Odenwalder Visit!/Sea World

Now THIS was my favorite part of our California trip! Our Florida friends, the Odenwalders, are stationed in San Diego so we made it a point to go harass them for old times sake It was SO good to see them! I love that they think like us-Amy suggested we get a babysitter for the kids and go on a date…We agreed!

Dinner and a movie:

I had to tease Amy with this picture of her on her phone while we were walking. I told her I was going to put it on Facebook and say, “This is what it’s like hanging out with Amy.”

Dinner was good, the company was great but the movie was lame. Can’t have it all I guess.

The next day we went to Sea World. Here’s my little disclaimer: I’m not a fan of Sea World and that’s all I’m gonna say about that. There were protesters standing outside with signs and I wanted to join them.

 

Kids loved the rides and the snow patch.

As we were leaving we decided to get our hands cleaned by fish. Eww.

It felt really cool!

 

 

Drove past this incredible sight on our way back to our friends house,

Amy is an amazing cook and had a delicious dinner ready for us when we got back to her place. The next morning was Arabella’s birthday and it was also the day we were driving home.

Amy made homemade crispy crème donuts for Arabella’s special day. She’s so awesome!

Singing happy birthday to my girl!

These little kiddos had so much fun playing together!

These big kiddos did too!

As we were getting ready to drive off I just had to capture this moment. Sean flossing, Amy picking at Kirk’s ear and the kiddos posing for the picture. Awesomeness.

We LOVE our Odenwalders!

Disneyland

*Sigh* Here I go again, trying to document all of the craziness that has happened this past month. Every once in a while life gets so busy that there literally isn’t time to blog as I go. December has been one of those months. We have literally spent 1 week out of all of December at home. So, here goes my attempt to remember anything about our Disney vacation…

We left on December 1st and headed to California for an amazing 3 days at Disneyland! Well, that’s what we were expecting at least…

It rained our first two days there! We were so ill prepared for rain but we did our best on day one. Day two was much better but still, it rained We tried to take advantage of the practically empty park and ride like crazy. The kids didn’t complain and actually had a great time. I was the whiny grump.

Luckily the kids ran into Santa at Disney because we didn’t have the opportunity to take them to see him again.

 

The only bad thing about this visit with Santa was that Arabella told him she wanted a toy unicorn for Christmas and his response was, “Not a real one?”.  So, from that moment on she wanted a real unicorn because she assumed that Santa meant she had the option. I kept having to tell her that we aren’t allowed to have real unicorns where we live. Thanks Santa.

Arabella wasn’t big enough for some of the rides so she hung out with me and Eva. Aidan and Maya had so much fun with Rich!

What were our favorites? The kids LOVED Soarin’! Rich and I both had a turn to ride it with them and I spent most of the ride watching the looks on their faces. It was so cute to see how happy and excited they were. Wish I could have taken a video.

We all loved, It’s a small world. I loved it because it was a ride we could all ride together.

Eva really loved it!

Pictures from day 3, the only day it didn’t rain.

Obsessed with his sis!

 

Lunch break to eat the biggest corndogs we’ve ever had. The picture doesn’t do it justice.

The Christmas décor was awesome!

Oh look, I’m actually in a picture! Wish the kids looked a little more excited about it.

Eva spent 3 days straight in a carrier and she was the best baby ever! When she was on my back I would sometimes forget she was there because she was so good. She only cried once when we were walking back to our hotel on the 3rd day at 9:30 at night. Seriously, the best!

Our hotel setup was great. It was literally right across the street so we could just walk right over to Disney. That’s our hotel on the right.

Eva and I spent a lot of time hanging out and walking around. We became selfie masters

Some pics I took and actually took the time to edit of Eva while we were hanging out waiting for the big kids to get back from a ride.

Disney was a memorable experience. Some good and some miserable memories but for the kids I’m pretty sure it was all good and that’s all that matters.