This fall, we went to Disneyland for the second time as parents. The first time we went was nearly two years ago and it was a bit too early for the kids to really appreciate it. This trip was a relatively quick, so we didn't stop to visit a lot of friends like we usually do when we're down in So Cal. We drove down at midnight and ended up at our hotel early in the morning. We went fancy for this trip and stayed at the Grand Californian.. Disney does hospitality well and we were luckily able to check into our room early.
TV to amuse the kids while checking in
Even Jad got a room key!
We arrived on the morning of our 9th wedding anniversary!
Since we had spent the night driving but had to hit the ground running, we tag-teamed on childcare. First, Nik took the kids to Downtown Disney to explore while Jad and I napped in the room. We reconvened when Jad woke up and when Jad took his second nap, I took the kids to the pool. In spite of this summer's successful swim lessons, Kai was pretty freaked out in the pool.
The best free diversion at Downtown Disney is the Lego Store..
.. perhaps they know that you'll probably end up buying something if you hang out there :P
Sora loves the water and kept saying that she was a mermaid (rolls eyes)
Happy as long as he was in the kiddie pool.. completely different story in the other pool
Eventually Nik and Jad showed up. It was Jad's first pool experience and he immediately made friends with some of the older kids in the kiddie pool
In the evening, we debated leaving the resort to have a "nice" anniversary dinner, but tiredness (and laziness) prevailed, and we opted to not leave and stayed at Downtown Disney. Since all the sit down restaurants had a wait, we decided to eat at a fast casual Cajun place.. it was definitely okay :P, but at least we saved our sanity.
Family selfie. Sora was so tired that she fell asleep sitting next to Kai
Happy anniversary! (plus baby)
The next day was spent at Disneyland. After a few choice photo ops, Sora, Jad, and I immediately made a beeline for the princess meet and greet, while Nik and Kai headed over to Tomorrowland. Sora was so excited to the meet the princesses, but when the moment arrived, she was starstruck and nervous, and couldn't smile for the camera. It was hilarious.
In between meeting Ariel and Cinderella, she literally was jumping up and down and said, "I'm so happy!" But the pictures.. >_<
All better now that there isn't a princess in proximity!
We still avoided the dark, indoor rides, but we managed to ride a number of other essential Disneyland rides like the teacups and Dumbo. We stopped by to say hello and take a picture with Mickey and Minnie.
Sora was quite pleased that her horse had a pink bow
Jungle Cruise! Jad was clearly running out of steam at this point..
.. so we went back to the hotel to have him nap while the kids did some Halloween crafts and trick-or-treating. They also ran into Dale in the lobby! And since Dale's not a princess, Sora managed to smile! :)
We went back to Disneyland after Jad's nap to meet Rapunzel (one of the benefits of staying at the resort)
For some reason, Kai was fixated on taking the monorail, so we had to ride the monorail as we were leaving the park
When planning this trip, we decide that it might be a good idea to have a recovery day in between Disneyland and California Adventure. So on Saturday we took the day off. Unfortunately, by then, we could already tell that Kai was getting a little bit sick and cranky. Luckily we always travel with meds. While Nik stayed with Jad during his morning nap, I took the kids out to Downtown Disney and just for fun, the kids wore their Halloween costumes.
Hanging out at the Disney store..
.. fishing coins out of the fountain was also entertaining, and we eventually ended up back at the Lego Store
Once Jad woke up and with a whole Saturday ahead of us, we decided to go to Downtown Anaheim to check out their fall festival (after the other day's trauma, Kai was done with pool). There were silly carnival games and lots of arts and crafts for the kids. We grabbed lunch at a Japanese place and managed to connect with Eui, who we'd not seen in years.
Jad loved meeting Auntie Eui!
