Halloween 2008

We had a great time picking out pumpkins at Fred Meyer -- we went for easy this year and we didn't go to a pumpkin patch. Jacob's pumpkin weighed 25 pounds. He and Ashton made a chameleon template and he carved it into his pumpkin. The chameleon is currently his favorite animal.

Did I mention that I colored my hair red? I did -- here are some pictures of me with red hair! Kinda crazy -- it's my mid-life crisis.

I dressed as a witch for Halloween, Ashton dressed as a Regae man, Jacob as Harry Potter, Annikah was the Little Mermaid, and Josh was Mr. Incredible. For weeks after Halloween, he had to wear his Mr. Incredible costume on Sunday after church.

We trick-or-treated at the trunk or treat at the church, at Ashton's work, and in our neighborhood. All told, we got 15 pounds of candy!! I weighed it on our scale. We still have some left, and it's December!!

Annikah

What can I say, she's a beauty, isn't she?

Here are some Anni updates. We started potty training her when she started preschool, when she was three. She was pretty well day trained when we moved here 2 years ago, but totally regressed after the move. We've been focusing on the potty training for the last couple of years and she's been doing great. She's been wearing underwear to school for almost the whole school year and the last few nights we put her in underwear to sleep in and she's been dry, Hooray!!

We've just been laughing about some of the things she's said lately. I bought her the dress she's wearing in the picture in November and she started wearing it to church then. The first time she put this dress on, she said, "Ho, Ho, Ho, I'm Santa." Then she said, "Mom, come and sit on my lap." We laughed and laughed.

Last Sunday, we were watching the closing ceremonies of the Olympics (we DVR'd it). To preface this story, you need to know that Anni watches Jacob play a lot of video games and some of them are shooter games. His current favorite is Star Wars Battlefront for the XBox. Anyway, we're all on the couch, watching the closing ceremonies. On the screen, we see thousands of men playing big round drums. Then, all at once, thousands of women wearing dresses and hats covered in bells run into the stadium. Annikah looked at me and said, "Are they going to kill them?" We laughed and laughed. That's kinda sad/scary that she thought that was what was happening, but funny too.

Halloween

My 35th Birthday

These are pictures from my birthday. As usual, Ashton outdid himself and gave me some lovely presents- - a new jacket I wanted from Eddie Bauer, and some cute socks that I needed. My friends also took me out to eat. I invited so many people (friends from the ward) that we split it up into two events -- lunch and dinner. It was so fun to be there and laugh with the girls. I feel bad I forgot to take my camera -- maybe next year.

Order Another Round, Cause We're Staying Here!

Yes, the house is off the market, we decided it's better to stay for the school year. It was with a heavy heart that we took our house off from the market. I know that I need to wait for the Lord's time, so we'll stay here another school year. The house is small, but lovely and the Spirit is here, so I can't complain.

I'm on Facebook now -- you can find me there too.

(Oh, and the title of this post, it's a quote from a Pixar Movie. Do you know which one?)

Still on the Market

Our lovely townhome, here in Sammamish, is still for sale. We've had it on the market for 67 days. Sigh. We may be here for another year -- hopefully not more.

The home is lovely -- just too small. Our ward here is wonderful, the schools are terrific, and the commute for Ashton is reasonable. The house is just too small.

Happily Handicapped at the Happiest Place on Earth

We left for Disneyland on Tuesday morning (the 10th of June, 2008). Ashton had arranged for an aiport shuttle to pick us up at home -- parking at the Seattle airport is so horribly expensive, that it was about the same cost to get picked up at home. He suprised Jacob with having a limousine pick us up instead of the van. It was fun -- we kind of felt special. The little kids were thrilled to not have to be sitting in car seats and wanted to try out all of the buttons and knobs.

We had a couple of hours to kill at the airport before our flight left. We sat in front of the windows and the kids watched the airplanes take off and land.

Our flight to LAX went really smoothly, and we got there earlier than planned. We met Ashton's mom, Jane, at the baggage claim area. What a nice reunion! We used to see her weekly, so seeing her every few months isn't quite the same.

