Disneyland in a Flash

My friend Addie and I went rogue, ditched our husbands and took our girls to Disneyland for a few days. What a trip! We were packed to the gills in Addie's car - complete with our little ladies, delicious food, lots of snacks and plenty of DVD's for the girls to watch! We left on Sunday night, which was great since the girls slept most of the way. We arrived in Anaheim at around midnight, checked into our hotel and went to Disneyland on Monday (10/11). Disneyland was packed, but we still had such a fun time being at the "happiest place on earth."

Although it was Lois' first time to visit the magic land, she was still a little too young to be "too excited to sleep" - if you know what I mean - but she still had fun. Some things that Lois loved were riding Dumbo and going on the It's a Small World ride. She also loved the princess performance where all the Disney princesses came out and taught the audience of children how to twirl and curtsy like a true, proper princess!

Things she didn't like too much? Um, what about Pirates of the Caribbean, where mommy quickly learned that underground pirates and spooky music don't exactly suit the likings of a young toddler. Whoops! Poor girl. She spent the entire ride with her face dug into my chest. Perhaps we'll have to try that one again in a few years.

And now, some pictures! YAY!

Here are the girls waiting for the Disneyland shuttle at our hotel. Callie, at age 5, was especially excited about the upcoming events of the day!

We got in trouble for not waiting in line to take a picture in front of the pumpkin Mickey. But we prevailed and still got a shot in before she could kick us out! HA! Take that, LINE lady!

Here they are in front of the princess castle - they were checking out a huge turtle swimming in the mote.

They're cute, huh?

Lois was refusing to look at the camera. She was done being told what to do that day.

Here's Addie and her girls on the Carousel. I tried to get a good picture of Lois, but I was feeling a little nauseous going around and around. Must be the pregnancy!

WE LOVE DUMBO! My earliest recollection of this ride is when I, as a little six-year-old girl, visited Disneyland for the first time and we were forced to wait 2.5 hours to ride Dumbo because Preston (my little brother) just had to ride it. It was, after all, his favorite movie. Thankfully, there was not a 2.5 hours wait this time around, and Lois was in heaven flying the friendly skies.

TEACUPS! Lois loved this one, too. We were doing some serious spinning!

Addie and her cute girls

Here's the princess show...the girls were enamored!

Isn't this so precious? Avery and Lois are two peas in a pod. Unless they are fighting over a toy. Oh, the fickleness of toddlerhood!

Can you see Lois twirling up front? My favorite thing about this while thing was that she just pushed her way right up to the front and didn't think twice about it! She focused on her princesses, found her way to the front and proceeded to mimic everything they did. She makes me laugh. And she's really cute.

Nothing like some Mary Poppins to brighten your day! As Lois likes to call it, "Pop Pop!" I thought it was hilarious that Mary did not have a microphone. She must have the looks but not the voice to match. No one can beat Julie Andrews.

We had to get a picture in front of Tinkerbell's house, of course! Lois was loving that map.

Waiting for the fireworks to start...Lois was not too happy about it, either. I think she was just a little beyond worn out and had some severe mood swings. That wasn't so awesome. But she did get a collection of Princesses - so that helped a little.

The nice man from Utah whom we asked to take our picture forgot to include Callie in his photog skills (she's down by Addie's arm) - Too bad, huh? It could have been a good one.

After the fireworks, we bid Mickey farewell and we headed back to the hotel.

We slept in on Tuesday, packed up the car and headed home around noon. Thanks for the fun trip, girls! Wanna join us next time?

And that, my friends, is how you do Disneyland in a flash!

St. George-a-thon

Over conference weekend, we went to St. George so Jason could run the marathon and rendezvous with my family. It was a whirlwind weekend, but we really had such a blast! Thanks, mama and papa and family for driving down to hang out with us. Family is the best.

The brothers

Phoebe is quite possibly the cutest little rugrat I've ever seen. She's at such a cute age and I just wanted to eat her up. Seriously, look at that face!

Matching jammies never hurt anyone! Look at those grins. These ladies had a ball together. Especially with their adjoining rooms and plenty of beds to jump and play on.

Jason and his two high school buddies (Paul with Jason above, Chris is not pictured) ran the marathon. Jason had to stop at mile 18 because he couldn't stay hydrated, but we are SO proud of him regardless! And I'm just grateful he decided to be smart and stop when he knew he should. While he was super disappointed, we are grateful he's alive and well and that he ran 18 miles. I mean, come on. 18 miles is a lot! I'm praying he'll stick to half marathons from here on out. But I'm sure he'll want to go for it again.

Playing dress up and cheesin' it up.

Nice face, Lois. Did your mom forget to do your hair? Yep, I think she did. Lil' rag-a-muffin.

The three amigas

Not for long...because two boy cousins are scheduled to join the crew in the next six months!

And yes, that's right. We are having a BOY!

Durango

When we lived in Washington, DC, I worked for an office of the White House that focused on Hurricane Katrina matters. My boss was a wonderful man named Don Powell, the former Chairman of the FDIC and a true-blue Texan. When he invited us to come and spend the weekend in Durango at he and his wife's new place, we couldn't resist! So, we made the quick trek to Durango and we had a wonderful weekend catching up with old friends and enjoying the cool weather of the Rockies! It was also very fitting that we were there the weekend of the fifth anniversary of this awful natural disaster. It wasn't planned that way, it just worked out that way. Nice.

Here's most of the gang, minus Scott and Taylor.

The ladies of the weekend

Lois exploring in front of the house

Jason fulfilled a life-long dream of going gliding while we were there. Here's a shot of Durango valley while he was up gliding away...

Here he is being towed up

And here he is in the glider! I'm such a nice wife to let him do this, huh? :) It will have to suffice because I won't let him buy a motorcycle, take flying lessons, hang glide, etc. Maybe I'm not so nice. Hmm...

Our lovely hosts, Twanna & Chairman Powell walking with Lois in Ouray, CO! What a beautiful little town! We ate at a delicious mexican restaurant and perused the quaint shops.

Going for a walk - it was so chilly compared to our AZ weather! I was very ill equipped.

Taylor and the Chairman chatting away

Jason and Lois

And this was Lois' best friend of the weekend, Lizzie the shih tzu. She wouldn't leave that poor doggy alone! "Come here, Lizzie. Come here!" is all we heard all weekend.

Temporarily Disconnected...

I love the movie What About Bob? - and if you haven't seen it, you should. It's hilarious. There's a part when Bob finds out his doctor is going on vacation for a month and Bob completely falls apart. The doctor informs him that it's only a month and Bob says to himself (and his doctor) to calm himself down that he'll be fine and that they'll just be "temporarily disconnected." Nice, Bob. I feel your pain!

I've been temporarily disconnected from my normal life, which explains my lack of blog activity, lack of a clean house, lack of warm hearty dinners on the table and a lack of motivation for much else then the absolute necessities. Sometimes even showering doesn't make the cut of "absolute necessity." We have high priorities here, you know.

So, most days I feel like this.

Awesome picture, right? I thought so, too! It just seemed to portray exactly how I feel the second I wake up. But it's okay. I'm doing okay and we're surviving. But I have to say, cooking a baby is a pretty tiring ordeal! How come no one ever told me? :)

Anyway, we've been up to a lot over these past few months, so hopefully I can document some of our activities so our posterity and friends know that we have not died, but are just - well, you know - temporarily disconnected.