A Glimpse at our World

Disneyland with the Pierce's
June 7th-June 15th, 2009

This summer is all about the kids. Last summer Chris and I toured Costa Rica, and went on a cruise together, but unfortunately the kids were left at home. It gets expensive traveling overseas with 3 kids. Anyway, this summer we intended to make up for it with many trips planned, all of which include the kids.

Our first trip was a wonderful trip to Disneyland. Thanks to Tiff for reserving our wonderful accomodations right across the street from the park, and for booking the reservations for Goofy's kitchen. The weather was a bit chilly, but we were still able to have a great day at the beach our first day there. Jase figured out how to get to Newport Beach, and the rest is history. Here is a little video clip of my favorite quote of the week, "I thought they had larger shovels!"

Jase-you always make me laugh hysterically. I am soooo glad to have friends that make me so happy all the time.

I didn't include a picture, but one of my favorite things that we did on the beach was take a bike ride down along the coast down to Balboa Island. Let me just say that the ride was great-on the way there. Clayton decided that since he is a big boy, he wanted to ride his own bike. What he didn't realize was that he didn't have a one-way ticket, we were going round trip. What he rode one way, he would also have to ride all the way back. So needless to say, the 1 1/2 mile ride back to our car was absolutely miserable. He just couldn't believe that Mommy wouldn't stop and pick him up the rest of the way when he was tired. He had a rented bike, I couldn't leave it there to be stolen, he had to pedal all the way back home. Well an hour later, we finally made it back, we were pedaling so slow that people walked past us, my knees were killing me. Needless to say I was a bit peeved.

We bought 3 day hopper passes, and spend three long and wonderful days in the park. You can tell that my kids have gotten older, because this year it was all about the signatures. We were determined to get as many character signatures as possible. My favorite character was definitely Cruela Devil-she was awesome! I felt so lucky to have seen her, I've never seen her at any of the parks before. Check out her sheer disgust!

Isn't Tiff beautiful? My best friend in the whole world. I love you Tiff. Thanks for all you've done for me all these years. I hope we have many many more vacations to look forward to in the near future. Unfortunately, this is one of my only pictures of the Pierce's. Our kids are at different ages and we just were rarely in the same place at the same time.

We had a ton of fun! But our feet were a bit tired after closing the park three days in a row. There's a sign right in front of this stone that says Picture Spot. I originally read it as diaper spot-I asked the kids "why would they have a diaper spot?" The kids loved that! This gives you a small taste of how silly we were the whole time.

Our longest line was 45 minutes for the new Toy Story ride at California Adventure. It's a great ride, similar to Buzz Lightyear, but better in my opinion. The ride stops in front of the targets while you shoot it, and if you are a terrible shot like I am, it's nice to shoot at a non-moving target. I love this video clip of Clayton singing Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky as we tried to kill the time in line. You can get a small glimpse of Carson in his finest form.

The boys have been saving their allowance for Disneyland. Carson bought an Indiana Jones hat that looks very authentic, and after wanting just about everything else in the park, decided that Donald (which he saw at Downtown Disney on our first night there) was really what he wanted most. Clayton-always decisive-knew before we even left for Disneyland, that he wanted a goofy hat and goofy hands. He saw the goofy hat at his friend Kale's house before we left and never wavered a minute from what he really wanted. Connor on the other hand, is much more careful and reserved with his money, he had to look both parks over for the entire three days before deciding. I really enjoyed helping him decide what to get. He's a bit older now, and kind of getting over stuffed animals. I happily persuaded him to collect the trader pins. He absolutely loves them and can't wait to return to Disneyworld to add to his collection. He has carefully stored them away for later use. I'm proud of my boys. They make every vacation amazing-because they are so easily impressed and never complain! Looking forward to the rest of the summer!