Just A Little Reminder!

I hate coming back from vacation, I dread coming back from vacation, why can't I permanently be on vacation! I am coming to the end of my spring semester and normally the last month is a blur of tests, essay's, and random projects needing there finishing touches. I have had a relatively calm semester, even with a calculus course thrown in there, but approaching finals always tests my sanity. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my grades but I have learned to relax and do my best and call it good in some courses. I am debating taking a chemistry course this summer so I can put that class behind me, I have not decided for sure yet...really need a break but a break means cramming more classes into my fall and spring schedule.

Adrian began the job search this week, our first week of really being home. He filed unemployment this week so we should be getting that soon. He put in some applications in a few places that will leave him local so hopefully we will hear something back soon.

I have my moments of break down stress and then I regain my sanity and remind myself everything will be okay. I also have my moments of why do some people sail through life, why does life keep picking on me...and then I jump off my pity boat and remind myself that really my problems are minor compared to what others are going through. I also have my moments of jealousy, jealous of homes, cars, expensive shoes and purses, and then I remind myself those are only material things and at the end of the day none of those things matter....

At the end of the day I have a husband who loves his family, and will do anything for us, I have kids who amaze me everyday, I have my faith, I have my health, I have food in my refrigerator, a roof over my head, and a car to get me to the places I need to go. At the end of the day I have everything I need...sometimes I just need to remind myself.

Finally...the last vacation post!

We decided before we left on vacation to stay one last night in Vegas. A short trip from Anaheim and it stretched out our vacation one last day. It was a Monday night and if you stay in casino's Sunday through Wednesdays it is their slow days so they are more then happy to upgrade your rooms a lot of times for little or no charge, they are hoping for repeat business so it is a good time to show off their amenities. We were supposed to have adjoining rooms with the kids but reservations screwed up and they had no adjoining rooms left so they gave us and the kids upgraded amazing rooms. Our room could have fit two of our Disney Hotel rooms. The bathroom was grand with an amazing jetted soaking tub.

We had free tickets to a magic show so we headed for the strip. The show was next door to the Flamingo casino. The Flamingo has a courtyard with lots of exotic birds and waterfall features....it is a little oasis.

The magic was cheesy but the tickets were free and the kids loved it. He did use different breeds of tigers and jaguars and we were really close to the stage so that was fun. Makenzie gave him a standing ovation.

After the magic show we took the kids back to the hotel and got them some food from the casino food court and then me and Adrian went and had dinner...just the two of us...ahhhhhhh. We went to the Wynn casino but also a spa and resort and it is luxurious inside. I heard their buffet was incredible. Incredible is an understatement. The buffet went on forever and everything decadent and yummy. Shrimp, crab legs, sushi, prime rib, fish of all varities, pork loin, and every side dish you could think of.

So lets move on to the important stuff...dessert! The above pic is only half of the dessert bar. They had everything possible and then some...so of course I helped myself to a few choices..and then I went back and sampled a few more..........

Not a better way to end a vacation..........

All Good Things Must Come To An End....

( Looking at the Matterhorn from the teacups) Day number 3 at Disney. My feet were hurting, it was cold and rainy but whatya going to do....you are at the happiest place on earth...right...so we bucked up, bundled up and headed to the park. It wasn't to busy to begin with at the park because of the weather so we hit a lot rides all at once.

C'mon when you are at Disney you have to do the flying Dumbo ride. Can I admit that I cry every time I watch Dumbo, you know the part. The part where the mom is holding and rocking Dumbo with her trunk through her cage where she is chained down ...see I am tearing up just typing it....sniff........

Makenzie repeatedly requested seeing the castle so we made it a point to head over and do the tour of the castle. She also found this girly priness store beside the castle...they do princess makeovers in there....I think this was Shangri-la for Kenzie.

It was awful chilly so nothing sounded better then getting some warm beignets over in New Orleans square

We took a quick visit to critter country which has all the Winnie Pooh stuff. We got to see Winnie, Eeyore, and Tigger.

Because we had park hopper passes we headed over to California Adventure in the afternoon. We did that on purpose because it started to raining heavily and most of the stuff we wanted to do over in California Adventure was inside. The above pic is a picture I took from google to show the ride Soaring California...It is a movie screen with an optical illusion that makes it look like you are flying over landscapes of California. It is an awesome ride!

