Thanksgiving

Hanging out with family over the Thanksgiving holiday. A few of my cousins just love our girls and the girls love them just as much!! What's not to love

Thanksgiving Weekend 2010

We started out our Thanksgiving weekend right by heading down for our annual trip to Disneyland. The girls were so excited especially since this year we had Rob & Jess and even Micaela come down from school and join us for the day in the park. We had such a great time even with the few bits of rain we got in the evening. We all did the park hopper passes since it had been so long since we were in California Adventure and Rob and Jess had never been. There were so many fun things and great memories made. We didn't get very many pictures because we were too busy having fun, but everyone had a blast. I don't think the girls ever went on a ride with us, they were always switching back and forth who they sat by.


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So apparently, the girls changed the settings on their camera without knowing it and resizing these pictures makes them all blurry so you're just going to have to do the best you can. The captions for these pictures are as follows:


1. Waiting in line for Splash Mountain. Katelyn has never been on this ride and hearing Kelsey and her dad talk it up like it's the best ride, she of course wanted to go on it. And with it being overcast and in the morning, there was no wait.


2. Kelsey and I in the very back. Katelyn wanted to sit in the front with Rob. I told her he better not let her fly out.


3. The picture taken of our boat. You can't see Kelsey in the back but she is smiling so big. Katelyn's face is the best if you can see it at all. She was gritting her teeth the whole way down. Definitely not her favorite ride.


4. The results of the ride. Katelyn is soaked to the bone and didn't dry out until after lunchtime when the sun finally came out a little bit.


5. Katelyn still smiling after the ride and Rob was so proud of her. He could only put up one hand up since he was holding on to her with his other arm.


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1 & 2. Katelyn loves the teacups and got to sit next to both Rob and Micaela.

3 & 4. Addison pulling out her bow and trying to put it back in and running under all the chain fencing not wanting to wait in any more lines.


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The 3-D glasses were a big hit for the kids once they got close enough to get them for the ride. This Toy Story Mania ride was so much fun for everyone. Had the line not been so long, we would've ridden it again. Addison just liked dropping them, hearing the sound they made when they fell.


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After we spent most of the day in California Adventure, we headed back into Disneyland so we stopped by the Christmas tree for our picture. But there was no way we were going to unpack them to stand in front of it.


This trip was a lot of fun and had a lot of firsts.


1. We found out how deathly afraid of heights Jessica is. Unfortunately for her, she didn't tell this to any of us until we were nearly at the top of Mickey's Fun Wheel and Kelsey wanted the swinging one too.


2. Katelyn doesn't like Thunder Mountain. Her exact words after getting off: "I never want to go on that again."


3. Kelsey went on Tower of Terror and doesn't like that ride, but was willing to go on it and try it out since Rob loves stuff like that and it's Dave's favorite ride too. She wanted to try Screamin' but wasn't tall enough yet.


4. Both Kelsey and Katelyn went on Soarin' Over California for the first time and loved it so much they went on it again with Dave.


We had such a great time with Rob and Jess and Micaela and hope to make it a tradition every other year when they come to California for Thanksgiving.

San Francisco Day 4: California Academy of Sciences, Presidio

In the morning we hit the California Academy of Sciences which has an aquarium, planetarium, rain forest and natural history museum all inside. It was pretty cool to see it all and if we take the girls back this is one place they would love to go. In the rain forest they had birds and butterflies flying everywhere and some would just land right on you. After we spent a few hours there, we headed over to the Presidio which is just at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was an old fort that Dave wanted to see and despite it being extremely windy that afternoon, we still managed to snap a few photos. I didn't read many of the signs so I'm sure Dave got more out of it than I did but it was still cool to see all the cannons and ammo they had there.

It was so windy up on top and if we had the girls with us, Katelyn would've for sure fallen in the ocean from the third story!!
Dave's just trying to figure out how to get his hands on one of these!!

One thing I loved about the city is there were walking trails everywhere, winding and lined with trees so there were always people biking, running, and walking anytime of the day. I could so live there. For a week. Until the money ran out!! So for now, I'll just have to visit instead.

On our last day we went back into the city and went to the Museum of Modern Art, which my mom would be so proud. I think we may have spent a total of an hour there and then left to hit Union Square (which is much more our comfort zone), to do some last minute shopping and lunch before it was time to head for home. We went into a 4 story William-Sonoma which was absolutely amazing and had a fabulous lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. And so ends our San Francisco tour. We had such a wonderful, relaxing trip that we might opt for leaving the kids on all our vacations now!!

A huge thanks goes out to Kimber for watching our girls and hopefully they weren't too horrible for you. Although I was so pleased to hear her say that she would be willing and wants to swap kids for vacation again. Where are we going next?!

San Francisco Day 3: Oakland, Alameda, Half Moon Bay

On Sunday we decided we wanted to see more of the outlying city than be in the thick of it since Saturday was crowded and busy enough so we headed over to Oakland to see the temple. The grounds were so beautiful with the lawns, flowers and fountains (something we miss here at the Las Vegas Temple).



The view from the visitor's center. Wouldn't that just make you want to come to the temple all the time?

If you look closely you can actually walk up on the second level where the hand rails are. They had it open so we went up and the flower beds were so pretty up there too.

This is the view from up top and there is actually water running down the middle between the two fountains.


After that, we drove over to Alameda and took a tour of the USS Hornet which is an aircraft carrier that served in World War II. We took a tour of the engine room and Dave having done the USS Midway in San Diego too, said we could see and do a lot more on this carrier than what they had open to the public on the Midway. Unfortunately we left without getting any pictures of how big it really was so I guess we just have to go back again.

I thought this was interesting, the stats of the ship.

Down in the engine room

Up on the flight deck.
Looking over to San Francisco off the back of the ship.

When we finished up the tour we drove down to Half Moon Bay, which we were told we had to go see and drive back along the coast. I'm sure it would've been beautiful to see, but since we left too late in the day, it was already fogged back over in the late afternoon to actually enjoy it.

As a side note, when we made it back to the city, we went to see Iron Man 2 since we already had a babysitter, why pay for another one?! I loved it and thought it was just as good as the first. Dave on the other hand, liked it, but didn't love it like the first one. But still a great movie.

San Francisco Day 2: Alcatraz, Golden Gate Bridge

Our second day was just as busy as the first and it was the only day we headed out bright and early to catch the first boat over to Alcatraz Island. Today we actually saw the sun and the sky was so blue.

Coit Tower. We drove to the top, but didn't go in because we'd had enough walking for one day.
The Transamerica Building.

Alcatraz Island
The Lighthouse
All the cells were this small. We took the audio tour and it was so fascinating to see how they lived.
What is left of the wardon's house. The fact that there were actually families living on the island while it was a prison is so hard to comprehend.

The Golden Gate Bridge fogged over, again. Only this time you can see the top poking through the cloud cover.
The Oakland Bay Bridge.
At the edge of the island.
Another view of the city.
It was a bit windy and I just gave up brushing my hair out of my face for the pictures. After finishing up at Alcatraz we headed back to the Pier for a crab sandwich for lunch that was to die for. Then we headed over to the Embarcadero and financial district where we hit the farmer's market and then up over to Chinatown.
Driving down Lombard Street

The Palace of Fine Arts/Exploratorium. This museum was a lot of fun inside, all about how things work and if we ever take the girls back, this is one place they would've loved to go to. A lot like the Lied Discovery Museum here, but on a much larger scale.

We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and over to Sausalito. If we lived in San Francisco, we'd be broke so fast with all the fun little shops, great food and transportation/parking everywhere!! But it sure was a great place to visit.