California Adventure

Our last day at Disney and the last post that no one will want to read but me.  By day three, we were still going strong to get to the rope drop.  The sunny blue skies made it so easy to wake up!  I'm not even kidding.  We sprint-walked to get to the Lightning McQueen ride and the big boys got there so fast they had to let people pass them in line until I could catch up with Henry.  The ride was incredible and I could see why Marcus cried (literally) the first time he went on it during his choir trip to Disney years ago. Henry loved it too, even though he doesn't care much about Cars.  He just liked the race at the end and that his car won.

Marcus is such a rule breaker.  Best ride ever!

Henry's happiness made the trip so much better

twinning!

After riding Cars, we headed over to see all the Avenger stuff and ride the new Spiderman Webslingers ride.  We waited almost 90 minutes for the ride.  It was brutal.  We played all sorts of hand/slapping games, charades, and 20 questions.  I'm pretty sure we provided some good entertainment for those around us.  I'd say the ride was just ok.  

The two LOVE SpiderMan so getting a photo with him was awesome!

We finally caved and bought the stupid Genie Pass.  Disney doesn't do Fast Passes anymore so you pay $20/person for an online reservation system that gets you onto most of the rides, but not the new fun ones. By day three we were done waiting an hour for any ride so this app came in handy, even if we had to wait a long time for our ride time.  The pouring rain definitely put a damper on everything.  Turns out even Disneyland isn't great when it's pouring rain.  So many rides shut down and everyone is constantly on the lookout for a place to stand where they won't get wet.  Waiting in lines while being pelted with rain isn't fun either. Even with our ponchos (that we bought at 7-11 which saved us tons of money) we were still soaking from the knees down.  But we persevered and went on several more rides before the long slosh home.  Our hotel was literally right behind California Adventure.  If only we could have hopped the fence it would've been a five-minute walk instead of thirty.  We got back to the hotel and no one wanted to go back for any more rides that night.  The kids were done.  And the rain was relentless.  So we dried off, ate food, swam in the pool, and got ready for our 5:15am shuttle to the airport.

We saw a cool 3-D movie to kill time and get warm

Parker and Henry loved running around some playground thing while the rest of us waited for a table and food at Flo's Diner

Check out those smiles!  I'm not sure they even knew who Goofy was but they sure were happy to see him!

So.Much.Rain

I forgot to include a few pictures from Disney at night.  The extra lights and Christmas decorations are just incredible!

It looks celestial.  The firework display is amazing and was synchronized with the Christmas music.  Pretty magical if you ask me.

The lights on Small World were jaw dropping.  Randy has new goals for our house next year.

Henry loved Small World.  They added in a lot of Christmas stuff and somehow made the whole place smell of cinnamon!  I'm not even kidding, it was crazy.

Henry is still talking about riding on Dumbo

If you can't have a girlfriend, put your arm around your brother (big eye roll from me)

Ending things on a high note with the biggest smile from Henry.  I'm not sure Disney would've been worth it without his happiness and enthusiasm.  He was the perfect age for this trip.

House Guests

When it rains, it pours.  And I'm not talking about the rain we get here in Seattle.  Randy's parents and Grandma spent the weekend with us so they could attend a wedding and the day after they left my sister Alicia and her family flew in for a little vacation.  This means I've been busy cleaning the house, washing bedding and towels, and then repeating the whole process.  Throw a very sick Marcus into the mix, along with the stress of picking out new paint colors for almost the entire house before the painters come in two days and things have been hopping around here.
So let's catch up, shall we?

Randy's parents were barely here so we only grabbed a couple pictures with them.  We'll be seeing more of them in February when we drive down to UT for our annual ski trip.


Alicia flew in with baby Owen who is the most easy going baby known to man.  When he wasn't napping we'd take him out sightseeing or he'd crawl around the house staring at my boys and the chaos that follows in their wake.  Uncle Dan arrived the next day and was the perfect house guest.  He played with my boys, raved about my cooking, always asked if he could help with anything, and did the dishes.  This family can come visit us anytime!

Checking out Pine Lake while the sun made a quick appearance

Of course we had fun playing in the backyard

Tree down at Big Rock Park

You're never too old to enjoy Star Wars

We met up with my Aunt Barbara and Uncle John for lunch at Duke's Chowder House.   I love seeing my mom's family!

Playing the Wii-U.  This kid missed 5 days of school from a nasty cold/flu virus.  The number of hours he logged watching TV is mind blowing.

More Wii

We hiked through the rain to check out Snoqualmie Falls.  It was raging

Boys and balls

Owen watching the indoor football game

We finished off their last night with a trip to to fro-yo.  That stuff is such a rip off!

We've been busy having fun and now the boys have a day off school so I'm taking them skiing.  All four of them by myself.  It will be an adventure for the books!

Our Last Boston Marathon

While I've still got running on the brain, I have to tell you about our last time watching the Boston Marathon.  I watched this marathon every year that we lived in Boston, cheering on the runners from Mile 19, aka "Heartbreak Hill," so naturally the three years we've lived in RI meant heading up to Boston to watch the race.  We were at the race when the bombs went off, we were at the race the year after that when security was so tight I suddenly felt like I was living in a war zone, and we watched this year in unusually cold weather in the pouring rain so I could cheer on one of my best friends while she ran.

This last time was also the first time I went to the runner's expo that's held a couple days before the race.  My best friend Tracey {Okinawa friend} was running and she invited me to come up and hang out in Boston for the day.  The runner's expo is at a convention center in Boston where all the 25,000 runners pick up their race packets and there are hundreds of vendors offering every sort of running item you can think of.  It was so cool being surrounded by so many fit people but I definitely felt like I was crashing a party.  I may be a runner but I'm no marathoner and definitely not fast enough to qualify for Boston.

The day of the race I debated whether to go or not.  I knew eventually it would probably rain on us but I decided it was better than sitting around at home so I gave the boys a pep talk about how incredible the marathon is and how it's the last time we will ever watch it until one of them runs in it someday {I hope}.

After the crowds of spectators left, we were still there going strong

Naturally after navigating through all the closed roads and detours, we arrived just after the first runners sprinted fast.  I was sad to miss it but was determined not to miss Tracey run by.  About ten minutes later it started to rain hard.  Most of our good friends from our Boston days quickly packed up and left {thankfully they left us with an umbrella} and we waited for Tracey.  I was so proud of my boys for huddling under the umbrella, squished together to stay out of the rain, cheering on runners and ringing the cow bell with gusto.  You can never have too much cow bell!  As soon as Tracey ran by we packed up our stuff and made the mile long trek back to our van.  We were cold and wet and my boys never complained which made me almost cry out of admiration for their adventurous spirit. To reward them for their awesomeness I took them to lunch at Costco and told them they could order whatever they wanted.  It was another memorable Patriot's Day at the Boston Marathon.

Hundreds of water cups probably full of rain water by the time the runners got there

The crowds of wet runners

The moment we were waiting for:  Tracey running by

My wet boys heading back to the van

Lunch at Costco warmed our bellies