Thanksgiving

I think we’ve started a new Thanksgiving tradition. It’s been many years trying to establish one, and now we’ve found one that we really enjoy. We went to Twin Falls for the second year in a row to spend Thanksgiving with the Aldama’s, Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle B. We left Wednesday early in the morning and made good time. The kids were good in the car for the 9 1/2 hour drive. They were so excited to see their cousins they couldn’t sleep. It was a long night for all of us. Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving day.

This was the popular sleeping nook. At least 4 children slept there each night.

Noelle and Lucia were busy primping and playing Barbies.

Tami and Dad chatting.We went to Centennial ParkThat bridge behind her terrifies me!Grandpa, Julio and some of the kids hiked up to the top of this huge rock. What a view!

Noelle was a little mama to Tessa.Tessa spent a lot of time on these stairs and had two good tumbles down them!

This is fuzzy but funny!The kids enjoying dessert. We had such a delicious dinner and a nice day. I’m so thankful we were able to spend it all together. We just missed the Hill’s.

Halloween and my birthday

Mary Todd LincolnThe bunnyLucia wore a different costume to go trick-or-treating at daddy’s office. I don’t know why I can’t find a picture of Frankenstein!

the tooth fairyFlo the Progressive ladyMy birthday was on a Sunday this year. We did have my new traditional crab feed dinner and Dad’s birthday cake. yum!

Typical Sylvie

I must blog about this before I forget. After our fun-packed, but exhausting days at Disneyland, I got up the following morning at our hotel and tried to sneak out to go eat a delicious, hot cooked breakfast downstairs. The hotel was set up where there was a huge atrium in the middle of balconies looking down onto it. There are two glass elevators in the middle of the hotel going down to the atrium where breakfast is served. Just as I was slipping out the door, one child woke up and soon 3 children were awake and wanted to go downstairs with me. So, the 4 of us headed down to eat. I got the kids food first and got them settled while they ate. Then I went to get my food which took a while since I toasted some bread and got some eggs to order. I finally sat down to eat and all the kids were done eating. Lucia had to go to the bathroom and so Marco and Sylvie decided they wanted to go back to the room as well. I didn’t want to leave my uneaten breakfast on the table (I should have just taken it up to the room with me), so I left it and walked the kids to the elevator, put them in the elevator and told Lucia to push 4. I watched the doors close and went back to my table to eat. Suddenly a loud alarm went off and I look up at the glass elevator to see my kids jumping and crying and the elevator stopped between floors. I wasn’t the only one staring at them-all of the guests and hotel workers were too! People were gasping and saying, “Who’s kids are those?”  I ran over to the elevator and tried to get it to come down, but since Sylvie pushed the alarm it was stuck. I ran up the two floors and got the doors open as employees were running around trying to figure out how to turn off the alarm. I was so mortified. I ran back to our room with the kids and refused to leave until we checked out and I went out the back stairs.  Lucia said she did push 4, but as soon as they started moving, Sylvie pushed the emergency button. Typical Sylvie. It did freak her out pretty bad and I doubt she’ll get into an elevator for a long time.

Here is a picture of the kids outside our room at the hotel.

Pumpkin Patch and our crazy weekend

We had a really busy weekend. Friday night, the kids had their Harvest Festival at school, Saturday morning Marco had a soccer game (and scored 2 goals!) and then, we had a little accident with Tessa and had to have her forehead glued together, then to the Pumpkin Patch and then the ward Trunk-or-Treat. Phew!

See the bandage on her head? She’s such a tough girl!

Sylvie was in heaven swimming in the dried corn.

More pics to come…

California Adventure

On Friday, we went to California Adventure-just us. We had never been and had a hard time deciding if we wanted to go there or just go back to Disneyland again, or get a park-hopper. We decided to just do Cal Ad. for the day. We got there early, had our disability pass ready to go and went full speed ahead!

First, photo ops…First ride-the Hollywood Tower of Terror! IT even looks ominous under those dark clouds! We did get rained on a little bit that day, but it wasn’t too bad. This was my favorite ride of all! I loved it! Lucia and I went on it first, then swapped with Julio and Marco.

Then we headed

over to Bug Land and went on some kiddie rides which Sylvie loved.

