Junior year

Today was Kenna's first day of school. As a junior, she got to take yesterday off because the high school has the first day a day for freshman only.

Here she is all ready to go!

I know these next few years with her will fly by  -

Back to school 2012

Today was the first day of school, at least for my 4 youngest!  I sent Emily to 8th grade, Ali to 4th, Baylie to 2nd and my baby is officially in kindergarten!
Here they are on the front porch, their fingers letting me know what grades they're in.

The full view

Our first stop was Rimrock elementary -

We found Baylie's teacher, Mrs. Brinton - Baylie had her for 1st grade last year and when we found out she was moving back to second grade, we told the principal to keep Baylie with her!

 

Mrs. Abbott was outside doing bus duty - here she is with Ali

 

Then I wandered to the kindergarten playground where I found Jace had lined up to go inside with his class.

I was able to get a photo with him and Mrs. Killpack!

My next stop was Sandcreek middle school where Emily is one of the top dogs! She wasn't thrilled with me getting out of the car to take a picture but I know someday she'll love that I did!

Such a fun time but always sad too.  End of summer is sad but it's always great to be back into a routine - Jace is in morning kindergarten so he gets home at 11, he had a fantastic first day and is already wanting to go back for more.  Chris, Kenna and I took him out to lunch so we could hear all about his day and it was fun to hear the excitement as he told us about his teacher, classroom and all the fun he is going to have this year.  Tomorrow, Kenna starts her first day as a JR in high school and I get Lindsay for another week before taking her to college, I'm hoping it's a really slow week!

Newport/Sunset Beach

Right in the middle of our Disneyland trip, we took a break from the parks to hit the beach! Almost every time we go to Southern California, we end up at Newport Beach as it was one of Chris' favorite areas while on his mission.  We also went to Sunset Beach this trip because that is where my mom and Deanna were - they were at Deanna's daughter Tera's house which is RIGHT on the beach and they invited us to play on the beach and to dinner.
Here we are on the pier in Newport

The beach was crowded!

While walking along the pier, we noticed this rope hanging from the pier and it had some sort of fish attached to it

Someone pulled it up

It was a sand shark  - the rope was tied between his eyes

Jace with the shark  - someone else was untying the rope from his eyes and he threw him back into the water.  There were several people fishing along the pier and we're thinking someone caught him and was saving him until he was done fishing - oh well, we helped free him!

We also saw a pelican just hanging out

A lady fed him some fish - can you see the fish hanging out his mouth?

After walking along the pier, we took the ferry to Balboa Island

We ended up at Sunset Beach to play in the water

Chris attempted to boogie board.....

I remember when I was little going to the beaches that you could catch little sand crabs.  I asked Tera about it and she showed us how to find them.  Here is Jace digging in the sand to try and get one

Tera showing the girls how to just let the sand fall through their fingers and the crabs will stay in their hands

They found a big one!

This was the view from Tera's porch  -we watched a few wind surfers

My cute kids along the pier back at Newport

It was a nice day to hit the beach and take a break from the parks. We did 2 days at the parks, then spent the day at the beach and back to the parks for 2 more days.   I love going to warm beachy places but I must admit, I hate the sand  - it gets everywhere and in everything! The kids kept saying how awesome it would be to live right on the beach like Tera's family but I don't think I could do it - the sand would constantly be tracked into the house -
It was a great day seeing old friends and wandering around Newport while Chris talked about things when he was on his mission.  Such a fun family trip!

Disneyland or Bust

We had a fun opportunity to take the kids to Disneyland at the beginning of the month.  We decided to go and planned it in about 2 weeks time.  It's sort of old hat for us now but we still love all the magic Disney has to offer!   I took 281 pictures so it was hard to narrow down to a few for a blog post as I like to remember specific details about our adventures!

Here we all are at the entrance into Disneyland

Here we all are on a family favorite  - TOWER OF TERROR!! We just can't get enough of this ride..okay some of us can.  Notice Jace is buried in Chris's arm?  Baylie was hanging on to me tight with one arm but hesitantly put the other in the air - I even got a bruise from her hanging on so tight!

This is funny story - we were on Space Mountain and when the ride was over, Chris says, "this is going to be good."  I had no clue what he was talking about until I saw this.........

Needless to say, we laughed SO HARD!!  I had to go to the bathroom and upon seeing that, I almost went in my pants from laughing so hard!
Next time on tower of terror (notice Baylie, Jace and Emily aren't with us), we decided to make fun of Chris about his space mountain photo........

We got to meet quite a few characters...... Lindsay is really loving this conversation with the Incredibles!

You might notice that Chris isn't in any of the character photos - he was always off running to get us fast passes whenever we would come across them.  I don't like to wait in lines to see them either, we were lucky enough to catch them coming out of the back doors so we were always in the front of the lines, we would just follow them for a minute until they stopped - this was a lucky trip as we saw MANY........

The new Cars Land in California Adventure was something Jace had been anticipating  - he would have someone look it up on the computer and show him for the 2 weeks before we went.  He was beyond excited to see it!

This ride had a 2 hour stand by line to go on it - Chris went in early one morning to get in line for fast passes.  He was only able to get 3 after waiting in line TO GET FAST PASSES for an HOUR!!  We went back to ride at 3 that same after noon  - he got the fast passes about 8:30 - Chris took Jace and Baylie with the fast passes he got and the rest of us waited 45 minutes in the single rider line - it was a great ride but I wouldn't wait 2 hours!

All of us at the Pier in California Adventure

We went into the animation studio, we've never done that before but it was so HOT we were up for a little air conditioning.  We went in to learn to draw 'Dale' - here we all are with our drawings.  My mom and her friend Deanna Marshall joined us 1 day at Disney and it was fun to have grandma with us and for me to see Deanna again -such a fun lady!

Kenna, up close with her drawing.......not  too shabby!

Jace (and Ali & Baylie) asked EVERYDAY for cotton candy!  It was a tool used to bribe them to get onto the bigger rides!

More characters.......... gotta LOVE Minnie!

It was hot and we didn't want to walk all the way down Main Street USA, so we hopped on this old time fire truck and rode to the castle! Again, Chris was off getting us fast passes!

Whenever we got too hot, I would suggest pirates for a slow cool off ride!

Getting ready to get on space mountain!

It's tough to be a bug - 3D movie, so funny!  It's always a must when we visit California Adventure!

The kiddos in cars land!

Cruella told them all to look sassy but Kenna was the only one that did!

Another favorite, and it sure helped to cool us off!  Grizzly River run! Here are Chris and Kenna getting ready to go

View of the Grizzly!

Me and Jace were DRENCHED - but if felt oh so good!

Waiting for everyone to come out of the restrooms

This is part of the cars land - SO CUTE! All these little cones had separate things to eat - Ice cream CONES, CONE-Coctions (drinks), CONE queso (nachos), pop CONE - this was just fun!

Another of the rides in cars land -

Kenna at the Pier

After a LONG day, Jace was so nice to rub my feet while we waited for the monorail! Such a sweet boy!!

This just says it all! (someone should have told me to straighten my shirt!)

Disneyland is our 'go to' get away and it never gets old, we love it!  This trip was tiring for me though!  We spent 4 days in the parks and 1 at the beach (a separate post) - each night, Lindsay, Kenna and I would leave the parks about 9:30-10:00 as we just couldn't do anymore while Chris stayed with the little kids and Emily until 11:45!  It was so fun to get away and spend time with the family - we are almost back to school, schedules and Lindsay off to college, we needed this get away together!