On to the polar express...

The girls made a dent in their suckers on our 6 hour drive.

Welcome to Bearizona.

On the polar express.

Our super fun chef.

Santa on the polar express.

Snow angels.

Ridge thinking about tasting snow.

He'll try anything.

Ridge's reaction.

Our snowman with features made from fruit loops from the hotel continental breakfast.

We left California behind, hoping to leave the rain with it. Too bad for us, the storm is chasing us. It rained like crazy for 5/6 hours on our drive. It stopped for one glorious hour, then we came around a bend and there it was, waiting for us. What can you do? We went to Bearizona. It is a drive through zoo featuring bison, wolves, dall sheep, mountain goats, and black bear. It was really cool. The wolves came right up to the front of the car. We noticed our brakes grinding on our way to Bearizona so when we went to a gas station on the way back to the hotel we had the mechanics there take a look at it. They told us the brake pads were completely gone and the brakes were rubbing on the rotor. A very nice lady found me and the girls a place to sit, gave us hot chocolate, and offered us cake (which immediately set Katelyn off on "I'm hungry). Rusty called the rental car company and they brought us a new car. It is significantly smaller but is all wheel drive. The polar express was great. We boarded the train in the poring rain. Once we got on it was toasty warm. We were served hot chocolate and a cookie while we listened to the story of the polar express. We made our way on the train to the North Pole where Santa and an elf were waving to us. When we turned around to head back to the depot Santa was gone. We sang Christmas carols, led by a hilariously lanky, uncoordinated, off key "chef" who kept pointing wildly at the kids to involve them in his polar express choir. The mystery of the missing Santa was solved when he burst through the door of the train car and greeted all the children and gave them a bell. When we got back to the depot we were excited to find 2 inches of fresh snow. The girls had a heyday. They went crazy with a snowball fight, a mini snowman, snow angels, and snow tasting. Katelyn kept grabbing snow and running after Kyleigh screaming, "hey KyKy I've got something for you." We had to pull Katelyn from the snow kicking and screaming. She was sure the snow would be melted by morning. She woke up at about 6 a.m. the next morning and ran to the window. It had snowed about 6 more inches during the night. It took a lot of talking to convince her she could sleep for a few more hours and play in the snow when she woke up. We played for about an hour and a half before we couldn't stand the cold anymore. We are so glad we got a little bit of snow time. There is a 0% chance of snow in Silver City until January 8th. No white Christmas for us. Even though we waited to leave, the all-wheel drive car was helpful on the roads for the first half hour. Then the roads cleared and we had smooth sailing to Silver City, a 6.5 hour drive. We arrived in Silver at about 6 p.m. on the 23rd. We are excited to spend time with everyone.

Disneyland Days 5 and 6.

Entering the park on the first day (no rain jackets on Day 1).

Katelyn's first glance at the Disneyland magic.

Our first ride, Peter Pan.

Me and Ridge on the carousel.

Playing with Gpa.

Playing with GG.

We played till we couldn't play one second longer.

We only saw one princess, Jasmine.

Pluto and the gang.

Daddy and Ridge in 3-D glasses, about to shoot targets on the toy story ride.

It's a bug's world 3-D glasses.

Our drawings of Mickey Mouse after our lesson in the animation studio.

The hotel only had 2 dryers so Rusty made do.

Donald and Daisy together.

Chip (or Dale) and the girls.

Minnie and the girls.

Minnie got a kiss from our prince.

Everyone with the big guy himself.

We took it easy on Day 5. Still a little water logged from the day before. I knew there was a reason we got the 6 day pass. We watched it's a bugs world again, so Dad could see it. We then went back to the animation studio with the intention of talking with Crush and learning to draw in the animation studio again. We got sidetracked by the myriad of characters that we were able to visit with. Donald, Daisy, Mickey, Minnie, Chip, Dale, and Goofy were all available for autographs and pictures. The girls had a great time and were so excited to get more signatures in their autograph books. We also did some shopping with Mom so she could get a few things before we left. One of the things she got were some suckers for the girls. They have been eyeing these suckers since the day we got here. They are bigger than their heads. GG got one for each of them. It will probably take weeks to eat them. It conjurs up memories of the fist sized jaw breakers we used to get at West Yellowstone. We took Mom and Dad to the airport and ordered pizza to the hotel for dinner.



