Meet the newest member of our family...

Sophie! The kids actually call her "Silver Sophie".

She is a brand new 2008 Honda Odyssey with dual power slider doors, 6 disc cd changer, triple zone electronic climate control, 8 passenger seating, stow and go seating, and lots of extras. We got the Silver Pearl color with stone interior. It's such a great van! We kept the old van for John to use and we've sold the Ford Crown Victoria. It's been a busy week!

I've been busy this week shopping for a new van, school supplies, school clothes, and getting unpacked from our wonderful trip. We leave tomorrow for a camping trip with Grandpa and my next task is to pack for it (and no, Sophie is NOT invited, she'll get too dirty!).

I've really enjoyed having the kids at home for the summer, but I'm looking forward to having a little break next week when they are back in school. I've still got lots to get done while they're there but I'll at least get lots of quiet time!

Ahhh, how great it is...

to sleep in our own beds! We're back home again after driving for 22 hours straight. The kids slept through the night while John and I took turns driving. We must have stopped 10 times before 8pm last night, and then only twice through the long night. The kids are ready to have fun and we're dog tired. If John and I can make it through a few more hours we can put them to bed and crash.

We had a great vacation, but it's wonderful to be home!

Another Two Theme Park Day...

We started out at Disneyland again today. We went on the Nemo ride, since the only time you can get on it is first thing in the morning. The kids loved it! We were at California Adventure when it opened too. This time we wanted to ride Toy Story Mania. The lines are over 2 hours long during the day. We were among the first in line and thought the ride was really worth a long wait! We rode California Screamin a couple of times, the Orange Stinger, the Jumping Jellyfish, and a few other rides we had skipped over on previous visits. We ate dinner at our favorite restaurant and headed back to Disney for the parade, the Fantasmic Celebration, and fireworks. We didn't get back to the hotel until after 10pm and the kids were already asleep. Our vacation ended in a blast of fireworks! What a great ending...

We're on the road tomorrow and won't be able to access the Internet until Sunday night. Wish us luck!

Another Wonderful Day...

Today we got the kids up and traveled to Universal Studios. It's an hour long drive from Anaheim in extremely heavy traffic, but we still made it right after they opened. We rode the Revenge of the Mummy ride, Jurassic Park, the Simpsons ride, Backdraft the Movie, Special Effects Tour, Universal Studios Tour, and watched the Animal Actors show. This picture was taken at the Backdraft exhibit and it shows the kids' reaction to a room that was ablaze. It looks kind of like hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil (Nicole was just removing her hands from over her eyes). This is pretty much how the kids looked after each of the rides too:) We're such mean parents to make them ride the scary rides!!We also let the kids play at the Curious George waterpark within Universal Studios. Nate was excited to learn so much about how his favorite shows are filmed and about special effects. The girls got to see Dora, Diego, Curious George, and Shrek and give them hugs so they were really excited. They all picked out pins (even Amanda settled on a pin!) and brought them home to add to their collection. We had yet another great day! Tomorrow it's back to Disneyland and California Adventure and then we leave for home on Saturday morning.

A Relaxing Day in California...

We haven't gotten many days like this on our California vacation. We slept in, ate a nice breakfast, cleaned three more loads of laundry, went swimming, and just generally relaxed. After swimming we cleaned the kids up and took them out to lunch at Sonic (yum!). Then we took them to Downtown Disney and let them pick out souvenirs. Amanda picked another stuffed cat (does that surprise you?), Nicole picked out a picture holder, and Nate picked out a Disney pin. We got them all another pin and a lanyard to start their pin collections. We've decided (a little late) that they will collect pins from their many travels. Now we have to find pins for Legoland, San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld, USS Midway, California Adventure, and Universal Studios. It should be fun!

Tomorrow we're off to Universal Studios. We're not sure how the kids will like it, but we have tickets so we're going! Time for bed...

Two Theme Park Tuesday...

Today we got the kids up early and were at Disneyland for early entry at 7am. We got in the lines for our favorite rides (Dumbo, the Teacups, Alice in Wonderland, etc.) when they opened and got in 10 rides before 10am when we hopped over to California Adventure. We went on Muholland's Madness (2x), Orange Stinger (2x), the Golden Zephyr, Soaring Over California, California Screamin (3x), the ferris wheel, and Grizzly Rapids (3x). John's really got FastPass down to a science so we didn't wait long for any of the rides. We figured we rode on 20+rides today and watched a show or two. The kids even got their first experience going on rides by themselves in "It's a Bug's Land". They were a little worried at first but got over it quickly.

We brought them to the room, let them play in the pool, fed them dinner, then put them to bed and we were all asleep by 9pm. We're going to let them sleep in tomorrow and have a rest and relaxation day. We really need it!

It's all about Disney!

We finally made it to DISNEYLAND today! We got the kids up early and were at the gate when Disneyland opened. We used a book to get to all the best rides first thing, collecting FastPasses as we went. We rode the Matterhorn, Indiana Jones, Buzz Lightyear (twice), Winnie the Pooh, Splash Mountain (twice!), Thunder Mountain (twice), Explorer Canoes, Space Mountain, Autopia, and Alice in Wonderland. We had a fantastic time and can't wait to do it all again tomorrow!