Last day at Disney!

Well we had two wonderful days at the parks with fairly minimum crowds. We had planned to stay only at Disneyland for our third day as it is Rhi's and  My favorite. But overnight the crowds had moved in like crazy.  Halloween at Disney is very popular. The day started off by them not letting us walk to the mickey tram, due to parking lot construction and thereby adding to our previous two days of being on our feet, by walking maybe a mile and half extra. Oh well. No day at Disney is a bad day! Picture taking was still a bit on the slack-ful side. We need to hire a photographer to take pictures of us so we can focus on the fun to be had.

We began the day by me racing to Fast Pass for Star wars, The older Boys going on Indy, and meeting up in New Orleans land in the Pumpkin Beignet Line. We are very lucky to See Jack and Sally up close and personal. Archy tries to give him a hive five.

I may or may not have had a hiker heart attack that my camera was broke, when it was switched to live view finder, so that was my excuse for this pic. These Stormtroopers were from the dark side and got us in trouble by leading us to the wrong shuttle. We were very lucky that all 8 of us got in the front row, 

I was able to ride Manision one more time! And I plan on making this (maybe in a smaller scale ;) for my decorations. While us three girls rode Mansion the boys rode Splash Mountain. After all our FP were used we decided to hightail it over to California adventure to escape the crowds.  

Poor Archy was upset that he wasn't tall enough to ride Screamin, and refused to look at me for the whole ride!

Zany always ready to say "cheese"

Zany is flirtin with Donald! She was so happy to see to him.

Walking to relax in the redwood creek play area. These two just make me smile sometimes, the rest of the Family is ahead. 

It was really nice, we let the kids play and us older ones, took some much needed rest.  We had even had a break watching "aladdin" but we were exhausted! 

Rhi and Z plan our next trip along side Rhi's future car. 

Our time is winding down in California adventure as we make our way back to Disneyland! 

We rode Small world twice, so while in line we could see the Paint the night parade as we weren't ready to stand in line for along time for it.  

Biggest Regret of the trip: I didn't demand a family picture infront of the Castle! We even made it to Midnight! but we just go go go from place to place and next time I will make sure we do. The Castle was so pretty at night. We even made it to Midnight!

Always the last stop of the night if you go with Rhi, She loves to get silhouettes of her family to hand on here wall.  Maybe she will add a picture of them? Eddy was in the chair during this shot and I think Q was upset that no one had the energy to race to Splash Mountain but him.


It was such a wonderful trip, I am already trying to plan another one! There were no major fights and everyone had fun.  We bought some Mickey characters dressed as Star wars figures and I got my much sought after Zero popcorn bucket.

Here are everyone's favorite rides:

Zany- Ariel (California)
Archy - Pirates of the Caribbean (Disneyland)
McCoy - Screamin (California)
Declan - Indiana Jones (Disneyland)
Quinton - Screamin (California)
Ashlee - Haunted Mansion  (Disneyland)
Eddy - Splash Mountain (Disneyland)
Rhiannon - Grizzly River Run (California)

Disneyland Day 2

This was the most magical of the days, even though it was shorter.  The park was nice and empty and it seemed most of the waiting was done in shade or air conditioning.  I also rode a few things for the first time this trip, though we have yet to make it on Peter Pan, it is our great white whale as far rides go, always so Long a line.

its Halloween Time! the park was decked out, and had special treats. and special themes to rides.

Walked on to Jungle book while the rest of the boys rode Indiana Jones.  It was my very first ride on Jungle book and I really liked the sense of humor of our river guide. 

My favorite ride the Haunted Mansion, made even more favorite by the addition of Nightmare Before Christmas theme!  I want to decorate my house just like it. Since we just walked on it, I hardly had time to get any pictures.

For whatever Reason. Zany was terrified of this ride. She was kinda tricked on to it and you can still see the look of shock and horror on her face.

We had time to go to Tom sawyer's Island. It was really neat and peaceful, a great stop to eat lunch.  Rhi decides to take a cat nap while the kiddo's explore the play areas. 

Rhi giving directions to Baby Z

Thanks to McCoy's hair, this day he qualified to drive by himself.

Archy and Eddy out for a spin

Quint and dec looking cool.

At the little house outside Alice and Wonderland

Oh no, what are we going to ride next?

Also my First ride ever on the tea cups. 

