California Adventure Part 4: Goodbye & Meeting Evy's Tree

After 4 weeks in California, the adventure is coming to an end.  We are packing up today and starting our drive back this evening.  I cannot begin to tell you how READY I am to be in my own house again.  A month is so long to be away.  I miss my bed so much I can't stand it!  I am very excited to get back to our routine too.  There is definitely no place like home!  The only hard part is having to say goodbye to Tom :/  He will drive us home then fly back down here on Monday.  We will be going every two weeks between his visits now and I am not looking forward to that. 

Since visiting Disney almost 2 weeks ago, not much has happened for us.  We were so exhausted after that weekend, we were happy just to laze around the room for the most part.  Shae' did give us some excitement with her head injury less than an hour after returning from Disney.  If you follow me on FB you know the story.  The short version is she bumped it on the edge of the coffee table in our room and ended up with this........

Lovely, right?  Ugh....we ended up taking her to the doctor's office the next morning and had it glued.  Talk about stressful.....I had to lay on top of her on the doctors table to hold her down while they glued it.  She screamed like mad and it took all I had not to end up in tears myself.  BUT, when it was over, we made it all better with some frozen yogurt :)

Seriously, this girl!  She has had 4 MAJOR falls since we've been down here.  It's been stressing me out a bit.   She will always keep me on my toes, that's for sure!

So, besides her mishap with the table, last week was pretty uneventful.  We ventured out some and did a little shopping, hit the park, met with our sweet friends Jamie and Ayla Prado for lunch and had a lot of down time in the room.  I had originally mentioned a photo shoot in my first blog.  We were scheduled to be involved in Dainty Buttons fall photo shoot last Saturday.  We were excited for as we have never done anything like that before and I'm a big supporter of her business.  (You can visit her shop here www.daintybutton.etsy.com)   Well, she ended up with an injury last week and had to reschedule the shoot for this weekend.  Yeah, bummer we can't be a part now, but I'm sure it will turn out fabulous!

Sunday, Tom worked half a day, so we ended up going to Sunday evening service in San Jose at Bro. Shoemake's church.  Great church, sweet people.  We thoroughly enjoyed it!

This week, we enjoyed dinner with our friends, the Prado's.  Then it's been packing, packing for me.  But Tuesday, the kids and I took the day and drove to Santa Rosa to visit Amy.  Do any of you have an Evy's Tree hoodie?  Well, Amy is the owner of Evy's Tree.  We have never met before,  but I'm a big supporter of hers and we actually had tried to meet up for coffee back in May when we were in SF visiting and they were going to be in the city too,  but it ended up not working out.  Then earlier this month, Tom and I were going to drive to Santa Rosa for service one Sunday and hang out after with Amy and Brandon and the kids, but Evy broke her clavicle the night before and we had to cancel.   It ended up working out nicely, though.  Tom worked late Tuesday, so the kids and I drove over and Amy was so gracious to have us in her lovely home. The kids played and we chatted.  Jake and Evy are both just a little older than Carter and Shae', so the kids were thrilled to have playmates.  We did dinner at a great local pizza shack there, then back to the house where the kids played and we had coffee and chatted some more.  Amy, THANK YOU for opening your home to us and letting us interrupt your busy day.  We enjoyed it so much!  Here's a few pictures I snapped before leaving.  The quality is horrible, so please excuse.  It was the best I could get.

                                                    Carter and Evy

                  Carter, Evy and Shae'. (jake was already in bed)


BTW, the Evy's Tree website has some items listed at discounted prices.  While she is waiting for the manufactured line to debut early next year, go check out the items she has available now:  www.evystree.com.  I own at least 10 Evy's Tree items and I love every one of them!

That pretty much wraps up our California Adventure.  The month has really flown by.  As much as I've missed home, I'm really glad we did this.  It's something we will likely never do again, but what a great experience!  And most of all, it's been so great being with Tom this whole time.  We are going to miss him SO much!  I can only hope the next few months go by just as fast so we can resume our normal life at home together again :)

California Adventure Part 3: Disney--The Truth About "The Happiest Place On Earth"

We visited the happiest place on earth over the weekend.  What a trip!  We flew out of Oakland Friday morning and arrived in LA a little after lunch.  Then we rode the Disney bus 45 minutes to Aneheim to our hotel.  After checking in, we walked the mile or so to Downtown Disney.  What a cool place!  Lots of shops and restaurants, the biggest Disney store I've ever seen and an awesome Lego store!  We walked around a bit and met up with my college roomate who now lives about 40 minutes from Disney.  I haven't seen her in about 2 years and it was so fun to see her and catch up.  She had her oldest son with her, Bryson who's 5, and he and Carter hit it off instantly!  And literally.  Ha.  They spent the whole time together swapping punches and wrestling.....after all, boys will be boys! :)


                                          At the Disney Store

                                                    Bryson, Carter and Shae'

                                                    The awesome Lego Store!

                                            The Roomie :)

We had dinner together at Rainforest Cafe' and enjoyed time together walking around.  Then it was back to our room to rest up for the busy few days ahead!  And boy were they busy. 

We started Saturday morning at California Adventure.  Car Land was the destination and Carter was SO excited!  It did not disappoint.  Cars Land is amazing!  They did such an amazing job with it.   We spent a few hours there, riding the rides and looking around.   So fun.

