Disneyland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Tuesday morning we all woke up bright and early and got ready for a day at Disneyland. Waaaaay back in February I found out about Disney's "give a day, get a day program". The concept was for you to do a day of service and then Disney will give you a free pass for one day. Not too shabby. So I went onto the website to sign up. They had a list of serviceable activities to do in my area and as I was searching I found one that really excited me. It was the "Project Linus". Way back when Ryker cracked his skull open he spent about 5 days in the hospital. And while he was there he got some blankets from the Project Linus foundation. At the time I thought that was so cool and I thought it would be cool to give back by making blankets and donating them. Well that idea kinda slipped from my brain and so I was really excited to finally be able to air out that idea and do it! So I did. I made two teen size fleece blankets and donated them to the organization. It was kinda cool. And then I got my free ticket..YaaaY!



So at about 7:20ish Erin and I left the others and made our way to the will call window in front of the park to get my ticket. Disney also has a special thing for guests of their Hotels. It is called Magic Morning and it entitles you to get into the park one hour before general population. Cool thing! So I got my ticket and then the guy said that I cannot get into Magic Mornings with that kind of ticket. What! I said that we were guest at the Hotel and he said it didn't matter I couldn't get in. Bummer! So we went to stand in line with all of the common folk and waited. While we waited I took some pictures of the California Adventure sign. After about 10 minutes we were tired of waiting with all of the commoners and thought what would it hurt to try it out. So Erin and I walked over to the Magic Morning entrance gave the girl my ticket and showed her our room keys and....were let in! No questions asked! I think that guy was a little confused! So I called Heather and Ashleigh who were saving our places and told them we were in. Let the fun begin!!

We went on Space Mountain, Matterhorn and the Submarine Ride before Mom caught up with us. We had to do the more crazy roller coasters fist because Mom is not a fan of those. Even though this day was Heathers birthday My family were really cool and let me be the one to decide what to do. They all have season passes and can go whenever they want but they knew this was a one time thing for me to be here without the kiddos and so they let me dictate what to do. I thought that was really great of them! I really wanted to go on the Submarine ride because I have not been on it since they changed it to a Finding Nemo theme. Heather hates the ride because of the being trapped feeling but even she was gracious about it and sucked it up for me. Luckily she was the last one on so she had the seat right next to the exit. I think that might have helped her a little bit more to endure it. So after Mom found us we all decided to head over to Splash Mountain. Apparently they up the ante with the water during the summer. Heather and I were in the front and by the time the ride was over we were pretty wet. My entire right leg was soaked through and my entire bum was wet. Luckily it was a hot day so we dried up pretty quick!

While walking through Adventure Land I saw Aladdin and Jasmin and so I stopped to take a picture.

That night was Baseballs all star game and so Disney celebrated by having the all stars in a parade through Disneyland. We thought it would be fun to check out the action so we stayed to cheer on the players.

Now we are not a baseball watching family, if it were basketball you can bet that most of us would have known who the players were but since it was baseball we had no idea who any of them were. But that did not stop us from cheering for every single one of them, in the 100 degree heat, with no shade, for about an hour. We were, hot and soaked through with sweat but we had so much fun yelling like crazy every time another player came by in his truck. Good thing the trucks had placards on them that said who they were otherwise it wouldn't have been as much fun. We cheered for each one like they were our favorites. Alot of them were video recording the fans and let me tell you we got on so many videos. it was exciting.

I did know who Derek Jeter was..kindof..so I got a picture of him and his truck. If you look close you can see his little head right by his name sign.

We finally got tired of standing in the heat and we decided to call it a day with the cheering and we walked away. It was then that we saw we were only two away from the end. Oh man! We almost made it!






We loved the confetti that came down throughout the parade!

While we were hanging around one of the cafes we saw Mary Poppins and Bert. I thought that was kinda fun so I went to take their picture. Let me tell you that Mary Poppins was so rude I wanted to take her umbrella pop her on the head with it and tell her to be nice. She was ignoring most people around her and even was rude to a little boy whose painted face got too close to her skirt. Not a happy lady. Boo to her!

We took a ride on the teacups and Heather and I made ours spin really fast! We have strong arms! :0)

I talked my family into going onto Tom Sawyers Island which they gave a pirates theme to. It is a big island in the middle of Disneyland that you get to by getting on a raft and crossing the river. It was OK but I thought it would be more exciting.

Any of you Pirates buffs recognize this skulls and crossbones ball?

Last year when Kefford and I took the kids to Disneyland I didn't go on the Indiana Jones ride because Avynlea and Rylee were too small to go on. So this time I definitely wanted to ride it and how excited was I when Erin let me trade places with her so I could be the driver. After we climbed in our car I assured all of my passengers that I will get us through safely and will do my best to make it a good ride. :0)

It was a blast. This might sound stupid but I really felt like I was driving the car. I had so much fun and we were just laughing the entire time!

