One Month Later...

I can't believe that it's already been one month since we made our way down to California.  One month ago today, we were spending my birthday in Disneyland for our first day of three at the "Happiest Place on Earth." 

We actually drove down (well Dale drove and the rest of us rode).  Our first day of driving from here to Sacramento was not pleasant with rain and snow the entire way.  It snowed as we drove over the border into "sunny" CA.  I was worried that our time at Disneyland was going to be tainted with bad weather but, thankfully, that fear did not come to pass.  Despite a thunderstorm the night before our first day there, we had gorgeous weather all 3 days--blue skies and not too hot or too cold--actually we did even start to complain about it being too hot the third day.  It was also very uncrowded, making it even more pleasant.  We waited 15-20 minutes at the most for any ride.  Dale said that if that was uncrowded, he definitely did not want to be there when it was crowded.  The Christmas decorations were also mostly out making it even more beautiful and festive and Mickey and Minnie and friends were wandering all over the park rather than staying sequestered in their designated Toon Town.  I say that the only way it could've been any better was if they shut down every single ride just for us and lined up every character for us to see one by one.  We also had our fabulous friend, Annaliese, as our tour guide.  She actually used to be a tour guide at Disneyland and being a season pass holder and being there on a weekly basis, she definitely had a plan to make sure we saw it all, which I think we just about did. 

Of course, we had to start off with a photo at the Mickey flower head.  We then did a train ride around the park.  We did a few rides in tomorrowland including Buzz Lightyear, which Owen really liked and Space Mountain, which Justin really did NOT like.

Owen shooting aliens with dad on the Buzz Lightyear ride

I took Justin on Space Mt. and, as you can see, neither of us were thrilled.  Here I am trying to hold his head up from being jolted so much side to side.

We did a few more rides in Tomorrowland, like Star Tours, on which Owen was chosen as the Rebel Spy, which I guess is a high honor.  Owen wasn't so thrilled thinking Darth Vader was out to get him.  The kids also got "captured" by Storm Troopers.  Again, Owen wasn't thrilled with this.  I think at this point, he was wondering what was up with Disneyland, but he really did end up having fun. 


Me with Pluto on my birthday!

 At this point, we actually left Disneyland to spend the rest of the day at California Adventure. We didn't make it out of Disneyland, though, before seeing Pluto, Minnie, Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Chip n' Dale in the main square. We had to take some time for photos ops.


This is about the exact same place on Main Street that I had my photo taken with Minnie over 20 years ago.



We did head over to California Adventure and did some of the rides there and went to the Aladdin show.  We ended the evening doing the biggest ride in both parks.  Dale, Hannah, Gabby, Ian and I did California Screamin'.  I think that I have determined that my big roller coaster riding days are over.  My equilibrium (or lack thereof) just can't handle it.  I think I probably would've been okay actually if we didn't ride the Toy Story ride right after, which twisted and turned every which way.  That about did me in.  Everyone else had dinner, which I skipped, and then thankfully, it was pretty much time to head back to the Goves.  Although not before a trip through Downtown Disney to see the shops and specifically, the Lego Store, which the boys had been bugging all day to go to.

We headed back for another big day.  We stayed mostly in Disneyland this day and hit all of Adventureland, Fantasyland, Critter Country, and Frontierland.  Hannah wanted to do any and all of the roller coasters over and over.   We hit Autopia with the boys while the girls (including Evie) did Space Mountain again.  Owen wasn't sure about driving a car, but he loved it and wanted to go back again and drive himself.  We got the whole family to do Splash Mt., which again the boys weren't thrilled with, although I think Justin was finally warming up to the idea of these rides and while he was terrified while on it, he later said, he would do it again.  We also did Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which I did get Justin to go with me on, which surpirsed me after his dislike of any other roller coaster.  He wasn't sure, but he liked it so much that he went right back on.  We did the Haunted Mansion, which is very cool during the holidays when it is all done up in a Nightmare Before Christmas (mixture of Halloween and Christmas) theme.  After that, we took the kids over to Tom Sawyer Island, which I had never done.  They loved to just run around and discover things.

A rare opportunity capturing all the Lough and Gove kids together

We spent a little more time in Disneyland and saw the parade before heading back to CA Adventure to watch World of Color, which was an awesome display of light, music and water.  I couldn't really capture the actual show in pictures very well--at least not with Owen on my shoulders--but here is the Mickey Wheel with California Screamin' all lit up in cool color.  We headed back to Casa Gove with a little more time for the kids to play together, which they were really wanting to do despite how fun Disneyland and California Adventure were.  We had one more day to spend in Disneyland to mainly see the last few things we'd missed and do anything that we wanted to over again.  We hit Toon Town and actually saw Mickey for a second time in his house.  We finally got a family photo with all of us in it since Owen wouldn't go near the characters before. 



