Our Disneyland Adventure!

We've been home from Disneyland for four days now and I finally feel ready to blog about it. It was a fantastic family vacation, and we made some really special memories. Our first day in the park was so much fun. As per suggestion we did Pirates of the Caribbean first, then made our way to the back of the park. We went on several rides the first day, and watched the Jedi Training Academy show. We did some shopping (the kids were each given $20.00 that they could spend at D-land.) We were able to bring my mom with us to help with the kids. This made such a huge difference in our flexibility with the big kids. Around 1:00pm the first day we went back to the condo and had a quick bite to eat. Then Jason, the three big kids, and I went back to the park. We ran around and played until around 9:00pm. My favorite moment of the day was when we went onto "Star Tours". It's a really dated ride, and they are replacing it with something new next month but my family absolutely loved it! One, because we're huge star wars fans, and second because the little kids totally thought it was real. It takes you on a simulated outer-space ride, and Phoebe was completely floored because she thought we had just gone out to space. She kept saying "That was a real trip mom!" Her face during the ride was too much! After we were done at the park we walked across the street to the ihop and ate huge amounts of food. Phoebe fell asleep in the booth, and Jason had to carry her back to the bus stop. It was a really fun night. The next day we decided to try California Adventure. It was a really difficult morning. Everyone was super tired, and all of us were a little bit snippy. We made it through the morning, then we all went back to the condo. We decided to have my mom take the big kids back to the park for the evening and Jason and I stayed with the little ones. They got to do the street parade, and see some evening stuff that wouldn't hold the little kids attention. California Adventure is not geared towards little ones as much as D-land, so there's just not that much for them to do. Day three of the park was more of the same. Us with just the big kids for the second part of the day, mom taking the little one's back home after lunch. We all did the "Maliboomer" which was so fun. It gives us the giggles bad. Then Jason, Payton, and I did California Screamin. Parker wanted nothing to do with that, he's not much of a roller coaster guy. Then we did "Grizzley River Rapids". We had a lot of fun on that. Payton was the only one of us that got really wet. Starving again, we went to "Tony Romas" and ate ribs. We walked to MCD's to get some dessert and then decided to hop on the bus and get home. It was a good long day. Our fourth day, and the hottest of the week 81 degrees in February, we went and spent the day at Huntington Beach.

It was so surreal, I can't believe that people actually live that life. Surfing in the middle of the day, tons of people walking/running up and down the beach. There were dolphins out in the wake about a 1/4 mile off shore. We had a really nice relaxing day at the ocean. Phoebe and Payton collected shells, Parker made structures with all the washed up bamboo along the beach. Paxton made certain we weren't bothered by the seagulls and chased all of them away. We got enough sun to pink up, and warm our bones. Thursday we went to the park again. Around 3pm everyone left except Jason and I. This was our date night, and we had a really nice evening. We rode all of the rides that we wanted to ride, Tower of Terror, Cal Screamin (twice), Swinging Gondolas, The Maliboomer, and others. It was a great date. We got ice cream on Main Street USA, and it was amazing. We ate dinner outside of the park at Bubba Gump Shrimp CO. We ate ourselves sick, everything was too good. The last day in the park everyone got to pick their favorite ride and that's what we did. Payton's was California Screamin, Phoebe did it with us and liked it! Parker's was Space Mountain, Grandma Suzie did Great moments with Mr. Lincoln, and Jungle Cruise. Paxton was Buzz Lightyear Blasters, and Phoebe's was splash mountain & soarin over California. After the best corn dogs ever Jason and I took the little kids home to swim. We spent the rest of the day/evening packing up and cleaning the condo. It was an amazing family vacation, and it's always such a treat to get out of Klamath Falls in February. We were blessed with great weather, and generous family. Having my mom with us was such a gift. We wouldn't have been able to do half as much with out her there. We hope to be able to go back in about 3 years.

Phoebe got picked to be in the High School Musical dance party!

Four Days.....

We leave for Disneyland in four days! Jason and I have never been to Disneyland. Parker went when he was 3, so he really doesn't remember it, and the other kids have never been as well. I'm super excited, and a little bit nervous. I feel like we've planned well, and I've done my research but now that the times come I can't remember anything! I've got so much to get ready! I am super grateful to the Bowlby's for being so generous in letting us use their timeshare to stay at. There's no way we could afford seven days in the magic kingdom inside or outside of the gates without it. I've been checking the forecast and it's holding in the 70's! I cannot wait to be warm. If you have any advice send it my way!

