Leaving on a Jet Plane

Heading home we flew Burbank to San Francisco to Dulles.  Burbank was awesomely empty, no lines for security and both going there and coming home I didn't have to go through the x-ray machine, just a normal metal detector. Score!  The Burbank airport has stairs they wheel up to the airplane so you go outside and climb up them.  I've always thought that was fun and the kids thought so too.  Our plane from Burbank to SF was small so Little Guy and I were on one side of the aisle and Buddy and PS were on the other side (two seats per side).  The plane from SF to Dulles was a regular three seats per side of the aisle.  This meant the three kids were together and I was across the aisle from them (none of them would sit alone).  That was more difficult, and is one of the reasons they got ot watch the inflight movie which was Pirates of the Carribeean 4 (which I normally wouldn't have let them watch).  Little Guy fell asleep with his headphones on watching the pirate movie.  The first pictures are PS reading in the Burbank airport while we waited for our flight.

Ventura Harbor

Our last night in California we went to my mom's favorite seafood restaurant, Andria's, for clam chowder, fish and chips, and dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets (Little Guy). Then we walked around a bit and the kids posed in these postcard cut outs. Not sure how I feel about PS being a bikini clad mermaid, but she was thrilled with the dolphin one since her new dream is to swim with a dolphin.

Last Trip to the Beach (Pacific Ocean side)

I took the kids for one last trip the the beach the day before we went.  This is the kid friendly beach right by the Channel Islands National Park building at the Ventura Harbor.  We found a crab.  And some fun sea shells.  The kids liked the sand dunes.  And Little Guy enjoyed putting sand on Princess Sparkley's back while she laid on her towel. Afterwards we went to the Buena Ventura Mall which now has a two story Target (the kids requested that one as well once Grandma mentioned it).  We also ate at Hot Dog on a Stick.  Yummy cheeses on a stick.  :)

Random Pics

A couple of random pictures from California that don't really go with anything I haven't already blogged.

PS and Fenway got to be pretty good friends as well.  She was a little mad with him this day because he licked all the colorful paint off the butterfly facepainted on her arm.

Little Guy found the Nordic Track Machine in my brother's old room one morning. 

This is how I found him.

Sprinklers

As our trip to Grandma and Grandpa's in California neared its end, I asked the kids what was left that they wanted to do.  They wanted to run through Grandpa's sprinklers so he turned them on for them one day and we tried to get Fenway in the water... turns out he hates water.  He'd run in the sprinklers to get his ball if he'd first checked it out and it seemed like he wouldn't get too wet.  Then he'd roll around on the grass to get all the water off.  Once he squeezed his way into a thick bush and back out again, it had to be just to get the water off.  He did enjoy drinking from the sprinklers though.  I like the tongue shot I captured.

Cousins

These are the three seven year olds.  My sister's son, C, was born in February,

 then Buddy in April and my brother's son, M, two days later.  They were all missing a lot of teeth.

 I didn't do as good a job capturing the 2-3 year old crowd. 

Little Guy is on the left.  He's January 2008.  My sister's son, J, was December 2007

 and her son, M, was December 2008. 

My sister's daughter, E, is about to turn 12, three years older than Princess Sparkley but the only girl in her family as well.  She used to give us her old dresses and clothes as hand me downs for PS, she now wears a larger shoe size than me and is only about 4 inches shorter than I am.

My brother's son, N, is just about a year older than Little Guy.

We let Little Guy go to Sunbeams with him each week at church (he's just three

weeks too young to be a Sunbeam anyway) rather than going to Nursery alone.

Fenway

I took the picture of Fenway standing on the lawn looking at the camera (what he's thinking is, "I sure wish I could eat that thing.")  Princess Sparkley took the other pictures.  I especially like the close up of his head.  And, amazingly, she got all these pictures without him getting the camera.

Tree Climbing

I'm not sure my kids have ever really climbed a tree.  They like the idea, but they've never really had a good climbing tree to practice on.  There's one at Grandma's and Grandpa's though so today they gave it a shot.

Hollywood

 We started out the day at Cupid's Hot Dogs (65 years old this year).  Pinks has become the famous LA hot dog spot, and my mom made my dad take her there recently.  He said the only worse hot dog is the one at Dodger Stadium.  He's staying loyal to his neighborhood hot dog stand growing up.  We stopped at the one in Northridge, I don't think the one in North Hollywood is there anymore.  We went there a lot when I was a kid too.  This one had the same feel... order your hot dog, sit outside at a table.  No pigeons to feed bits of our bun to, but that's okay.