We saw a Muppets 3-D movie and then headed over to an interactive Monsters Inc. ride...can I say Babblin Boo is one of my favorite Pixar characters.

There it is, the last ride of the day. The rain was coming down hard and it was getting colder. I was not to sure what Kenzie would think of this ride. You walk into a creepy hotel lobby that has been abandoned since the 40's. A bell hops takes you to a staging room where you watch a twilight zone movie and then they load you on an elevator that takes you on a ride that feels like you are on a runaway elevator. The elevator drops so fast that you are floating midair a few times. GREAT ride! All the girls loved the ride!

That was it, our last day :(.......I don't think my feet could have taken another day of walking though. We had so much fun and what amazing gift we were given by some amazing people. The kids want to go again and hopefully financially we are in a place in the next couple years that we can do it again. The next day we headed back to Vegas for one last night...to be continued!

P.S........I forgot to mention that in a lot of the pictures you see all the kids wearing lanyards with Disney themed pins all over them. We bought them on e-bay for a much cheaper cost than what you can purchase in the park. Most of the Disney employees wear pins and they are required to trade with you. The kids had so much trading pins with the workers, they came home with some fun pins and if go we back again they still have some they want to trade.

Not A Better Way To Spend Your Anniversary

(Hollywood lot at California Adventure)

So lets be honest, we drug ourselves out of bed the next day, it was a long day walking the park the day before. We had early admission tickets for Disneyland for Saturday morning (we could be in the park at 7am...ughh)! We got to the park around 7:45, which is fine because as soon as we walked in the park they had just opened a few rides so we walked right on. We then headed for Pirates of the Caribbean ride (the kids now FAVORITE ride). Then we took the twins on the Indiana Jones ride, the one of two rides Makenzie was to little for. Indiana, my favorite ride, they put you in a jeep and it is a roller coaster that makes you feel like you are four wheeling through all the different movie scenario's.

( Entrance to California Adventure)

After some more rides we headed over to California Adventure, it does not open till 10 in the morning. California Adventure is right across from Disneyland and is a blast. It does not have as many rides, and definitely not as big, and a lot of it is under construction but we spent a lot of time in this park.

(Kaitlynn and Adrian on the Ferris Wheel)

They have an area that is called the pier and it is done like a 1920's boardwalk. Lots of Midway type games, a huge rollercoaster and ferris wheel. They also have a Toy Story ride that is incredible ( the line is incredible for this ride also....looooonnnggg). They have a Hollywood studio lot that has movies and interactive things for the kids to do. We stumbled upon an area that kids can watch an interactive movie with Crush from Finding Nemo. They also a have a sorcerers workshop that has a Beauty and the Beast castle and Urusala's grotto that have several interactive things adults and kids can do. Oh and by the way the pin that Adrian has on his shirt in the above pic says, happy anniversary. It was our 17 year anniversary and Disney has a pin they give you for that. Everywhere we went people would say congrats and give us a big smile.

( Makenzie having a chat with some toy soldiers)

Like I said we were tired and had gotten tickets to a program called, World Of Color that night on the pier so we headed back to the hotel and let the kids catch some ZZZZ's because we knew it was going to be another late night.

(The Ferris wheel at the Pier)

(King Tritons' Merry-go- round)

(Night time at the pier)

So California Adventure does a show called World of Color at night, it is done with water and lights and images are projected on the water. This place is gorgeous at night, everything is lit up !
The show has different music numbers from various Disney movies and Disney themes. The kids were enthralled by it and I would highly recommend anyone that goes to these parks takes the time to go see this show.

( One of the projected images they displayed)


We did a couple of rides and then headed back to downtown Disney to get a bite to eat. We bought tickets for an extra day so whatever we had missed we knew we had Sunday to finish up...........to be continued!

Alrighty Kids it is Wally World..I Mean Disney Time!

This trip was given to us by my in-laws. They provided us a 3 night stay at Disneyland Hotel and 2 days of park hopper passes to Disneyland and California Adventure. All of Adrian's siblings and their families got to come. I think Adrian's parents were thrilled to see the excitement in the grandkids eye's, and all of us will have some great memories of this trip.

The very first ride of the morning. Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. Kenzie was so excited she was shaking. We had talked up this trip for a couple months and it was finally here, she finally got to experience Disneyland.

