WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD
I could have broken this out into several posts, but decided to just cram it all in one, as my time to blog is seriously so limited.
I'll try to keep the commentary brief and to-the-point.
Friday, March 18
Our trip started like this:
Of course. Typical of CO to dump snow after two weeks of sunshine on the very day Spring Break started. (Just a few days later they had the blizzard of the decade... so glad we missed it!)
Mar got some driving time in, which meant...
...I actually got to watch a movie! So plush to ride in the back amongst the pillows and watch a show.
Kids these days have road trippin' EASY. This is the life.
Saturday, March 19
We had a house-warming party for the Andersons.
LOVE their new crib, and LOVE that it's a bit closer than their old one.
After the party was over, Scarlett was ready for a nice massage.
Sunday, March 20
Provo City Center Temple Dedication
This was an added bonus for us... just good timing!
That evening we had a family game night. LOVE spending time with my people!
Monday, March 21
A girls day-excursion to the Aquarium.
Scarlett did not want to be photographed at the time. Hah.
This is Scarlett's I'm-ready-for-a-picture cheesy face. LOVE HER.
Added bonus: we ran into our cousin Lincoln who was there on a school field trip.
Afterwards we hit up JCW's for lunch...
... did a Provo City Center Temple drive-by... sooooo beautiful!
And hit the Target for a good 2-1/2 hours.
Tuesday, March 22
We took the long drive to Visalia... but we started bright and early (3:30 am... only because I couldn't sleep), so it made the trip seem faster because we got there so early.
Thursday, March 24
Craft Day, amongst other things.
These girls had decided to all make custom Minnie ears for Disneyland, so after a run to the nearest Joann's the day prior, we sat down and banged them out. Little did we know that we were saving boatloads of money vs. purchasing them at the park, and it caused me to reminisce about the old days when Jill and I would craft away on wood projects every time we came to visit. Ahhhhh... such good memories.
Friday, March 25
Day trip to Yosemite
Bill and Stan took the day off of work, we loaded up Stan's truck with lunch and people, and headed out.
Can I just say AMAZING? BEAUTIFUL? BREATHTAKING?
Bridal Veil Falls
El Capitan (phone pic, btw, no filter)
Yosemite Falls
Half Dome
Another phone pic, no filter. Can you believe the beauty?
Note: I have a really funny story to share about our lunch here, but will write about "What We Ate" at another time. Soon, I promise, as food was such a big part of our Spring Break adventures, it deserves it's own post.
Saturday, March 26
Visalia Farmer's Market
We have Farmer's Markets in CO, but my local one only occurs on Sundays, so we have never been. I can only imagine, however, that CO produce looks nothing like CA produce. YUM!
The girls 4-wheeled around the pecan orchard.
And Bill acted as pool boy, just for fun.
This was the first time we have been to the Feil's home since they had their landscaping done and their pool put it. All I can say is WOW. Their front and back yards are the stuff of home magazines. It was soooo fun to be able to enjoy their better-than-resort-because-it's-private amenities!
Sunday, March 27
Easter
I had seen this idea on Pinterest years back, so we decided to give it a try. Basically, you string yarn all over the house leading to the hidden Easter baskets... and the Feils have the perfect house for such a thing. With 9am church, the girls had gotten up and ready before the hunt.
This, we decided, was super fun, but would be great with even more kids. Definitely doing it again (I am anticipating Easters with a lot o' grandchildren someday!).
That evening we loaded up Stan's truck again and made the trek to Anaheim.
We met up with the rest of the fam at the hotel, where Marty and Meredith let us play with their boomerang light toys (not exactly sure what they are called, but they are really really cool).
(Note those empty parking spots... little did we know we would not be seeing them again haha.)
Monday, March 28
Disney
It was a cool, rainy morning as we made our journey across the street to Disney.
Looking back, it was kind of nice to start on such a day, as it helped a bit with crowd control.
The thing I noticed most changed about Disneyland (our last two visits there were in 2008 and 1998) was the lack of character sightings. We were flat out lucky to have seen Minnie (the older girls weren't with us at the time... such a bummer), at such an opportune time as to only wait a few minutes to get a pic with her. Other than Minnie, I saw the backs of Alice and the Mad Hatter (as they briskly were walking to wherever they were going), Mary Poppins and Bert (again, walking somewhere briskly), Peter Pan from a distance (by the Teacups), and Lightening McQueen.
Oh, and we saw Winnie-the-Pooh in the same area we saw Tigger last time,
(circa 2008)
but he had a line a mile long for photo ops. We decided that Disney's best form of crowd control is to keep people in lines. Long, long lines. Standing. Endlessly standing. Haha.
(My post title is a shout out to Matt... check out his shirt)
It was super fun to finally run into our old friends the Thomases!
Mindy and I had texted back and forth a few times throughout the day, but we were in opposite parks for most of the time. Finally, as we were making a bathroom stop with our large group, we saw them.
Yay for old friends and running into someone you know at Disneyland!
It was Lincoln's 8th birthday, so that evening we went to The Cheesecake Factory to help him celebrate. It was a welcome relief for our feet.
Tuesday, March 29
Day 2 in Disney
Pretty much our favorite ride: Radiator Springs.
(I love this pic... my mom, Matt, Marty, and my dad were in the car racing us... but the single rider in the front kind of makes this entire photo, don't you think?!)
As per my SIL Robyn's suggestion, we played a lot o' Head's Up while we were waiting in lines.
So fun.
I had to snap a pic by It's a Small World, which had been closed the previous two times we had visited Disneyland.
The only other time we have gone on that ride was on our honeymoon, and I have a non-digital-pasted-in-a-scrapbook picture of Bill circa 1988 in this same location. Back in the old days there wasn't that extension above the railing, so we couldn't recreate the picture of Bill sitting on it. This is close enough, right?
This was our final ride before heading home... we ALL got on at the same time.
A short clip of The Last Ride:
Unfortunately, I did an inadvertent camera zoom directly into Stan's shirt after going through a dark tunnel, so I cut the rest out. You get the idea, though. Soooooo fun.
Wednesday, March 30
Recovery Day.
Thursday, March 31
Visiting the Sequoias.
Again, breathtaking beauty on the ride up and back, and these trees are flat-out impressive.
(This picture is in front of a smallish Sequoia... that's quite a ways behind us. It's so hard to capture the massiveness of these amazing trees in a photo.)
In case you didn't know, the Sherman tree is the largest tree on the face of the earth.
That's pretty darn special.
The evening was spent around the fire, making s'mores and visiting.
Friday, April 1
Fool's Day.
Spent making the long journey back to UT.
We were welcomed warmly by Wonderful Sweet Scarlett. LOVE HER.
Saturday, April 2
General Conference with the fam
That evening the boys all headed out to the Priesthood session, then stopped by Wingshack for dinner.
We girls went to dinner, too,
then shopped-til-we-dropped for a few items to send to Lolo in her birthday package.
Sunday, April 3
Back to Reality
After watching the morning session of Conference with this darling family (bummed about the blurry pic), Bill, Mar and I hopped in the car to make the long drive home to CO.
My rough estimate is 55 hours in the car total, not counting running around in between.
TOTALLY WORTH IT.
