Family Vacation; Day 3!

Monday, October 31, 2011

Instead of braving the crown at Disneyland on Halloween, we decided to use today to visit the USS Midway.  It's an aircraft carrier in the San Diego area that you can walk through.  You wear headphones and listen to the self guided tour.  Each station had two different sets of numbers: The boring grown up ones, and the more interesting kids ones.  (Guess which ones I was listening to?)

These are all the kids in the brig. 

Then everyone took turns climbing into the cockpits of some cool airplanes to try them out!

  

Lee wanted to try out the flight simulator, so he took Tory with him.  We could watch them on the video monitor while they were "flying".   

They had this GIGANTIC statue at the dock...It made me think of Grandma and Grandpa McPhie! 

This is a "Top Gun" plane!  I thought it was cool...But the kids were all done by this point!  :D  Apparently, a little bit of the "Big Boat" goes a long way!

As a side note:  It was a good thing Heather came along.  Aside from the fact that she is AWESOME, and super fun to be around, she also has a smart phone.  So as we're driving around aimlessly thinking, "Hmm...Denny's sounds yummy!" she would pull it up on her phone and lead us there.  Sweet.

Family Vacation, Day 1...and 2!

Saturday; October 29, 2011

(and a little bit of Friday night!)

Our brilliant master plan was to leave for California at about 1:00 AM and drive straight through the night.  Lee had the whole day off Friday, so the car was packed and ready to go, and then he went to bed at 5:00 so he'd be pretty well rested for the drive.  Plans being what they are, that's not what happened!  Lee came downstairs at 7:30 saying he couldn't sleep!  We debated what to do for a while, and then we just decided to leave then.  So we pulled out of the driveway around 9:00 PM!  It took a bit of time, but eventually, everyone fell asleep...Except Lee, of course!

 Here are Spencer and Michael sharing a neck pillow.  Seems like that would negate it's usefulness, wouldn't you say?

We got to our condo at about 7:30 AM...A bit early, since we weren't supposed to check in until 4:00 PM!  But they gave us a "guest" key, which would get us in to the pool and everything else BUT a room.  It was nice of them, considering we were so early, but sadly, the only thing we really wanted (well, our sleepy dad wanted!) was a bed in an actual room!

Obviously we had some time to kill.  But conveniently, this was the view from our (eventual!) room:

 Yes.  Condo, road, parking lot, beach.  We walked down our side of the street to a bridge, crossed the road, and there we were.  After breakfast, we figured since we can't go to sleep, we'd better just hit the beach.  It was nice, watching them all get soaked.  (In their clothes, because we hadn't planned far enough ahead to think to pull swimsuits out of the suitcases!)  Spencer and Michael had a grand time throwing rock in the ocean, and finding sticks, to use as wands to "magic" the ocean.  (I'm not sure what they were trying to accomplish!)  The older kids loved running from the waves.


After everyone had their fill of the freezing ocean water, we decided to head back over to the condo.  We decided to rinse off in the showers by the pool, and swim in some warmer water for a while.  At least the pool had some lounge chairs, and Lee slept off and on for a couple of hours.  We dried off and changed into regular clothes and then headed to the store to pick up some groceries.


Finally, we got our room key.  We all headed up, changed, had some dinner, and then we put ourselves all to bed early.


Here's the sunset from our balcony:

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Here are a few shots from Day One at Disneyland!

There were pumpkins everywhere...!

And characters from afar...

We couldn't miss Captain EO...I remember the first time I went there as a kid this was new!  (Heather got a (purple?) Captain EO shirt on that first trip...)  My kids are pretty big Michael Jackson fans, so this was a hit!

Us waiting at the Captain EO "ride".  Michael spent part of the day complaining about an earache...luckily, it went away and we didn't have to have him checked out!

The Haunted Mansion was sporting it's "Nightmare Before Christmas" theme!  I hadn't seen that before, and it was fun to see bits from the movie throughout the mansion!

Who has two thumbs and LOVES Splash Mountain?  This guy!

Some pictures from one of MY favorite parts of Disneyland:

The Parades!

Mickey is actually playing the drums!

Sydney and I decided that if you are a dancer in the parade, and you don't get assigned to a princess float, you are kind of screwed in the costume department!  (I especially like the party hats on these ladies derrieres!)

Mardi Gras masks?  Peacocks?  Who can tell!?

I love that Mary Poppins and Bert were riding their Carousel horses in the parade!

At California Adventure some of took pictures with our favorite characters!

There was only one ride in both parks that not everyone could go on.  Michael was just a teeny bit too short to ride California Screaming!

So while Heather and I went on California Screaming, Lee took the rest of the kids on King Triton's Carousel!

The McAlister Family: Collect the whole Series!

We left the park, and headed out for our 30 minute drive back to our condo!  It was a 2-bedroom condo with a sleeper sofa that slept another two.  Lee and I took one room, Heather shared the other room with Syd, and the other 4 kids took turns on the sleeper sofa and sleeping bags.

Providence Hall Christmas Program!

This year the school held a Christmas Program!  I haven't had a school put one of those on, just the choir.  But as part of their Music grade, each child had to participate and sing two songs with their class/grade in the program.  