2nd ride of the morning and the very first roller coaster I rode when I was a young kid, Space Mountain. The twins were anxious to try out this roller coaster I kept talking about. This was Kenzie's first rollercoaster ride also. Out of all the rides at Disneyland there was only two Kenzie was not tall enough to ride. Kenzie loved this ride and wanted to do it over and over again and the twins wanted to do this ride over and over again also.

A picture I took on the riverboat...kinda a pretty ride around the water. It is a good ride to go on when the feet are hurting from all that walking that you do at Disney.

Grandpa Bob promised that he would take Kenzie on Small World and Mr. Toads Wild Ride or mabye I promised her ;)...anyways grandpa took her on both these rides and she loved them. However, we did get stuck on Small World for awhile...even Kenzie was plugging her ears by the end of this looooonnnggg riiidddeeee....its small world after all, its a small after all, its a small, small world!!!!

Princess Fantasy Fair story time.......Sleeping beauty did the story this day. There is an area that you can wait in line and meet some princesses, the line is long but I am sure worth the wait...we just ran out of time and ran into some bad weather Sunday so we didn't get a chance to do it...

Ahhh Jessie, One of Kenzie's favorite. I love this picture and the experience was great. Kenzie did not get a chance to hug Woody and Jessie must have seen her disappointment because Jessie came and grabbed Kenzie out of the crowd and let her come back and give both of them a hug. She gave Makenzie lots of extra attention and Makenzie was thrilled. Later she received a Jessie doll that goes everywhere with her now.

We rode a lot of rides...and still had a lot of rides we missed.The twins said that Space Mountain and The Haunted Mansion were their favorites that day. The crowds were heavy that day but we knew we had two more days to go. The kids all got their Mickey ears and then we settled in for the night to watch the fireworks show by the small wonder ride. They do a wall of memories show on the small wonder building, it is pictures taken throughout the park from Disney photographers and then shortly after they do the fireworks show. It was an exhausting first day and the kids crashed as soon as we got back to the hotel. The next day we did the adjoining park California Adventure.......to be continued..........

Goofy, Pluto, Baloo, Chip and Dale, Oh My!

We got to Anaheim around one in the afternoon, we were the first to get to the hotel, no sooner did we get in the lobby did Disney characters come out of the Goofy kitchen. Goofy's kitchen is a dining place that you can see all the characters at a hefty price. I was not prepared for taking pictures yet, I was digging for my camera, the children were disheveled from being in the car.

Once I got the camera out and ready I had to gather my road weary children. The youngest was not to sure of these furry creatures (nightmares of her previous run in with coca-cola bear just the day before seemed to cloud her judgement of these characters). So I started clicking the camera quickly, Kenzie never looked at the camera, they are a little out of focus....

But nonetheless we got to see a lot of characters all at once and did not have to wait in line or pay a small fortune for a meal to see them

The only picture Kenzie posed perfectly for......it is because Alice falls in the princess category, and Kenzie loves anything that may be like a princess...........even though Alice is not a princess, she is girly, and that is good enough for Kenzie.

The girls were off talking to Goofy and Kenzie would not go near the big blue bear (once again, remember the coca-cola bear). I still had to get a pic though because I love Baloo the bear, and Jungle Book is one of my favorites.

Captain Hook is in the corner of this pic, hook and goofy were sword fighting, it was really hard to get a picture of hook, he only stayed a couple minutes and was headed out the door

Goofy stayed the longest and played with the girls a lot,......all this happened within just a half hour of us being in the hotel...the kids were thrilled! We soon checked into our hotel room which had been newly renovated and was beautiful and then had to move to a new hotel room because of the lack of air conditioning in our room. Our view from our new room allowed us to see the fireworks that Disney does every night. We got to bed early in preparation for the next day...............to be continued

The "Griswolds" head to Sin City....

See these three kiddos...their innocent eye's looking at you, well they are no longer innocent, they have been introduced to the city that we call Las Vegas! A city of decadence, extravagance, gluttony, lust, and sin, all within a few square miles.......

After checking into our hotel we took a walk down the strip to check out the Bellagio water show and to see all the lights...the very first picture I took with the Parisian casino in the background also includes a billboard with a naked women in the background, Adrian thought it was funny because he saw it as I was taking the picture...believe me that picture is conservative compared to some of the other pictures plastered around the strip. The children saw things their small town eye's have never seen but they took it all in stride and laughed at the stumbling intoxicated people celebrating St. Patty's day a little early.

