Tuesday, April 22, 2008

SURPRISE!


Ok, Brant and I had planned on taking the kids to Oregon or something like that this year for our family vacation (and hopefully we still will), but about 6 weeks ago we decided to take them to Disneyland instead. So, we planned it, and amazingly I made it without telling them. I was so excited. We left on Saturday the 12, and drove to Vegas. Then we finished the drive Monday morning, and were in Disneyland by about noon. We just kept telling them we were going to Anaheim. They were quite excited about that, even though they didn't know what exactly that meant. Then, we got into the parking structure, and just as the man was taking our money, Cierra looked around and asked, "Mom, why does that sign say Disneyland?" It was great. I think it took a minute for the idea to sink in, because the initial response wasn't as enthusiastic as I had expected, but by the time we got out of the car, they were dancing and chanting and as excited as could be. The only "problem", if it is one, is that we took somewhere around 260 pictures, so I am going to divide posts up and download as many as I can, by day. So, here is day 1.


This picture of the girls dancing was taken in Barstow while we waited for the boys. They still didn't know where we were headed, but it was great to see them so happy.
First picture on the tram from the parking lot to the gate.

Our first disney encounter was the Tiki Room. The kids really enjoyed the show, but they also liked watching the totems outside in the waiting area.


We saw a ton of characters, and the first one just happened to be Jasmine. The boys didn't want to be in this one.




The kids really enjoyed Tarzan's Treehouse.




Pooh Corner was definitely a hit with all of them.

We also played on Tom Sawyer's Island, but I didn't have any good pics from that. Stay tuned for day number 2.

Arches Field Trip



Two other moms and I decided to start taking the kids on long-distance field trips. We feel that there is not much better of a way to learn about something than to experience it. So, for our first go-round and trial run, we took the kids to Arches National Park to discover deserts and erosion. We ended up getting rained out 2 days early, and it was cold, but here are some pictures of the day we did do some hiking. The right picture is of all of the kids at Broken Arch. The bottom two are of Tapestry Arch.