52 Project 2015: Week 7

"A portrait of each of my children, once a week, every week, in 2015."

 Jackson: Laying on the couch with all his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse stuffed animals. :-)

 Avery: One of Avery's new things is when she has a phone and you say "hello" she'll hold it up to her ear! It's so stinkin cute!

(Linking up here at Practising Simplicity)

Our Arizona/California Vacation: Day 3 (Disneyland Park) Part 1

Day 3 of our vacation was spent entirely at the Disneyland park! It was truly a magical day for me, probably in my top 10 days of my life! I love Disney and have dreamed of taking my kids there. It was everything I hoped for and we had a GREAT day!

We got up early Friday morning and checked out of our hotel. They agreed to hold our luggage until we picked it up that night after leaving the park! (Everyone is so nice at Disney) We walked over to the park and got there just a few minutes before they opened. 

We went straight for Fantasy-land after entering and got in line for the Dumbo ride. Since we were there in the off-season, we never waited more than about 25 minutes in line and since we were there right as they opened, we were able to get through a few of the rides that morning, only waiting 5 minutes or less!

When we got off the Dumbo ride, my MIL was waiting for us to say she found Peter Pan for us to take Jackson's picture with!!

Next we spotted Captain Hook. Jackson wasn't quite as willing to stand next to him for a picture, so Jake hopped in it as well. :-)

Next Jackson and Jim rode the carousel. :-)

And then my MIL, Jackson and I rode the Teacups, one of my very favorite rides. As you can see, Jackson loved it too.

After getting off the teacups, we spotted Alice and the Mad Hatter! Jackson wasn't crazy about taking his picture with them, so I hopped in this one. :-)

Then we rode several other rides in Fantasy-land and Storybook-land. One thing I was very sad about was that "It's a Small World" was closed for refurbishment. I guess that's what we get for going in the off-season, but I was so disappointed. :-( This ride below was the Storybook Land Canal Boats.

Next we stopped for a drink and a snack... popcorn!!

Then we headed over to Toon Town, which was the highlight of the day I'd say! I'm actually going have to save that for another post because it was just that cool and I have so many more pictures to share that it would end up being a super super long post. 

I hope you all have a great weekend and I'll post the rest next week!

Our Arizona/California Vacation: Day 2 (Part 2 of 2)

We got to the hotel at Disneyland a few minutes before 3, so we had time to check out the hotel and gift shop before heading up to our room. The hotel was awesome!! 

Our Room...

And our view!! Ah-mazing!!!

I didn't get a picture of the pool, unfortunately, so here's a picture I found online. It was over-cast while we were there, and not real warm, but the pool was heated and Jackson wanted to get in, so he and I spent about 30 minutes in the pool. We did the big pool and the little kiddie pool before he was finally brave enough to go down the slide once. :-) I was so proud of him.

After swimming, we headed back up to the room where they had dropped off some Mickey Mouse shaped rice krispy treats! How cute is that?

Then we relaxed a little and then got ready and walked over to Downtown Disney to do some shopping and get dinner. The cool thing about Disneyland is everything is close-by and within walking distance. We were able to walk from our hotel to Downtown Disney and to the Amusement Parks which was great.

We went to the Lego store first to let Jackson play with the legos.

Then we walked around and did some shopping. They even have a cool "Frozen" themed Ice Skating Rink. We didn't do any ice skating, but it looked like a lot of fun.

Then lastly we had dinner at Naples Ristorante e Pizzeria. It was very good pizza. While we were eating, there was a lady walking around making balloon animals for the kids. She made Jackson a Mickey Mouse balloon!! Too cute.

Jackson actually fell asleep at the restaurant after such a long and exciting day! Thankfully we brought along the stroller for our walk back to the hotel. It was such a fun day and we were so excited for a full day at Disneyland the next day!

