Casey's birthday trip

We went on our last birthday Disneyland trip on the 8th to celebrate Casey turning 9. I had to start with this picture he took of Chad's ipod since that is how our trip started. He listened to this practically the whole way there. It was fun to listen to him sing along while we tried to figure out what song he was "singing". I can't tell you haw many times we heard his favorite, Weird Al Yackovich's "White and Nerdy".


I do have to admit I was a little frightened to take this trip because in the days leading up to it he was starting to sound like a dictator as it became apparent that he understood the rule about the birthday child leading the day much better his siblings did. He settled down though and we had lots of fun. Here he is in line for Indiana Jones. The cast member at the beginning of the line handed him this and asked him to give it the person when he got to front. I asked what it was and they told us it was to help gage the length of time in line. Chad rolled his eyes at me, but I have never seen this so I had to of course document it :)

Here he is dutifully handing over the lanyard and completing his very important job.

Jungle cruise

Here he is riding by himself on Big Thunder Rail road. He felt quite grown up to be able to ride without Chad and I.

Here is the best one I could get of him on the ride.

We have never taken our kids on Space Mt. He was very excited to be getting to ride a ride that none of the other kids had done yet.

A picture of the picture of us on Space Mt.

Of course we had to do Autotopia. He was almost tall enough to ride this one on his own, but those pesky gas pedals are just a bit out of his reach. Maybe next time.

He didn't want to get his picture with Mickey, but I told we had done it with the other kids and this was the one thing had to do even though he was in charge. It was a very short line and we accomplished it quickly.

Birthday cake picture of the birthday boy.
We had such success in the morning that by noon we had gone on all the rides in Disneyland that he had on his list. What to do for the next 12 hours!!! We decided to spend the extra $25.00 and upgrade his ticket to California adventure too.

One of main reasons was that he kept talking about how he was going to go on the upside down roller coaster this time and we kept reminding him that that ride was not in the park we were going to. So we of course headed straight for California Screaming so that he could conquer the ride he had been to scared of back in Oct.

He loved it and gave it a big thumbs up! He even went on it again later and even kept his eyes open for the loopty loop. Daddy was brave and went on it the first time, but chose to decline the second ride. another pic of a pic, you can hardly see him in the bottom left corner, but he is there.

He enjoyed the artist section of in CA Adventure

in a survey he discovered the Disney character he is most like is Lumiere.
He tried his hand at drawing his own bit of animation. Note to my mom, notice the tongue sticking out as he concentrates.
Looking buggy in his Honorary bug glasses as we went in to watch "it's tough to be a bug"

Again riding on his own In Monsters Inc.

He spent a bit of his money in the candy shop. Here he is making his own pixie stick in a sand art esque form.

Something else he got with his birthday money was this skull he was so pleased to find.
He loved it so much because when you squeezed it, out popped all sorts of body parts like noses, ears, bones and blood.

Like brother, trying his had at the shooting gallery.

I think because of the name alone we had to go on the Casey Jr. train.

We were able to get a lot of rides that we did in the afternoon thanks to the single rider line. This is where you take the chance of riding with strangers, but you get on fast by filling in space where there is an uneven number of riders. We always had one of go before Casey and one of us after him so that he was never standing without one of us. Casey quickly caught on to the fact we could eat lots of snacks and we were not to say no to often. I think we ate more on this trip than any of the others. We got to the park for 8:am opening and left at 11:30 pm. Daddy even went back to the hotel room for a quick nap in the evening. Here is the birthday boy wiped out after one long day at Disneyland.

In Disneyland we went on

• Splash Mt.


• Haunted Mansion


• Pirates of the Caribbean


• Jungle cruise 2 times


• Thunder Mt.


• Buzz light year Astro blasters


• Space Mt.


• Autotopia


• Tarzan's Tree House


• Matterhorn Mt.


• Gadget's go coaster


• Roger Rabbits Cartoon spin


• Casey Jr Train

In California adventure we went on

• Toy story midway 2 times


• CA Screaming 2 times


• Soaring over Ca


• Monsters inc.


• Grizzly river run 4 times

We saw

• It's tough to be a bug


• Fantazmic


• half of the fire work show


• Mickey Mouse
  I love Fantazmic and we excited to see it back. There were a few changes and sadly to me they were noticeable, but the people around me who I gotten to visit with for the 2 hours that i waited for the show to start really enjoyed it and thought it was as exciting as i had built it up to be. Yes we did wait for 2 hours. That is what is OK to do when you had such success in the morning. While I held our space Casey kept running back and forth the Tarzan's tree house, he went through it about 10 times.

If I had seen this thing alive !?!?!?!

Oh my goodness! I go walking at night with my friends and we see tones of bugs when the weather warms up. I love when it cools off and the bugs go away. Seriously, I have never seen so many disgusting bugs in life as I have seen since moving to Arizona. I have never seen such a huge bug as this. It was dead in our driveway, luckily, because if I had come across this when it was alive....I don't know what I would have done. I even had a dream about it when I took nap today after church.

The under side
The top side

A shot with something just for perspective.

A little pre view

We are doing a bit of work on our downstairs. Yes that is Tyler in the ceiling. Stay tuned for the end result. If you are local come by Wed (the 15th) night at 6:30. I'm having a Demarle party and can't wait to also show off our changes. What is Demarle you say? well so did I. It is silicon bake ware. I'm very excited to see how it works, I've always been interested. Let me know if you are coming, because yes there if food involved and i want to make sure to have enough.

