Cuddles

When we got back from our trip we went to Boulder Humane Society and got cuddles. Riley has been working really hard keeping her room clean to show she is responsible enough to take care of a dog. Riley named her Cuddles, b/c she is super cuddly:) She is a really good dog, housetrained and sweet. She likes to sneak up at night after the kids are in bed, into the kids rooms and snuggle with them while they sleep, until Ryan or I find her and put her in her crate. She is really great with the kids, but I think Brody is her favorite. He definitely loves her. He'll go out in the back yard with her and sit her in his lap and play with her. Our neighbor says she stands at her window and watches them b/c it's so cute to watch:)

LegoLand

Max is a roller coaster junkie!!!

This ride made him a little nervous at the start:)

Brody was too little to ride on all but 2 rides in LegoLand, less than DisneyLand!!! We spent a lot of time waiting for the big kids to ride their rides.

Brody was even too small for this ride!

This was right as we walked into the park, Max was in heaven.

While we were here making race cars out of legos, I ran into a friend from my best/worst class at BYU. It was really fun to see her - small world:)

We drove by the temple several times, and each time made the kids look. They got pretty annoyed:) we finally stopped to take a picture, but it was night and since the only camera we had was the camcorder, this is what we got. You can kind of see Ryan's and some of the kids silhouette.

The next day we went home. We had the best time, the weather was PERFECT! It was warm but not hot, perfect for the beach and the parks:)

We flew out of L.A. so we tried to drive up Pacific Coast Hwy, which I pictured as a scenic drive right next to the ocean, but really it's a slow moving drive from town to town. So we ended up back on the freeway the rest of the way to the airport:)

Sunday - the day of rest (and more beach):)

We spent the day on a few beaches, first in La Jolla, then at seal beach in La Jolla, then on to Coronado to yet another beach. I'm sad that my camera broke the first day, these pictures are from the camcorder, and most are pretty fuzzy.

Brody still wouldn't go in the water, but he loved chasing the birds and growling at them

Riley knew how to build a sandcastle b/c she saw an episode on Max and Ruby once :) So she gave everybody directions and this is the result

Max likes to just put letters together and ask what they spell, this time he actually spelled a word!!!

It's exhausting having this much fun:)

Sea World and Halloween

The view from our ghetto hotel room in Anaheim. It was the nastiest place, only about a mile from DisneyLand - a HUGE step down from the Hyatt Resort. Next time we'll just stay on the Disney resort:)

Saturday morning we set out for San Diego and Sea World. After the beach this is Ryan's and my favorite place in California.

The boys both catching a ride

All the kids (including Ryan) LOVE this ride (I don't remember what it's called, something with Pharoah). I refused to go on it the last 2 times we've been to Sea World so this time I finally went on it- and liked it too:)

Riley was the only one who was brave enough to pet the animals after the show:)

Max and Ryan were the only ones brave enough for this ride - they got SOAKED!!! There was a walk in dryer to warm up and dry off a little.

They had trick or treating at Sea World, but the lines were worse than "Boo @ the Zoo" so we convinced the kids to skip it and we got some candy for them @ Target (a 2 story Target that had TONS of stuff - it was kind of heavenly:)) So the kids trick-or-treated at our hotel room door and the bathroom door. It was good enough for them:)

Days 2 & 3 - Disneyland & California Adventure!!!

The view from the first hotel we stayed in - a Hyatt

Disneyland!!! All day long Max was excited to go on the Indiana Jones ride, so when we finally got to it, he was too short!

SoCal Trip Day 1

Ryan had a conference in Southern California the end of October, so we decided to make a family vacation out of it. Ryan had to leave Sunday and the kids and I flew out Tuesday. Ryan was worried about me flying alone with the kids, but I was worried more about driving alone in LA traffic. Both were great. The girls sat behind me and the boys and entertained themselves on the flight, and Max and Brody were really great. Here we all are at the airport waiting for our flight.The first full day we were there Ryan still had classes, so we walked over the overpass to the beach and played. We thought it would be a little chilly so we didn't wear our swimsuits.Brody was not impressed with the cold water- but he had a really good time playing in the sand.We decided 80 degrees was warm enough so the kids went and got their suits on. Later that night we walked down the beach with Ryan.

Ryan had a dinner that night so we got some dinner then went home and practiced our face painting for halloween. I let my camera get wet at the beach and it stopped working so all the rest of the pictures are taken with our video camer, so they are not so great. Feeding the koi