicles and having fun....and i'm stuck in "the box" at work. BOO!

I guess the "excitement" for the week was all the stuff that went wrong! :D On Monday, I was driving home from work and as I was driving through Elsah (about 5 miles from our house), the car just suddenly slipped out of gear. No noises, no lights, no warning whatsoever, I was just suddenly rolling along in a car that wouldn't GO anywhere. Frustrating! So after knocking on a few doors (no cell signals out here!) I called Karl to come get me. We did a little internet research and talked to a mechanic friend and everybody pretty much confirmed that our transmission was shot. :( Of course that's EXPENSIVE to try and fix....and we knew that.....so we were VERY upset about that, as we had JUST paid off the car a month ago! The prospect of taking on another car payment wasn't too appealing to us at the moment. I was pretty upset. Normally I LOVE the thought of getting a new car, but since we were wanting to wait until NEXT summer to get one, this little monkey wrench in the plans really had me bummed.

In the middle of this car-repair nightmare, of course life went on......Alaina had a ballgame Wednesday night...adn I still had to get to work....so I was forced to drive the van to work the rest of the week....which bummed me out again as I'm not a big fan of driving large vehicles in the first place! :D

So of course the diagnosis was that we needed a new transmission...which cost more than the car was worth. Then you're stuck with the dilemma: do you spend that much money to fix a car that's got almost 140,000 miles on it? we decided no. So Tuesday/Wednesday we spent looking at cars online..... and on Thursday we signed the papers and are now the proud owners of this:
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A Ford Fusion SE. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the car, I'm just still so upset about being forced into getting it and having so little time to really get into the mood of getting a new car....that I'm still not all that excited about it. I picked the color.....and since we got an '09, our choices were limited to what was left in stock in the STL area. So that's our new 'work car'.......the kids LOVE it.....they say it looks more "fun" than our old one....and that we'd had it FOREVER (5 years probably DOES seem like forever to 8 and 6-year olds!)

Oh, and also on Thursday, we had the little "Thomas adventure".......I'd noticed that on Wednesday night, the drains in the upstairs bathroom were draining REALLY slowly.....so told Karl to take care of it on Thursday........I got a call at work that he'd called a plumber because he couldn't unclog whatever was in there. There's a lovely family story my mom always tells about how embarassed she was when a plumber came to our house and took the toilet out on the front lawn to dislodge some matchbox cars that my brothers had flushed down the toilet. And it was total dejavu as Karl informed me that the plumber had taken our toilet out onto the front lawn to dislodge what was clogging it. And the source of the problem was a Thomas freight car....a little wooden train that Zach had decided to try and flush down the toilet. *sigh*.......lovely! But now that's fixed and all drains functions normally again. yay!

That's enough excitement for the week, don't ya think? Friday we went and got some food (finally) after having been gone for 9 days, we had nothing in the house! Friday night we got a nice thunderstorm that knocked out power for a little bit.......Saturday my parents came out to visit, and today Karl spoke at church, so it's been a good ending to a not-so-fun week.

And thanks to all the misc. junk going on, I didn't have the time, energy, or motivation to scrap much!

I did this layout for Sya's grab bag.....using her mini-kit called 'deeper conversation' and a template from the 'triple threat set 4' pack........of us at Disneyland:
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And I did this layout for haynay's grab bag, using her mini-kit, called 'my happy life' and an element pack called 'attached at the hip'......of deron's first trip to Disneyland:
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okay, I know I owe like 4 blessings, so here's one....the others will come later! This one is to represent the kids' activities. It's using a new kit of Haynay's called 'Diamond all-stars':
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And I forgot to save the journaling on this version, so you can't SEE it, but I DID it! :D it reads: I love the fact that my kids are busy with activities. It's always been my goal to have enough things to do to keep them busy, but at the same time, not overschedule them so that they're too busy to be kids. During the school year, they have scouts, tumbling, and swimming lessons. In the summer, they have ball, which only lasts a month. Soccer also only lasts a month in the fall. That sounds like a lot, but it's really not that crazy! I want them to be involved in things so they can develop interests and know what they do and don't like. I want them to stay active so they're not watching TV all summer or playing video games. I love that we're able to keep them in activities throughout the year. I never had the opportunity as a child and being able to give that to my children is a blessing.

