It's been a month

Where is time going? It's almost Christmas according to Cassidy. Who can blame her for thinking that? Costco has had their Christmasy stuff out for a couple months, the mall is all decked out and of course Starbucks has their yummy festive lattes out. I have even got some Christmas presents for the girls!!! I just love this time of year. There's so much anticipation. But I just have to get through report cards. Blech. I hate those things. Love my job, love my kids but can't stand doing report cards. Here are some random hotel pictures leftover from our summer road trip:

I think I'm done sharing California pictures. Ask me to see our Shutterfly books and you can see more. Don't tell Dan but I'm already starting to plan our next summer's road trip. I want to do the Oregon Coast again. Seaside seriously rocks! I feel so relaxed there. I buy my fancy $9 bottle of wine and crack it open when all 3 dudes have fallen asleep. Dan and I open up the sliding door and just hang out with the lovely sea breeze floating in while we chill. But seriously, don't tell Dan.

Lunch with the Princesses

I seem to be averaging 1 post a month. Bad me, I know. When the girls are awake I'm busy and when they're in bed I'm just spent. I sit like a lump and watch t.v. So here are some random California pictures. It's only been a couple months since we've been but I want to go back!!! Growing up I wanted to move there. Now Olivia wants to move there.

Thanks to Avo and Pa we went to the Disney Princess lunch. I booked it a couple weeks before we went and chose the first seating for lunch. We were told to show up 15 minutes before our reservations and when we did there were also a lot of people there too. We got a pager and when our pager went off we were to go down the staircase where we would meet Ariel. Ariel is in the green dress below. She greets us and the girls get to take pictures with her. There was also a professional photographer there too. He tried to sell his picture for over $30! It was a terrible picture.

We sit at the table and order our food. At some point during our main meal a trumpet sounds and we wait with anticipation to see which of the princesses it will be. We got to see the 4 main princesses: Cinderella, Arora (Sleeping Beauty), Snow White and Belle. They would stop at a table, chat, sign autograph books and take pictures. We were about the 3rd table they would see. I have to say I was pretty excited.All the little girls in the restaurant are dressed up  in their Disney princess gear. And I'm wondering how come I don't have a Disney princess dress?! Surely I should have one right? (I'm checking ebay after I finish this.) And why the hell didn't I put some makeup on? And comb my hair.  These princesses are good. They know what to say and they have the fanciest signatures. Their faces must hurt from all the smiling though.

 Cassidy loves Ariel and was super excited to meet her!!!

 Alexis loves Cinderella. Look how sensible she is wearing her Nike runners though. This was our last day in Disneyland/California Adventure so we hit it hard. Olivia will not wear princess dresses b/c they are too itchy. I did manage to get her to wear a Sophia dress though.

 Cassidy hugging Belle!

 Not only did we get mini-cupcakes for dessert but the little girl across from us had a birthday cake and offered us some too!

The food wasn't bad but you definitely don't go for the food. It is quite the experience. Cassidy wants to go back.

Sea World

We went to California a month ago but here I am still posting pictures! The beginning of this school year has been busy. You'd think I'd have things down pat by now but nope. I like to make things hard on myself and I've been doing new things in my class. Like my shape of the day cards. I had some decent ones but they weren't pretty. Now I've got a really pretty light blue set to match my light blue walls. My calendar pieces were pretty old. I have been teaching over ten years!!! Crazy. So I made some new ones. So back to California...we bought the So Cal City Pass from Costco and it included a day at SeaWorld. We drove an hour and a half from Anaheim to San Diego. The drive was actually not too bad. We get to SeaWorld and we're given the choice between normal parking and "premium" parking for double the money. You know where we parked. We were so close to the premium parking it would have been so silly to pay extra. SeaWorld is so big- it was so hard to figure out where to start first! The girls wanted to do the roller coasters first but the dolphin & killer whale shows were only at certain times so we decided to do those first:

Okay, so I don't believe in keeping whales in captivity and I feel kinda guilty posting these photos. They are such beautiful creatures, both dolphins and killer whales, and they deserve to be in the wide open sea. Ugh....I'm a hypocrite.

There was a lot to SeaWorld. There was so much for the girls to do. Here is some of what we did:

 We found a bunny around a pond. The ducks were everywhere!

 The girls got to touch the Manta Rays! They were really soft & slimy. One big guy came up and splashed Cassidy and boy was she ticked off! She said "I don't like the Manta Rays" and then she kept bringing up how the Manta had splashed her. On purpose.

 This is one of the scarier rides I've been on. One of those towers is actually an elevator. You come to this black tunnel and there's scary music. You just don't know what's going to happen. Then you start to go up- on a tilt! The doors open at the top and you immediately go wooshing around the track again! I got completely soaked to the bone. I spent the rest of the day just damp. The girls wanted to go again but I refused. We went on the Manta Ray roller coaster instead. Here's the picture that SeaWorld was trying to sell for $15. We took a picture of the picture instead. Check out Olivia's face!! And Lexie looks so little! I was always turning around asking her to jiggle her restraint, asking the attendant to double check both girls.

 

 Feeding the seals. Seals are Cassidy's favourite animal. She keeps insisting that she'll have a seal as a pet.

 

Checking out the penguins.

