Justin and Estelle come for the holidays

I am back-tracking a bit - but I had to blog about my brother coming to visit. It has been the best part of the holidays for us!
Justin and his daughter, Estelle, came for a vacation and we had so much fun. Since it was a special event, we thought we should commemorate it by buying the biggest doughnuts we could find for a yummy breakfast.
Justing brought shrinky-dinks for the kids...love these!
Gotta go to Chuck E. Cheese when family comes.

We decided to go to the pier on the WINDIEST DAY EVER!

Brr.
Justin surprised us with an early Christmas present...Rock Band, baby!!
Disneyland is so cool.

Estelle went on this ride and when it was over, she simply stated, "That was really scary."
These guys are so goofy. When the snow started to fall, this crew got a little too emotional (drop on knees, raise hands to heavens, fake tears flowing...sheesh).

It was awesome.

gotta go to Disneyland!

Disneyland is so awesome.

This was the best day. Perfect weather, so fun...until I thought it would be a good idea to go on Grizzly Bear Peak in the evening. It reminded me of frozen jeans in Manitoba winters. I wore them for about two hours and then I walked into one of the ridiculously expensive stores to find the cheapest pair of pants I could find...I didn't care if there was a huge Mickey Mouse on the butt or anything! I was freezing!! Anyways, I found some pants. I had to choose between brown velour "princess" sequined jogging pants for $35.oo or a plain gray pair of Hurley sweats for $48.00. That was the best $48.00 plus tax I've ever spent.

Crazy Cousins

Love these little chicks.

Oh by the way, Kelly, Steve LOVES the surprise you left for him in his car.

our latest Disney adventure...and the "new" toy story ride

Here we are after a nauseating ride at Tower of Terror. I still get butterflies in line. It is so fun!

We have been waiting for the lines to go down before checkin' out this newish ride at the happiest place on earth - THE TOY STORY RIDE!!!!

We noticed the lines DON'T go down, so we waited about 45 minutes for it...and loved it! It is so cool! 3-D Video game + ride = so fun!

When Family Visits

So we've been a little busy this week having a great visit with my sister and her family. Between the two of us, we got great pictures of all of the fun we had, but I forgot to make a disc before she left of her pics, so I posted a few of what I took. Disneyland was so fun. My friend told us the key was to get there before the park opened, and then we'd avoid the lines. She was right! As soon as the doors opened, we RAN to Peter Pan, and Dumbo and walked right on. (You have to do those rides for the Disney feel!) We headed over to Splash Mountain (no line), Winnie the Pooh, Haunted Mansion, and Pirates - all walk on rides :) We continued to ride everything we wanted and had a wonderful time.
Beach days were another highlight. We ate, played, read, and even slept (see below) for hours on both of our beach days. The girls played in the water all day with no "when are we leaving" questions at all!
The weather was great and the breeze put Matt to sleep.
Sophie and Matt made their usual collection of sand balls and brought them home. I still don't know why, but it is a summer tradition.
Kerri has the pictures of the Dodger game we went to - SO fun. Shawn could have been awarded the Dodger fan of the year award. He was hilarious! He got our section cheering, clapping and laughing for the entire game.
We love summer! And we love family visits :)

Dole Pineapple Whips

The tastiest thing to eat at Disneyland. Worth the $3.00 - and sitting through the Tiki Room Show.

Disneyland Girl Trip

I was suprised to see we had one day left on our Disneyland passes before the summer was blocked out, so we figured we'd tackle the crowds and see how many rides we could actually get on. We got there about 10:30, fully prepared to walk up to a throng of people waiting to get into the park. BUT NO! It was the opposite! We walked onto the tram, walked right through the "security" with no line, and right into Disneyland. I decided that everyone was already in the park and we were about to face the crowds when we tried to ride rides. Again, SURPRISE! No lines? What??? This was to good to be true.
The whole day was like that. We just went on ride after ride waiting about 15 minutes max. to get on any ride we picked. And Sophie, for some reason, got over every fear she had ever had about riding roller coasters - she went on everything! Her favorite ride was Big Thunder Mountain, which we rode about 8 times. It was Mickey Mouse Heaven....
The girls were allowed to get their traditional lollipop treat (the pack of 5 for less than $5.00) after Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain and Winnie the Pooh (notice the shape of the lollipops - yes, we followed the path off of the Pooh Bear ride into the strategically placed candy store). Sophie won the colored tongue contest the girls had.
We stayed until around 10:00 and loved every minute of the day. The weather was perfect, the crowds were small - amazing! I love girl days :)