Vacations

The next day of our vacation was Sunday. We woke up and found all the kids playing in the house’s toy room:

Dallas was against visiting Disneyland on Sunday, so we joined my parents for sacrament meeting in the local Disneyland ward:

After that, my parents met up with my siblings at Disneyland.  It was the only day my brother Abe could go, so off they went to spend time with him and his family.

While we didn’t go to Disneyland with everyone else, we still wore our matching Mickey shirts:

A friend told me about the Mormon Battalion Historic Site in San Diego.  Dallas and I thought that would be a fun thing to do.  We drove down to San Diego to see what it was all about.

We had a quick cracker snack before going inside:

The quick cracker snack ended up being not-so-quick and we just missed the start of a tour so we killed time driving ox carts:

And sitting in rocking chairs:

The tour started and it was so fun.  This visitors’ center did an impressive job incorporating media into the presentation and the kids loved it.  We sat on logs and played musical instruments with the Mormon Battalion volunteers:

We located one of my ancestors who was in the Battalion:

I hesitate to show the next few pictures because my siblings will see how much fun we had and will all wish they had foregone Disneyland in exchange for this excitement.

We panned for gold:

Brooke found her two pieces:

Spencer thought the water spout was more fun:

Meanwhile, Caroline stayed at her station patiently finding all the nuggets of gold she could:

Spencer and Brooke made bricks:

Finally Caroline finished panning and was ready to show off her nice pile of gold:

The Mormon Battalion Historic Site, aka The Happiest Place on Earth.  Look at those smiles:

We were close to La Jolla beach so we stopped to look at the sea lions.  Here are the kids experiencing the beach for the first time:

We finally spotted the sea lions (after realizing they were the lumps on the rocks):

Then we headed back to Belle’s Castle.  We put the kids to bed, hung out with the adults, and planned our next day of fun:

We just got back from Disneyland!  We had the best time…and now I’m having the worst time wanting to get back to real life.  Yesterday I actually forgot I needed to cook dinner.  Completely forgot.  I also spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince myself that clean underwear is totally overrated and that I could put off doing laundry for another day.  In an effort to further procrastinate my reentry into reality, I will ignore the items that still need unpacking and putting away and will instead look through all the pictures we took and relive each day.  Here we go!

The kids are all settled in their spots ready for our drive:

We made it to Grandma Golden’s house in Las Vegas that afternoon.  The girls got right to work discovering all of Grandma’s fun toys:

We love Grandma Golden!

After spending the night at Grandma’s, we decided to take the kids to the Strip to see the lions at MGM and the water show at the Bellagio.

Did you know the lions are no longer at MGM?  We didn’t.  Grrr.

Also, did you know the fountain show doesn’t run in the morning?  We didn’t.  Grrr.

The one saving grace was the M&M store:

We got to see the free 3-D M&M movie there:

After our little Vegas detour, we headed straight to Anaheim.  We have been planning this trip for MONTHS.  My brother said he was going and invited my sister.  She invited me.  Then we decided to call it a family reunion to pressure my other two brothers and my parents to join us there.  It worked!  My parents even had the great idea of renting a house instead of a hotel so we could have a full kitchen and put the kids to bed at night and the adults would have a place to congregate and talk and play.  It was a beautiful thing.  Here’s the house – Belle’s Castle:

The house was perfect.  I think that picture is a little deceptive because it makes the house look kind of ordinary and not nearly as big and luxurious as it felt once you were inside it.

The girls got to sleep in the Peter Pan room:

We got right to work trying out the pool and hot tub:

Then we put the kids to bed and relaxed a bit before our adventures the following day…

Goodness.  It’s taken me longer than I expected to finish telling about our Washington adventure.  Here’s the final installment!

Caleb and Thad enjoyed a few badminton games:

We visited a spray park.  Caleb and Thad had the time of their lives:

Kate also thought it was pretty fun:

Spencer wasn’t a fan:

Brooke and Nina needed convincing to get wet.

Luckily Kate came to the rescue and holding hands they braved the water spouts together:

The next day we went to a play place.  There was a funny mirror:

A ball pit:

Some nets and slides:

And a climbing wall:

Later that day Spencer showed us how he really feels about Snakey:

That evening the big kids made star catchers:

The next day we had to leave.  Brooke and Caroline were so sad to leave their friends.  The car ride home was much less pleasant than the ride there.  The kids were cranky, the car toys weren’t as fun, the movies didn’t hold their interest, and the ride seemed to take forever.  Plus, I got stung by a wasp during one of our pit stops so that added another degree of misery for me.