Archy and Mr Toad try to make Qunit crack a smile at the happiest place on earth.

Rhi shows what she thinks of Mr Toad's wild ways

A little hot but still having fun

He does smile!

Last ride of the day, Snow white. Baby Z is done with lines and waiting.  It was a superfun, empty day and even though we got kicked out of the park at 6 due to a special mickey party it was awesome and we needed the sleep to make it to midnight the next day!

Sand Castle and Six

 Besides playing in the ocean my kids love building sand castles.  This time we bought some useful things to help in making a really awesome sand castle.  Quinton and Declan actually drew up some plans before we left on our trip.  They based their design on a moated castle.

McCoy makes a few test walls

Soon everyone starts helping

Quinton starts digging in earnest

To protect their castle, Quinton added the planned moat

Left to Right: Zany, McCoy, Quinton, Archer, Declan

The moats works

Perfect day, perfect sand castle

Zany loves the sand

Cool Coy

 Archy celebrated his sixth birthday, on the beach.  That's how I would like to spend my birthday right on the ocean, lucky summer birthday! After two days of being in the ocean and on the beach there was some very painful chaffing happening.  We all walked a bit stiffly off the beach but what lovely memories.

Happy Sixth Birthday Archer!

Beach Boys and Gal!

San Clemente State Beach

 Our summer vacation continued with a short drive to one of our favorite places--the beach.  It was an eight hour drive to Las Vegas and from Las Vegas to our favorite beach was only four hours from our favorite Southern California beach to home was eight hours.  Not sure about that math but it added up to fun!  On the way to our hotel we had to stop at my Grandpa Agle's most favorite place to shop-Costco in San Juan Capistrano, CA.

The big bro with large hands-Quinty

After checking in to our hotel we hussled down to the beach to enjoy it as long as we could.  It was really warm for Southern California and the beach was delightful with its cool water.  

Eddy at our camp 

Not sure how others handle the need for bathrooms in the ocean but we just told Zany to pee in the water.  The bathroom was a long hike away and there was no way she would make it in time.  It really freaked her out though and she didn't like to get in the cool water.  While I was gone to the bathroom actually, Zany needed to go pooh and so she went in the water about ankle deep and went.  That was a problem because that item of course was in her swim bottoms.  Eddy told me what had occurred when I returned.  We decided to take her out into the ocean remove the bottoms and then scrub them on the sand until they were clean (you probably don't want to go to the beach with us right?).  It was all going well, Eddy had her bottom half hidden in the ocean I had cleaned her swim bottom and was just discreetly putting them back on her when out of nowhere a monster wave came and knocked us all over.  Once we righted ourselves, we discovered the swim bottoms were claimed by the ocean.  Now what?  Zany literally was half naked on a public beach.  Eddy took off his swim shirt and wrapped it around her.  Luckily, I had brought a pair of panties along and she wore those the rest of the day.

Look at those cute swim bottoms (soon to disappear).

Zany left and Archy right

We bought two body boards at the costco McCoy comes in after a good run.

What a perfect, sunny day for the beach

Seeing the Sites of Las Vegas

I was a little worried about taking the kids to Las Vegas.  You hear all kinds about how horrible it is in Vegas with rampant pornagraphy and other unsavoriness.  I was expecting to see people handing out flyers for things you would rather not see and those fliers would be on the ground everywhere for unsuspecting innocents to see.  Actually, I found Las Vegas very clean for the most part.  There were billboards on the back of trucks that drove around at night that had scantily clad women on it but the kids would just close their eyes whenever I spotted one of those and yelled, "Close your eyes."  Besides those billboards everything was very clean and kid friendly.  We just did all the free shows and things around Vegas.

This was on the ground floor of our hotel, beautiful skies it looked so real. 

Zany was not happy as she wasn't able to ride on the gondolas like she wanted 

McCoy with his favorite turtle

Zany was quite taken with the Mermaids behind her

Pirate Dec with his booty

The fountain show was quite amazing, they were able to get the water to go so high and it was perfectly timed to go with the music.

Zany watches the fountains

Lovely view

Eddy and Archer

Our hotel had a mall on the ground floors that had really high end stores.  The best shop besides the Godiva chocolate shop was the rare book store.  I found on of my all time favorite books there, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Boys with rare books

a $16,000 dollar copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Flaming Volcano

              Vegas wouldn't be Vegas without a little gambling or a least a little gambler.