Overview of CA Adventure from high on the Mickey Fun Wheel



We hit some favorite rides again for the kids such as Autopia, Space Mountain, Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and were finally able to do Indiana Jones since it had been broken down every time we tried the two days prior.  Then we headed over to CA Adventure again to hit a last few rides over there like Soaring over CA, Jumpin' Jellyfish and the Mickey Fun Wheel.  Hannah thought she wanted to do CA Screamin' again but decided she didn't want to do it again in the dark.  She was also bummed that she never went on Tower of Terror, but that was pretty much the only big ride she didn't do.  I thought our final day would be much shorter, but we did end up making another long day of it.  We finished up with some shopping in Downtown Disney and Hannah got a characterture of herself done as a pirate.  It was actually sad for me to leave Disney for that last time.  I know we'll be back, but it was such a perfect trip.  I was sad to see it end. 

The kids with Shamu

We headed back to Casa Gove for one more night before leaving the next day to go to San Diego.  We stayed in a nice hotel right on Pacific Beach.  Unfortunately, it got so dark so early that we never even made it down to the beach.  The kids just wanted to swim in the pool, but we could see the ocean from the pool.  The second day there, we went to Sea World and saw all the sea creatures and all the great shows.  There were some rides there, but we didn't do many of them since most of them involved getting wet and, at this point, it was sunny but not warm enough to be soaking wet and, also, I think the kids were "ride'd" out.  They did love the Shamu, Blue Horizons dolphin, and Clyde and Seymore sea lion shows.  Another favorite was seeing all the dolphins swimming around in a big pool in the center of the park where you can touch them if they get close enough.  Justin actually managed to touch one.  Hannah and Owen were a little bummed that they didn't, but it was very cool to see them so up close.



Shamu



Justin took this photo

We spent one more night in San Diego before making the long trek home.  We managed to make it back to Sacramento where the kids got a nice pool to swim in one last time.  Unfortunately, Owen got some kind of stomach bug the last night in the hotel before our final long drive home, but he actually was fine in the car.  We were able to take the hotel ice bucket and have that in times of emergency.  I'm glad that happened at the end of the trip and not the beginning.  We made it home Sunday with a week full of lifelong memories to cherish.  It was a fabulous vacation but also good to be home, as it always seems to be, especially after busy vacations like that.  The kids weren't thrilled with having to get up Monday to go back to school (except for Owen who couldn't go since he was sick) but at least they had a lot to talk about and could "brag" to their friends about their trip.

Now, here we are a month later in the full swing of Christmas and a whole other kind of busy, but I hope that you all have peace and joy during this time as you remember what this time of year is all about.  I will be back later with more Christmas posts, but for now,  I think I've posted enough.

TTFN, Ta Ta For Now.

Yikes! It's November!!!

In my last post, I was lamenting that it was September already, and here we are now at November.  How can that be?  We will be listening to Christmas music and wrapping Christmas presents before we know it.  Wait, that means I need to get Christmas presents first.  Agghhhh!  We also have 6 family birthdays to fit in before then with the first being for my sister, Marcie, tonight.  It's a crazy month.  But before all that happens, we get a little break and the family is heading to sunny California (I'm actually not sure how sunny it is going to be) to visit Mickey and Shamu.  We are also going to be visiting our fabulous friends, the Goves, who moved back down there over a year ago and have been begging us to come down ever since.  Unfortunately, we will be driving down and back, but the time in the middle will hopefully be fun. 

Before I have tons of Disney pics to share, I wanted to make sure I got up my Halloween photos up, especially for my in-laws who have probably given up on my blog altogether and figured they would never get an update.

Although at the last minute, we did do our regular trip to the pumpkin patch where the kids each picked out a large and small pumpkin to decorate.

 



Justin's pumpkin.  You can't see it, but there is a knife sticking out of the side of it's head.



That night, we carved the pumpkins.  All the kids drew their own faces and went right to carving.  Hannah got extra fancy this year on her face.  Owen's was very cute, although mommy carved it and had to adjust the mouth since he drew just a single zig zaggy line.  He also always has to have the line between the nose and mouth, which he for some reason calls, "the soap."  Here are their jack-o-lanterns all lit up on Halloween.

Owen's pumpkin is on the left and Hannah's on the right.  Some creature was already nibbling on the mouth Hannah carved, so it wasn't quite as perfect as it originally was.