Day six was our last hurrah. We took a survey and had a top one and two ride that each of us wanted to go on for our last day. We still had our "magic morning" so we got into the park at 7 a.m. We hit our first and second choice rides more than once plus a few extras and had a leisurely lunch before getting back to the hotel by 4:30. We had a few glorious hours of no rain. The girls finished spending all of the money they brought to spend. Over the course of the week Kyleigh bought Disney Christmas silly bands, a disney build a bear outfit, a whale necklace, and a tinkerbell polly pocket like set. Katelyn bought a duck necklace, a tinkerbell doll, and a Mickey safari build a bear outfit. We bought the girls some princess Christmas tree ornaments and Ridge a buzz lightyear ornament. We waved good-bye to the park on our way out and talked about our next trip to Disneyland. We decided we will have to go back in about 3 years so Ridge will be 40 inches tall. Here's to three years from now!

Disneyland days 3 and 4.

Day three at Disneyland was Gpa's birthday. We started our day by visiting city hall where Dad got a birthday pin and a call on the special phone from Goofy wishing him a happy birthday. We all got celebrate pins to go along with Grandpa's birthday pin. Our ride highlights of the day were Indiana Jones and Space Mountain. Everybody's favorite was Space Mountain, especially Grandpa's. We also went to toon town. Kyleigh loves to stop at all of the shops. She looks at everything and checks all of the prices to see how she can best spend her money. Katelyn also likes to look in the shops, but she goes straight to the candy and starts telling us she is hungry (but not for the granola bars, pretzels, or string cheese that we brought with us). We came back early on Day three and went out to dinner at Outback steakhouse for Gpa's birthday. Our plan was to go back at night, but we decided to go to bed early and get a jump on the next day.

Day four has been the wettest and the most ride productive day yet. We had a schedule for California Adventures but the short lines didn't require a schedule. We got every ride we wanted to get in, most of them more than once. We had two big surprises today. One was Kyleigh's favorite ride of the day, California Screamin. The second was Katelyn's favorite ride, the Tower of Terror. Don't forget that our first day Katelyn almost backed out of Peter Pan because she was scared. Mom thought we were crazy to let them go on those rides. Then she thought our kids were even more crazy because they wanted to do them again. We love Soarin over California, Turtle talk with crush, animation studio (where you learn to draw Disney Characters), and it's a bug's world (3-D video). The group favorite was the 3-D toy story ride. We got to throw pies, darts, and tennis balls at targets, rings on aliens, and break plates. We thought we might want to do that one again, but we didn't want to wait 40+ minutes. It was one of the lines that never relented. Gpa got sick today and went back to the hotel in the afternoon. The rest of us went to the World of Color show. The show was fabulous for what we could see of it. The seating situation leaves a lot to be desired. We could do without all of the record breaking rains, but then we would have to deal with long lines. We came back to our room drenched through and through. It took every space in the room plus a little ingenuity to get our clothes dry (there are only two dryers for guests in the hotel.) It's OK though, because we are in the happiest place on earth!

Disneyland vacation day 2.

SURPRISE! GG and Gpa surprised me and the girls this morning. They showed up at Disneyland. The original plan was to meet them here but they told us they couldn't come. Of course we were very dissapointed. Rusty has known for awhile. Rusty told me to answer the door when someone knocked on our hotel room. I was still in bed so I told him he needed to get it. Then Mom and Dad walked in. YEAH!!! I was so excited. My mom had told me before that Dad was the one who didn't really want to go to Disneyland. He has never been. I spent the whole first day thinking how much he would love it. After one day he is a new fan. How could you not be?

