Disneyland!

A few months ago we decided to skip out on a week of Utah winter and go to Disneyland with Sean and Aislynn.  Needless to say we've been looking forward to this for months.  We helped Ivy prepare for a sensory overload by watching Youtube videos, and she even took it upon herself to "practice" riding the rides and meeting Tigger and Winnie the Pooh beforehand.  We were so excited!

We arrived in sunny California and headed to our hotel for the evening.  Ivy loves flying, but the shuttle from LAX was less fun.  We made the mistake of letting her watch a show on the tablet and you can guess the ending to this story.  I actually remember getting carsick myself on the way to Disneyland 20 years ago, it runs in the family.  Thankfully the hotel had a laundry facility and we were able to get cleaned up.

Day 2 turned out a lot better!  Haha.  We headed to the parks and did Disney first.  Photo ops galore!

Unfortunately we decided to do Pirates of the Caribbean first with the whole family.  I didn't really think much of it since Ivy loves skeletons, but dark tunnels and freaky noises are another thing altogether.  Ivy was TERRIFIED, and this put a damper on the rest of the trip because from then on, she was afraid of pretty much everything.  It kind of broke my heart.  Hindsight is 20/20!  She doesn't mind talking about the "scary boats" but trying to get her to go inside any building after that point was pretty difficult.

The rest of the day we mostly did rides for the kids and figured out what they could all handle.  Our niece Emery was a wild woman and mostly wanted to sprint through crowds rather than wait in lines, but Kimball and Ivy loved the teacups and Dumbo. They also liked the parade.

Day 3 was California Adventure.  We were able to split up and ride the big Cars ride, which was as good as everyone says it is.  The kids loved the little cars rides, and Ivy fulfilled her lifelong dream of finding the "brown car with 2 teeth."  We spent a lot of the day in Cars Land eating churros.  Not a bad way to spend your time if you ask me.

Ivy was as sweet as can be at the animation studio and carefully watched the instructor and tried to make her own.  This couldn't have been cuter.

Day 4 was back at Disneyland and Scott and I got to go to the park alone in the morning to ride all the things.  Splash Mountain was my favorite.  Also Sean said Kimball wet his pants going on it and I can't help but laugh out loud every time I think about it.  Kids on vacation are never boring!  We pretty much spent the day wandering through all the shops and doing a few favorite rides again.  We saw the big parade again, ate a giant turkey leg, got my Mickey macaron, the works!

We were all pretty sad to come home, but it was a great trip.  I'm sure we'll be back in a few years.

Come Follow Me

This year in church we've been using the new "Come Follow Me" curriculum, and it's been a really fun experience at our house.  I am enjoying the personal study, but mostly I really enjoy our weekly FHE's with Ivy.  She is really into role-playing so pretty much any stories or lessons have been acted out at our house. 

Her favorite story to act out is the Zacharius and the angel story.  She sometimes gets it all jumbled up, but it is hilarious to hear her tell Zacharius what's up.  2-year-olds are so awesome.

We've also had a lot of fun just wandering around our house "calling" apostles and saying, "Come Follow Me."  Haha it's the little things!  I feel a tad sacrilegious sometimes while we're acting things out and mixing them up, but I guess she's learning!  Like the other day Ivy had her toy penguin in the bath and was "baptizing" it.   I don't know if I'm supposed to stop these sorts of things??  At least I know she remembers the lessons!

A tradition we started was to light a candle at our house during our lessons and turn out most of the lights because it keeps everyone (read: Ivy) calm and interested in what we're saying.  I'm not sure that we'll keep it up after daylight savings, but I have enjoyed our candle-lit family time together. :)

Valentine's Day

This year, our Valentine's Day was kind of...terrible.  Haha.  I got really really sick with a horrible cold for the first two weeks of February, I had to work through some lame things at work, it snowed a million times, and then to top it all off, our cold storage in the basement had a leak. 

I remember on Valentine's Day it was like 7 PM before I had time to make our "special" Valentine's Dinner that day due to work drama, and while I was cooking, Scott came upstairs and said, "I have some bad news.  Do you want it now or later?"  We then spent the evening drying out the basement.  Haha.  Luckily the dinner was great, and nothing really got damaged or anything, but that was not the evening I had in mind!

Fortunately we did celebrate Valentine's Day both the week before and the week after with some fun dates.  We went to a Thai restaurant and also tried out The Chocolate, and then we had Wicked tickets the week after.  Seeing Wicked definitely took me back to NYC 2008, and I almost cry every time I see this show because it's just amazing talent every time.

We also got to do a few fun family things like making Valentine's decorations, Valentine's bows, and sugar cookies, and Ivy delivered some treats to our neighbor friends.  So it wasn't a total bust. :)

The Winter Bucket List

I'm happy to report that winter is almost over!  I'm sure we'll see another month of fake-out snow storms, but I think the worst is over.

Here's what we did this year!  I think I blogged about the specifics on a lot of these already.

1. Go see lights.  We knocked this out about 18 times because it was such a nice way to get out of our house.

2. Send Christmas cards. 

3. Make and deliver neighbor treats.  Ivy and I cranked through 5 or 6 different desserts in 2 days this year for my traditional sampler plates.  It was epic and may have affected the aesthetic quality of the cake pop, but I'm over it!  Also, pro tip: deliver your treats early December and people are actually excited.

4. Play in the snow.  Ivy wasn't a fan of sledding but the snowman was adorable.

5. Go bowling. Ivy would just roll the ball down and then run or jump away without even looking at the pins.  She loved it.

6. Go to Temple Square.

7. Make gingerbread houses.

8. Decorate the house with paper snowflakes.

9. Visit Gardner Village.

10. Go to the Bean Museum.