We didn't get to see a lot of SeaWorld. There is just so much there. The day was actually quite hot and we all got a little sunburned. Funny story- we had left a gift shop and were trying to figure out where to go when Cassidy runs back into the shop and runs out with some pj's!!! "Buy these for me!" she says. We don't normally do that but in this case they were cute pj's so we bought them. They have Shamu on them but she kept calling them her Shampoo pj's.

Some Disneyland Pictures

Oh my word my house is a mess, my list of school to do is miles long and my list of home to do is even longer. There are just not enough hours in the day. I want to tell you about my Disney trip. In fact, I'm DYING to tell you. It was just so fun!!! But my kitchen is calling and it's almost dress up time for the girls so I'll just show you a couple pictures:

 First ride we went on in Disneyland: Finding Nemo's Submarine. I totally remember this as Captain Nemo's Submarine when I last went.

 Autopia

 Dumbo

 Orbitor

 Mad Tea Party

Tarzan's Treehouse. I'm sure it was called Swiss Family Robinson when I went last. The memories just flowed for me. This was my fourth trip to Disney.

California Road Trip-Part 1

Day 1- After months of researching and planning we left for our big road trip around 6am. Dan was all "We only need 20 minutes to get ready, we'll leave by 5:20" Ha! Even with the car packed up it took us an hour to get out the door. We actually made really good time and we blew past Portland around noon. I have to say the girls were really good and didn't complain at all that first day. So we made it to our favourite outlets at Woodburn by 12:30 and were able to get some shopping in. There was even a Disney Store there!!! After going to our favourite stores we headed to our final destination of the day- Roseburg, Oregon. We pull into the hotel parking lot and the girls were so excited! They got straight into their bathing suits and spent the next couple hours in the pool. We stayed in the Holiday Inn Express and they were in such a beautiful spot. Every hotel room looked out on the Umpqua River and they had  nice grassy lawn facing the river. The pool was indoors but they had a Jacuzzi outside! Luckily my girls love dipping their feet into the Jacuzzi and I was able to have nice long soaks in there. The hotel room itself was pretty small for our family of 5 but it was good for the night. Alexis and Cassidy shared a bed and Olivia was on the floor on a blow up mattress I got at Superstore for $8!

 Here is a bit of the view from the balcony of our room.

Below Cassidy is the outdoor Jacuzzi.

 

 

 

 



Day 2- We had breakfast at the hotel and we were off by 7:49am. Dan didn't need to go to the gym b/c he was doing so much packing and unpacking of the van! So this day we veered off the I-5 a bit and headed over towards San Jose. We love our Embassy Suites in Tigard (Portland) so much we thought it would be nice to stay in one along our way. After driving through a lot of farmland we reached Milpitas. I made it in time for happy hour. At the Embassy Suites they have a manager's reception where they serve free drinks and appies. It's pretty basic but it's good enough for me. I got my glass of red wine and some munchies. The girls of course got into their bathing suits and we went to the pool while Dan got food. The hotel was so busy and popular that they had a security guard at the pool asking which room you were in and then checking on a list to see if you were correct. It was a beautiful pool.

 See for yourself:

So after swimming and dinner, Dan and I made the decision to go to a mall called the Great Mall. We totally paid for that decision! The girls were not happy to go but it had a Nike and Dan HAD to check it out. We checked out a few stores but the mall was pretty big and we weren't able to check out much. Luckily they were pretty tired so that when we put them to bed they were out pretty fast. We closed the door to our living room and then Dan and I realized OMG we're on our own! That was  a big bonus of staying at an Embassy Suites- the separate room. Next morning we set the alarm for 6am and went down to have a big breakfast before heading out on the road. Here are some pictures from our stay in Milpitas:

 The atrium was really pretty and had ponds with Koi in them.

 Enjoying happy hour together. They had juice for the kids and a popcorn machine.

For some reason Cassidy didn't want her picture taken. This happened throughout the whole trip!

Breakfast buffet was so delicious! There's Cassidy hiding from the camera again.

Day 3- We're a well oiled machine by now and we get going around 8am. We still had more travelling to get to Anaheim though because Milpitas is 5 and a half hours driving time from Anaheim. I love how the Americans have rest stops along the I-5. This makes travelling a little easier. The highlight of this part of the trip was when Lexie saw a butterfly at one of the rest stops:

We got stuck in L.A. traffic which is not fun for someone who had to go to the bathroom. We stopped in at Costco and Target to stock up on food for the next few days. So we finally check in to the hotel. The hotel which I researched for months!!! Tripadvisor is amazing for that. We had a one bedroom suite with a full kitchen which worked really well for us. After settling in we walked over to Downtown Disney and had a bite of pizza. The girls had fun checking out the souvenir store and started to make a list of what they wanted to use their money for. Walking around Downtown Disney the anticipation for Disneyland was building!

 Here are the girls at the roundabout at our hotel, The Residence Inn Anaheim Maingate. The grounds were beautiful. It had a very tropical feeling. I wish I took more pictures of the grounds.

Our hotel was a 15 minute walk to the turnstiles at Disneyland. This is a picture of us outside the hotel walking to Disneyland.

 

 That's our first 3 days! Check back for our Disney pictures!