We stopped on the way home to see the bridge over the Snake River in Idaho Falls.  It was beautiful:

Brooke posing with a statue:

And again:

And again:

Caroline’s turn to pose:

We stopped at IHOP for dinner and were happily surprised to find out that kids ate free!  Hooray!  Brooke made a pancake face:

After dinner we put the kids in pajamas and ordered them to sleep.  They obeyed, and we were able to finish the last leg of the trip in peace.

All in all it was a fun trip and we were glad for the family time together.  Brooke and Caroline still miss Kate and Nina and ask everyday if we can go back to their fun house to visit.  I guess Mark and Michelle will just have to start planning another cruise so we can visit again!

Thad was anxious to get his book gift this day so he opened it in the morning.  Origami wins again!

The girls made necklaces:

Wednesday’s activity was feeding the ducks.  The kids were SO excited for this:

Spencer pointing.  If pictures had sound you’d hear him saying “Duck!”

Thad pointing to some duck eggs:

Dallas found a little snake at the park:

The kids took turns holding it:

Then we heard those four special words that you never want to hear when a snake is involved, but hear it we did – “Can we keep him?”

And that’s how Mark and Michelle gained another family member.  🙂

The boys spent the rest of the afternoon reading up on snakes in order to build its habitat and figure out what to feed it.  It was a great learning experience for the boys and it kept them happy for hours so Snakey was worth keeping in my opinion!  (Michelle may disagree…)

I love this next picture.  Kate is proudly holding the snake and Brooke is proudly holding…a plastic monkey:

We even have footage of Snakey eating a worm.  It’s sort of gross and oddly mesmerizing at the same time:

That evening the kids used craft supplies to make pictures:

Brooke made a train:

Cute little Nina:

After all the little kids were in bed Dallas and I hung out with Hailey and Caleb.  We alternated between watching the Olympics and watching movies.  I usually went to bed when they were watching movies and rumor has it they stayed up WAAAAAY too late on more than one occasion:

We’re almost done documenting our trip!  The final part is coming soon!

Our Washington adventures continued with playing kitchen:

Every morning I would do the girls’ hair.  Kate tested my hair-styling abilities with her sometimes-elaborate, always-hard-to-interpret descriptions of what she wanted.  This day she wanted “two braids going into pigtails out the side of her head.”  Here is what we came up with:

(Unfortunately Brooke hadn’t gotten her hair done at the time of this photo shoot.)

I was happy to try to make Kate’s hair wishes come true because she loved getting her hair done (as long as I was very careful not to pull at her head) and all day long she would be so careful not to mess up the style.

Nina on the other hand was a different story.  She also liked getting her hair done but she usually asked to have the hair bands removed sometime during the day.  My favorite was when we had done her hair all up and she literally stepped out of the bathroom and then asked for me to cut the rubber bands out.  Funny girl.

Kate got a sticker puzzle book from her mom this day and all the girls enjoyed watching her make pictures with the stickers:

Thad always got nonfiction books for his book gifts and entertained us all with fun facts that he learned from his reading:

Our activity this day was riding bikes at the church parking lot.  Hailey told us that they usually go to a different church, but we decided to go to their own church building because I had a great plan.  I knew that with seven kids (Hailey stayed home) it would only be a matter of minutes before one or more of them needed to go to the bathroom or get a drink (despite going to the bathroom and getting drinks right before leaving).  Mark had a key to their church building so we would be able to get inside as needed.

Perfect plan.

Imperfect execution.

After probably twenty-five minutes of loading kids and bikes into the cars and about five whole minutes of actually riding bikes, the chorus began:

“I’m thirsty!”

“I need to go to the bathroom!”

I patted myself on the back for knowing this would happen and for being prepared.  I asked Dallas for the keys to the church.  He handed them over…and we realized that we had taken the key chain WITHOUT the church keys.

No way was I going to take the kids back to the house so soon so we made do.  We found some water bottles and crackers in our car (part of our stash of road trip treats) so we sat in the grass and had a mini picnic.  I made the kids sing me songs to earn crackers:

Dallas apparently took pictures of grass while this was happening:

When we got back to the house Dallas introduced Caroline to one of the boys’ lizards:

Then it was swim time again:

And tramp time:

And berry-picking time:

Those four girls were just adorable running around together all day long having the time of their life.

Before bed we did our art project which was making bunnies and carrots with pipe cleaners and pom poms:

And that marked the end of another successful day!