Grauman's Chinese Theater

We started out at Grauman's Chinese Theater where we saw two Darth Vader's, a Storm Trooper, Dora the Explorer, Elmo, Mickey Mouse, Cookie Monster, 3 Spidermans, a Jack Sparrow, etc.  One of the Darth Vaders waved and two Spidermans said hello (one was perched on a fire hydrant). We were mainly there for the Star Wars cast footprints, the Harry Potter cast footprints and just to see some fun stuff.

Hollywood Walk of Fame

When I gave Princess Sparkley some different options of things to do in California.  She liked the Hollywood Walk of Fame stuff because she's seen Charles Schulz's star in some of the biographies of him she's read.  We found his star along with Walt Disney's star.  In the search, we also saw the star for The Simpsons and a few others.

Hollywood Sign

She really wanted to see the Hollywood sign too, and I always do.  I had wanted to take the kids to Griffith Observatory years ago but it was closed for nearly five years for renovations when we lived here.  So we headed up and saw the sign.

Griffith Observatory

And then into the Observatory.  I went on a field trip here in elementary school.  And since we'd been driving around Hollywood hearing my dad tell us about places he used to go for movies, etc. (he's from North Hollywood) I asked if he went on field trips here in elementary school too.  He did.  It opened in 1935, before he was born. It's much improved from both of our recollections. 

There was an earthquake in the area about 10 minutes before we walked through the door (4.2).  The worker at the Pendulum informed us. We didn't feel it. We were outside taking pictures of the Hollywood sign.  He told us to check out the seismograph downstairs and while we were hopping up and down trying to make the floor vibration seismograph draw squiggles, there was another one. We didn't feel it either.  All 6 of us (the three kids, my parents and myself) weighed about 100lbs. on the moon.  I remembered thinking the different planet scales were really cool when I was a kid.  They were much improved and my kids got a kick out of them too.

Grandma's Birthday

We've been lucky enough to celebrate my mom's birthday with her two years in a row.  Yesterday, and then last year they were in Virginia with us for Princess Sparkley's baptism.

We had my brother's family over for dinner Sunday (my sister's family had some sickies) to celebrate.

Ronald Reagan Library

We're a Reagan loving family.  When Ronald Reagan died the motorcade taking his body to the library for burial went through our town and our little family (PS was coming up on two and Buddy was just a couple months old) waited on the side of the road to show our respect with a lot of other people.  B and my brother and my nephew B went to the actual library as well within a few days to pay respect.

The library built an airplane hanger for a retired Air Force One jet just as we were moving from California to Kansas and we never made it over for a visit until today.  I don't think I've been to the library since I was a teenager and it first opened so I was excited to see it again... plus the air plane.

I kept trying to tell PS information about Ronald Reagan in the museum to which she'd answer, "I already know, I have a whole book about him."  True.  We have one of those kids' biographies about him.  She probably knows more than I do.

PS was our Reagan and Nancy Reagan expert (she also has a book about First Ladies), Buddy was our Air Force One and Marine One expert because he's seen a National Geographic movie (several times) about the Presidential airplanes.  He even pointed out to us on the giant mural which of the airplanes is the one that carries all the Secret Service vehicles.  Pretty cool.

Here's a picture of our picture.  Someday I'll scan in the real thing.

Mr. Fenway

Little Guy and my dad's dog, Fenway, are becoming friends. Little Guy calls him Mr. Fenway. Their friendship works best if Fenway is otherwise occupied. If not occupied, Little Guy gets licked in the face a lot which he does not enjoy.  Tonight Fenway was in the computer room on his blanket chewing a toy and Little Guy was brave enough to sit on his back for a second, like Fenway was a horse.  Mostly he's scared to go outside and get licked.  Buddy is pretty fearless around Fenway now and while he's out in the yard working on the fort Fenway follows him around and I can see Buddy talking to him.  The other day he ran into the house excited because Fenway had helped dig a really big hole in the fort.  PS does okay with Fenway.  Not scared, not really friends.

