Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party!

Okay, this is something that I have been looking forward to for months! I was so excited to get the kids dressed up and go Trick-or-Treating at Disneyland. Since this will more than likely be our last year with passes, I wanted to make sure that we got to do everything we wanted to, one time at least. So we got tickets for the Tuesday night party and we were literally counting down the days with a giant paper chain!

Because I wanted to get in and get situated a little early, we broke Eli out of school early and headed down to the park. The boys were really excited, as was I, and we got there around 2:30 or so.

They weren’t letting people into the park with Halloween party tickets just yet, but since we had passes, we were able to go in early and check in to get our wristbands and everything inside the park. Of course, we stopped to get photos of the boys in front of the giant Mickey pumpkin first!

Can you tell what their costumes are?? I’m sure those of you with little kids who like to watch PBS Kids will have a leg-up with the guesses! I’ll give you a hint: the boys are doing a pose and saying, “What If?!”  Any guesses?*

After the pumpkin, I made them requested that we take a mini family photo in front of the castle. (Nathan hadn’t gotten there from work yet, so it was just us three.) I even had on my costume by then. ;)

It was fun to just walk around without really having an agenda, waiting for night to come so we could get started on all the fun! We watched some ducks hanging out in the pond by Adventureland,

went on Tarzan’s Treehouse,

and checked out some of the ‘carved’ pumpkins they had surrounding Walt Disney’s statue.

Once we got in line and got our wristbands and miniscule Trick-or-Treat bags, we headed up to the Big Thunder Ranch and had fun doing some of the carnival games and looking at the neat carved pumpkins they had on display. We even tried the tent that conjures up a villain, but we didn’t last through the whole thing because West got scared. :)

They even had their fortunes told, and they both ended up with the same character type – a bat! They received a card that told them to make sure when they go to bed that night, to say “I love you” to their Mummy. It was cute.

Finally, we met up with Nathan, who had to come after work, and we sat down to eat for a little bit. Then we headed out to the Trick-or-Treat stations! They have these stations set up all over the park, usually with a line of three or four spread out on a walkway that you follow to go through them all. The ones we went through were on the river, over by Winnie the Pooh ride, up at Big Thunder Ranch, in the Golden Horseshoe, in the Zocola restaurant, in Fantasyland and the Mickey theater on Main Street. The kids cleaned up! I jokingly told them that they wouldn’t even need to Trick-or-Treat on Halloween night and they rebelled at the thought. Even if Eli did end up giving almost all of his candy to me and West because he doesn’t like chocolate. Whose kid is this?? :)

Oh my goodness, and then my favorite part of the night! We were waiting in line to see Captain Jack Sparrow. Apparently it was just at the same time as a character change, and I saw out of the corner of my eye, Peter Pan and Wendy waiting behind a little trellis for their turn to trade out with Jack. I pointed West over to them and said, “Look! I see Peter Pan and Wendy!” all secretive-like. West was so excited to see Peter Pan that he went right up to him and started talking to him. And if you know what Peter Pan is like at Disneyland, then you know why he’s one of my favorite characters to interact with. He was so cute, asking West how much candy he had collected and what he was going to do the rest of the night. West loved it! Then we got a cute picture of the boys with them both, and that’s when Jack Sparrow came over to them and started interacting with Peter and Wendy. It was hilarious! Peter was asking Jack what that Man-Hair on his face was, and Wendy replied, “That’s facial hair, Peter.” They were really cute. :)

(That’s West telling Peter that he had collected THIS MUCH candy!)

After we decided we had collected enough candy, we headed over to the castle to try and find a spot to watch the fireworks. Usually we don’t stay for them, since West is kind of afraid of them, but I insisted this time because I wanted to see it, plus I figured it would be a good time to try and get West used to them so he wouldn’t be scared anymore. We ended up scoring a sweet table at the Jolly Holiday bakery, where we had a great view of the fireworks and the castle. West did really great, and although he held his hands over his ears for most of it, during some of the parts he took them off and listened, then said, “It’s not that scary!” Score!

I know, it’s fuzzy, but I didn’t want to move and this was the best I could get. :)

We had a great time and I’m glad for the memories! Happy Halloween!

We have a 2nd grader in the house!

Well I can hardly believe it’s here! The summer seemed to go by in spurts – super fast one minute and then crawling by the next. Of course, Eli has been so excited to go back (almost as excited as I was!) and today, the day finally came. He was up at the crack of dawn (seriously, 5:30am and he was ready to go!), dressed and ready for school. He designed his own T-shirt this year, with the front saying “2nd Grade” and the back saying “RULES!”.

