Seal Beach Clean Up

It was a beautiful and sunny morning at Seal Beach. Our friend co-sponsered the Kids Save the Beach clean up day and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go down for a few hours before family came into town for Thanksgiving. In addition to a lot of styrofoam and other trash this is what we found:

"Slick" the Seal was there cheering us on. We enjoyed a lunch at Ruby's and made it home with enough time to get ready for Grandma and Grandpa to arrive. What a nice day.

Disneyland in November

Early November is one of the slowest times of year to visit Disneyland, so my sister's family came out then instead of at Thanksgiving. After spending some time on the Beach in San Clemente (where they surfed and boogey boarded, etc) we all went to Disneyland.

My sister and niece!

The little cousins had fun together!

Guess who is now tall enough to ride Splash Mountain and loves it!

Guess who was too tired to even open his eyes again after he fell asleep at 6:00pm!

Meeting Mickey at Traveltown

Traveltown Railroad Museum is one of our favorite places to play. This time was extra cool because we got to meet Mickey Mouse.

There was a lot of waving.

And even more of this.

Yoda at Halloween

Here is Yoda training with his green lightsabers, practicing his Force-push and showing what goes into Yoda Stew.

Now for the real deal! This time a red lightsaber on Halloween Night.

We gathered with cousins in Southern Utah and had a huge trick-or-treat party. What fun!

Grandma's Birthday

I am a few months behind, but here goes.

For my mom's birthday in September my brother's daughters came down to visit. They got off the plane and came straight to Disneyland where we were waiting. It was my mom's birthday, but she ended up treating us all to a fabulous day!

The rest of the weekend the V-girls spent on the beach with Grandma. What a blessing to have such a beautiful playground so close!

And before they got back on the plane, we had a little birthday celebration.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Descanso Gardens

Our Labor Day outing was at the Descanso Gardens.

Welcome to the Enchanted Garden Railroad - our first stop at Descanso Gardens. He was concerned that the train didn't have a name. I guess only trains with faces have names.

There is so much to see at Descanso Gardens.

"Swamp McDonalds" or "More bars in more places"

One of the many reasons that I love my husband is that he is very imaginative around children. Look at the video at the bottom of our friend's blog for the perfect example of how great he is with kids and how much they love being around him.

The garden hosted a Ford Model A Antique Car exhibit.

I took advantage of Dad being there so that I could get a picture with our son!

Labor Day Weekend

Our Labor Day weekend was full of fun. First we headed to Las Vegas for a few days with our extended family. First stop, Shark Reef. Not knowing how short the exhibit was, we moved right through it pretty fast. Instead of exiting when we reached the end, we turned around and walked back to the start and took our time looking at things we rushed past the first time. Our favorite exhibits included the aligator, komodo dragon, pirahna, jellyfish, lion fish, and of course, sharks. Our son was excited to see a Blue Tang (Dori from Finding Nemo). He even wore his orange and white striped shirt so that he could be Nemo. Up close and personal with the gator

Here is the spectacular lion fish. Next to their tank was the Jellyfish, but none of my pics turned out. They were magnificent, too.
My name is Bruce. I am a nice shark.

I am not sure what was going on, but there was this turtle just minding its own business and a shark came by and started nosing its way under the turtle's belly. Crazy.

We also had a lot of fun in the lazy river at the MGM Grand. Cousins make everything more fun!

Leaving Las Vegas!

Camping at Lake Casitas

This week we went camping! We had driven past Lake Casitas over a year ago and finally had some time to go. We invited some friends along to share our campsite and we had a really great time. Lake Casitas is located north of Ventura, near Ojai. The weather was pretty hot, so we were dissappointed that we couldn't get in the water. The lake is a source for drinking water, so people can't get in. Fish can, though, so there were plenty of people fishing and boating.
Payton is a little older than our son and they enjoyed playing in the dirt and throwing rocks into the lake. They threw so many, we are sure that the water level rose a little.

They wouldn't just smile for the camera, but they showed off their teeth.

The kids enjoyed the playground. There were playgrounds scattered throughout the campgrounds.

Their delicious dutch oven goulash really hit the spot after an afternoon of playing at the lake.

There were birds, including blue jays, quails, and turkey vultures, squirrels, rabbits, and coyotes.

After the moon set we could see the stars so clearly.

This site welcomed us in the morning when we opened our tent.

6:45 isn't too early for a walk over to the playground. After breakfast we went hunting for some geocaches. We found 3 out of the 4 we tried for. We also got to ride with our son on a mountain bike. He had so much fun despite his mom and dad not being able to go very fast.