Legoland

Day 1 and Day 6 of our trip to California included visits to Legoland in Carlsbad. The park is ideal for younger kids (hey, we have three of those!). Besides the awesome lego sculptures throughout the park, the kids had fun on the rides and Will especially enjoyed a live performance by the "Lego Funtown Fire Department" (think singing, dancing and corny jokes that are hilarious to a 4 year old). A highlight for Jane was meeting her very first princess, Princess Lily and also attending a Christmas play in Legoland. Joy was too short for most of the rides, but had fun watching everyone and playing in the huge play structure located in the middle of the park. The weather was in the 60s at the start of the trip and started reaching into the 70s by the end of our stay, which is perfect for us Seattleites.

California Christmas 2011

We recently returned from a wonderful trip to California. We were gone almost two weeks, which is by far the longest vacation we've taken as a family. The first week was spent exploring Disneyland, Seaworld and Legoland with my wonderful parents. There are so many memories that I will treasure from our time with them. During our first week in CA, we also took a couple days to go to the beach and just hang out at our condo (we stayed at the Lawrence Welk Resort in Escondido).
The second week of our trip we went down to Winchester, CA and Lake Arrowhead to stay with John's aunt/uncle and cousins over Christmas. John's cousins all have little kids around our kids' age. In total, there were 12 kids (plus one cousin in utero).
Here are a few pictures I got of our special Christmas with the Axenes. We sure love them and wish we could see them more often. John and I get to join Josh and Tiff in Maui in mere weeks, and we definitely look forward to more time with them and each other.

DISNEYLAND!

We were giddy getting into Disneyland. The nostalgia, the joy of seeing your kids have so much fun and the sheer impressiveness of Disney made it a wonderful day. Because we're staying about 90 minutes from Disneyland, this was our only day there. We left before 7am and didn't get home until 8pm tonight so naturally, there was some crankiness throughout the day. But, it was so fun and a day that I will store in my memory bank. THANK YOU to my parents for treating us to such a wonderful time!
Highlights:
-Will meeting Pooh. He waited and waited and it almost didn't happen due to Pooh being a unionized employee who needs to take frequent potty breaks. When Will finally met Pooh Bear, he hugged him and kissed him and told him about the special Pooh Bear that he has at home. It was so sweet, it brought tears to my eyes.
-Jane going on Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain with John and I. The height minimum is 40" and she JUST made the cut. She was terrified in Space Mountain (halfway through the pitch black ride I hear a quiet "I don't like this" next to me), but I think she had fun as she went on Thunder Mountain right after. It will be fun to tell her in the future that she tackled a monster roller coaster when she was only 3.
-Jane watching the Disney Princesses at the "Princess Coronation." Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Cinderella lead the kids in a maypole dance and princess dance lessons. So cute.
-Joy riding on the carousel. Pure sweetness.
-The Christmas Parade was so impressive. It was neat seeing all of the beautiful decorations throughout the park, and the parade did a nice job showcasing the characters for the kids to see.

Jane's Christmas Program

Jane attends preschool on Thursday mornings. Today being the last Thursday before Christmas break, families were invited to the last 30 minutes of class for some singing and games. Here are a few pictures and a snippet of the kids. Jane is my camera-lover. If you say "Cheese", she will (usually) smile despite the chaos around her :-)




Joy (and Will who didn't want to be in the picture) waiting to go into Jane's class. Will was very excited that he got to leave school early so he could come watch:

Jane's present to me: a home-made snow globe

Mabes and Joy enjoying the toys