Monday the 5th was Kindergarten- 2nd Grade.  The gym was FULL of parents!  The young kids filed into the gym and climbed up on the bleachers, and the program began.  Spencer is great about learning the words and really singing out.  Michael was great about making sure I could see him...He would stand up taller when the boy in front of him would start to block him out.  It was really fun to see them up there!  (It was a little loud in there...I'm not sure where I was hearing more noise...Up on the bleachers where the kids were, or in the audience where the grown-ups were!)  I promise, I took pictures, but they have mysteriously vanished from my camera...And been replaced by some that I'm quite sure I didn't take!  :D  Kids.  Gotta love them!


The next night, Tuesday the 6th, it was the 3rd Grade-5th Grade program. That means that Megan and Tory were up.  I love to watch Megan's smile while she sings...She loves music and loves being up in front of people!  Tory will "perform" just for me...At one point, he and his friend Kyle started dancing (NOT choreographed, just those two being kind of silly!) and he was looking at me to make sure I was seeing him be so funny!  I do have pictures from their program:

And thanks for standing close enough to each other that I could get you both in the same shot...Way to think of me!  :D

Trying to catch up...

It's been a season of fun things that I need to catch you all up on.  I mean, I took a whole trip to Disneyland and didn't post even once about that, for crying out loud!  But this is not a post to catch you up.  I figure if I wait until I have the time to sit and do all those posts, it will be summer again!  So this is just a right now post.  :D 


We have been spending the day after Thanksgiving shopping now for as many years as I've known Lee!  It used to be a big thing that Anna did with Kendra, who was 12 at the time.  They would go through the ads on Thanksgiving, make a list, and then hit the stores early in the morning to score the "Free" items!  And Lee always tagged along! (Hey...back then, the promise of a tasty breakfast could get him every time!)  I've never been a huge shopper, but I do love people...especially family...and tradition, so there you have it.  It just stuck.  We only hit malls and regular stores at obscene hours the first few years.  For most of the 15 years, we've been grabbing Chick-Fil-A (Chicken Minis...Yummers!) and heading up the outlet stores at Park City.  (After all these years, I'm still not convinced of the deals, but it is nice to find all those stores all in one trip!  And let's not forget about the Mrs. Field's Cookie store!) 


This year was no exception...We met up with Anna and Ryan, and Ma and Pa McAlister, and we shopped.  Chad and Kendra were absent this year...They are excused because of her ready-to-burst belly, but next year, no excuses!  We missed them.  Going from store to store, laughing, and just enjoying adult time.  It's a nice break...we rarely get together without all our kids.  We sure do adore those cute little ones...But sometimes it's nice to have the chance to miss them just a little!  ;D!


We spent the Saturday after Thanksgiving putting out all our Christmas.  I love how the house looks all decked out.  That "Oh, I forgot about THIS decoration!" feeling, looking around at the different ornaments and decorations the kids have made for me over the years...It's just NICE!  I'm just delighted the season is here.  A chance to think of all the people I'm thankful for and find a little something special that will make their eyes light up, even just a little bit.

Michael's Drawing...

Michael loves to draw.  When we started sending letters to Elder Uncle Cody, Michael would draw pictures to send.  I frequently will draw arrows on his pictures and he'll tell me what to call each thing/person in the picture.

I have labeled this picture according to Michael's specifications.

Sydney's Fake Birthday!

At midnight tonight, we are leaving for Disneyland!!  Sydney's birthday, as I have already mentioned, is on Wednesday.  She turns 13.  (Apparently, it isn't possible to cancel birthdays.  Who knew?)


Most of the things my big girl wanted were things for her bedroom.  As Lee and I were shopping, we had this fun idea.  Since he and I would both be home while the kids were at school on Friday, we should try to finish up her room while she was gone!  We had already painted, and then we picked up some fun accessories while we were birthday shopping.  Then this morning, we dropped the kids off at school and got to work.  (I wish I had taken before pictures...The difference is pretty staggering.  But we had just painted, and hadn't even moved the furniture back into place.  It was all sitting "hugged" to the middle of the room when she left for school!)


After I picked her up, I told her we needed to go down to her room and gather the stuff she would want to "play" with in the car:  DS, iPod, that kind of stuff.  She had a couple of math pages to do, and some reading for the week we are missing, and I told her that I'd help her gather so she could hurry up and get to work.


The bedding, curtains, canopy, and wall "stickers" she got for Christmas last year, but we bought the shelves, the colored metal work pieces, the dry erase board, the desk, and the blue lamp.

This is the view as you walk in the door...

And looking to the left as you enter...

Then turning around to look back at the door.

Dad was waiting inside to take pictures when she walked in! 

 She kept noticing new stuff.  "A desk!"  "Look...A lamp!"  It was so funny.  She was literally jumping up and down!

This is the new dry erase board.  (She uses small ones all the time for her own little "To Do" lists!)  I fell in love with this bigger, wall mounted version! 

Sydney has 7 of these porcelain princess dolls that she's had for a LONG time.  She didn't want to get rid of them when we moved, but she was worried that they were too "Little Kid" for her new room.  I told her we just needed to get her some shelves, so they'd be up for display.  So she's been asking me for shelves for 3 year now...Better late than never, right?

Cinderella is (and always has been!) her favorite princess.  (Even when she was little, and I tried to convince her that Belle was the best.  Her determined little toddler mind would not be changed from loving this shoe-losing blond!)

We decided that she deserved a whole shelf just for her!

 Sydney took this picture of herself on her camera.  I think she's happy with her room.

What do you think?