I had such a good time a Disneyland and I am glad that I could go and spend the day with my Mom and sisters and be a kid again. Such good memories!



P.S. Can anyone explain why I get so many gaps between my pictures when I upload them to blogger and how to avoid that. It is kinda annoying!

A three hour dinner

Because we were willing to switch hotels we got free dinner passes. We had three choices of restaurants to choose and boy were we excited when we saw what one of our choices was. There was a steakhouse that Heather was contemplating a while ago all of us eating at on this trip. But when we heard what the prices were we all quickly vetoed that idea as too expensive. Wouldn't you know that the restaurant, Steakhouse 55, was on our list of restaurants we could choose from. Included in the free meal was tax and gratuity so we really had to pay nothing at all. We made our reservations for 7:30 that night and very eagerly and really hungry we waited in the lobby to eat.

I absolutely love this picture of Walt Disney and Shirley Temple that was hanging on the wall by our table. I think it is so cute of her and I love how comfortable and casual Walt looks. I liked it so much I was contemplating just taking it with me. Surely nobody would have noticed..right? I chose the right and left it where it was but I had to take a picture so i could remember it.

here is a copy of our menu. We were not too sure what our free meal entailed so we had to clarify with our posh waiter named Steve. He let us know that we could have anything on the menu. "Anything"? I asked. "Anything" he replied. "You could have all of it if you wanted".
"Nice"!


First to come was the most delicious, hot, sourdough bread.

For the appetizer course most everything was some type of seafood. Not any of us are fans of seafood and so we got the "Boiled portebello mushroom, Humboldt fog cheese, port wine reduction". We were not too sure about it so Steve brought us two.

When he first put it on our table I wondered why they brought us escargot. It looked really nasty but we tried it and surprise, surprise, it tasted nasty too. Ha! Not to our taste at all. Oh well moving on.

Next was the salad and I ordered "spring greens with candied pecans and raspberry vinaigrette." I was a little worried about it considering how bad the mushrooms were but it was DELICIOUS! Oh it tasted so good. I finished the entire plate and would have been happy ending our meal there it was so good. The thing with this meal was how much time we had in between each course. We had time to eat and talk and laugh and with the space between courses we had time to digest food so we were not feeling full and bloated by the end of the meal. It was perfect.

Then came our Entrees. Of course with a free meal we did not have to worry about prices and so you can bet that we ordered the most expensive entree we could. All of us ordered the 10 oz fillet Mignon. Plus whatever sides we wanted. I ordered the mac and cheese but when they brought our food there was a mix up and he brought smashed potatoes instead. They quickly fixed the problem by leaving the potatoes and also bringing me the mac and cheese. i am so glad they did because that mac and cheese was nasty smelling and nasty tasting. Yuck. the smashed potatoes though were really tasty.

Can you believe that hunk of meat cost $35! Just for the steak! It was one yummy tasting hunk of meat so it was worth it. Well worth it to be free, at this point I don't care how good something tastes I do not think I am ready to pay that much money for one piece of meat. Oh man but was it good!

We were having such a good time at this dinner. It was fun to just laugh and talk and laugh some more. I had the case of the giggles right when Steve came up to take our order and it was kinda embarrassing but so hard to stop. You know when you just cannot stop laughing. I was a little afraid that he thought I was laughing at him but maybe he just thought I had too much to drink. No alcohol here though just some good times with some good company!







Now it was time for dessert!

Mom and Heather ordered Free-form Seasonal Tart and the rest of us ordered the Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee. I had never had one before and so I was kinda excited to try it out. After Steve took our order he said "so that will be three Brulees and two tarts". Ashleigh was the first to snicker and then the rest of us followed suit. Two tarts! He called Mom and Heather two tarts. Hahaha! Steve looked surprised for a minute and then realizing the way he said it and how it sounded he laughed a little too.

When the desserts came they had the tray behind me and so I didn't see anything until it was set on the table. Mom and Heather got their tarts first and I was looking at their plates thinking how pretty it looked when my plate was set down in front of me.

I seriously was speechless. My hands went up to my cheeks, my jaw dropped and I could not make a sound. It was the prettiest plate of food that has ever been put in front of my face. The candy ribbon holding the cookies, the flavored drops of "confetti" the raspberries on the brulee. I was dying. All I could think to say was "compliments to the chef!" and I truly meant it. I was amazed, we all were!

So happy! It was really delicious too!

You know thinking back I wonder how many people thought we were so strange taking pictures and being all giddy. But I am way OK with how we acted. I don't ever want to be so jaded that things like this don't impress me. I want to have excitement and be excited about things.
Another cool thing about our meal was after it was over we just got up and left. No worrying about the bill, who is going to pay what, how much do we do for gratuity, we just left. I felt so rich and important at that point. If that is how the rich do it then yeah I could get used to that!






