We're Going to Disneyland!

The last week in January we headed west to visit Disneyland and the San Diego Zoo in California!  We spent five days between Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure.  It was a blast, and the days just flew by.  The crowds were pretty low, so we got to do just about everything we wanted (some of them more than once).

Just the best pictures

--------------------------------------------------

For our more serious blog readers, here's a more detailed summary of our Disneyland trip!

Since we've done Disney World in Florida a couple of times with the girls, we decided to check out Disneyland in California. Mom found inexpensive plane tickets this fall and started planning our awesome vacation. We surprised the girls just after Christmas with the news that we were headed to Disneyland at the end of January!  The first part of January flew by and we were headed to Disneyland before we knew it!

We flew from Denver to LAX on Sunday, January 28th.  The girls are getting old enough that they can pretty much entertain themselves on these flights, so that was pretty easy.  Once we landed, we grabbed our rental car and headed down to Carlsbad (stopping at In-N-Out for dinner, of course).

Monday morning we drove down to San Diego to visit with Aunt Maxine (aka Old Auntie Max).  We had planned on going with her to the San Diego Zoo, but her knee was bothering her.  So, we spent some time hanging out at her house and then headed to the zoo.  The San Diego Zoo was very impressive.  We walked around until about 2 in the afternoon and then Emily decided she was done.  We were able to see the cheetahs and a sleeping arctic fox, which were both on Kara's "must see" list, along with many other animals including the famous pandas, koalas, polar bears, and an interactive show with a Komodo dragon.

We stopped to get snacks (and a replacement stroller) on the way back to the hotel.  It was late afternoon by then, but we were close to the beach, so we changed into swim suits and went to check out the Carlsbad beach scene.  It was beautiful and not too crowded, but boy was the water cold!  The girls didn't seem to mind, but Mom stayed out of the water.  It got especially cold when the sun went down, so we piled all the wet bodies into the car and headed back for hot baths and some delivery pizza at the hotel for dinner.  Whew, and that was just the first full day in California!

The next morning, we woke up and headed up to Disneyland in Anaheim.
We stayed at the Courtyard Anaheim Theme Park Entrance, which was a super nice, relatively new hotel.  It was an easy walk to the parks.  Great stay overall - the girls loved the bunk beds and the water park (went one day).  Mom loved the split bathroom and Starbucks in the lobby!  Kara also enjoyed Pepper, a robot they had in the lobby on certain days.

Here's a breakdown of the major rides and shows we did, for posterity:

Day 1 - Disney California Adventure
- Soarin'
- Goofy's Flight School
Lunar new year celebrations (year of the dog), including Mulan's processional, drummers from China, and face painting
- Radiator Springs Racers
- Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT
- Panera Bread for dinner
- Toy Story Mania - this whole area of DCA was under construction and not too fun to navigate through.
- Radiator Springs Racers again
- World of Color (after nap at the hotel) - great show and a great first day in the parks!

Day 2 - Disneyland
- Main Street under construction - this definitely had a negative impact on the overall feel of the park.  We quickly went off to the different lands, avoiding the massive construction walls when possible.
- Indiana Jones
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Space Mountain
- Tiki Room (Dad and Emily)
- Dole Whips!
- Haunted Mansion
- Hotel pool for the afternoon

Day 3 - Disneyland
- Rode Mr. Toad's Wild ride, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White's scary adventure, etc. in Fantasyland
- Rode the Matterhorn
- Finding Nemo's voyage
- Tried "the Grey stuff"
- Blue Bayou for dinner (which is inside of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride)
- Fantasmic:  This was a wonderful show!  We all loved it, and had front and center seats.  It was awesome!
- Haunted Mansion afterward

Day 4 - Disneyland first, Disney California Adventure afternoon
- Breakfast with Minnie at the Plaza Inn - got to meet lots of characters
- Kara got to meet Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in DCA
- Radiator Springs Racers
- Hung out in Cars Land and got soft serve at the Cozy Cones
- Met Star Lord, Gamora and Groot!
- Guardians of the Galaxy: BREAKOUT

Day 5 - Disneyland (morning before our flight back home)
- Space Mountain
- Matterhorn
- Toon Town
- Monorail from Tomorrowland to Downtown Disney
- Silly Symphony swings

Dad's favorite part of the vacation was the Guardians of the Galaxy ride (might have been Kara's favorite too) and meeting Groot! :-)

The girls enjoyed pin trading for the first time.  Mom loved Space Mountain (and everyone managed to ride it many times).  Emily really enjoyed Haunted Mansion, and we all loved the longer Pirates of the Caribbean.

Here's an album that has all the fun.  Enjoy!