We left there and walked around California Adventure more, checking out Bugs Land (super cute) riding a few rides and the kids got to watch the Disney Jr. stage show...that was super cute.  


After that, we headed over to Disneyland.  First person we saw was Pluto. (shae' calls him Goofy every time)  

To save time here, I won't go into every detail about our day.  What I will tell you is:  The original plan was to spend several hours at the parks, then head to our room around 2, take naps, then go back around 4 or 5 and spend the rest of the day.  However, once we started walking around, I didn't want to leave.  Shae' ended up falling asleep in the stroller and I knew Carter would be too excited to go back and sleep.  Plus it was HOT and we were walking so much, I couldn't stand the thought of walking 1 1/2 miles back to our room and then back again.  And I know how hard it is when you do get the kids asleep, to wake them up to run out the door again.  So, Tom gave in (he REALLY wanted to go back and hit the pool) and we stayed.  We ended up doing 12 hours total between the 2 parks.  After spending time at Disneyland, we headed back to Cars Land since we had fast passes for the popular radiator springs racers ride.  It was worth going back.  Cars Land at night is AMAZING!  Looks so, so cool!  And the ride was super fun.  Carter rode twice, once with me, once with Tom. 

Sunday morning, we were up early again and at the park about 30 minutes after it opened.  We spent the whole day at Disneyland.  I'm pretty sure we rode every ride there, or almost every ride.  Carter was a huge fan of the roller coasters.  He rode splash mountain twice!  Space mountain was the only one he didn't like....too scary in the dark the whole time.  Shae' was limited in what she could ride, but she got to do plenty of rides too.  She loved every one and usually clung to the bar when the ride was over and we had to drag her away.   Again, we chose to stay the whole day and not go back (once again to Tom's dismay).  Our day ended up being 13 hours that day.  We stayed for the fireworks show at the end.  And I must say, as exhausted as we were, and as much whining as we had endured, it was worth it for that one minute during the fireworks when the 4 of us stood there smiling and watching together :)

Carter's favorite was Cars Land and Splash Mountain.  Shae's was Minnie Mouse and seeing the Princess' in the parade. (she said, "Mama, I love princess") :)   My favorite was seeing the kids excitement at each new thing.  So fun.

Ok, now for the TRUTH about Disneyland........

Have you ever seen those Disney commercials where the kids are running through the park with their parents, smiling, laughing, having the time of their lives?  Well, I didn't see ONE of those kids there.  Not one!  Instead I saw fussy kids, whining kids, tantrum throwing kids (and that's just MY kids!).  HA. Seriously.  I know this post and all the pics make the trip seem like it was just fabulous, but it wasn't.  The truth is it was EXHAUSTING!  And I'm not talking about the heat or all the walking around or the 12 and 13 hours days (that sure didn't help).......I'm talking about dealing with the kids.  They were great SOME of the time.  But the lines were long and there was plenty of fussing and whining during wait times.  They were tired so there was more than one meltdown.  It was just plain exhausting!  I know what it's like to look at peoples pictures on FB or blog and think that their vacations are perfect, their kids are perfectly behaved, etc.  I just thought I'd take a moment and be real with you.  Our pictures make it look like a dream but that's not the case.  Was it worth it, yes.  Most definitely.  Although I'll probably do a few things different next time, and it will for sure be more enjoyable when they are a little older.  It's just part of having kids.   But even though there were some tense moments, we left saying, "That was fun.  We made some great memories."  That's the part I choose to remember.  And we'll have the pictures forever, and thankfully everyone is happy in all of those :)

California Adventure: Part 2

We have been in California for a week and a half and are finally adjusting.  I'm not gonna lie, the first few days were rough.  The kids were getting over being sick and I was trying to set a new routine in a strange place.  Add missing my bed and house into it all and yeah, it wasn't easy.  But I feel like we are getting used to it all now.  

Last week, Tom worked normal hours, even late a few days, but we managed to squeeze in some family time and the kids and I wondered around the neighborhood each day.  We have found several great parks within a few minutes of us and even a library close by that has family story time each Tuesday night and the kids absolutely loved it.  We will definitely be going back. 

We have been attending church in San Francisco at Bro. Mark Morgan's church, Abounding Grace.  The church family has been very hospitable and we have enjoyed meeting new people and had a great dinner out after Sunday's service with several from the church.  Thank you AG for being so kind to us.

Tom had Labor Day off, so we drove down to Santa Cruz for a family day.  The boardwalk and beach there are a big attraction.  It was a warm day and we enjoyed about 5 hours there.  The kids LOVED riding all the kid rides and rode most of them twice :)  Then Carter and Tom had fun jumping in the water while Shae' and I were content to bury our feet in the sand.  It was a long day (2 hour drive each way) but tons of fun and memories.

We are leaving Friday morning and flying down to Anaheim.  We will be at Disneyland/California Adventure on Saturday and Sunday, then flying back Monday.  I'm pretty sure I'm more excited than the kids :)   I'll blog about our adventure next week!  

Here are a few pics from our time here so far :)

                                           At the paint place making mugs :)

                                     

                                          Carter hard at work :)

                                          Shae' and I painting away

                                          With our finished mugs

                                                    Heading out to find a park :)

                                                   Walking to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz

                                          Having a blast on the kid rides

   

                                          Carter had SO much fun in the water!