We got a little creative on Halloween costumes this year too. I actually didn't go out and buy a single thing for costumes except for a gold medal and red curly ribbon.  Those items were for Justin's costume.  He originally wanted to be Tony Hawk, the skateboarder, but I just couldn't figure out a way to make him stand out from any other skateboarder, other than the fact that Tony Hawk is now in his 40's and we'd have to draw wrinkles on Justin's face or something.  I decided that by getting a red wig and a gold medal, Justin could be Pro snowboarder and skateboarder and Olympic gold medal winner, Shaun White, or the "flying tomato."  Wigs were way to expensive, so I improvised with red curly ribbon taped to his helmet.  He actually skateboarded around the neighborhood while we went trick-or-treating. 

Owen decided that he wanted to be Pingu, which is a penguin from a not very well known clay animation cartoon that is in some swedish language or something--actually I don't know if it's a language or just sounds but it's kinda weird but oddly cute whatever it is. By borrowing a friend's penguin hat and adding some orange feet and bow tie to normal black and white clothes, we made him Pingu.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hannah decided to be a "Smarty Pants" which basically involved pinning Smarties candies to her pants and then dressing nerdy.  She was a very cute nerd, I must say.  She actually did not go trick-or-treating with the boys and I, but went out with a group of friends.  They were out for a couple hours and came home with quite a haul.  Kinda sad that my "little" girl is no longer trick-or-treating with us but she had a great time.

Back To School

How did it get to be September already?!?  I know that most of the U.S. has been suffering from irrepressible heat all summer long, but here in the Pacific NW, summer has finally taken off with a heat wave for the past week just as the kids had to head back to school.  They did go back last week before Labor Day but thankfully had the long holiday weekend to enjoy the summery weather.  Monday we actually went out on the river with our friends the Davisons and went out on their boat and the kids all did some tubing, even Owen, and Justin also went knee-boarding and did a fantastic job.  I'll post pics of that soon but for now, here are pics of the kids going back to school.


                    Hannah, unbelievably, is in 5th Grade!!! How did that happen, and as you can see, she is quite the little fashionista.  For days, she worked on putting together outfits and numbering them and putting little numbers on the hangers.  She did great on her first day and actually has the teacher that she started out with last year before she was moved to a different class.  She also has a lot of her good friends in class with her.  After the initial excitement of the first day of school, some of her usual anxiety started to pop up but she already seems to be settling into the new year and has even joined band and will be playing flute.  I know that she will have a great year as usual and really be a leader in her class and school.

Justin is in 3rd grade and also has the same teacher he had last year and he is also very concerned about his fashion style.  He definitely has his own ideas about what's cool.  He always make such a quick and fabulous transition into school.  He had such a breakout year last year with excelling in his schoolwork, and I expect him to do the same this year.  While I know he'd rather be home riding his bike or scooter all around the culdesac, he always comes home with great stories of fun things he did with his friends at school.  I look forward to seeing where the year takes him.

This is how Owen wanted to pose for his 1st day

Owen is joining his big sister and brother at Riverview this year and made the big jump to Kindergarten.  He only started for a 1/2 day last Friday and came out saying it was so much fun, but then on Tuesday, he had his first full day.  Even the Kindergarteners go all day, every day except for the 1/2 days that the whole school has on Wed.  He wasn't quite as thrilled with the all day thing.  After school on Tuesday, he came out, seeming very tired and not as excited.  He said it wasn't fun and he missed me.  Of course he had to tug on my heartstrings like that.  Today was his 2nd full day, and he was crying from the get go, and it didn't help that I lingered too long in the class when I dropped him off, giving him even more chance to get upset, but after picking him up, his teacher said he had a great day, and he was excited about what they did in P.E. and is already singing songs that they're learning in class.  I know it will take a couple weeks, but before I know it, he'll be a pro.  I really can't believe my baby is such a big boy.

Part III (and last) of our WA Road Trip

Well, all good things must come to an end--our road trip and my blog postings. LOL!  After leaving our campsite at Deception Pass State Park, we took a quick ferry ride over to Port Townsend at the far northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula.  Had we not had the kids with us, Dale and I probably would've spent more time in Port Townsend because it is supposed to be a very cute town, but the kids weren't really into all that, and after 2 nights of camping, all Dale and I really wanted was a shower, so we drove right through the town and onto Port Angeles where we were just staying a Super 8 for the night.  When we made it to the hotel, though, it actually wasn't ready, so the showers would have to wait a bit.  We decided to pass the time by driving up to the Hurricane Ridge viewpoint in the Olympic Nat'l Park where on a clear day, you can get a great view of the Olymic Mts.  Dale and I had been there before, but it was clouded in, which it usually is, but on this day, this is what we saw:

The Olympic Mts. in all their glory!  This should be accompanied by angels singing from the heavens.
click on the photo to see it larger--even then, it doesn't give the view any justice.

