Disneyland

We went to the "happiest place on earth" Disneyland! Alana and Adalynn were tall enough to ride all the rides and they did great walking all day from 10am to 10pm! Brett's parents stayed in a rental home with us 2 miles from Disneyland and kept the baby so we could enjoy the day. They dropped off Allden in the early afternoon so he could experience Disneyland too. Around 8pm they had an amazing fireworks show above the skies at Disneyland.

Here is the relaxing boat cruise we took.

The kids enjoyed seeing Woody from Toy Story.

The Matterhorn was the kids favorite ride. We did this ride twice.

Beach Day

Brett was having fun with the new camera taking pictures of the kids. Allden will be 3 this month! Adalynn will be 5 in January and Alana is 6yrs old! They are getting big fast!

We went to the Children's Beach in La Jolla for a relaxing afternoon. We found these cool looking pelicans catching fish.

We saw several Harbor Seals and were able to get up pretty close to them and watch them. This one barked at us a little to make sure we didn't get too close. It's funny to watch them flop around on the sand like a big caterpillar.

A nice lady took a family picture for us. It was a beautiful sunny day. Brett asked why wouldn't you want to live here? The only reason I could think of is that it's too expensive!

We grabbed some Subway sandwiches and tried to have a nice picnic lunch out on the grass but were bullied by a flock of seagulls trying to get our food. Alana and Brett had to chase them off but they kept trying to come back and attack our food!

Whenever we go to San Diego we love to see the temple! It's like a beautiful white castle.

Sea World

We took the family to Seaworld on Monday October 5 over the fall break. They had it decorated for Halloween. We had a great day!

The first show we attended was the Story of Shamu. We sat in the splash zone but didn't get wet. They jumped out of the water and did a flip it was cool to watch.This was the rapids ride which we got pretty soaked on. Good thing we had rain poncho's!

We went to Elmo's playland and they had a fun little tunnel that Alydia had fun crawling through.

Brett took the kids on the spinning sea stars. I get sick on those spinning rides!

We enjoyed looking at all the fish in the aquarium. Alydia really liked seeing all the fish up close!

We got to wear these funky 3-D glasses for the Elmo 3-D show. It was funny to watch the kids reaching out and trying to grab things that were popping out of the screen. Allden even said "I can't get it!"

We went to the Artic exhibit and saw a polar bear, beluga whale, and a huge walrus! We also went on the wild Arctic ride that simulates being in a helicopter flying through the Arctic, it was pretty cool!

We enjoyed the Sea Lion show with a little Halloween theme. They danced to "Thriller"

We found a Halloween scene to take some pictures, the boys were matching and the girls were matching, we were asked a couple times if the girls were twins.

What a fun day for all!

Shooting

Check out my gun! This one had a pretty good kick!

Alana is aiming for the target with Papa's help

Alydia is Papa's pal especially when he has pens in his pockets. She didn't mind the gun shooting too much.

Brett is practicing his shooting skills to go hunting for elk with his Dad next month

Allden had to have a turn shooting the chipmunk too!

We were trying wings on Alydia. She is 10 months old now and has 4 teeth. She is so fun!

Dance Class

Alana and Adalynn just finished up a dance class through the City of Chandler it was a 9 week class and at the end they did a little dance for the parents it was cute.

First Day of School

I can’t believe Alana is starting school and summer is over! She is going to be a big first grader! We met her teacher her name is Mrs. Farkus, she seems nice. She doesn’t have anybody from her Kindergarten class with her. I think they divided them all up and there were only like 6 kids from her class that were staying at Weinberg. At least she’ll get to see them at recess. She does know 2 boys from church in her class and she chose to sit at a table with all boys. Funny that my little girl likes to play with the boys more than playing with the girls. She loves the things they love like Star Wars, racing, competition etc. So it will be so weird to have her gone to school from 8:30 till 3:00, I’m loosing my baby girl! Addy still has to wait another year before she gets to start Kindergarten but I’ll put her in preschool 2 days a week.

Alana's 6th B-Day Party

Alana had her her 6th birthday party the Saturday after her B-day. She wanted a Star Wars Party so we had 8 kids over plus Alana and Addy and we decorated with Star Wars stuff and played 6 different Star Wars games. We played pass the death star, DARTH bingo, Meteor Shower (balloons dropped from up high with candy in them) asteroid hunt(foil covered prizes hid all over the house), pin the ship on the galaxy and light saber training(we made light sabers out of pool noodles cut in half with duck tape for the handle.) We also had Pizza and cupcakes and opened presents. I spent all afternoon on Friday preparing for the party, it was a lot more work than I thought but Alana had fun helping me get ready to play all the games. Everyone had fun and I think it went well. She got a few board games, a couple light sabers, a bubble machine, some star wars books and a little paint set.

White Water Rafting the Pacure River

Saturday July 18 we woke up very early so we could go river rafting at the Pacure River. As we were heading out the door for breakfast in the morning we got a phone call from Aaron and Christen saying they couldn’t go because Christen was sick all night. So we were bummed that they were not going. We had a quick breakfast and then drove over to drop off Alydia at Jose’s house for the day. I had a hard time leaving her behind. We drove about an hour and a half to meet the group for river rafting. We met at the Rio Tropicales main office and had breakfast we then got on a bus to the top of the Pacure River. We were on a raft with 3 other guys and our guide was Christian. So I was the only girl on the raft, the guys were all really nice and we had an awesome time. This was my favorite part of the trip! We had class 2 to class 4 rapids, we just listened to our guide and worked as a team and nobody fell in the river. A couple of the other boats had people fall out or even tip over. The scenery was just amazing! There were waterfalls everywhere along the way and the green jungle is so beautiful! Words just can’t describe the breathtaking beauty we enjoyed here! We all jumped in and floated for a little ways when we got to a smooth part in the river. We rafted about 18 miles and it took about 3 hours. Since it is rainy season here the river was higher and faster. When we were done rafting we got to shower and change and then had a yummy hot lunch back at the main office where we had breakfast. What an amazing and fun day! I wish we were able to take more pictures!

Manuel Antonio

Friday July 17, Happy Birthday to me! I’m 29 years old today! We had a typical Costa Rican breakfast again of Gallo Pinto and eggs and toast. Then we headed out to Manuel Antonio for the day. While we were waiting in line to pay for our ticket we saw a sloth in the tree with a baby hanging onto it, it was really cute! As we were hiking in we saw more sloths and monkeys and iguanas and lizards. This place is just full of wildlife! The beach was beautiful and the water was so nice. We got snorkeling gear and snorkeled for a little while and saw some neat fish. We then hiked up to another beach that was less crowded and had lots of rocks and some tide pools. Alydia had fun playing in one of the little tide pools. She tried to pick up some little hermit crabs and eat them! Brett found some star fish while snorkeling he loves to play with creatures in the ocean!This place was beautiful! We headed out and had a quick lunch and then had to drive back to San Jose for the night. Just another day in paradise!