Disneyland - Day 2

Today was yellow day. I bought the kids matching colors to wear so I could spot them easily in crowds. And I must say it worked well. First thing we did was hit Disneyland and ride the Matterhorn and Space Mountain. Sophie and Claire surprised me and LOVED the Matterhorn. Claire really liked Space Mountain too. It's fun that they are all getting tall enough to ride the rides. Tayson was very proud of himself because he is actually tall enough to ride as an adult with another of the kids with him. And when you have the adult to kid ratio we do that comes in handy.

Waiting in line for Autopia

Another attempt at getting all the kids in a single picture

Self portrait of us waiting in line

Me and the girls in our car right after rear-ending Todd & Tayson on accident. I was totally not paying attention to the road and looking down at Sophie and then I looked up and Tayson was at a complete stop. Oops!

Tayson was old enough to drive himself (he was so proud)

Grandma with 2 of the boys

Emma and Amy

Carson driving Todd & Owen
(this picture cracks me up)

I was so glad we brought the double stroller - it was always full of all our stuff and kids

Tayson on the rocketship

Luke & Claire with Grandma

During lunch Amy and the kids went back to the hotel for a bit and we did a few more rides at Disneyland. Then we met up with them at California Adventure for the afternoon.

Claire & Emma

Amy & Grandma took the kids on the carousel while Todd and I went on Soarin' with our parent passes

Claire dancing in line while we waited

The kids making silly faces in line
(we spent a lot of time in lines)

The boys doing their "crazy eyes"

That night we stayed for the water show - we didn't have great seats but the show was still amazing. Sophie fell sound asleep before we were out of the park that night. It was a fun filled long day.

Disneyland - Day 1

We started our day at Jedi training. All the kids were so excited to be there and Emma got picked to go up and be trained as a Jedi. She was too cute fighting Darth Vader and the other kids were great supporters.

Grandma was willing to ride the tea cups with the girls
(that ride makes me nauseous)

Todd and the boys (already throwing up)

One of our many attempts to get a picture of all 8 kids. This is no small feat.

Sophie did great in line - she was crazy and fun but she didn't run away from me this year.

The longest line of the day was for the princesses. I waited in it while everyone else went to Toon Town. I called them a few minutes before it was our turn and it was so worth the wait. Meeting the princesses was so magical for Sophie. She just lit up when she saw them and ran over to them for big hugs. It was worth every minute.

With Princess Jasmine

I love Sophie's face in this one with Belle (she was the most excited about Belle)

Tiana was so great.
She talked to the girls quite a bit and was so beautiful.

We decided to take the girls to the Princess Coronation to learn how to dance like princesses.

I love that Sophie's hair is flying during her spin in this picture

Sophie fell asleep while we were in line for Small World.

The other kids being silly in line.

We rode on the Jungle Cruise and the kids were so scared of the piranha's. Hilarious.

The ride of the day was the new Star Tours. Todd was so excited about this one. We had fast passes and we still had to wait 45 minutes in line. The line was almost 4 hours long without a fast pass. It is in 3-D now so we got sweet glasses for the ride. There are 54 different variations. We saw a different one than Todd and Amy (they waited outside with the kids then did a parent pass). But then Todd went again and saw the same one. What are the chances.

We decided to call it a night and went to get dinner (which ended up taking almost 2 hours!!!) then watched the fireworks from our hotel balcony. The kids were completely exhausted and all slept like rocks.

The drive to California

To keep my legs from getting sore after a tough day of running while sitting in the car for 10 hours I wore my cute compression socks. What you don't think they're cute? Really I think I must have looked sporty not weird walking into gas stations in my shorts, compression socks and flip flops.

The trip was actually great. The kids were fantastic and we only made 1 stop before getting to Danny's house. Then only 1 stop between Vegas and grandma's house. All together it took us 10 hours - fastest we've had since Tayson was born. Yippee!!

Triple Run Day

We had a triple run today. 5 flat in the morning. Then our second run (pictured above) we ran in the canyon. Gretchen, Kami and I ran up Southfork and the other girlies ran down the canyon. It was a nice warm run. Then that night we did another 5 miler. Talk about a day full of running.

P.S. Do you like my cute (or really not so cute) compression socks?

Facebook Friday

Celebrating dad's birthday at Rodizios (6/2)

Waiting to get shots (6/2)

My dad is 70 today. What did my mom buy him??? A dirt bike so they can ride on the trails while camping. Oh how I love my crazy parents. Happy birthday to the best dad ever!!! (6/2)

what did I do today to kick of National Running Day? 8 miles of hills of course. (6/1)

Tayson is ready for his first day of swim team (5/31)

Who cares if it's freezing. Schools out and it's memorial weekend. They want to play in the water. (5/28)

Note to self: shower before going to Maceys on a Saturday. You will run into lots of people. (5/28)

Happy 70th Birthday Dad!

We decided to go out to eat for my dad's birthday this year. He picked Rodizios so we left the little ones at home with babysitters and ate enough meat to feed a small village. It was fun hanging out just the adults. It was a little weird for me to be at Rodizio's without Todd though. He loves the Brazilian restaurants. At the end of dinner they came out and sang to my dad and he played the tambourine. It was classic. Then we picked up the kids and went to his house for presents, desert and to sing to him.






My mom bought my dad a 110 dirt bike for his birthday and they tried it out on some trails. They only crashed (or fell over) twice - not bad for a couple of senior citizens :) I love that my parents are still so active and having so much fun. I sure hope I can have as much fun as they do when I'm 70. I really do have the greatest dad ever and I am so glad that I live around the corner from him. He helps me out all the time, my kids adore him and we get to do fun stuff all the time together.

Shots

So my girls have never had an immunization and it is time since Claire is starting kindergarten this fall and Sophie is going to pre-school. I took them both in to get the process started. Claire had to get 6 shots and she didn't cry or make a peep. Sophie was crying before she even sat on my lap and has been talking about her shots non-stop since. It's going to take a lot of visits to the health department to get them caught up but at least we got the ball rolling.