I'm also kinda sad to announce that I'll no longer be CT-ing for Vicki....*sniff*.....but since I've been on her team the longest and had fulfilled my CT committment, it seemed an okay time to step down. I'll miss working with her and all the girls, but things are just too busy for me right now to try and keep up with 3 CTs! I'll still stalk her blog of course to download freebies!! If any of you are interested, definitely apply for her CT!! Whoever gets my spot will have a blast! I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Vicki, as she gave me my first CT gig.......it's always the hardest to get that first spot! So as I part ways with her CT I wish Vicki and all the girls the best of luck!!!

And that's it for me......tonight, just hanging out with the fam.....still debating on having a garage sale in a couple weeks, but after not making any money on the last one, I'm leaning toward not bothering.......and other than that, not much else going on around here to blog about. Back to the 'box' tomorrow and hopefully the new car won't leave me stranded at least until we pay it off.

So have a great week everybody....later!
diana

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Road-trip Scrappin'!!!

So……I’m thinking I’ll do the rest of my layouts in a separate post here…..if you want to read all about where I’ve been…see the previous post! :D

Gosh I’m behind with the plugs……Vicki’s (probably not even new anymore!) got a kit called ‘Ahoy Shipmate’, and obviously, having a cruise I’m trying to finish scrapping…..I had good material for that:
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Sya’s got a template pack out that she took from movie posters, called “Movie-spiration”…….and she also has a new kit called “Take me to the Movies”…..and I scrapped this with it:
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This is at Disney’s Hollywood Studios down in Florida…..I’m sure I’ll also use this kit to scrap the Great Movie ride pictures I took too……it’ll be perfect for that….when I get around to it! :D

I used another template from that same pack to scrap this……Christmas morning on our cruise:
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Haynay’s latest kit is called “A Stone’s Throw”, and even though it’s kinda outdoorsy/woodsy/boyish, I didn’t have anything like that to scrap, so this is what I did with it instead….it’s all about the versatility, right?
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I used another of Sya’s templates to do this 2-pager from our day at Orient Beach…..the template pack is called ‘Double Trouble’…..can you tell I’m trying REALLY HARD to finish up this cruise album ASAP? :D
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This 2-pager is of Emerald Beach (which is in St. Thomas if anyone cares), using ‘Completely Clustered’ by Sya’s Blueprints….
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Oh, and here’s another of Sya’s templates (good thing I kept a running tally of credits with this scrap-marathon of mine….I’d totally have forgotten what’s what by now!)…..this one is from “Mix n Match, set 2”…..of Zach and his worms. I don’t get the fascination with worms, but the kids, Zach especially, are just obsessed with the things!!!
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And another of Sya’s templates (“Room for Photos 2”)…..not sure what I’d do without templates sometimes! :D Of me and the old fort in San Juan….I should probably have looked up it’s name before I scrapped it, but since I scrapped it in the car and didn’t exactly have Google access…..eh, oh well. I won’t remember the name of it anyways, kwim? :D
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Last plug……”Completely Cornered” by Sya……of a few misc. shots I took of the kids (notice Karl intentionally ruining one? He does that A LOT…..grrrrr!)
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Now, I’ll just throw the rest of everything I’ve scrapped on here in no particular order….
The air show that Karl and his brother Keith took Matthew and Zach to while Alaina and I were at the American Girl Place in Chicago:
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The kids’ last week of school highlights…..what happens when you send a camera with Alaina basically:
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The remote-controlled airplane that we got Matthew (or should I say Karl?) for his birthday…….they flew it into a tree of course. :D
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Alaina’s official (official enough for ME anyways) baseball pictures:
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Matthew’s official tball pictures:
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Swimmin’ in the pool on the cruise:
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Another layout from the first formal night on the cruise….
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One of those pictures they take of you on the ship everytime you get off…..this was the only one I bought because it was the only one where everybody was actually looking at the camera! This was Christmas day in St. Maarten:
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The harbor in St. Thomas…..I didn’t realize it until I was scrapping it, but I took basically identical pictures of the harbor….one set in daylight, one at night. Didn’t mean to do that, but it’s kinda cool that I did! :D
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The kids in one of their “take a picture, Mom!” moments (I have them trained well!) with one of the many Christmas trees that were on our ship (it feels so weird to still be scrapping Christmas stuff in June, btw!)
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and a standard cruise shot....of the kids with a life preserver that has the ship's name on it....
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From our previous trip to Disney this March……the kids posing in a ‘wild animals’ train car near the dumbo ride. Has that thing always been there and I just never noticed it?
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Zach at the play area in Toontown….he’d go down this slide over and over all day, I swear!
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Here’s where we got to wake up Tinkerbell:
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And actually being awake and at the park for the official opening, called ‘rope drop’……there actually IS a rope, LOL! :D
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And the last layout to post….a 2-pager of just random, “I took these pictures so I’m going to do something with them” stuff from the cruise…..and that COMPLETES THE CRUISE ALBUM! WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! It was my goal to get that album scrapped before I got home from this Disney trip, and I did it! Yay me! Although I don’t recommend quarantining yourself in a van for 55+ hours, it does allow you to get some serious digiscrappin’ done! :D Unless you have to do the driving of course….but that’s why we brought Uncle Deron along! :D So now I’m caught up with ’09 stuff and done with the Christmas cruise……now all I have to scrap are the 2 Disney trips. UGH. I’m still WAY behind of course…..but I’m basking temporarily in getting another album done……granted, by my ‘standards’ it was a “small” album at 48 pages….I’ll feel more of a sense of accomplishment when it’s printed and actually IN an album of course….but who knows when THAT will be! :D but it’s nice to cross that off my list….and not have to worry about scrapping Christmas in June! :D Now I’ll just keep scrappin’ these 2 Disney trips until our next vacation…..which won’t be ‘till next summer! *sniff**sniff* I know, how will I survive?? I’m not sure I’ll make it that long without going SOMEWHERE….but right now nothing’s planned! *sigh*
So here’s that last layout……