We took another shuttle to the hotel. We arranged the shuttle through the Disney travel company and paid for it before we left -- we just had to present our vouchers to the driver and give him a little tip :).

As Ashton already mentioned, we stayed at Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel. We got two rooms, and hooray, all the phone calls paid off, and we had adjoining rooms. While Ashton and Jane were checking in, Josh and Anni mauled the Goofy statue in the lobby.

After getting all checked in, we went to dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. One of the things that we did that were great, that saved us a little money, were signing up for a club membership at the Rainforest Cafe. I think we paid $15 for the membership, and it gets us a free appetizer or 10% off our bill -- everytime we go. So, that's where we ate the first night.

We had a good night sleep, and got ready to go to Disneyland for our 1st day! This was Annikah and Joshua's first trip to Disneyland, so we didn't know how they'd react to many things. The breakfast we went to was a character breakfast at our hotel, at the PCH grill. It's the Lilo and Stitch breakfast, but we also go our pictures taken with Goofy, Minnie, and Daisy. Anni loved meeting them all, and the food is really good there, although expensive. Another thing Ashton did to help us save money was to apply for the Chase Disney Reward Visa card. It gave us 10% off on a lot of our purchases, which was great!

How exciting to be at Disneyland, yay! The first thing we did was to go into the town hall at Disneyland. We knew that we could get a Guest Assistance Card because of Annikah and Joshua's handicapps, so we went to Town Hall to plead our case. We have read that some people who try to get this special card are turned down, so I was nervous. I told Ashton I would do the talking -- I think, so that if it didn't go well, it would be my fault, and I wouldn't be able to blame him. It went so well though -- they gave us these fabulous Guest Assistance Cards -- one with Josh's name on it and one with Anni's name on it. It allowed up to 6 of us to go with them on rides.


We got to skip the whole line with these great cards. We just went in the exit and showed our card to the person running the ride, and they'd put us in a line right next to where the ride loaded. The longest we waited in any ride line was 10 minutes, but most were 5 minutes or less, some we just walked right on.


That's why I named this post happily handicapped. I have never felt so great about having handicapped children as I did going on this trip. These people at Disneyland got it that it was hard for us to be there with handicapped children, and they gave us really special accomodations because of it. Yay! What a blessing.


The first day of rides was tough -- Ashton and I didn't agree on whether or not we should get strollers for the kids :), so we didn't. Anni and Josh cried a lot of the day because we took them on rides that were too scary for them. We didn't know what would be scary for them until we discovered it while we were on it. For example, Anni is afraid of the dark and Josh is afraid of thrills, so Pirates of the Carribean and Splash mountain were horrifying for them. They both cried. It was sad.


The next day, Thursday, was much better. We went to Disney California Adventure, and realized that because of our Chase Disney Rewards Visa that we could get two free strollers every day we go to either park! Yay. Each of our little kids got a stroller, and things were much smoother. Another perk of the card was a free 5x7 photo every day. They had a photo op every morning with different characters. These are the photos we had taken.





Thursday, we went to the Aladdin show -- which Josh loved and had so much fun going on the rides at "a bug land."



Anni and Josh loved going to see the Princesses at the Fantasy Faire, and I'll have to admit, that it was nice for me to have them somewhere where they were happy and it was shady. We stayed there for over an hour, with Grandma, seeing the princesses tell stories and attending the coronation ceremony.




We were thrilled to find out that we could go on the new Woody ride -- Toy Story Midway Mania at California Adventure. It's official opening date wasn't until the 17th, but we went on it on the 13th and 14th. Hooray! Don't you love soft openings? It was Annikah's favorite ride, but I'll have to admit that we all loved it. Ashton was just like a little kid -- as soon as we got off of it the first time he said, "Let's go on it again!!" So, we did.



All in all, it was the most fabulous trip. We used up a lot of kleenex and sunblock, and had really sore feet, and there was one point where I just wanted to walk away from the family and not look back, but we all had such a good time. I'm so glad we went, and we will still be talking about it for years to come.

Disney Trip Photo Album