We got rained out in the morning. Before the rain started we walked on to Pirates of the Caribean (Mom and Dad's first ride and what a ride it is!), the haunted mansion, winnie the pooh ride, and splash mountain. We also got our first character pictures with Pooh, Eyore, and Tigger. Then it started raining and never stopped. Our timing wasn't the best. We went on splash mountain just before it started to rain and Katelyn got soaked. We bought rain gear and tried to continue on but we were already wet so the cold seeped in and got to the kids. We headed back in the early afternoon to regroup. We warmed up, dryed our clothes, took naps, ate lunch, geared up in lots of layers and rain gear, and went back to the park at about 5:00. It was extremely rainy and pretty cold but the kids were troopers and their toughness paid off big. We pretty much walked onto every ride in tomorrowland, except space mountain (which we got fast passes for). We even waited less than 10 minutes for finding nemo. We rode astroblasters (toy story ride where you have guns to shoot the targets and get points) three times and didn't wait for any of them. We finished the night with it's a small world and Kyleigh fell asleep in the middle of the ride. Now that is tired. By the time we got back to the hotel we were soaked, tired, and happy. We are now well rested and ready for day 3!

Disneyland vacation day 1.

We finally made it to Disneyland. We thought it was going to be a rough ride. Ridge has been teething and throwing back arching, uncontrollable screaming tantrums. Not the type of behavior you want to deal with on a five hour flight. Needless to say we were nervous. We walked up to our airline to check in and they informed us the first leg of flight was delayed. Stress level increasing. They then told us that they had rerouted us with a different airline and our flight would now be direct to LA. They helped us with our bags and got us situated with the new airline. We had a great flight and arrived just a little earlier than anticipated. Once we got our rental car we were off. Our new GPS worked like a charm. It is our new best friend and we are trying to come up with a winner of a name for such a little gem. Any ideas? We had breakfast on Disney Way at an IHOP. Once full and changed out of pajamas we thought we would ask our hotel if we could park in their lot, even though it was too early to check in. They said sure and we have a room ready if we wanted to check in. We got a room on the seventh floor so it has a big arched ceiling and sky lights. We unpacked the car and made the walk to DISNEYLAND! We decided to make Peter Pan our very first ride. As we got closer Katelyn started getting nervous and didn't want to go on the ride. We feared she might have a meltdown when we got to the front. She didn't and came off that ride a new woman. We made our way around most of Fantasyland and came back for a much needed nap. We ordered pizza for dinner and headed back out for more fun. We went for some food supplies and came back to bed. The kids are crashed and we can't wait for tomorrow.

Best things about the day...
-Katelyn going from being scared over Peter Pan to riding the thunder mountain railroad (rollercoaster) three times.
-Kyleigh telling us "this is so much better than I thought." (with a look of amazement/bliss)
-Ridge on it's a small world. He couldn't figure out what he wanted to look at. He kept looking back and forth as fast as he could take it all in.

A new water table.

My two dollar garage sale purchase for endless afternoon fun water table.

Rusty pulled out his world cup medals. The people at work have been asking to see them for a few years. The kids found them on the counter and thought they would be fun to play with. How many kids get to play with Daddy's world cup medal?