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And that’s it for me for now……would you believe I'm actually kinda "scrapped out" for the moment? I realize I'm like 3 weeks behind on blessings......eh, oh well! :D I'll get caught up one of these days.......time to regroup from vacation and get ready to jump back into work tomorrow morning….BAH! I always say I need a vacation from my vacations…..but this time I really could use another day to recoup from the drive!! :D later!!!

return of the absent blogger....

Yeah, yeah, yeah…..bad blogger, bad blogger! I get it. I understand. All 6 of you that faithfully check my blog because you get THAT bored have probably been wondering where the heck I’ve been the last few weeks. Would you believe that I’ve been living the phrase “running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off?” Would you? Well, it’s the truth, I swear. :D And the only reason you’re getting this update (and a lengthy one at that!) is because I’m currently trapped in the van on our way home from California and what else am I going to do at midnight? (or maybe it’s 1 AM….I have no idea what time zone I’m even in right now!)

So, where did I leave off……Matthew’s birthday party was probably the next semi-eventful thing that happened….I won’t bother posting pictures since I already scrapped it:
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He and his little friends had SUCH a fun time…the theme was Star Wars, which you couldn’t really tell as I didn’t really buy anything ‘star-warsy’ for the party. And yes, those children are beating the living daylights out of each other with pool noodles! I highly recommend it! Brilliant idea for a party “game” from Auntie Cole……we called them ‘light sabers’ OBVIOUSLY……and they were supposed to be “dueling” vs. just smacking each other around…but they just went nuts and had a blast with it. And the best part? No injuries to report…yay! :D So the kids all played together very well….Matthew’s little “NOT-MY-GIRLFRIEND-MOM!” showed up (Her name’s Samantha…she’s the CUTEST little thing…..he’s got good taste…dark hair, blue eyes….I don’t see anything wrong with that! LOL!!! Her grandma said she insisted on dressing up for Matthew’s party…..awwww!! Isn’t that the sweetest thing ever?) so Matthew’s 6th birthday party was fun……I spent forever and a day making the R2D2 cake, which most of you have admired on my Facebook page (be my friend btw, I always need more friends!). Although I totally felt inferior the other day (I’ll explain later), but for the moment, I was proud of that cake! Matthew got some toys and (yay!) lots of cash to take to Disneyland on vacation. He was happy. Sugared the kids up and sent them home! Always a good way to end a party. So that was the last weekend of May….