Happy Anniversary

Today is my and Jason's 12th wedding anniversary. It's flown by, and been fabulous 90% of the time. Last night we went out to dinner to celebrate. We went to the only Vietnamese restaurant in town and had delicious food. At the end of the dinner we got fortune cookies which read....

His: You will a have happy adventure soon.

Mine: Accept the next proposition you hear.

Nuff said, happy anniversary Jason.

Fall Pictures!

Went out past Keno with our friends the Hewletts to get their Christmas tree. We can't have a real one because of my families allergies, but it was so fun to go out in the woods with them. Tiffany took our family picture, and I took advantage of the opportunity to take new pictures of the kids. Fall pictures are always my favorite, and somehow this year I missed the leaves in town so out to the woods we went.
Paxton-3

Parker -11 Payton-9

Phoebe-5

Halloween 2009

Halloween this year was a week long event. It started with the Main Steet Parade and carnival. Paxton the Pirate and Phoebe the Sailor had a blast. Even Parker (who is almost too cool for this holiday) had a good time.Payton was out in the woods with J collecting wood.
They had a ton of stuff going on including several businesses who were giving out candy to the hords of children. Parker stayed at the Jewelry store and handed out candy. This is Phoebe in the Parade with Margaret. These two just love each other to pieces. They have such a sweet friendship.
Then there was trick or treating at "Trick or Street" . Here is Lila the Lion at our church "Trunk or Treat". It was a really good night there too!
Here's Parker in his Ducks Uniform, which doubled as his costume for the second year in a row.
Payton and Eva used their dance receitle costumes to be clowns this year at the Roosevelt Carnival. So many Parties this year!

Phoebe's Pre-School

Theses are Phoebe's school pictures that my friend Camille did for the school. They are sooo cute!
Phoebe's Teacher and the class, cute kids, great teacher, awesome school! Love it!

Wood Adventures

In October Jason and I took the little kids out to Deadhorse and Campbell Lake to get wood. We borrowed trailers and vehicals from various family members and friends and headed out to get wood for the winter. This is a great place to get wood because there is so much standing dead wood, thanks to beatle kill. You can see the whole hill behind the lake is just ravaged.

The down side to going there is that it is about 80 miles one way. So we tryed to make the most out of the trip and get as much wood as possible. We had a truck bed and two trailers. We got directions and a map from the Forrest Service office in Klamath. They told us that when we got to a certain spot we would find the wood in piles already fell and limbed. That was exactly what we found when we got to the lake. Several piles of it waiting for us to load up. We got the truck bed about halfway loaded when a Forrest Service truck pulled up to us and told us that the wood we were loading was for campsites, not us. We knew it was too good to be true. He was nice though, and let us keep what wood we had loaded. Evidently, the office in Klamath was giving out bad information, he had to tell this same thing to two people before us the same day. When he was done crushing our dreams, he told us that the tire on one of our trailers was flat. That was the beginning of a long bad day. We had no spare for the trailer, and the leak was so bad that it wouldn't hold air after we put in "tire stuff" and filled it back up with air. We couldn't drive the trailer home with this tire, so we jacked the trailer up and took off the wheel and put it in the back of the car. Jason found a spot, and started cutting wood while I drove the back service roads to Paisly Or. When I finally arrived in Paisley an hour later they had one service station. I filled up the huge gas tank of the Escalade, and prayed that they could fix the tire that is appreantly older than dirt. The locals gave me weird looks, probably because of the luxery suv I was driving. This kid was the only one working the gas station/ service station and he was running his but off.

Across the street from the service station is a nice little cafe where the kids and I grabbed a drink. Inbetween the two on the corner of the main road through town was this "Deer Hide Deposit" bucket. That's small town Oregon for ya!
So about an hour after I arrived, and $60 in gas, and $ 65 in tire tube later I was on my way back to where Jason was. When I arrived to Jason he only had about 6 tree rounds loaded. I had been gone for almost 3 hours, so I was very dissapointed. The reason was, not because he was taking it easy, but because the chain on the chain saw was so dull it was taking 15 minutes and a whole lot of man power to get through one section of tree. After witnessing this for about an hour, I got fed up with it. We decided to just limb them and cut them into six foot sections. Then we both picked them up, and threw them in the tailer. We ended up being out there well past dark, but we got alot of wood. It was such a long drive and a whole day, so the pressure to make it worth it was on. By this point it was also getting to be an expensive trip! All in all a good long days worth of hard work, and heat for the winter.