Underwoods Farm and Produce

There's a little produce stand we always go to that has a few locations with Pick Your Own stuff and animals.  this little one near my parents added these goats a few years back with high up ramps for the goats to walk around on.  I love it.  The kids thought it was pretty cool.  We fed the goats, sheep, chickens and an alpaca.  Little Guy called the alpaca "the goat who looks like a lion."

Princess Sparkley behind the camera

Buddy is outside all day every chance he gets and Grandma and Grandpa's.  He's spent a lot of time in the backyard building a fort.  When the cousins come over, they are out there with him working on it.  He's also created some sort of slide in the leaves down the hill side.  There have been days when he's come in with dirt in his hair and teeth from sliding down the hill.  Crazy boy.  I sent PS out with the camera the other day to capture some pictures.  That pile off stuff next to the recycle container is some of the dead flowers Buddy had to pick in order to earn the few extra dollars he needed to buy a Lego Star Wars ship he wanted to get with his money.

My mom had a thing for collecting Beanie Babies in the '90s.  I had a thing for Barbies in the '80s.*

*I seriously can't believe how Eighties my Barbies are.  Wow.

Ormond Beach/Port Hueneme Beach

Princess Sparkley wanted to collect sea shells so this beach trip on August 25th was strictly a sea shell gathering event, not a playing in the water event.  So, we brought Grandma and Grandpa along.

It was a clear enough day that we could make out Anacapa Island (didn't show up well in the pictures though).  We saw a swarm/heard/gaggle/group of pelicans and some other interesting sea birds.  There weren't a lot of sea shells, mainly halves of mussel shells.  But just as we were heading back toward the pier and toward the car, I spotted a sand dollar!  We also saw the Goodyear Blimp.


Afterwards we went to Toppers Pizza on the Channel Islands Harbor for lunch where we got to use the new touchscreen Coca Cola machine* and see some New Orleans Saints football players at the salad bar and soda line.


*Grandpa was *daring* and tried Coke mixed with Diet Coke (his favorite).  Grandma was a little more brave and had 95% Coke with 5% Coke with Lime.  The kids and I tried: Peach Sprite, Raspberry Sprite, Vanilla Sprite (my favorite), Grape Fanta, Lime Fanta, Orange Fanta, and Vanilla Rootbeer.  

Random California Excitement Recorded on the Cell Phone Camera

These are the random pictures that end up on my cell phone camera because whatever we were doing wasn't worthy (such as Disneyland or the beach) of bringing the real camera along for the trip. 

• Eating marshmallows on sticks covered in sprinkles at the Rocky Mountain Candy Factory store at the outlet mall.

• The kids got "face" painted at a church picnic in the park.  Buddy was adamantly against it until Princess Sparkley persuaded him with the dolphin.  Now, almost one week later he's only agreed to two baths and both of those have taken place with his dolphin arm up and out of the water.  It's looking pretty sad... and dirty.  I'm on the hunt for some sort of dolphin temporary tattoo.

• There's a tunnel that goes under the road down the street from my parents.  I loved yelling "echo" in it when we went on walks when I was little, so I showed it to my kids and let them yell "echo."

• Little Guy and Princess Sparkley (who almost got stuck) got to ride in a truck shopping cart at Vons.  They beeped their horns nonstop driving me crazy.

• Buddy worked hard pulling dead flowers and dusting at Grandma's to earn the last few dollars he needed to be able to afford a Lego Star Wars ship.

• I went mattress shopping 2,600+ miles away from where the mattress is needed.  Little Guy enjoyed testing them out.

• And Little Guy has become a fair weather friend to my dad's giant chocolate lab who he's nicknamed Mr. Fenway.  Everyone else just calls him Fenway.

Leo Carillo State Beach

Saturday the 20th my brother's family invited us to go to the beach with them.  I had an enjoyable time parallel parking along Pacific Coast Highway.  As soon as we got to the beach we spotted a seal swimming parallel to the shore.  That was pretty cool.  I don't think I've ever seen that type of wildlife at the beach (except up on the northern coast of California on rocks near Monterey Bay, etc.).

Buddy and cousin M (2 days younger than Buddy) stuck together throwing rocks in the water, etc.  PS stuck to herself for awhile finding small pebbles.  Little Guy stayed up on the dry sand for a long time, at one point I caught him having light saber battles by himself.  Then everyone joined in trying to catch sand crabs.  At one point cousin Amanda was wearing seaweed as a scarf.  She and cousin B found what the internet tells me are brittle stars, sort of skinny, more bendable starfish. 