The first week of June….uhm….total blur! It was the first week of baseball games for Alaina….tball games for Matthew……oh, and yeah, trying to majorly clean the house AND pack for vacation at the same time….something I totally do NOT recommend to anyone wanting to keep any shred of sanity! and the darned ball games (I’m SO glad they only last the month of June….I don’t know how some of you ball/soccer moms do this for months on end! SERIOUSLY!)……

So anyways….back to my exciting life (I babble when I’m tired….and I’m tired right now…..only awake to keep my brother Deron awake while he’s driving……. Karl’s naping in the back seat! Deron tends to doze off while he drives……just like my dad!)

Friday the 5th, we left on the road trip of all road trips……driving from the IL side of St. Louis to Anaheim, California for a week at Disneyland. OMG is that a LOOOOOONNNNNG drive. Seriously. LONG! BUT, our kids are total travel pros…..we had movies on the portable DVD player (God bless those things) for Zach…..Alaina and Matthew were stocked with snacks, their Nintendo DS’s, coloring books, an iPod, and I don’t even remember what else. They picked me up from work around 3 and we were off on our vacation!!!! Karl drove the majority of the way that first night…..to make better time we packed sandwiches to eat in the car so we didn’t even stop for dinner………just a few potty breaks (inevitable with 6 people in the same vehicle). The kids all passed out around 10 or so our time….by then we were in like Oklahoma or something….and it was storming. Might’ve been a tornado for all we know…..I just remembered a lot of lightning before I dozed off. I scrapped the WHOLE WAY TO CALIFORNIA! :D well….except when I was sleeping obviously…..or dealing with squabbling siblings…..or rubbing zach’s head to get him to go to sleep, etc…….by 7AM (local time) we were in Alburquerque, New Mexico and stopped for breakfast. You can make really good time when the kids are asleep! :D After that, it was a LONG day on Saturday of driving through New Mexico and then Arizona…..I had no idea that Arizona was such a friggin’ HUGE state….took FOREVER to get through (and of course by then we were SO SICK of being in the van it wasn’t even funny!). But we finally got into California mid-afternoon……and to Anaheim around 6PM local time. I was shocked and super proud of us……I’d guessed we’d get there around midnight. Karl guessed 10PM……so woohoo for the Herman clan (and Uncle Deron) and the family truckster hauling arse across the southern US! :D We got checked into our room at the timeshare (we traded weeks/points/whatever to get a room out there) and got settled in……and ordered a pizza for dinner……..Karl and I did a quick run to the grocery store……took some much needed showers after 27 hours in a van……and crashed for the night.

Day 1 of Disney-mania…….If I had my way, we’d be at the parks from opening ‘till close. But that’s not realistic with small children (or a hubby that’s not as gung-ho for that matter)……BUT, the time difference was totally working in my favor, so we were up and ready and to the park gates by about 10. That’s really good for us! AND…..Disneyland is smaller than the Magic Kingdom at Disney World, I swear it is……..and the crowds weren’t bad at all…….so we had a fun first day in the parks…….probably the highlight was Alaina and Matthew BOTH getting picked for the same session of the Jedi Training Academy show. We tried I don’t know how many times on our trip in March to get Matthew in the show and he never got picked…..this time both of them get picked. And it was hilarious….they had so much fun! Matthew got to fight Darth Vader himself with his ‘training light saber’……he thought he was some serious hot stuff after that! And then to celebrate, he decided to spend some of his birthday money to build himself a red light saber like Darth Vader. The rest of the day was the usual…..rides…..snacks (churros are a must for us!), and we left the park early to eat dinner in the room. By dinnertime we were kinda “done” anyways, kwim?

Day 2 was another typical park day……but we decided to play the system from this point forward. Since Karl has a hard time doing a lot of walking (the main reason I don’t get to stay as late as I’d like) and standing on his bad knee…….he went and got a special pass that let us use the handicap entrances for most of the rides. The kids called it “daddy’s fastpass.” It saved a LOT of standing, which helped Karl out tremendously. We still had to wait for the popular attractions…..but nothing like we normally would have. We discovered that Uncle Deron totally takes after my mother when it comes to theme park rides……aside from Small World, just about everything else was too much for him……so he spent a lot of time watching Zach while the rest of us rode stuff……it worked out great for us……way better than child swap! This is also the day that Karl surprised me by getting a reservation to Blue Bayou (our fave restaurant at Disneyland) for a combination celebration of our anniversary (which was the 13th…..11 years!) and Matthew’s birthday (which was the 4th). SUPER yummy dinner of course, and I just love the atmosphere there. Lovely evening!!!