Happy Fathers day

I hope Chad a great fathers day. He got to sleep in and woke up to a breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast. No OJ, sorry baby :). We wet to church and came home for a quick lunch of BLTs before we haded over to his dad's house to give him his Fathers day gift. We couldn't stay for dinner since Chad had to get home for bed so we came home had tacos for dinner and put daddy to bed. It was busy and he said the only thing lacking was a nap, but there just wasn't time for that. I interviewed each of the kids with questions about daddy, here are the results. They will be given in the order of Casey, Tyler, Court.

1. What is something dad always says to you? C-That I'm a wuss, T-He loves me, Co-he likes me

2. What makes dad happy? C-When I make things out of Legos, T-When I play with him, Co-Loving him

3.What makes dad sad? C-disobeying, T-When I don't listen, Co- When he gets hurt.

4. How does your dad make you laugh? C- When he tells funny jokes, T-By tickling me, Co-Tickling me

5. What was your dad like as a child? C-He was big, his hair was short and he smiled a lot, T- He was younger, Co- I don't really know

6. How old is your dad? C- 32, T-32, Co- 12

7. How tall is your dad? C-Tall, T- Almost tall as the ceiling, C0- Big

8. What is dads favorite thing to do? C-Watch sports, T- Play sports, Co- Play with us

9. What does dad do when your not around? C-Watch TV, T-Work, Co-Work

10.If your dad was famous, what would he be famous for? C- Sports, T-Sports, Co-Family

11.What is your dad really good at? C-Working, T-Sports, Co-Teaching kids.

12.What is you dad not very good at? C-getting along with people, T-Pulling floor, Co-Tennis.

13.What does your dad do for a job? C- he works at Costco, he builds houses and designs houses, T-Works at Costco, Co-Helps people.

14.What is dads favorite food? Meatballs, T-Meatballs, Co-Those round ball things we had.

15. What makes you proud of your dad? He helps out with things, T-When he plays with me, Co-When he hugs me.

16.If your dad was a cartoon character, who would he be? C- Tom or Jerry, T- Scooby doo, Co-a football player.

17. What do you and your dad do together? C-Play basketball, T-Play football, Co-Play and have fun

18.How are you and dad the same? C-We like legos, T-We have the same hair. Co-because we grow.

19.How are you and dad different? C-He likes to build houses, I like to draw, T- he watches sports on TV and I only watch sometimes, Co-He is big and I am little.

20. How do you know your dad loves you? C-He takes me places, T- Because I'm his kid, Co- Because he likes me.

21. What does your dad like most about your mom? C- He takes her on dates, T-I have no idea, Co-that she is pretty.

22. where is your dads favorite place to go? C- to the sports store, T-the drive-in, Co-Chuck E Cheese

Family fun night

This last Saturday we decided to have a family night instead of a date night. We had the kids change into jammies and packed them off to the drive-in movies. We saw Up and it was playing with Hanna Montana (Much to Chad's disappointment). We left about two hours ahead of time so that we would have time to stop for snacks, dinner and the drive there. After a few missed turns and a little back tracking we accomplished a trip to QT for drinks and snacks, a stop at Little Cesar's for pizza, a stop at Panda Express because I saw it on the way to Little Cesar's and decided that sounded better :) we arrived at the drive-in just on time. Perfect timing!

We unloaded the back bench from the van and settled down to eat our dinner. The movie started and we soon figured out that they told us the wrong screen. We (and by we I mean Chad) quickly threw the bench back in, changed the radio station so that the kids could listen and watch as we drove over to the correct screen, and settled down again.

I hesitate to put this pic of me in, but Court was so excited that she took it, and I figure the kids do need to look back at their lives and see mom too.

We had so much fun. UP was cute, but a little depressing too. Half way through Casey put his arms around me and with a tearful voice said "I don't want that to happen to you guys" For those of you who have not seen it, the guys wife dies of old age and he is lonely without her. Sorry if that is a spoiler. By the end of the movie Casey said it was a great movie and he loved it, I guess it didn't traumatize him to much. Hanna Montana was cute but the kids didn't make it all the way through. With a start time of 10:30 I didn't expect much. After getting a jump from the car next to us, I don't know how to get around a dead battery when you have to listen to your radio for two movies, We got out of there a little after midnight. After a quick stop at Walmart on the way home we finally got home at about 1:30. It was a long late night, but well worth it.

Scout Day Camp

Casey had the pleasure of being able to attend Scout Camp this year. He absolutely LOVED it. Thank you to his leaders for making this happen. I went as a parent helper on the first day and got to get some pictures. The them of camp was Pirates. Every day they rotated from

• Pirate Adventure
• Games
• Crafts
• BB Range
• Archery
• Pool
• Den time
  
  Here is some pictures from the obstacle course .
  
  They got to learn to shoot BB guns and learn about gun safety.
  

Here is Casey with a couple boys from his troop. He is the one on the end

Shooting

They got to Shoot arrows.

And they got to make a flag for their troop. They named themselves the Bloody Sward Killer Wolfs. Notice the blood on crossed swards, that was one of Casey's contributions.

On the second day here is what he brought home. They learned how to tie knots and in crafts he sewed a pouch.

By the last day he honed his skills at the shooting range, here he is holding up his target. He only missed one. In his other hand he has a treasure box form crafts. He is so excited for next year.

When you plant carrots to close....

They don't have room to grow and they get all twisted up together. I did not thin or spread the carrots when they sprouted so I have pulling a few here and there. The little ones come out easily but sometimes they will not budge. I pullet a small clump and found some completely twisted and wrapped around each other, it was pretty cool. Here are some.