The next day we took off to the Mandalay Bay Casino. It is beautiful inside, five star restaurants, entertainment, and it is beautifully decorated. This restaurant has been featured on T.V. a lot, this is a tower of different wines. The waitress uses repelling ropes to get the wines that have been ordered; resembling something out of a mission impossible movie, this picture does not do it justice, it is huge and goes from ceiling to floor

This is the pool area at Mandalay Bay, it also huge. It has sandy beaches to sit at and goes as far as the eye can see.

The aquarium was also beautiful. It has a lot sharks and some interactive things to do. The girls had fun looking at these huge overhead tanks, watching the sharks circle in and out. They have plexi glass floors so you can look below you also. A great place to take the kids when Vegas.

We then drove down to the MGM grand casino which is across from the New York, New York casino. MGM has a huge mall in the middle of it and they also have a CSI experience which I wanted to do badly but figured solving a murder crime with a four year old in tow wouldn't be the best idea. We took off to the M&M factory and saw a 3-D movie and walked around the four floors of M&M merchandise. The kids did some shopping there.....

This was taken at the Coca Cola store. The Coca-Cola Polar bear was there and Makenzie was scared to death of him. He was huge and animated, he closed his eyes, and smiled, and was very funny but Kenzie wanted nothing to do with him. Could have been the fact he kept trying to eat everyone's head. We then took off back to the hotel to meet up with incoming family and go grab something to eat.

After dinner we headed down to Freemont street to check out the light show. Freemont is in the old part of Vegas and has all the old casino's there. The light show was music from the Door's that night. It is amazing to see but even more amazing is the crowd that shows up down there. I did a lot of diverting my kids attention to other things...I really did not want to have to explain some things. But they do have fried Twinkies and Oreo's on Freemont...that makes it worth the visit right!?

Freemont attracts the impersonators...several Elvis's, Ozzy Osbourne, Showgirls, Kiss, and tons of street performers. It was fun...it was tacky.....it was crazy...it was Vegas! The next morning we took off to Disneyland...to be continued!

Opposites

A few months ago I moved my twins into their own bedroom. We had a playroom that was not being used anymore because my four year old does not know how to go off by herself and play,unless she is in to something, mostly she thinks she needs to be by your side at all times chattering away. Kaitlynn asked if she could move her stuff into that room and I figured why not. They are both at that pre-teen, I want my own space moodiness, so to keep the bickering down to minimal levels, having them move to separate rooms seemed like a good idea. This is taped to Kaitlynn's door.....like I said, they are pre-teens and not sure where they fit in yet. I find the littlest pet shop stickers combined with the dead flower and skull a unique combination. This was placed on the door because they thought the four year old knows how to read and would actually stay out of their room...hahahahaha

This is on Cheyenne's door, her rules are more specific, like no farting. Once again a warning to Makenzie to stay out of her room. They are not targeting Makenzie just because they are being mean, Makenzie sneaks in their room a lot. One time she snuck in and ate one of those king size symphony bars that Cheyenne had gotten as a gift from a friend. It took her all day of sneaking in and out of their room but she had it eaten by the time they got home from school.....that is only one example of Makenzie's sneakiness....I kinda understand the twins paranoia of the four year old.....she has taken off with my things also.

My biggest discovery of separating the twins is the cleanliness and orderliness of one and the sloppiness of the other. Unfortunately Cheyenne cleaned her room yesterday under strict orders from me so I could not get a side by side comparison. This is Kaitlynn's shelves, neatly organized, everything categorized and put it in its right place. She knows if something has been touched, the clothes are in the hamper and everything is well taken care of. Cheyenne had nothing put away, no clothes in the hamper, books and socks strewn across the floor. All those times of them having to clean their room, when they shared a room, and most of the mess was probably Cheyenne's.

Twins, a quirky thing. They are so much alike that when things emerge that are different they stick out. They both recently found out they need glasses, their prescriptions are exactly the same but in different eyes, one has a left eye that is bad and the other has right eye that is bad but they have the same prescription, just in different eyes. When they loose teeth they are always in the same place, days apart, just on opposite sides of the mouth.

So now I ask the question if they have these strange occurring opposites, which one is the good twin, and which one is the evil twin? MUWHAHAHAHAHAHA..........