Day 3 was my ‘we’re getting up early’ day! Unlike Disneyworld, when you go to Disneyland, everybody gets one day on their ticket they can enter the park an hour early (at Disneyworld you have to stay on Disney property for that…which we never do), so this was our early morning hour day that I’d picked. We got to the park just after 7 and it was so empty, woohoo! I’m not a morning person, and neither are the kids, but there’s no arguing the difference in the crowds early in the morning vs. later in the day! This was also the day we took naps………and then when we came back to the park after dinner, there was an unfortunate incident where Karl and Matthew were targeted by a low-flying bird (seriously, WTH?) and had to go back to the room. It was funny…….later! at the time, it was just gross to get birdcr@p all over you, kwim? So that left me, Alaina, and Deron in the parks……Alaina wanted to ride Pirates, and as that was “too much” for Deron, we went without him and when we came out he was gone…….I assumed he’d taken off on his own to explore….so Alaina and I went and had a fun little girls’ night in the parks by ourselves. Unfortunately, unlike in Florida, they don’t have fireworks every night at Disneyland, so we missed out on that…..but we still got to ride a lot of rides in the dark that we’d never done before (since we’re rarely in the parks after dark!)

Day 4 was the only day we went to California Adventure. Not that I have anything against that park….there’s just not much to draw us there. We rode toy story, which is identical to the one in Florida, we rode Soarin, which is also identical to Florida’s version, and Karl and I rode California Screamin (which is really cool) and that was about it for that park. They had a kiddie area we spent a good amount of time in………and since nobody would ride the tower of terror with me, I skipped it and we left the park early.

Day 5 was back at Disneyland. More of the same as the other days……ride our favorite rides as many times as we possibly can! The kids have lost interest in meeting characters unfortunately. They’ll go up to them if they happen to cross paths (which happens way more often at Disneyland vs. Disneyworld, fyi), but they don’t want to stand in line to meet anybody. I insisted on standing in line to meet Mickey, and after that I just gave up. They want to ride rides! Fine by me! Small World, ride#27 here we go! :D Zach can never get enough of Small World…..Karl never gets tired of the Haunted Mansion…..and I never get tired of Pirates of the Caribbean! Alaina and Matthew love those rides too……but their favorite is the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad….so we rode that several times too. Yay fun!

Day 6…..last day! Our last hurrah, riding all our favorites one last time before we had to leave…. We ate dinner with Woody and Jessie (we didn’t even know it was a character meal when we booked it) at some western roundup show thing. It was pretty cool. And at the table next to ours, they were obviously celebrating their son’s birthday, because the chef brought out an R2D2 cake that was 3-D and completely put mine to shame! Even Matthew said, “that’s way better than the one you made, Mom!” It was the coolest cake I’ve ever seen in person. I didn’t take a picture since I had no idea who these people were, but I did talk to the parents and evidently you can request just about any character cake at dinner now…..for a price of course. So that’s good to know next time we’re celebrating something…..I’d like a life-size Jack Sparrow cake please! :D But anyways, dinner was yummy…….then we went back and rode more rides in the dark…….I wanted to stay for the new fireworks show……I think I’ve seen maybe ONE fireworks show at Disney in all the times we’ve been there (always leaving early to put the kids to bed……fireworks usually start around 9:30 or so), and I really wanted to see it……so we stayed for it. It was packed and crazy….but it was cool to watch. I didn’t get many good pictures since they wouldn’t let me set up my mini-tripod on a trash can like I was wanting to (darned castmembers!), but it was still really cool to see Tinkerbell fly around in the sky….even the kids were impressed. It was a good way to end our week at Disneyland. Just bummed I’ve got like zero pictures from it!

We left bright and early Saturday morning (6:30ish CA time) and have been on the road ever since….vacation officially over!

Final thoughts on our vacation……we had a really good time and I’m so glad we went (even with the driving!). The weather was really good….it was only really ‘warm’ one day…the rest were overcast and almost chilly (I had my jacket every day!), and that helped everybody not get so worn out. We still like Disney World in Florida better of course (plus that drive is WAY shorter! After this drive it’ll seem like nothing!), but there are a few things that Disneyland has that Florida doesn’t, and so we made a point to enjoy all that stuff. But Karl and I both agreed wholeheartedly….next time WE WILL FLY! :D

I'll be back with a mammouth layout-filled post in a sec!!! :P