I was so impressed by the arts and crafts section of the festival. Paints, stamps, pipe cleaners, glitter.. all set out and free for kids to use
Our one pre-planned social activity for this trip was meeting my UCLA friends. It's hard to pass up seeing Sabrina and Kane when they live only 10 minutes away from Disneyland. :) As usual, the Uyeharas made us feel right at home and there was lots of food to be had. So nice to see everyone and see everyone's littles, though Kari is not so little anymore! At the rate she's going, by our next visit, she may be bigger than me!
Baby Kari (circa December 2008)
.. and now off to a Halloween party. What a difference 10 years makes!
Outnumbered by kids and chaos! (poor Kai was so exhausted)
On the next day's agenda was California Adventure. Since we were staying at the Grand Californian, we were able to enter the park at 7 am, an hour before it opened to the public. When Jad woke up before the kids, I took the opportunity to go on a powerwalk with him around the park.
Totally empty!
The kids eventually woke up and Nik and I switched places. He went with the kids to the park while I stayed at the hotel with napping Jad. The first item on the agenda was to meet Anna and Elsa. After a few misfires, initially there was no Elsa and then while waiting in line to meet Elsa, they literally stopped the line in front of Sora, she finally got to meet the princesses and Olaf. Same deadpan face, unfortunately. :P
We headed over to Radiator Springs, but the kids were unimpressed since Kai was sick and both kids were exhuasted. By that time, we had already checked out of our hotel room, so taking the kids back to the room to nap wasn't an option and we had to make the kids nap in the stroller. They wouldn't settle in the double stroller since they were fighting too much and eventually we had to separate them in two strollers. Kai fell asleep relatively easily, but I made at least three circuits around the park to get Sora to nap.
Radiator Springs.. meh
The hard fought naptime.. I think it lasted only 30 minutes tops
After the kids woke up, we managed to go on a few more rides while waiting for the main event..
.. the parade! The Paint the Night parade was probably the only thing the kids really remembered from our last Disneyland trip, so of course we had to do it again. We staked out a good spot an hour before the parade started by Cathay Circle. Even by adult standards, it was a long and painful wait. The saving grace was that Jad fell asleep in the carrier and the kids were pretty well distracted while watching a movie on the tablet.
When the parade started, Sora was excited and dancing, and waved to all of the floats. On the other hand, poor, sick Kai looked like he could barely keep his eyes open. Remarkably Jad slept through the entire thing. O_o
Yay for modern conveniences.. how did parents do this before??
When the parade ended, Sora was like, "that's it??" I guess with more than an hour's worth of anticipation, she expected more. :P We then hustled out of the park, and saw a little bit of the fireworks show above Disneyland. The kids didn't want to stay long to watch the fireworks with the loud noises, so we headed back to the Grand Californian.
From there, we picked up our luggage from the claim check, got our car from the valet, and then began the long drive home. The drive home was peaceful and uneventful. At 10 pm, it was already late and after a long day at California Adventure, everyone passed out almost immediately, and we arrived home in time to get a little bit of rest in our own beds.
I finally finished my So Cal post, so I'm trying my hardest to catch this blog up to the present.. at least until we head back down to So Cal in October. -_- So I'm going to start back in the middle of August. After our trip to Napa in August with our church friends, Kai and Evelyn have been back to being BFFs (I'll post about Napa soon!). At Minori's birthday party in August, we let Kai, Ethan, and Evelyn run around together with relative independence.. now that the kids are getting older, we're trying to just keep the kids in our peripheral vision rather than following them around everywhere.
The three musketeers and Sora. Sora now loves to wear dress up dresses, I let her wear them to parties.. so needless to say, she loves going to parties.
A few weeks later, we celebrated Wally's birthday with cupcakes, water balloons, and Polaroids. Sora had to remove her princess dress for the water balloon fight, and in spite of the ubiquity of digital photography, the kids loved taking Polaroids.. just something about seeing a physical photo develop.