Our Arizona/California Vacation: Day 2 (Part 1 of 2)

I'm breaking up day 2 into two parts... Part 1 - Beach, Part 2 - Disneyland. I just took too many pictures of each to put in 1 post. Surprise Surprise. Ha :-)


Day 2 was another early start. We got up and got on the road to drive to California! We drove to Laguna Beach first, up the Pacific Coast Highway a little ways to Balboa Island and then we drove on to Anaheim/Disneyland!!

We had a reservation for the Paradise Pier Hotel on the Disneyland property for that evening but we couldn't check in until 3, so we decided to hit Laguna Beach first and take Jackson to the Pacific Ocean and then show Jake's Mom and our friend Jim, Balboa Island before heading to our hotel.

Here are a few pictures from our day.

Driving from Phoenix to Anaheim.

A pretty snow capped mountain in California.

All the cool windmill in California.

South Laguna Beach

Jackson heading back to the car with "Uncle" Jim after spending a little while at the beach.

In between Laguna Beach and Balboa Island, we stopped at Ruby's Shake Shack for lunch. I highly recommend eating here if you ever get the chance. The food/shakes were really good and the view on their patio was beautiful.

After lunch, we went up the PCH a little further to Balboa Island and drove around there to show my MIL and Jim how cool it is.

Then it was off to Disneyland!!! :-)

Our Arizona/California Vacation - Day 1

Last year, Jake, Jackson, Myself and my Mother-In-Law went to visit a family friend of ours that lives in Phoenix, AZ. Our friend Jim used to live here and work with my MIL, but transferred to Phoenix back in the late 90's. Jim and my MIL stayed very close friends even though they live so far from one another. He comes here for a visit or she visits him at least once a year. He was here for our wedding and Jake's brothers' weddings as well. 

Jim works in the travel business and was able to get free tickets to the Phoenix Open golf tournament. Jake is a golfer, so Jim invited Jake to come along last year. We had such a great time last year, that Jim invited us to come back this year, so we started planning our trip to go back months ago. 

This year we planned to stay a whole week and soak up some Arizona sunshine during the cold Winter back in St. Louis. So we had plenty of time to do some site seeing and still get to go to the Phoenix Open. Then back in October or November, Jackson saw a commercial for Disney World on t.v. and instantly wanted to go there and see the castle. It was a few weeks later that I thought, why don't we drive out to California and visit Disneyland while we're in Arizona since we'll have some extra time. So Jake agreed and we talked our friend Jim and my MIL into going along too.

So Wednesday morning, (January 28th) we flew into Phoenix, stayed the night there and then drove out to California until Saturday. We then drove back to Phoenix Saturday afternoon and stayed until the following Wednesday morning, when we flew back home to St. Louis. It was such a busy, but super fun trip. A trip that I will cherish forever. 

Day 1 had an early start with getting to the airport and flying into Phoenix. This was Jackson's second flight ever and he did amazing! Last year when we flew to Phoenix, I don't think he quite understood what was going on, but this year he really got it and loved it!

Here's a little video of us taking off Wednesday morning. I am so happy I thought to video it so I can re-watch his reaction. It was so cute!

http://instagram.com/p/yagw1uuKHL/?modal=true

Once we landed in Phoenix, we headed over to pick up our rental car and then headed to our friend Jim's house. Once we got there, we decided to all go and eat some Mexican food at a yummy restaurant near his home. 

After lunch, we made a quick stop by the store for dinner, snacks and drinks for the week and then headed back to Jim's house. He has a beautiful back patio and yard where we spent a majority of our time because the weather was mostly sunny and in the 70's... Perfect!!

Jackson loved being able to play in the back yard while we sipped cocktails and talked.

Jim has a small grapefruit tree that gets a few grapefruits on it each year. Last year they were ripe enough to pick while we were there, so he let Jackson pick them for him and he made grapefruit martinis (of which I couldn't have any because I was pregnant with Avery). This year he saved them for Jackson to pick again and later in our trip, we had grapefruit/tangerine martinis, which were very yummy.

That evening, Jim made a yummy pork tenderloin on the grill and we had dinner on the patio.

It was a great first day to our vacation!