Then we watched the Disney Junior Live Show. It was ok.

Then we headed over to Soarin’ Over California-which was broken down. So I went on the water rapids ride with Lucia and got SOAKED! Julio went on it alone and didn’t get wet hardly at all. I was wet the rest of the day.

Then we went over to this nature play area where the kids would have liked to play for hours. I think that’s the dog from Up.

Then we headed

over to Paradise Pier and went on every single ride over there-the big roller coaster, the Goofy roller coaster, the flying rockets, the spinning swings, the carousel, the Toy Story ride (one of my favorites) We tried to get Sylvie on the Little Mermaid ride-no way! Good thing too, because we got stuck on that ride. We did get to see a parade.

Sylvie liked this dropping ride.Julio on the roller coaster.

We all went on the ferris

wheel, I was terrified! Lucia said it was her favorite ride. Marco liked the Toy Story ride.

Cars Land-we didn’t get to go on the fast Cars ride-too crowded. By about 7 pm, Disneyland closed, so it was so packed we could hardly get through the park.  We went on 2 out of 3 Cars rides. But last stop before we left was Hollywood Tower of Terror again. We got on and off in 20 minutes with our pass and the people next to us had been in line for 2 hours!  We were exhausted! I think we only missed 3 rides in the whole park! We left about 10 pm after getting some treats and souvenirs. We had a blast!

Disneyland-day 1

October 10-13th

We left after school on Wed. and got to Yesenia’s house in Granada Hills by midnight. The kids were good, we made good time, but we were so tired.  So, instead of getting up early on Thursday to get ready to go to Disneyland, we slept in. By the time we got there, driving through traffic, it was 11 am. By the time we got in, it was 11:30. By the time we took some initial photo ops, it was noon.

I guess the reason Elliott and I are both in this picture, was to keep the babies from falling off the wall. I didn’t get a single picture of Yesenia!

Abuela with Marco

Look! There’s Sleeping Beauty across the pond!

What is Julio doing?

After the photo ops, we went straight to Fantasyland-which is not my favorite. But, since we had a bunch of little kids, that’s where we went first. Sylvie was already feeling overwhelmed with all the people and the noise, so it was a mistake to take her on a dark, loud ride first (Snow White). She freaked out and wanted to go home and not go on any more rides.

See, she was ok while we waited in line.

This is her on the ride. Not happy!

She loved the Carousel!Just pull a little harder!

Tessa with our friend Brian who works at Disneyland and got some of us in for free-was a huge help and gave us lots of insider info!

After we all went in Small World, I took the Marco and Lucia on the Matterhorn while everyone else went to Toon Town.

Tessa and cousin Halea.

The girls really did love meeting Mickey and Minnie and exploring their houses. Here is more in Toontown.

Marco and Lucia on Thunder Mountain Railroad. They loved the rollercoaster rides! Marco was glad to be tall enough to ride them this time.

the Haunted Mansion

About half-way through the day, Brian mentioned to Julio that we should get a disability pass for Sylvia so we could skip the lines. So, while we all went on Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted Mansion (which there’s no way Sylvie would go on those), Julio went and got the pass and from then on, it was smooth sailing!

Then we had dinner in New Orleans Square (my favorite part of the park). Marco loved the jazz band and was dancing his heart out! Then we went on Splash Mountain. Marco and Lucia loved that ride (of course they got to take turns riding the rollercoasters twice so Julio and I could both go on them.) I didn’t get any pictures of Splash Mountain. Then we rode the train over to Tomorrow Land. Sylvie wasn’t so thrilled about the train.

The kids totally loved Space Mountain, but it was so loud and the entire building was shaking and lights flashing. Sylvie was terrified and so was Tessa, so we had to go wait in one of the gift shops.

Last ride was Autotopia.

We met up with abuela who was watching sleeping babies.

Stopped for ice cream on Main Street.

Some final photo ops. Disneyland was all decorated for Halloween-my favorite holiday. I loved it! We left when the park closed. I felt there was so much we didn’t get to do , but we still did a lot and had a great time. The kids had a blast (except for Sylvie) and Tessa was really good the whole day. It was nice to spend time with family as well.