Kai and Isaac show off their photographic skillz, they took pics of each other :)
Decorate-your-own-cupcake station! Needless to say, there was a lot of frosting and candy
Next up was Nik's birthday! Decidedly more low-key than last year's big 4-0 blowout, we celebrated by hosting small group and just by chance, we had a two hour long blackout in the middle of small group. It made for an exciting small group: as the kids watched downloaded videos on the tablet (lucky that it was fully charged!), we went through the Bible study by lantern and flash lights. We capped off small group with a cake for Nik and amusingly, the power came on almost immediately after our friends left.
Bible study by lantern light
Happy birthday, Nik!
The day after Nik's birthday was a double-header. We celebrated Milo's birthday in the morning with a pirate themed party and doughnuts.
We then headed directly to Abby's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's afterward. Kai and Sora were excited to go back to Chuck E. Cheese after visiting in August, but in all honesty, the Cupertino location doesn't hold a candle to the East San Jose location. However, it was just fun to go with our church friends and the kids had a wonderful time hanging out together.
We also went to a birthday party for one of Kai's classmates, Theo. I'm really happy that Kai's starting to make friends at school and hope that having friends helps him grow in confidence. I had just visited VillaSport with Matthew for the first time earlier in the week, so that Theo's birthday party was there was a pleasant surprise.
First visit we used a free guest pass.. gotta get the slick deal while you can!
Theo's party was actually awesome for me. Since Nik was working that Saturday, it gave me an easy daytime diversion for the kids and having already been there before, I knew I would be able to handle three kids in the shallow pool. The kids loved running around the water play area and cracked open a pinata.
Ring pops with Kiana
These Saturday birthday parties have been essential to saving my sanity. Nik worked the past three Saturdays, and if not for these birthday parties, I would simply be on lockdown mode at home. Two weekends ago, we celebrated Nathan's birthday at the pumpkin patch. Bringing three kids to a pumpkin patch on my own is not something I would normally attempt, but knowing that our church friends would be there, I took the kids. It was a bit of a madhouse with lots of people, but our friends were able to help me out. Jad wasn't too thrilled about his first pumpkin patch either and was exhausted by the end of our visit.
The poor animals in the petting zoo looked so stressed out
The best picture I could get of the three of them :P
"Get this pumpkin hat off of meeeeee!"
And just last weekend, we celebrated three birthdays in one weekend. On Saturday, Nik was working yet again, so I took the kids to Evelyn's birthday in the park. It was low-key and wonderful; the kids were able to run off on their own to play with their friends at the playground and with so many friends around, I was able to hand Jad off to a number of people.
Afterward, we headed off to Owen's birthday at the Duck Pond. Essentially a large indoor playspace with lots of toys, it was nice change of pace from playing outdoors and the kids were able to roam around freely.
In love with their party favors from Evelyn's party
Kai and Isaac causing trouble together
Dress up clothing too! Sora was delighted
And finally, we celebrated Zachary's birthday this past Sunday. A ninja themed party at a gym, the kids enjoyed running around the obstacle course and using the gymnastics equipment.
I am grateful for all of our friends and for these parties. My only issue is that I'm getting a little tired of eating pizza all of the time, but I guess that's the trade-off! :)
In the beginning of September, we went on our church retreat to Mission Springs. Located just in Scotts Valley, it was nice to get away but not really be "away". This was the first year that we could let the kids roam around mostly on their own; there were times where we lost track of where the kids were, yet not knowing exactly where they were wasn't a big deal.. what a revelation!
Climbing this tree was a popular activity for the kiddos (and sneaking snacks from the snack stash)
Sydney Foo Foo loves Jaddy
Though Kai just left Butterfly for kindergarten, we recently had a reunion with some of our old preschool friends. The kids had a wonderful time playing together and it's nice to keep up these connections while the kids are still interested in playing with each other. Amusingly, Nina from Bright Star was at the playground at the same time and while I chatted with Nina's mom, Kai and Nina didn't remember each other at all. I know I'm being over-sentimental, but I think it's a little sad even though that's just the way things are for kids.
♫ Reunited and it feels so good ♫
Butterfly reunion with Kai, Micah, Jo Jo, Naomi, and Felicia