I'm very glad that our hotel room wasn't ready because we may not have gone up to Hurricane Ridge that day, and we probably would've missed this view.  It was very nice to get back to the hotel and get a shower, though. 

After that, we met up with some great friends.  Our friends, the Pearsons and their 3 children moved just outside Port Angeles about a year ago and also our dear friend, Annaliese, and her 3 kids who moved to CA a year ago came up to stay with them and then to join us on the last 3 days of our trip.  We found out just after planning our vacation, that she and the kids were coming into town right as we were leaving and then heading back to CA just as we would return.  It was the worst timing and we would've been crushed to miss each other, so we decided to have them join us and it worked out great.  That night, we had dinner with the Pearsons and the Goves.  The kids had a fabulous time hanging out on the beach at the waterfront in Port Angeles.  Here they all are looking for hermit crabs in the rocks.

For the record, one of these isn't ours.  We can only claim 9 of them, as if that isn't enough!

Chloe, Hannah and Gabby who were all born within 5 months of one another.

The next morning we drove toward Forks, WA past the beautiful Crescent Lake. Annaliese was very excited to go to Forks since that was the location of the Twilight Saga. We stopped there for an "interesting" lunch where apparently customer service is not #1 on their list. We took a little detour down to the beach at La Push, which is another key locale in the Twilight series. I was bummed to learn that the movie wasn't actually filmed in La Push, but it was a beautiful beach nonetheless.

We then drove a little further south to the Hoh Rainforest Visitor Center. I had always wanted to go there and see the Hall of Mosses--yes, there is something called the Hall of Mosses. It was a short hike, but did have amazing scenery that I don't think could be seen anywhere else. It was difficult to even attempt to capture the moss on the trees and the shapes it made, but here was one of the most impressive trees on the hike.  It was like the old grandpa tree of the trail. 

After that little detour, which took a little longer than expected, which is how it typically goes on a Lough roadtrip, we pushed on to our final destination.  This was a place in Pacific Beach along the WA coast just north of Ocean Shores.  We found a jewel of place called Seabrook Cottages where they have basically put together a little community of adorable cottages and grand homes.  Our home was so beautiful and cozy and such a relaxing place to spend our last 2 nights.  The kids were thrilled to see that they had an X-Box with some games and flat screen tvs and dvd players in all rooms.  There was also a hot tub, and we were just a short walk down to the beach. 

Here's a photo giving you an idea of the homes.  I wish that I could tell you that our home was the grey one on the corner.  Ours was the much smaller blue one to the left, but it was perfect for us and beautiful as I said.  Some were much larger and grander, but we were extremely pleased with ours.  There was a small (and very good) restaurant and market in the community, and it is still quickly growing with a pool to be opened in Sept. and a big spa and fitness center coming.  They are also continuing to build a lot of homes, which is actually the one complaint I had because right at 8:00 am, all sort of construction noise started. 

Loved these windswept trees above the beach.

Love this image of Owen chasing seagulls in the fog.

The next morning, we awoke to bright sunshine, but then by the time we managed to get around to heading down to the beach, thick fog had rolled in.  We still headed down, and I loved the effect of the fog.  Despite that, it really wasn't very cold and I was amazed at how warm the water was.  I'm sure if you went further out than a few inches over your feet, it was much colder, but normally any kind of water along the OR or WA coast is frigid no matter what time of year or how deep it is. 

The kids had a great time walking along the beach and finding shells and digging in the sand.

All the kids.  Love how they're all cooperating so well.

Hannah always modeling.

The fog did roll back out, and we had a beautiful day.  I was hoping for another beautiful sunset the last night but jsut before sunset, the fog rolled back in.  Hannah, Justin and Gabby wanted to go down to the beach one last time, so Dale and I took them down there, and they were rewarded with finding tons of whole sand dollars.  The tide had gone out and they had just all been left on shore.  They managed to find a whole one for each of the 6 kids.  It was sad to have to depart from our friends that last morning, but we had such a great time just hanging out doing a whole lotta nothing with them.  We hope that soon we can make it down to CA to visit them and in the meantime, we miss them dearly.

My dear friend and I as we say goodbye on our front porch.

