so impressive

around Disneyland and California Adventure - you'll see little gardens... like right there in the middle of the different Lands... it amazes me and was quite exciting to see actually! Check out this orange tree - smack dab in "Bug's Land" and this lettuce - in the lineup to Astro Blasterscool hey?! I think they may even grow some grapes and make wine - but I'm not certain. I know they have Wine Days at some point...

Day 4 of vacation - Day 2 at Disneyland

We are so excited to get going on our 5 Days with Jason now! And he's happy for the break from work!
We found the week to be busier than it was at Christmas time in 2006 - happened to be everyone's Spring Break that week! Oh well - we also found that if we were there close to 8:00am when it opened, the line ups were soooo minimal until 11:00ish - very doable!Autopia in Tomorrowland:another favourite was the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster ride
we did Astro Orbitors 2x; Star Tours, Space Mountain, Nemo Submarine, Autopia, and a ride back to Main Gates on the Horse-Drawn Trolley (we took big advantage of those this week!)

Around Noon we walked over to California Adventurethe Army Men from Toy Story did a little show on the "road"look at this picture - fun, hey?! Gabi took a turn playing the Bubble Wrap Game on Jason's iPhone, so when I took the picture Cinderella's reflection off of Gabi's shirt showed up rather than the game she was playing - cool huh?!Stitch and Goofy:and High School Musical "show" on the "road"dressed up as Jessie from Toy Story 2, in the gift shop!and this tidbit of information came to us on a Disney promotion DVD they sent to us... "Riders Switch Pass" became a very handy tool and working it with Fastpass... we worked the system very well!!we did the Playhouse Disney show; Aladdin theatrical show; Bug's Life 3D show; Flik's Flyers ride; Soarin' Over California; Pixar's Play Parade; carousel and Jason went on California Screamin ride! Oh - and today Elijah ran into a classmate amongst the business of day!

First Day at Disneyland

Jason of course had to attend the Trade Show today (Saturday), so I took the kids to Disneyland for the day and it went over very well!! From a tip from Aaron, I stopped at City Hall in D-Land to get a sticker w/ our cell phone # on it to stick to each child... just in case! Didn't need it though! Phew!
Here are the stickers, but I took a picture because I thought it was cute they were holding hands!

On our way to Small World, I noticed Pixie Hollow (wasn't there last time we were there in 2006) had a small line, so we went into that line so we could meet Tinkerbell (Gabi and my Favourite!) First we met this Fairy - I don't know who she is and both Sam and Gabi didn't want to see herthen around the corner to Tinkerbell; thankfully Gabi went up to her, I'll excuse her lack of smile!though just before going up to Tinkerbell she was full of smiles as we watched her from a few feet awaythe Teacups were a hit over the week - we went on them probably 6 or 7 times!It was a fantastic day!! Oh - and one of the craziest highlights was this... while we were in the Tiki Room, after a few minutes I looked over at some of the other people in this 'show' too and there sat our very good friends Noah and Katherine whom we go and visit every Labour Day Weekend!!! I could not believe my eyes! We touched base when we were let out of the show - they were just finishing up their week the next day - and Jason happened to run in to them too on Sunday when he came for his first day! C-R-A-Z-Y!

For my sake this is what we went on today:
• Pixie Hollow
• Mad Hatter’s Tea Cup Ride x2
• Small World
• Gadget’s Go Coaster
• Toontown
• Met goofy, Mickey in his house, Fairy Godmother, Pluto
• Carousel
• Casey’s Jr. Circus Train ride
• Winnie the Pooh ride x2
• Tiki Room
• Jungle Cruise ride
• Tarzan’s treehouse, Donald's boat, Goofy's garden/house, Chip & Dale's tree house

