Spring Break, woo-hoo!

This post has been a little overdue.  I've kind of been dreading it because I knew it would take for ever.  Anyway, here goes...

Saturday April 9th, we depart from Utah in a blizzard.

Later that afternoon we arrive in New Port Beach Calif.  Wow, this is beautiful.  I miss the sun, and the beaches in Calif. (this is the view off the balcony of the hotel) (Gorgeous!)

Saturday night we did some shopping, then some swimming, then took showers and got some shut-eye.

Sunday we found the local ward meeting house and attended church (with about 20 other visiting families, it was crazy.)  After church we walked around the New Port Coast Temple, which happened to be right across the street from the church.

My angels

 Our Eternal Family

 

Lego Land

So we told the kids we would be going to the beach.  They were slightly more excited to find out that we would actually be going to Legoland.  They had a lot of fun!

There were little mini scenes of Star Wars...

And San Francisco...

And a few other cities.  I didn't get pictures of them all.

The kids found a few Harry Potter lego statues

There were a few different rides that were "lego" theme, and made to look like legos



Disneyland

Here's the buzz light year shooting ride.  Joseph was excited to wear his Buzz costume all day long.  The costume was very cute, but made for some interesting potty breaks.

Here's our princess in front of the castle

Teacups!

We barely all fit in the cup, and we barely escaped barfing.

Finding Nemo submarine dive

Huck fin island

Thunder Mountain Railroad

(Isabel's fav.)

Toon Town

After toon town we headed over to the castle area to watch the fire works.  We found a really great spot on the side of the castle where the lights were right over our heads.  It was awesome!

After fire works we got in a few more rides.  Grand Prix...

And here we are with Mickey himself.  As we were leaving the park I spotted him.  There was barely any line so we waited for a photo.  This is the only picture we have with any of the Disney characters because the lines to see them are horrendous!!!

California Adventure

Third day of theme parks, and we've almost made it out alive. 

First thing inside the park we decide we better hit the water ride while the line was not Ginormous.  Who cares that the sun was hiding and the wind was blowing.  (notice Reece's right side, a few of us got soaked!) 

Silly Symphony swings, they were awesome! 

(I would upload the video, but someone was screaming for fear of her life through the whole ride.)

One of Joe's favorite rides was this silly little merry go round.

I have never been to Disneyland, where I didn't wait in line for less then 20 min.  This trip was the exception.  The only ride we waited for more then 15 min. was this Toy story ride.  Almost one hour exactly.  Little Joseph was tired of waiting and totally crashed.  My mom and I took turns holding the poor boy.

The ride is a 3-D shooting game, here's my cool kids

 It was a long day, but we didn't want to waste any time.  We headed back over to Disneyland at about 9p.m. to catch the fireworks again.  Then a few more rides for one last time.

Had to throw this one in...

one of the last rides, Joseph was over tired, and couldn't bare to see another pirate.

 Thanks to my parents we were able to share their beautiful time share in New Port, and they helped us at Disney to take care of, and for once, outnumber the little people.  It was a lot of fun, and hopefully the kids will remember the good times!

Bay Area

We're goin' back to Cali....

Thursday morning we headed up to Hayward for a visit with the Blackwells.  On the way up, we stopped for a visit with the Whermeisters (Marc, Julie, and Luke)  It was such a nice visit, but too short.

We got to Hayward about 8 p.m. and were so pleased to be able to visit for a few days.  We got to see lots of family, but I forgot to pull my camera out.  Probably kinda burnt out from the past few days.

One time I did have my camera was for this:

Reece recognized someone he knew from high school football.  He is a firefighter, and offered for the kids to play around on the truck.  They thought that was pretty cool!

  I also got a few pictures when we went to the park.  Actually I think Reece did.

We were all sad when it came time to leave.  We had to get back to our busy lives.  Work for Reece, school for the kids, and soap opera's and Bon-bon's for me :) 

We left Sunday morning and got home Sunday night.  It was a long 12 hours, but we made it and we recovered.  The kids (especially Joseph) kept asking why we couldn't stay.  Hopefully we can do it again soon. 

...K, that's it.  I did it.  Good job me :)