WA Road Trip - Part II

Okay, well I didn't quite manage to get Part II posted the next day after my first post.  I think I'm still suffering from a vacation hangover.  I really need to get myself back into the swing of things and get this house in order, but for now I will get the rest of the trip posted because I know ya'll have been waiting with baited breath. 

So after reluctantly leaving Lake Chelan, we drove what was supposed to be a 3-4 hour drive but turned into 6+ hours (much to the children's chagrine after we promised them we wouldn't have that long of a drive on the rest of the trip) to Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound.  Dale did decide he wanted to take the scenic route through the North Cascades, and it was beautiful with views like the photo to the right, but we ended up having a lot of mountain road construction that took forever to get through.  We finally did arrive at our campsite around 7:00.

We barely had time to set up camp, nonetheless go shop for and figure out something for dinner, so we drove into town and ate at a teriyaki place at Hannah's urging.  We actually had a very nice meal together--probably the most memorable of the trip.  After that, we had enough time to head down to the beach at the park and catch the sunset and then we pretty much got back to our campsite and went to bed.  The next morning we headed back to town for more food and supplies (and Starbucks) and then we headed to the North Beach at the state park and found a jewel of a beach. 

We first did a short hike up to the Deception Pass bridge, which is quite scary to be on with the cars flying by, so we didn't hang out there long.  We then went to the beach and the kids loved collecting all the neat rocks there and skipping them (or attempting to).  

Owen climbing on large driftwood

Deception Pass Bridge from North Beach

It was such a warm, gorgeous day and Dale and I could've spent all day there, but the kids wanted to head to the other beach in the park that had a lake by it with a swimming beach. That didn't last for long, though. Despite, the sun, it really wasn't quite warm enough for swimming, especially with the wind on that side of the park. The kids gave it a good go, but we packed up and headed back to our campsite.

Of course, what is a campout without a fire and s'mores. It was a bit colder that night, but we all managed to get some rest, so that we could get up and take everything down and head off for our next phase of the road trip. I will bring that to you next time.

Part I of our Washington Road Trip

So on Tuesday we returned from an 8 day road trip around our gorgeous home state of Washington.  I actually had a hard time trying to figure out where to go on a WA trip when we were planning this.  It seemed much easier last year when we planned an Oregon road trip, and of course, there are always tons of things in other states that you want to see.  But when it's so close to you, you take it for granted.  Anyway, we ended up coming up with some fabulous places to visit and our first stop was Lake Chelan.  It was a long but gorgeous drive to Chelan, WA, and we stayed at a fabulous place called Darnell's right on the lake.  Other than spend part of a day at a water park, we did a whole lot of nothing, which was fabulous.  The kids just had a great time going from the lake, to the pool, to the hot tub and back.  Dale and I had a fabulous time hanging out by the pool, watching the kids and reading.  Hannah was quite the waterbug and would close the pool down about every night.  Even though we had more exciting things planned for our road trip, we were actually quite sad to have to leave Chelan.  We plan to go back there next year for an extended stay and hopefully can convince some friends and/or family to join us.

Here are some other highlighted photos from Lake Chelan.  I will be back tomorrow to post about Part II of our road trip.

Happy Belated Birthday Owen + Birth of a New Cousin

Unbelievably, my baby turned 5 July 27th while we were gone on vacation.  At the time, we were in Lake Chelan and we spent part of his birthday at a water park.  Initially, Owen was not thrilled to be at the water park and not having a good time, but eventually he warmed up to it and had a great time playing in the splash area and going down some of the smaller slides.  This is how Owen spent his birthday. 

 Here's the big birthday boy on his full hand birthday. 

So since we were gone, we had his birthday party today.  Owen has been very into dinosaurs lately, so I came up with a prehistoric volcano cake complete with smoke. 

The photo below shows the true essence of Owen.  His uncle said tonight at his party that he thinks he'll be a comedian on stage someday.  He even performed a little song for us that had us all in laughing tears.  He definitely does keep us all entertained, and it has been such a fun and fabulous 5 years with this "not so little anymore" man around.

Speaking of birthdays and little men, I was honored to be able to witness the birth of my newest nephew and the 9th cousin in the McDonald family.  Bryson James was born just after midnight on August 5th.  He actually isn't such a little man either.  He was a whopping 9-1/2 lbs. and such an adorable little chunky monkey.  Look at all that hair too--one day old and he already has a faux hawk.  Owen was so inspired that he wanted a faux hawk hairstyle for his party as you can see in the photos above. 

Happy birthday Owen and "birth" day Bryson.  We love you both so much.