Universal Studios

On our 2nd day of park hopping, we headed into LA and went to Universal Studios!

 It was pretty empty (thanks to being a week day and kids back in school) which was great when we kept running into different characters...no lines to get pictures taken!  Zane was in character heaven!

The first "ride" we went on was the tram that goes through the different movie sets and has some "real life" simulations - anyone who has been to Universal knows what tram I'm talking about.  I told Josh that I didn't think this was a good idea to do with Zane - he can get very anxious if he doesn't know what's going on and he scares very easily - turns out, I was right! 

 It didn't help that our tram BROKE DOWN!  The brakes locked up (I only know that because I'm married to a technician that has a keen sense of smell for broken down vehicles) and we were stuck - a non-moving tram meant no breeze, which meant very sticky hot people and also meant an even more concerned Zane :(  Of course we assured him over and over that everything was fine, but he honestly thought this was part of the ride and kept asking what was happening and what was going to happen next etc!  Once they brought the mechanics down to check out the tram and figured out that this tram wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, they opted to bring down a new tram for us to all transfer too.  Apparently, no park-goers are every allowed to just willy nilly walk around the fake streets and get up close and personal with the Hollywood facads so when they brought down the new tram, they also brought a host of security with them to stand at every 10 feet of the little "street" we had to walk down - I personally thought the whole ordeal was pretty cool so of course snapped a few pics :)  By the way, Landon just munched on crackers the entire time and didn't have a care in the world!

This whole tram adventure pretty much ruined Zane for most of the rest of the day.  He didn't have a lot of trust in us to go on any other rides there (until he saw the Transformer ride, then he was cool with it!) and he was very anxious and overly cautious about any "new" place we walked to at Universal.

Of course while we were at Universal we had to play tourist and take pictures with all of the fun "sets" they have set up!

Josh and I love Universal Studios and always have...but its safe to say that it wasn't Zane's favorite place!  If we were to do the whole thing over again, would we still take Zane on the tram ride...in a heartbeat!  Even though it freaked him out at times and he had a meltdown or two - he has told everyone who asks him about his trip about the tram ride and everything he saw on it and also lets them know "he wasn't happy about it" all of the time, but never fear he did think some parts of it were pretty cool - his favorite was the plan crash we drove by, haha!

 

Disney Day 1 Cont'd - Cars Land

After spending all morning and most of the afternoon at Disneyland we decided to head back to the hotel for a little bit to cool off.  When we booked this trip many months ago, we pretty much chose our hotel based on the pool features alone (and a good recommendation from a friend...thanks Andrea).  There was a splash park and a beach entry kiddy pool in one area and then a regular pool in a totally different fenced in area...we loved this because we knew we wouldn't have to worry as much about Landon just taking a leap into the deep end (kid has absolutely NO fear when it comes to water or pretty much anything for that fact).  Turns out our decision to book our hotel based on the water features alone was a pretty good decision!  The boys had a blast!

 After a dip in the pool and some dinner we headed back over to the park and decided to go into California Adventure and check out the new Cars Land...this place was awesome!  My pictures don't do any justice.  

This is by far the busiest area of both parks combined, but luckily that night we all got onto Luigi's Flying Tires pretty quick and Josh and Zane were able to get right on to the most popular ride in the area Radiator Springs Racers even though there was a 75 minute wait (we may or may not have pulled the D-card on this one)!  I was never able to get on this one, they wouldn't give us a "child-swap pass" since it was too close to closing time and every other time we went they didn't care about us pulling the D-card and we refused to wait 2 hours for a ride!  But from what Josh and Zane told me, it was a pretty freakin' cool ride!

 While Josh and Zane were on the Racers ride, Landon and I walked (well, he strolled) around Cars Land to really check it out and snap a few pictures! 

  
We were lucky enough to catch Mater right before he was headed into the garage for the night - Landon wasn't too sure about the friendly tow-truck, but he humored me for a quick picture!

Definitely a wonderful first day and night at Disneyland/California Adventure!!

Disney Day 1 - Character Breakfast

I have been to Disneyland many times in my life and have never done a Character Breakfast!  A couple of friends highly recommended them, so we put it on our to-do list when planning the trip for the boys. 

We woke up bright and early, Tuesday, September 4th and the boys found presents on the table that had been delivered from none other than Mickey Mouse while they were sleeping!!  On the card it invited them to come and have breakfast with some of Mickey's friends - Zane was beyond excited and very mesmerized with how Mickey could get into our hotel room while we were sleeping to drop off presents :)

Once we got to the breakfast the fun really began!  There was an endless amount of all you can eat delicious food at your fingertips...there were Disney characters running around like crazy and kids and adults alike with smiles as wide as the sea - it was AWESOME!

Landon wasn't too thrilled with the bouncing characters at first - but as usual, I tortured him into a few pictures - had to show him that they were harmless!

Zane on the other hand was ecstatic with furry creatures and was more than willing to pose for pictures!

One of the guys who worked there {David} really took a liking to our family, especially Landon and he really helped with getting Landon to be "ok" with the characters.  David also went and sought out characters that were held up at other tables and brought them right over to us and helped in taking some photos for us as well!

David did well, because in no time, Landon was "ok" with the characters and even posed for a few pictures for me!

And I couldn't miss out on a photo with my favorite childhood character :)

And of course a family photo :)  Even Josh was thrilled to be there!!