All the pictures (includes a couple videos)

Visit from Mimi and Papa - Summer 2017

Pictures of Mimi and Papa's visit.  We had a good time in Louisville and and a short trip to Colorado Springs for the Renaissance Festival and Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
We also had a visit with the cousins on July 4!


link to pictures

Visit to Mimi and Papa's and other November Happenings

For Thanksgiving this year, we headed down to Alabama to spend the holiday with Mom's family: Mimi, Papa, GiGi, and Uncle Trey.  We also got to meet Uncle Trey's new girlfriend, Jacie.  It was a whirlwind visit.  We flew down on Sunday and flew out on Friday.  In between, we went out to a hibachi restaurant to celebrate Kara's birthday, visited the Montgomery Zoo, visited Great Grandpa H. (who recently moved to a retirement home in Montgomery), and enjoyed some excellent home-cooking from Mimi.  We were able to meet up with the McDonough family, while they we in town to visit their family.

We kept things pretty low key for November other than Kara's birthday and our visit to Alabama.  We got a decent snowstorm in the middle of the month, which the girls enjoyed playing in.

As soon as we got home (and got mostly unpacked), Kara had us take out all the Christmas decorations.  Kara had a great time putting up the tree and all the ornaments.  Emily had fun setting stuff up, but was much more interested in playing with some of the decorations.

Recent quotes:
11/15: "I like Kara. Her my best friend." -Emily

11/15: "I love spending time with you, Dad." -Emily

Kara to Mom: "Do you know who the real Santa is? Because I do, and I'm looking at her and him (gesturing towards Dad)"

Link to November happenings pictures

Link to Shorter visit pictures

Visit to Shorter - Fall 2014

Early this month, we packed up the girls and went to visit the family down in Alabama. This was Emily's first flight since she was just a tiny baby, so we were a little nervous about her. For the most part, she did very well. She even passed out for about an hour, which made the time go by much faster. Kara, of course, handled the flight like a champ... as long as she had a screen (Mommy's iPad or her LeapPad) to look at.

While we were down there, Justin, Heather, Sean, and Robin McD came down to visit us at Mimi and Papa's house.  We hadn't seen them in almost two years, and we'd never met Robin!  To paraphrase Heather, "Robin and Emily are best friends, they just may not know it yet!"  Emily and Robin got along pretty well.  For the most part they just played next to each other, though Emily was not too happy when Robin took a ride on her Mickey airplane (her favorite toy at Mimi and Papa's house).  The girls even held hands walking around outside, which was pretty sweet.  Kara and Sean got along really well, mostly because Kara led Sean around the whole time they were there and Sean seemed okay with that.  Sean was such a good sport doing crafts and even reading to Kara.  We also had a little birthday party for Kara.  Overall, it was great to see our friends.  Hope to see you guys again soon!

On the last full day of our visit, we headed into Montgomery to check out the Montgomery Zoo.  It's a really great zoo for kids.  It's not too big, so we could check out almost the whole zoo.  Plus, it has a pretty awesome playground and petting zoo.  We even got to feed giraffes!  The girls both had a really great time.

The trip home was just plain no fun at all.  An arctic front moved into Denver while we were down in Alabama, which caused delayed flights leaving Denver.  We checked our flight status before heading to the airport.  At that time it said our flight was still on schedule; however, about 15 minutes after getting dropped off at the Atlanta airport, we got notification that our flight had been delayed.  In the end, the flight was 2.5 hours late taking off, so we spent almost 4.5 hours at the Atlanta airport.  The flight went pretty smooth except Emily was pretty irritable.  We realized about halfway through the flight that she felt quite warm.  We hoped that if she could just get a good night's sleep, maybe she'd feel better.  We landed in Denver about 8:30 (almost 2.5 hours late) to single digit temperatures.  While Dad was waiting on the jetway in the freezing weather, Emily was throwing up in the terminal.  Fortunately, after that, Emily started acting much better.  Then, Dad forgot one of our bags on the shuttle while we were trying to get everyone and everything to the car.  He had to chase down the shuttle through the icy parking lot in 0 degree weather.  Whew, that was brisk!  Fortunately, the drive home went off without any hitches, and our travel day concluded safely.

All in all, it was a good trip, and it was great to see everyone!

Link to pictures

Visit from Mimi - August 2014

Mimi came out to Colorado to visit us the last part of August.  We all had a great time catching up and the girls loved having an extra playmate!

Some of the highlights of the visit included a trip to the Boulder farmers' market, the Butterfly Pavilion, and the Denver Zoo.

Kara and Emily both really seem to enjoy looking at the bugs and butterflies at the Butterfly Pavilion.  Emily especially got a kick out of the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches....ew.  And this was her first trip to the Denver Zoo, though she has been to the Cheyenne Mountain (Colorado Springs) and the Brevard Zoo (Melbourne, FL).

The girls also enjoyed just spending time with Mimi.  They all had a good time blowing bubbles, playing with scooters and striders (Emily got a new strider while Mimi was visiting), and, of course, splashing in puddles in the backyard! :)

Kid Quotes:
"Despite being called Flying Squirrels, they don't actually fly.  They just glide."  Tell us more, Professor Kara.

Link to pictures

First Family Road Trip

Unfortunately, our first ever family road trip was not a success, but it wasn't a complete failure.  The trip got off to a poor start before we even left the house.  The night before we were going to leave (Wednesday night), Emily had a rough night of sleep (we suspect she's cutting another tooth).  She was fairly cranky most of the day Thursday, but Mommy and Daddy thought they'd give the trip a go anyway.