After our three hour meal..really, we took some pictures in front of Walt's picture. One of the waiters told us an interesting tidbit about Walt and his pictures. Walt was a very heavy smoker and was always photographed with a cigarette in his hand. Of course this is not too kosher in this time so in all of the pictures the cigarette is taken out. Interesting isn't it?

See his hand on the table in the picture? It used to have a cigarette in it.

Here I am thanking Walt for the fine dinner we just ate. He is so generous!

See the right hand of Walt? Yeah used to have a cigarette in it. Such fun, knowledgeable tidbits!

We had such a good time this night. I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard, we all really enjoyed ourselves!

Best Dinner EVER!!!

Waterslide!!!

After Heather, Mom, Erin and Ashleigh picked me up from the airport we headed over to the Disneyland Hotel. Heather wanted to celebrate her 30th in a big way so she reserved a two night stay at the Hotel. As she was checking in the girl helping her told her that the Disneyland Hotel was pretty full (we did have reservations) and at no charge we could be upgraded to the California Grand Adventure Hotel. The only problem we saw was that hotel did not have cots only a sleeping bag for the extra person. We told her no and then she said how about free breakfast or dinner. To which Heather replied how about both. She had to ask her supervisor but we did end up getting both. Score! So we checked in put our stuff in our rooms and then changed into our suits for some swimming pool fun.
Mom realized she forgot her swimming suit bottoms and only had her skirt. We didn't want her pulling a Britney Spears so Erin let her use and extra pair of shorts she had. Then it was off to the slides. While we were waiting in line to go down we were laughing and joking about somebody getting stuck as they were going down. How funny would that be. So everybody was going down no problem until it came to Mom. Come to find out those cotton shorts she borrowed from Erin don't slide very well and so Mom had to scootch her way down. It was so funny watching her try to get down. She was laughing but it was her first and last time down the slide.

The water was the perfect temperature. Thanks Disney for climate control!

here is one of my glorious trips down the slide.

yay Erin!

Oh man we had so much fun playing in the water.

Good times and good memories!

California here I come

My sister was turning 30 and she wanted to celebrate in a big way. So she invited me to come down and stay with her, my Mom and some sisters at the Disneyland Hotel. I was really excited for this chance to get away and for a little while I didn't have to be a wife or a Mom I could just be a sister. Not too bad! My flight was scheduled to leave Monday July 11 at 8:50 in the morning. Kefford thought it would be fun to take the kids out for breakfast before I left. So we got the kids up at 5:45 and headed over to Ihop.

Kenedy and Ryker shared a happy face pancake meal which they devoured and loved

And Rylee and Avynlea shared the doodle a face meal. Avynlea ate all of her portion while Rylee ate only a little bu devoured the yogurt.

We all had fun eating out as a family which is something we rarely do. I enjoyed spending a little more time with my family before I had to say goodbye.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is Kefford and My 12th Anniversary! 12 Years!! Time has really flown by. To celebrate we went out to eat at the Mona Lisa last night. It is a fondue restaurant in Nampa and it is yummy. I had been once before just for dessert with friends but this was Keffords first time.

We got the four course meal and first up was salad. Then we got our melted cheese course. We ordered the south of the border cheese and it came with bread cubes, chips, apples, grapes, broccoli and carrots.

Next was our meat. They brought everything raw to the table an then we cook it ourselves. That was kinda fun. We had shrimp, alligator bratwurst, fillet Mignon, chicken and some other type of steak. Also 6 different dipping sauces and a small plate of veggies. All very delicious food.

Finally came the chocolate. We got peanut butter dream and it was soooo good. On the plate to dip in our chocolate was apples, brownies, cookies, strawberries, macaroons, pretzels, bananas and cheesecake.

Kefford and I had a really nice time. I told him we needed to do this every year for our anniversary.

I love how our relationship has developed and matured throughout these past twelve years. We keep growing closer and really enjoy being with each other. We most definitely are not exactly alike but that's what makes us fun and interesting. he is really my best friend and I look forward to whatever the future brings us together.

Happy Anniversary!

Our New Vehicle

Kefford wanted a new pick-up truck but I wanted to keep lots of space for our kids so this was our compromise.

The vehicle in the front is Keffords old truck while the one behind it is our new one.

His Uncle Brad had to climb up to check it out.

Kefford is so proud of his new mode of transportation.

three rows means plenty of room for our kids to spread out.

OK I am totally kidding, can you see me or even Kefford driving this monster around? I think not. This was parked in the parking lot at work one day and Kefford had never seen anything like it so he took pictures. I cannot believe they make something like this. I would need a trampoline just to get in the door. A pick-up truck with three rows...totally crazy!

I had you all fooled! hahaha