Everyday, on my way to work, I drive past a travel agency. Outside, they have a sign up that says "Disneyland is the best Christmas present." I couldn't agree more, with how cold it has been this week, it would be nice to be in California.
While we were at Disneyland, Grammy and Grandpa took the kids to Build-a-Bear. There is nothing in the world that goes together better than Disney and Build-a-Bear, not because of Childhood magic, but because they both have overpriced toys.
We spent one fabulous day at the beach. My Aunt and Uncle told us about this great beach. It was a public beach with access through a neighborhood. We were the only ones there for most of the day.
We build a sand castle and the incoming tide started taking it out. We built a wall, and the kids guarded it from the incoming waves.
There were tide pools with hermit crabs and sea urchins.
Sea World was a lot of wet fun.
Hudson wasn't tall enough for a lot of the rides at Disney and Sea World, so we stuffed his shoes with napkins. The next day we improved it by having him wear flip flops inside his shoes.
After getting soaked by Shamu, Gracie found a warm piece of concrete to lay on.
We bought a camera for the kids to use and each kid got a day to use it. Hudson really wanted a picture of a dolphin and tried, with little success, for about 10 minutes by this glass. Seriously one of the funniest things I have ever seen.
You drive all the way to San Diego to see Shamu and the kids are more excited about a very aggressive Pigeon.
We watched the Whale show from up high so that we would not get wet. The kids saw all the people get wet and so we had to come back later, we sat on the second row and got soaked.
Hudson and Jonah could not get enough roller coaster. Hudson and I went on splash mountain 5 times and after the 4th time he lamented that he wasn't getting wet like everyone else(they always had him sitting behind an adult, which shielded him), so on the 5th time I took matters in my own hands and made sure he got wet. After that he went out proudly to show his mom how wet he got.
Oh the Star Wars Training Academy. We went first thing one morning knowing we had three kids who wanted to participate, and luckily all three were chosen that first time.
What a trip!
Two very rare things: A photo of the whole family and a picture of the kids, with all of them looking at the camera.
The girls have been in dance this year. They had a Christmas recital were they did great.
We went to Thanksgiving point to see the lights and reindeer (both were a disappointment), but the night was great and memorable because of the chocolate, vanilla, strawberry banana split with hot fudge, caramel, whip cream, sprinkles and cherries.
This is a picture of Gracie from the dress rehearsal of her dance recital. She did not dance the whole time, she just stood there and picked her nose. We bribed her with ice cream for the recital and she danced her little legs off.
These are the boys' mean faces. We were making funny hairstyles with their hair using water. Jonah's doesn't do as much as he would like it to.
Emma, with Grammy and Shelly at the nutcracker.
This is evidence of Hudson's obsession, boxes. He collects them and stacks them in his room, he had all sizes, from toothpaste sized to the sizes you see here. Until I "intervened" he had 27.
The kids entered art into last years reflections contest. It was hard because Hudson and Jonah won awards and Emma did not. It was mostly hard for us as parents, Emma couldn't have been more excited for her brothers.
This is Emma and me at a They Might be Giants concert. It was a family show, and Shelly was more than happy to step aside so that Emma could go with me. I was so excited to buy Emma her first concert shirt. We went up to the t-shirt table and Emma looked long and hard at all the shirts. She finally looked up at me and asked: "So, Dad, if you buy me one of these shirts, do I have to wear it?" Needless to say she didn't get a shirt.
