Snow Day!!

It started snowing Thursday morning.

And kept snowing through the day and night.  On Friday morning, we woke up to this.

All the schools in the valley cancelled school, so we did too!  Usually this would just mean that the girls would do school from home, but Grandma decided to give them the day off.  They were super excited!

Around 10, we headed out to shovel the walks.  I got started, and before I knew it, my neighbors were there to help.  It went so fast with all of us working on it.

At that point, we had 8 inches of snow.  I'm pretty sure that we had at least one more inch by the end of the day.

The girls enjoyed playing in it.  Unfortunately it wasn't good snowman snow.  :(

It has stayed very cold since then and hasn't made it out of the 20s with lows in the negatives.  But that hasn't stopped us from grilling!

Saturday afternoon I ventured out to the grocery store.  It was very cold, and the roads were absolutely awful.  It was probably my scariest driving experience in quite some time.  But I eventually made it home safely, and we had food to eat.

Today the sun is shining, but it is still very cold.  Usually our snow melts within a day or two, but not this time.  This was my view while I drank my coffee this morning.

Yesterday when I woke up, it was -2.  There was no way that I was making the girls wear dresses to church in that.  So I gave them the option.  They both opted for pants, and Bailee wanted us to wear matching outfits.

It is times like these that I'm so very thankful for my warm house.  And I'm also very thankful for long underwear and wool socks.

Family Time and the Beach

One of the best parts of our trip was getting to spend some time with Trudy and her family.  A lot of things were done separately since our kids are in different stages of childhood, but we did get to spend some time together.

We went for a walk one morning to explore the area around our house.  We were about a block away from the beach and a couple blocks away from the bay, so it was a perfect place to explore.

Maggie in her cape all ready for our walk.

Of course we had to stop in a little coffee shop.

My handsome man.  I sure loved having him around all the time.

Checking out the bay.

We had some time to just sit around and be silly.

And one of the highlights for me was spending some time on the beach.  The girls were too little last time we went to the beach, so they didn't remember it at all.  Bailee was convinced that she wouldn't like it because of the sand, but she ended up loving it.  On Saturday night, when we arrived at the house, we took the girls including Maggie down to the beach for a bit. They all loved looking for shells and playing in the sand.  It was too cold to get wet, but that didn't keep them from trying to touch the ocean. 

After church on Sunday, we went back to play for a bit.

On Wednesday, we went back with my mom, Trudy, and her kids.  Another fun afternoon.  Rocco didn't like the sand, but everyone else had fun.

It started to get chilly, and it was time for dinner anyways, so Mom and Trudy left with her kids and Morgan.  Bailee was still playing, and Ben and I settled in to watch the sunset.  And it didn't disappoint.  Pictures just don't do it justice.  It was beautiful!

Such a fun time!  I wish that we lived closer to the ocean because I'm pretty sure the girls and I would spend a lot of time there.

A Dream Come True

About 6 months ago, Jeff informed us that he had four tickets to Disneyland that he would give us.  Bailee had been talking about going to Disneyland for many months before that, and Ben and I had decided that we would try to make that dream a reality next year.  When Jeff told us that he had some tickets and that they would be going in October, we decided that we would push that date up to October.  We didn't tell the girls though for numerous reasons, not the least of which was that I really didn't want to hear about Disneyland for six whole months any more than I already was.  So we secretly planned out our trip and finally told the girls our plans at the beginning of October.  To say they were excited would be an understatement.  Bailee leaped out of her chair with the biggest grin I've ever seen and started jumping up and down.  Morgan's reaction was a bit more subdued, but she did have the stomach flu at the time so that was understandable.  Our trip would be a total of 8 days.  We planned for two days in Disneyland and one day in California Adventure.  The other days would be spent playing at the beach, exploring, and going to SeaWorld.

DAY 1

All our planning and dreaming finally became a reality on October 27 when we walking into Disneyland.

We're finally here!!!

Our first ride of the day was the teacups.  I love this picture of my littlest girl with her Daddy.  Her face looks so grown up in this picture.

Teacup fun!

Riding the Merry-Go-Round

Can you tell she was excited??

They weren't able to pull out the sword.

Morgan wanted to see Tinkerbell and friends, so she and I waited in line while Bailee and Ben went to check out some bigger rides.

We ran into Ariel.  The girls enjoyed talking with her, and I enjoyed listening.  These are amazing actors!

Morgan had been dreaming of getting some mouse ears since she knew we were going to Disneyland, so Ben told the girls that we would buy those for them.  Little did we know that they were $25 each!!  But they sure did love those ears!

In front of the Walt Disney statue.

Notice the coffee in our hands.  That is what kept us going.  We consumed a lot of that stuff while we were there!

Sleeping Beauty's castle

Goofy!!

They had a really neat Marvel exhibit.  Ben channeled his inner Iron Man.

The end of day one.  We were hungry and tired.  Can you tell by Bailee's face?

DAY 2

 We went back to Disneyland for day 2.  This was another fun day, and we prioritized our day a bit better since there were a few things that we hadn't done in day 1 that we wanted to make sure got done in day 2, and there were a few rides that the girls really wanted to go on again.

The Mad Hatter!

Bailee was excited to meet Alice.  She had decided that Alice in Wonderland was her favorite movie, so seeing Alice was something she was really hoping for.

Standing in line for the Jungle Cruise

This was fun because we could all go together.  But Rocco fell asleep just before we got to the ride, so Trudy decided to let him sleep.  Jeff looks thrilled to be here.

Bailee was concerned that this ride would be a bit scary for her, but she decided later that this was her favorite ride of our trip.

It took three tries to finally get to ride this one because it kept breaking down.  But we were finally able to ride it!

Waiting in line for Pirates.

Still waiting

The Halloween decorations were so much fun!

Pure exhaustion.  She had no idea I even took this picture.

Frozen lemonade while we wait for the parade to start.

It felt so good to sit for awhile.

The sunset was so pretty!

Cousins!

Maggie enjoyed that lollipop!

Still waiting for the parade.

Group shot

Day 3

Day 3 was spent at California Adventure.  We could have easily spent another half a day here.  The girls loved all the Pixar stuff.  Ben and I thought that there was definitely a different feel to this park than to Disneyland, but it was a lot of fun too.

Getting ready to go inside.

Minnie Mouse!!

Playing with the Green Army Men from Toy Story.

Dancing with Phineas and Ferb.

The oldest and youngest cousins.

All of them together.  What fun!

Maggie loved Morgan's ears.

So of course I had to buy her some.  These are the ones that she picked out.

See that ferris wheel back there?  That was one scary ride!  And no, I'm not kidding.  I was pretty sure I might die.

The girls each had some money to spend.  Morgan decided that she MUST get her face painted.  She felt beautiful.  :)

Waiting for the guys so that we could watch the Aladdin show which was awesome, by the way.

I told you it took a lot of caffeine to survive.  This day in particular.  We were there for almost 15 hours.

One of our favorite rides.  So fun!

We got to see World of Color which was awesome.  I didn't really have high hopes for it because honestly it sounded a little boring to me.  But once it started, Ben and I both looked at each other and said, "Wow!"  Totally worth the wait.  And that's good because by this point I was tired, cranky, and my body hurt. But a little coffee and World of Color put me back on track for the last couple hours.

Here's one of my favorite pics from our Disney days and for some reason I can't put it up with the other pictures, so I'll post it here all by itself.

So that's the Disney part of our trip.  I'll post the pics from the other parts of our trip later.