Thanksgiving 2010

This Thanksgiving was all about good food and good friends. We ate dinner at the Petersons for the second year. Dawn went all out on fabulous decor for the feast. She even went so far as to buy matching bibs for Ridge and Aliya. Don't they look so cute! We had a pre-thanksgiving craft day where we weaved placemats and made pilgrim hats. We ate dinner around 1:30 on Thanksgiving Day. After dinner Holly, Dawn, and Rusty (yes, you read that right) studied the ads and made plans for their big black Friday shopping trip. The rest of us non-psycho shoppers ate pie and played in the yard. In the evening we went to the movies. Dawn, Jeff, Holly, and Mike went to Harry Potter and Rusty and I went with all of the kids to Tangled. Two thumbs up by us for Tangled. You know a movie is good when the adults enjoy it as much as the kids. At the end of the day everybody went to bed.....except the psycho shoppers. Holly, Rusty and Dawn left to shop at 11:00 p.m. and came home at 11:30 a.m. There is a story behind this shopping trip. Holly has begged me to go shopping on black Friday with her for many, many years. I have not budged. It sounds like absolute torture. Last year Rusty told Holly he would go with her next year. I said that was fine, Mike and I would sit around and eat cranberry muffins and chex mix. He stayed true to his word and is an official black Friday shopper. He has heard plenty about it at work. I'm just glad he did most of the Christmas shopping for the kids and I don't have to. Rusty stayed up the next day and we took the girls to the beach. By bedtime he was falling asleep while trying to read the girls a story. We had a great Thanksgiving and a great four day weekend. Big thanks to the Petersons for another fun Thanksgiving.

Katelyn turns four!

I know I say it all the time, but they really are getiing too big too fast. Katelyn is officially the same age that Kyleigh was when we moved to Hawaii. Since there is the same age difference, Ridge is as old as Katelyn was when we moved. Crazy!

Katelyn turned four on November 18th and we had an all day party. We started the day with pancake men. We then got Katelyn all dressed up for her big day. The Giles family gave her a new skirt for her birthday. Wendi said she saw the skirt and thought of Katelyn. It is so our little Kate-Kate. She LOVES it. We even had a matching hairbow and necklace to complete her outfit. Daddy took Katelyn to work with him in the morning to be his birthday assistant. At lunch she went out to Keoki's with Daddy and Uncle Mikey. Rusty said everyone was smiling and staring as she walked in and half of the people stopped them to talk to her. Her big request for lunch was hula pie, which was granted. Kyleigh had even reminded me to bring a shirt to put over her white shirt so it didn't get stained with the chocolate sauce. After lunch we picked her up and headed to Claire's so she could pick out some birthday bling. We also went to the humane society and played with the puppies and kitties.

Her party this year was a farm animal party. A few months ago I put some things in a joint garage sale with a few other ladies. Katelyn had a hard time parting with everything in the pile. As a compromise I let her keep the duck cake pan that we had from her first birthday. Ever since then she has been planning her duck cake for her next birthday. When it came time to make the cake I went down to get the pan and couldn't find it anywhere. She was set on a duck cake so we had to improvise. Rusty grabbed a little rubber duck toy, Kyleigh held the flashlight, and I traced our duck projection. It worked great. I made the cake and used our stencil to cut out the duck. I had some cake left over so I made water for our duck. We also had pig and cow ice cream sandwiches. I had found a cute set of ice cream sandwich molds the week before at a garage sale (perfect timing). Of course Katelyn wanted pizza again so we challenged everyone to make a pizza farm animal. The results were less impressive than last years smiley face pizzas, but they still tasted good.

Her gifts were so fun this year. She opened each one and wanted to play with them right away. Kyleigh was so sweet and insisted on giving her a build a bear gift certificate. Kyleigh got one for her birthday and had so much fun picking clothes off the website that she wanted to give Katelyn one. You need about $20.00 to get an outfit for your bear. She was willing to pay the whole amount from her allowance, but I told her we could split it to help her out. Because you buy it online you don't acutally get a card so she made a card to wrap up for Katelyn. She was so excited to give it to her and it was so cute.

We gave Katelyn a scooter. She has been scooting around the house ever since. The next morning she was scootering around when we called her in for breakfast. She scootered into the dining room and carefully parked her scooter. It took awhile. We asked her to move over a chair. She unparked her scooter, scooted the 1 1/2 feet and reparked her scooter. It was very funny.

She went to bed on November 18th a happy four year old.
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