Pool Fun

A friend invited us over to use her pool while we're in town so we invited my sisters family along for the fun.  We had a ton of fun.  Thanks Laura!

Random Pics from Cali

Showering at Home Depot.

Giant stuffed Super Snoopy at Kmart.

Little Guy was our only kid (and probably the only grandkid) who hadn't had a bath in the laundry room sink until this trip.  And that's not blood on his knees... I'm not sure what it was, but it washed right off.

Disneyland

On Monday, August 15th we took the kids to Disneyland.  Last time we went was June 2005 just before Princess Sparkley turned 3 (and cost money).  Buddy was 14 months old.  He napped in the stroller a lot.  PS was scared of Cinderella and her giant mice. 

The Sword in the Stone

The Dumbo Ride

The Casey Jr. Circus Train

We started with some of the classic Disneyland rides that wouldn't be big rollercoasters: Mr.
Toad's Wild Ride, Pinocchio, Snow White, etc.  Our kids were scared of them.  It turns out they
are fine on scary roller coasters, but they don't like the thematic scary story rides.  The Matterhorn was shut down.  We missed Peter Pan and the Alice in Wonderland rides due to crazy long lines.

 The Teacups

It's A Small World

Quote from B at the end of the ride: 

"Yeah, that song never gets old" (said with heavy sarcasm).

Assorted pictures.

 Toontown Rollercoaster

PS meets Tinkerbell.  Her line was about an hour shorter than Rapunzel's line (which was 90 minutes).

Jedi Training Academy
I was hoping my kids would be brave and volunteer for the Jedi Training Academy.  They didn't.  But Darth Maul came over (bottom right picture) and tapped his double sided light sabre at the blue line Little Guy was supposed to be behind and gave him menacing looks.  Little Guy stood his ground.  He's a big fan of both Darth Maul and Darth Vader.  Another little kid a few feet away went running as soon as the stage came up and he saw Darth Vader.  Not Little Guy.

Autotopia

PS and B went in one car and B drove.  Buddy, Little Guy and
I squished in another car.  I was in charge of gas, Buddy steered.

Star Tours
We were lucky that Little Guy was just tall enough to ride Star Tours, Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  Star Tours was especially exciting since he's a big Star Wars fan.  Extra exciting, when they select a random audience member to be the "rebel spy" on our ship and put their picture up on the screen, they picked Little Guy.  I don't think he saw it or realized what we were trying to explain to him, but PS and Buddy thought it was pretty cool.

Random assortment of pictures.  Little Guy did great walking everywhere and getting carried here and there when he'd inform us "I like when people carry me."  We got stuck on the Storybook Land Canal Boats during the fireworks, but our person stopped us in a spot that made it so we could still see the fireworks.

Buzz Lightyear pictures go here, when I find them.

They LOVED Splash Mountain.

 

After the fireworks ended, we had to wait for everything to be reopened again, and then we jumped on the King Arthur Carousel.  Little Guy's mouth open face is a new development on this trip.  He makes it when he's super excited/happy/surprised but a little embarrassed that you are noticing.  At least that's how it seems.  I think partially because he's been surrounded by people who know him (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents) but that are relatively new to him.

In front of the castle at night (but you can't tell) and next to the Walt Disney/Mickey Mouse statue.
Tired and heading to Main Street for souvenirs and then home

 Poor Little Guy.  We left Disneyland to check out the souvenirs on Downtown Disney.  B sat down with sleepy Little Guy and he fell asleep like this standing up.  Poor kid.  We left the park between 11:30 and 12 having arrived a little after 9AM.  We ate breakfast at home, then snacked on applesauce, crackers, teddy grahams and fruit leathers at the park.  Bought Mickey Mouse shaped pretzels for lunch and churros for dinner.  We stopped at In N Out on the way home and B and I had double doubles while the two older kids ate french fries.  Little Guy slept.  Not a super healthy day, but we survived and the food we did buy cost $30+.

Souvenirs
Princess Sparkley: a Disneyland snow globe for her collection,
a Minnie Mouse charm
and the next day at the Disney Outlset store, a Tangled shirt

Buddy:  a Disneyland bus (he's saving the rest of his money for Lego stuff)

Little Guy: a t-shirt with Darth Vader fighting Huey, Duey and Louie and a Sleeping Beauty sword