Rentals

A couple of weekends ago, Cassie was babysitting and we took the kids up Castle Hill.  It was an absolutely beautiful day.  We spent some time in the early morning at the beach where Cassie took adorable photos of the kids (if you haven't seen them, they're posted on her facebook page).  Saw an acquaintance up there who said to me "Are these your grandkids?"

"NOOOOOOOO!"

They are pretty cute, though.

Dane found a stick and used it as his rifle.

Annie is just a doll!

 The view of downtown.

Bees on the fireweed.

4th Annual Disneyland Pilgrimage!

Yes, WAAAY back in March, Cassie and I headed south for our fourth annual pilgrimage to Disneyland.  We arrived late in the evening at LAX, made our way to the hotel in Anaheim, and then headed to Walmart for hotel-room-picnic supplies!

 A few hours of sleep later, we're off to DISNEYLAND!  So excited for our first ride of the day:  the tram from the Mickey and Friends parking area!  Wheeeee!

Cassie enjoyed seeing the costumes from Once Upon a Time in the shop windows on Hollywood Way in California Adventure.

 She also enjoyed beating my score in Toy Story Mania.

 I saved this bite of corndog for Lori, but she wasn't able to come enjoy it.  :'-(

 We found a hidden Mickey while waiting in the short line for Mater's Junkyard Jamboree!

 We were looking like responsible citizens, so a CM asked us to carry this little card to the front of the line!  (For those who should know this but don't, Cast Members give these cards to guests so they can accurately display wait times for popular rides.)

Sunday was Shopping Day!  We stopped for fuel first, and a VERY perky girl welcomed us with free samples.  She was possibly on her own sugar-fueled high.  Is there anything better than a warm Krispy Kreme doughnut? 

 And then we got to see Wicked!  And it was WICKED AWESOME!  We are still listening to the soundtrack and singing along in the car.

 This is the theater in Costa Mesa.

 And the view of the stage from our very far away seats in the theater.  Didn't matter that we were so far away.  The musical was absolutely amazing.

 Wetzel's Pretzels has this blue raspberry lemonade.  When Cassie ordered it, I said "that's a lot of food coloring!"  She didn't exactly believe me when I told her that her tongue was BLUE!

 Starbucks is way better.  No artificial coloring.  And look how cool she looks in her Coach shades...

 On Monday we were stalking some people...

 It's Mikie!

 Mike and Dawn made it a 24-hour adventure and joined us for the day at California Adventure.  It is SO much fun to stand in a 2-hour-long line with Dawn and Mike!  Seriously!

 Go to Mike's blog to see the picture that he took here...

 I think he was cheating off of Dawn's paper at Animation Academy...

 Color coordinated!  She kinda is a super hero!

 Outside the Cozy Cone Motel.

 Got gas?  Mm hm.

On Tuesday we used our Magic Morning admission to ride the new Matterhorn (disappointed in the new seats), Astro Orbiters, and then got in line for Space Mountain.

 So why were we the ONLY people on the tram LEAVING the park at 9:30 a.m.?

 Because we were headed to Camp Pendelton to pick up ARNOLD!!!

 He returned from Afghanistan on Monday and we were thrilled to be able to spend a few hours with him on Tuesday at the now even happier Disneyland Resort.

 This might look like a kiddie ride, but it's super fun.

 See how happy they are?

And then on Wednesday we left super early for our super early flight from LAX (Cassie didn't even go to sleep since we really only had an hour by the time we took Arnold back to base and drove back to the hotel).  We were pretty exhausted, and we had a NINE HOUR layover in Juneau on the way home, so we rented a car and drove out to the Shrine of St. Therese (among other things).  It was FREEZING and we didn't have warm coats -- we just came back from California!  But here's proof that we walked across the causeway in 19 degree weather...

shaking things up a bit in the new year

I went to bed at a reasonable hour last night and was sleeping when the earthquake hit.  I woke to my bed shaking and Cassie coming down the hallway.  I thought she had a flashlight in her hand, but it was her phone.  I said "Cassie, what are you doing?"  She then informed me that there was an earthquake.

Within minutes the tsunami siren was going off and telling us to move to higher ground.

So we're standing there thinking "what should we do?"  And I say "I want to wait for the phone call giving us more information." And the phone rang!  And it wasn't the police department with more information, it was our friend and neighbor from uphill, Jane, who said "you wanna come here?"  And I said "Yes!  Thank you!"

And then I hung up and said "God bless, Jane!"

So we drove up the hill and waited at Jane's house.  Everybody except me was on a phone texting or checking facebook or googling.  I don't have a smart phone.

Obviously we're fine because I'm posting here.  We sat and waited for the wave that was to arrive at 12:45 a.m.  It was, of course, pitch black outside so we couldn't see anything.  The All Clear didn't sound until 2:20 a.m. but we had come home by then.

What we need to do now:

• Put together a disaster kit.  
• Make a soundtrack for disasters (you can only sing "I feel the earth move under my feet" or "Shake it up, baby" in your head so many times before it gets old).
• Shop for an evacuation wardrobe (this was Cassie's idea.  I hope she picks outfits for us that look like Katniss').