So, Thursday afternoon we drove down to Colorado Springs, checked into the hotel, and went almost straight to the pool for a swim.  Kara had a good time, but Emily wasn't really into it.  We then headed out for dinner, but Emily was pretty done.  Mommy and Daddy figured that Emily would pass out pretty quickly once we all got settled at the hotel.  Well, we were wrong.  The hotel supplied a Pack-n-Play for babies to sleep in, and Emily was not happy about it!  She screamed for about half an hour before Mommy and Daddy thought Emily might sleep better in the bed with them.  She went to sleep within a couple of minutes, which was great.  Unfortunately, Emily decided that it was time to get up at midnight after a few hours sleep.  She kept hitting Mommy and Daddy and saying "Up!"  She eventually passed again, but Emily, Mommy, and Daddy did not get a great night's sleep.  Fortunately, Kara was in the adjoining room and slept!

We got up and going early on Friday and got to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo shortly after they opened.  Kara got to feed the giraffes, a black rhino (see the video), and lots of birds.  She even got to pet a wallaby! There were plenty of animals to check out and even Emily had moments of interest and enjoyment.  She also screamed a bunch and eventually passed out and took a catnap in the stroller.

By this time, we had made up our minds to just head back home and skip our original Saturday plans.  After the zoo, both girls conked out car.  We took this time to swing by Garden of the Gods (which was very close to our hotel).  We walked around a bit and stopped by the trading post.  After that, it was time to pack up and head to Edelwiess German Restaurant for dinner.  Mommy and Daddy remember this restaurant fondly from when Mimi and Papa lived in the Springs.  The food and ambiance were just as they remembered, but of course the girls were tired and antsy by this point, so it was a bit of an ordeal....

Finally, we enjoyed a car ride home that involved a ten minute pit stop at McDonald's for the 4-year old and a screaming 1-year old for about an hour before she passed out. Ugh.  In the future, we will thinking twice about any overnight trips, prepare better, and hope for the best!

Mid-Summer Visitors

The last week of June and the first week of July were kept busy with visitors to our condo. On June 28th, Grandma and Grandpa S. flew in from Colorado. They hadn't seen Emily since she was about 6 weeks old, so they were very excited to see how much bigger she'd gotten. While they were here, we went to check out the Brevard Zoo. Kara enjoyed feeding the giraffe and checking out the alligators.  Another day, Grandma and Grandpa took Kara to SeaWorld. She had a blast watching the sea lion and orca whale shows. We also hit the beach (of course) and went swimming in the pool. While they were here, Grandma had her birthday. We took her to port side restaurant called Grills. Kara made sure to tell the waitress that it was Grandma's birthday and that she needed some cake. :-)

On Thursday, July 4th, Patrick, Akila, and Amara (who was born 13 days after Emily) headed down from Atlanta for a visit. While they were here, we all headed to Kennedy Space Center to check out the new Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit.  Daddy thought that was pretty cool, but Kara really enjoyed the movie on the Space Station development. She leaned over to Daddy at least twice and said, "I want to go to space." Maybe someday, Kara. On Saturday, we all headed down to the beach to check it out. Emily seemed to really enjoy putting her feet in the ocean, but Amara seemed to enjoy just hanging on the beach more. Both Emily and Amara are awesome babies (obviously), but it was interesting to see the similarities and differences between the two. It was great to see our family and friends!

Link to pictures from Grandma and Grandpa's visit

Link to pictures from Patrick, Akila, and Amara's visit

Hello Spring!

Wow, what a difference a month makes!  As soon as the calendar changed to March, the weather started getting warmer.  It's been in the 60's or 70's most days this month.  Mommy and Kara have been taking advantage of the warm weather.  We hooked up the bike trailer and have been exploring the city.  Mommy and Kara also went down to the Denver zoo one day with Kara's friend Corabelle. a Kara has been having a lot of fun with gym classes and art classes.

On a less happy note, we found out that Kara is allergic to peanuts.  While eating a dinner with some peanut butter in it, Kara's hands broke out in hives.  About a week later, Mommy and Kara headed to an allergist where it was confirmed.  It's possible Kara will grow out of the allergies, but Mommy and Daddy are going to have to keep a close eye on what she's eating.

Kara Quotes:

"I want a garden with tomato plants like Eli [a little boy down that lives down the street] does.  I don't have tomato plants yet!"

"I never do anything I want to do" - and so it begins....

Link to pictures

Kara's First Visit to the Zoo

This past Friday, Daddy took off the morning, and our little family went to the Denver Zoo.  Kara especially enjoyed the lions, birds, orangutan, and zebras.  We're not sure if it was the time of day or the time of year, but it seemed like they were cleaning and fixing up the habitats of a lot of the animals.  We only stayed for about 3 hours, but that was probably perfect for Kara.  We got to see just about the whole zoo, and Kara was exhausted by the end (she passed out on the car ride home).

After her nap and the next morning, Kara wanted to "go, walk, Zoo!"  She also wanted to "go to Moon!", but that's a different story....

Link to pictures