Day 2

On Friday we joined Jason at the Trade Show for the morning... trying things like organic Cotton Candy, bars of all sorts... and this great OJ - which was extra special since we "have" an Uncle Matt! This picture is for you, Uncle Matt!Jason stayed for the day at the Show and I took the kids back to the hotel and we went for a swim.Once they were all washed up, I took them to "Downtown Disney". That is a shopping/dining area right outside the gates of Disneyland. We went into Build-a-Bear and I let the kids each pick out something for $5 for their bears they already have (I saved a $10 dividends certificate I rec'd from Build-a-Bear when our Students in October made those big purchases - I benefited from that ($30)!) - Sammy picked a Pluto Hat for his dog and Elijah/Gabi's choses were not Disney related. We went into the Lego Store too and looked at the cool Lego creations - like this Indiana Jones -We got back around 6:00pm and off to bed as we begin our busy week on Saturday. :)

Palm Trees - Day 1

So we arrived at the John Wayne airport around 11:00am (March 11th), and to our hotel before Noon. We got our stuff in the room and then walked over to the Convention Center where the Trade Show was taking place... lots of good samples for us to snack on!

Palm Trees - love them...cool tree to climb in, hey?!this Canada flag tattoo got A LOT of comments over our week - that silly thing was already on for 2 weeks since the Gold Medal Hockey Game that we watched at home!!We spent a couple hours in the "hot products" tent... then walked to a grocery store for our food/drink for the week.

First Airplane Trip

This March Jason and I were going to be going to Anaheim for an annual Trade Show - until I planted an idea in his mind to bring the kids along and stay for a visit to the Happiest Place on Earth! And voila - it happened! On March 10th we drove down to Seattle to stay in a "stay n fly" hotel for the night; making it to Seatac early on the 11th. Besides forgetting all of our paperwork in the van in the hotel parking lot (LOL) - we got all 5 of us and all of our backpacks and luggage through security and on to the plane. :) It was a really nice change flying with the kids for 2.5hours versus driving for 18 hours. Love it!

Look at the sun beaming in!California - here we come!

14 golds, 7 silvers, 5 bronze for Canada

On Friday Jason and Kurt got to sneak away to Whistler for the day and take in the atmosphere up there, as well as getting into the medal game for Men's Biathalon. They were gone for 20 hours and had a great time, of course!

With this being the last weekend of the Olympics, we actually went back Downtown on the 27th with the kids. Happy to partake in the spirit again!
First we took the SeaBus back and forth - a first for the kids and I.this crazy, wicked steep escalator coming up to ground level from one sky train station(how ironic is that? sky train below ground!)did I mention in an earlier post, that I was hoping to get a better pic of the Canada flag? well, here it is and it's cool reflection in the following photo:zipline across Robson - just observing, although a free activity, not doable with children in tow!and the Downtown Sleep Country store converted the front 1/3 of their store into a neat Olympic display... we were able to pose in this bobsledwe got to skip the line we quickly heard, if we had small children - when outside of Science World - so we actually went into the overhauled SW that was now Russia's Center since they are hosting the winter olympics in 2014.Here is one of the mascots they've created for the 2014 GamesFun Fun Day!


We thoroughly got into the Gold Medal Hockey Game on the 28th - and got out to celebrate on our "main street" in town that afternoon --- pics are on my other camera at home. (we're in Anaheim right now)

aw, spring temperatures

On Friday February 19th - Elijah did not have school, so we went to MLake to ride around it. This was Elijah's first time doing such. Due to our housing locations and such - Elijah is fairly new to bike riding. When he was young we had bought him the bike that Sam now rides - thinking we'd skip the tricycle stage and just train him on a 2-wheeled-training-wheels bike - BUT that came back to bite us because when learning to ride, he'd get too frustrated to continue for more than a few minutes at a time since he was inclined to push the peddles back (which on a 2 wheeler, is the brakes). Frustrating. Now that we have a cul-de-sac to ride in - he has had more opportunity and has since aged, so he can better remember not to peddle backwards. He's getting there!
We actually went around the following day too - and since I am blogging about this 3 weeks later, I have taken Sam around it a few more times since this. Sam would be happy to go every day - and some days that is possible - others, not so possible. :)