This year Eli has the same teacher that he did for his 1/2 combo class last year, which will have its pros and cons, I’m sure. I’m glad that he’ll have someone who knows him, who understands his quirks and know how to work with him. But I’m also nervous that he’ll be so comfortable in the class already that he’ll forget his first-day manners. I’m sure he’ll do fine, I’m crossing my fingers!

Here are the fun first-day photos we took this morning. West was there, ready to go with his lunchbox, but of course, he doesn’t start preschool until next week. But he was excited to accompany Eli to his class!

I’m looking forward to having some more quiet time to get some projects done around the house, and to be able to have these two not fighting with each other all day. Absence does make the heart grow fonder, after all!  ::wink::

Day at the Beach

Last week the boys and I headed out to the beach for the day. Can you believe it was our first trip to the beach this whole summer? I know, I’m a terrible Californian. :)

We were going to go with friends, but when the weather looked like it was going to be too cold, it ended up just being us. We went down to Newport, where Nathan likes to go and found that it was pretty crowded. Thankfully, we found a good spot and set up camp.

The coolest part was the parking. Yeah, weird, I know. But they now have this app that you can download that lets you pay for parking straight from your phone, lets you watch your time so you can stay on top of it, and you can even add more time from right under your beach umbrella. It sure beats having to take the kids out of the water and walk them back to the car to add a couple more quarters to the meter!

Eli spent most of the day with his boogie board in the water. Even though the water was cold, he loved the huge waves that were coming in and just rode hard out there for at least 3 hours!

West and I spent the day throwing the ball back and forth, eating our lunch, and building sand castles.

But the best part for West? That would be knocking the castle over!

We had a really fun day just enjoying the great weather together. The boys certainly slept well that night!

San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park

(July 29th)

Nathan had a class to teach for work down in San Diego today, so the boys and I tagged along with him and spent the night at a hotel. The boys loved the breakfast buffet in the morning and I loved getting to bum around with them all day while Dad was at work!

With our newly renewed zoo memberships in hand, we dropped Nathan off at work and headed for the San Diego Wild Animal Park. I love that our memberships get us admission to both here and the zoo, because it really makes it feel worth the money. The boys had both been here before, but Eli was only about 4 and West had just been born, so they didn’t remember much of it.

I didn’t have my nice camera with me, so try to look past the barely-adequate photos, ha!

Ah, Eli, my poser child, ha!

First thing off the bat, there was this adorable little hedgehog guy that was out and ready for his closeup. He was so cute and looked just like Martin Freeman! Although, I don’t think the woman holding him liked my joke. (In case you don’t either, here’s a link that may explain…or not.)

We were there first thing in the morning, and we came across these adorable meerkats that were just waking up and getting ready to start their day. I love how they were lounging in the morning sun.

Then the boys tried their hat at living in a nest, pretending to be bat-eared foxes, and living in said bat-eared fox’s den.

Then we saw the most adorable little guy! A fennec fox, who was just running around his habitat and looking cute.

Seriously, I wanted to take that guy home!

We wandered over to a little mini park and found some statues to climb on and some drums to play.

(West finally feeling what it’s like to be as tall as Eli!)

And some actual proof of my existence! A miracle! :)

Sidenote: Don’t you just love my hat? Okay, it may be a little large, but I love it because I finally have something to protect my freaking hairline from getting sunburned! That’s been the bane of my existence the last couple of summers because I never remember (or want) to put sunscreen in my hair and I always end up with a terribly burned scalp, which turns into the lovely look of dandruff a week later. So yeah, I bought a big, floppy hat. And I love it in all its ridiculousness.

Moving on! Next stop was the bats, which were just freaky-deaky! They look kind of cool, but there’s no way I’d want to come into contact with them out in the ‘wild’. Seriously creep me out.

Unless, of course, they were these bats. Then I’d be okay.

Next up, we made our way over to the tram ride that goes around the park. Thankfully, that’s a free trip included in our memberships, so we can enjoy it as many times as we want. We had a really cute gal leading our expedition and we got to see a ton of animals!

I won’t bore you with all the animals we saw, but here are some of the highlights:

In that photo, you can just barely see a rhino and her baby (right behind the giraffe). Our tour guide said this was probably our best shot at seeing that baby on the tour, and sure enough, once we had made our way back around the circle where we would be closer to them, the Mama and baby were gone!

Here’s another rhino taking a rest in the shade.

After cruising by the lions…

…we ended up at the perfect time to catch a bird show. It was so cute and well done, we saw lots of cool birds, including my favorite secretary bird! I was too mesmerized to take any photos, whoops. But the highlight was when Eli got chosen to go onstage and help with one of the presentations! He was super excited to be picked and said to me afterward, “Mom, I was crossing my fingers so hard so that I would get picked!” Too cute.

We ended up having a really great, albeit long, day at the park and we will definitely be going back again soon!