Saturday, August 27, 2011

Trace

A sweet, easy going kid.  Always wants to please(unless it’s his brother or sister) and goofy as can be at times!  He is such a joy to be around and I’m so proud of him!

Hanging out with little cousin Cruz.

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Football gear pickup day – he didn’t want to take it off!  What a nut!

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Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Disneyland 2011!

We hit the road early Saturday morning, July 23.  First stop was the Rice Hill drive in where they serve the best ice cream in the world!  It’s one of those places you’d normally drive right past unless you know it is there.  Mmmmmm – good! 

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Our next stop was the Oregon Vortex.  A fun little place that – again, very few people know of.  It is a natural phenomena where people appear to change sizes, bottles roll up hill and people appear to be standing at an angle when actually they are perfectly straight.  The kids got a real kick out of it!

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After a night of rest we hit the road again for LA.  Shortly after we arrived my parents pulled in and Ed and Rick went to the airport to pick up my sister, Chris.  With the gang all there we were ready to hit Universal Studios the next day!  Boy has that place changed since I was there last!  The boys loved it but there wasn’t much for Paige (which we knew).  She did great though.

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On Tuesday morning we headed to Disneyland bright and early.  Over the next three days we hit just about every ride, a few of them multiple times!  Space Mountain and Star Tours were the boys favorites and Paige loved Dumbo and Winnie the Pooh.  Paige got a princess makeover at the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique and got to meet her favorite princess – Ariel.  An absolutely exhausting few days but so much fun too!

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On our last day at Disney the boys went to Downtown Disney to Ridemakerz where they got to design and build their own RC cars.  They had worked hard for months to earn the money and said it was well worth it!  They blew the rest of their money at the Lego store!

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On Friday morning we got up early and loaded the cars.  After dropping Chris at the airport we drove down to San Diego for a tour of the USS Midway.  Rick was stationed on board the ship for a couple of months early on during his time in the Navy.  That made it extra special for the boys to get to see it.

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A stop at In-N-Out was a necessity before getting on the road again!  Paige kept saying, “mmmmm this is a good cheeseburger!”  Yes it was!

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We wanted to get as far north on Friday as possible to make Saturday as short of a day as possible.  By 10:00 we were in beautiful  dumpy um, functional, Lost Hills California.  I was The kids were loosing it so we pulled into a nice little functional motel.  Despite telling them there were five of us they only saw fit to provide beds for four of us!  So after piling up the comforters and putting clean sheets over them I begrudgingly put Paige on the floor while praying there were no bed bugs or anything else that might crawl all over her!  The rest of us collapsed in our clothes.  I’d like to say we slept, but well, that would be an overstatement.  The ice machine was right outside our door and, of course, people felt the irresistible urge to get ice at all hours of the night!  The air conditioner rattled, hummed, stopped and started again until I came up with this ingenious idea to make it stop.

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I considered putting an ‘out of order’ sign on the ice maker but didn’t have the necessary supplies to do it.  We finally pulled in to our driveway at 9pm on Saturday.  Everyone was exhausted but SO glad to be home.  It was a great trip and one the kids will remember for many years to come – especially the “steeewpiid deeesk.”  (you’ll have to ask them about that!