After stuffing our bellies and saying good-bye to the characters - we headed out to ride some rides!  Zane was tall enough to go on every ride and he enjoyed every one of them!  There wasn't one ride he wouldn't go on!  Thanks to the "child swap" pass - he got to enjoy most rides twice (once with mommy and once with daddy)!  Landon was able to go on all but probably 5 or 6 rides at Disneyland and he too enjoyed every one he went on!  We really lucked out and never had to really wait in line (most was maybe 15 minutes).

And an attempt at a family photo (of course both kids cannot be looking in the same direction at the same time, ever) before we headed back to the hotel for a midday break and a cool-off in the pool.

Yes, we were all wearing matching shirts...we were that family for half of the day!!!  

And I might add, we received many compliments as well :)

Huntington Beach

We are back!  Did you miss us?!!
I took over 500 pictures and am starting to go through them.  I am sure no one reading this blog wants to see all 500 (but if you do, I'm happy to share, haha)...so I'll do my best to narrow it down a bit.  There will be multiple posts from our week's vacation and will probably take me a couple of days to finish! 

We arrived in sunny California around 9:30 a.m. on Monday, September 3rd, picked up our rental car and headed to Anaheim (we flew into Long Beach) and thankfully we were able to check into our hotel early!  After getting settled into our new home for the next week we headed off to my sister Shauna's and her husband Jake's house and then to Huntington Beach!  Well, the girls and the little boys went to the beach while the big boys went to empty a few pint glasses!  Landon fell asleep about 20 mins from the beach (after having gotten up at 5 a.m. and no nap in between) and he was NOT happy to be woken up for a some sand and waves!

So to add insult to injury I decided to give him a taste of the California surf - you can tell...he was again, less than pleased!

He recovered and finally calmed down a little bit, but was still less than happy.  Poor buddy was just so tired.

 As soon as we got there, Zane told me there was no way he was going into the water!  I decided that was just not going to be an option!  Once I took him out slowly and showed him how to stand in the waves and {hopefully} not get knocked over - he decided to give it a whirl - turns out...he LOVED it!  He told me he really wanted to surf - I reminded him, he should probably learn how to swim first!

After some fun in the waves - Landon attempted to take a little nap and Zane covered himself in sand!

We were very hungry after our time at the beach - so met up with the big boys and headed to
50/50 Slaters for dinner!  This was Josh's one main request for our trip - that we go there for dinner one night!  We saw this place on the Food Network and it looked like a place to try...it did not disappoint!  This is a picture of Josh's burger - if you're not a red meat fan, you're probably grossing out - but mmmm, it was delicious!!

Sadly, due to our busy schedule and my sister's busy work schedule this was the only day we saw them - we had a great time though and can't wait to see them again...hopefully soon!

And...We're Off...

Grandpa Arizona

We are so happy that Grandpa Arizona came up for a visit this last week...we are bummed we only got to see him for two short visits, but it was better than nothing I suppose!  It took Landon a few minutes to warm up each time we saw him, but Zane had no problem showing off for Grandpa the minute we saw him each time!

As usual, kids not cooperating for a photo!!!

Are second visit with Grandpa was tonight before he headed off to the airport and Landon warmed up a lot quicker!  Within minutes they were best buds and laughing and playing like crazy.  We sure do miss Grandpa and hope its not so long before we see him again!

Zane telling Grandpa stories!

Landon giving Grandpa kisses good-bye :(

Zane being silly with his good-bye!

10 Years

Josh and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary 2.5 weeks (August 3) ago - I am late in posting this because I wanted to wait until I had something fun to show you!

There are some days that make the last 10 years seem like they just flew by in a blink of an eye, there are other days that it seems like longer than 10 years.  No matter what happens in my life there is no one else that I want to have it happen with than Josh.  He is the most patient, optimistic, loving, caring person I have ever met.  Is everything perfect?  Of course not.  Does a day ever go by that we don't tell each other we love each other?  Never.  Do we still laugh at/with each other like we did 10 years ago?  Yes, maybe even more.  Do I still love him as much as I did on our wedding day?  More!  Do I still get butterflies in my stomach when I see him?  Almost always.  Are there days that I get so frustrated with him that I just want to scream?  Yes, and I usually do {scream}!  Are there days that he gets so frustrated with me that he just wants to scream?  Yep, but he's usually better at controlling his screaming!  We have conquered so much over the last 10 years and I know there will be more that needs to be conquered.  Life is never dull with us or our perfect {for us} little family we have created.  I thank God everyday for leading Josh and I to each other 15 years ago, I cannot imagine my life with him in it.  I love you babe!

Our anniversary was low key, both of us had to work - I was pretty sure I wouldn't even see him that day since he was still working nights, but I was planning on trying to wait up for him.  Around noon I was just closing down my computer to head out to lunch when Josh walked into my office with flowers (mind you, my boss and her boss and our chief were having a meeting in our office at the time) - I was in shock!  I was so happy and surprised to see him, but I was extremely embarrassed!  Of course the meeting stopped in its tracks and they all started to ask what was up and proceed to make fun of me and embarrass me even more!  It was very nice to see him and have lunch before he had to head to work!

I had only one request for our anniversary and that was to have pictures done of just us!  I'm very good at getting the kids' pictures and family pictures updated every year professionally, but rarely do we ever get any with just the two of us.  I don't think its really necessary to have a ton of pictures of just the two of us now that we have kids that we want to include in all of our pictures, but for this decade of a celebration I thought it was important!  I have decided we will do this every 5-10 years, its fun to look back and compare how we've changed.  I also think it will be a nice keepsake for the boys when they grow up!

Here are a few of my favorites!

For a fun comparison - 10 years later, my how we've changed!

*HUGE thank you to our great friend Joe Peila for using his fabulous photography skills on us!  You are amazing Joe and we owe you big time!!!