Easter Eggs!

Easter eggs are an annual tradition at our house. It just wouldn't be Easter without them. In fact it is one of Andrew's very favorite things about Easter. He has been looking forward to doing this activity for days. He even brought it up on vacation to remind me. So I knew we had to get it done before Easter weekend or he would be disappointed.

Zane had fun with the egg dying this year too. I think he may have remembered it from last year but mostly I think he was feeding off of Andrew's enthusiasm.

My three Men!

Zane, intent on the egg process!

Final Product! Yummy!!!

Now for multicolored egg salad sandwiches and macaroni salad. My favorite part, the eating!

The Cruise and Stone Island

After leaving Disneyland we hopped on a Super Shuttle for a quick trip to the cruise ship. Eric and I were certainly ready for some mommy and daddy relaxation! For any of you who have not cruised, let me just tell you, embarkation day can be super crazy. We got to the terminal about noon and prepared ourselves to stand in line. Apparently there is some benefit to having a fussy toddler in a stroller because the man in charge of the line pulled us out and sent us to the disabled/wheelchair line. We did all the necessary work and then zoomed past everyone up to the boat entrance. SWEET! No waiting and straight to the dining room we went.


After our lunch was eaten we headed off to our room and to the kids center to get the boys registered. We got almost done with the form and then I realized I didn't have the medical information. Rats! Back to the room we had to go. Right about this time I started not feeling well. Which was kinda weird because I had been feeling great all day. I had a headache and just needed to lay down. Plus my tummy was not feeling so hot. Well, remember how Lucy got the flu and threw up? Yep, you guessed it! I was the first of all four of the rest of us to come down with the same flu plague that she had. For one night only all in our clan threw up and then felt better. Fortunately it was a short lived bug. We only felt nasty for about 6 hours or so and it wasn't on a day that we were in a port. But THANK YOU LUCY! for deciding to share her sickness with us. It was super swell of you.


I don't have a ton to say about the cruise in general. We stopped at Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. In Cabo I did some shopping for Andrew's teacher. His class is doing a unit on Mexico and she had mentioned a couple of things that she would like to have. I was able to find one thing that she asked for and some other super cool beaded art thing that I thought the kids in Andrew's class (and classes down the road) would enjoy.


Mazatlan brought the most fun of the trip for us. Eric researched one of the shore excursions to a place called Stone Island and found out that it is a super short walk from the cruise terminal to the "ferry" and it was significantly cheaper to go outside of a shore excursion. After losing Lucy's shoe (it was later recovered by one of the crew members when they took the gangway back out) we finally managed to get to the "ferry" terminal. The ferry was really more of a dingy but it only cost us $6 to get to the island so we weren't complaining too much. Once on the island we kinda followed some people who looked like they knew what they were doing. We ended up at Letys, a nice little restuarant/cabana thing that had good and cheap food. It was AMAZING and we had a blast. The kids played in the sun all day and Eric and I managed to cook ourselves.

The rest of the cruise was uneventful and relaxing. Wonderful vacation and break from reality. It was nice to come home though and get back into the day to day existence of things. No seriously, it really was!

Lucy's Trip to Disneyland

Now I know you are all thinking that I must be crazy to have more Lucy stories to tell about Disneyland but let me tell you, this little lady made vacation this time around interesting to say the least. The day we left (Tuesday) I noticed that she was cutting teeth. Notice I said teeth (plural) and not tooth. Lucy decided that Disneyland would be a FABULOUS place to cut two molars and her last secondary incisor on the bottom. Eric and I stocked up on Tylenol so we figured we would be ok. She usually runs a bit of a fever when cutting teeth and the Tylenol takes care of it. And it seems to combat the pain as well. Bottom line was that we knew she would be potentially a bit crabby but nothing we couldn't deal with. Oh how wrong two parents can be!

The first day at Disney was great. Lucy was crabby but we gave her some opportunities to get out of the stroller and run around a bit and that seemed to help. Stayed on top of the Tylenol too. All was going well and she was tuckered out by the end of the day. Plus she seemed to really enjoy the mellow easy rides.

The second day at Disney I had her all decked out in her princess gear. She had pigtails and the super adorable dress. All was going well. She was kinda crabby but we spent a lot of time in line and held her and she seemed to be fine. No real fever, just grumpy, so I gave her meds and food. Well that backfired in a huge way!

After kicking around the main park in the morning we decided to go to California Adventure in the afternoon to go and see Aladdin the musical. We made it in and sat all the way in the top, second balcony, very last row. The show begins and all of a sudden Eric (who was holding Lucy) looks over at me and says, "I've got to GO!" I gave him a quizzical look and he said, "She just threw up all over me." As these words are coming out of his mouth Lucy lets loose round two of all the food (bananas and crackers) that I had fed her thinking that her grumpiness was hunger. And let me tell you, the girl had eaten a LOT! Poor Disney workers, poor Eric and poor gentleman sitting in front of us who got yack on his shirt (not too much though!). They all got to deal with the Lucy mess while the boys and I all sat and enjoyed the rest of the show.

Needless to say we went home after that so clothing could be changed and washed. Thank God for coin laundry machines! I started a load and then we all went to dinner. Hey, the rest of us actually were hungry! Although Lucy did throw up AGAIN at dinner. Poor wait staff at the restaurant! And poor Eric who got the job of carrying her back to the hotel! The last day we were paranoid about feeding Lucy so she hardly ate all day. I don't know that she was super hungry and she was really whiny crabby. But it is just one more reason why you do not see any photos of Lucy with the Toontown characters. She will have her shot at Disneyland again one of these days I am sure!

Toontown Morning

One of the perks of booking with a Disneyland Resort agent was that we got a special ticket to go to Mickey's Toontown morning. Toontown usually doesn't open until one hour after the rest of the park and with this pass we got to go and meet the characters in a much more intimate setting and with shorter lines. During the hour they have a little show and all people get to be honorary members of Toontown for the day. I was excited and so were the boys. I think we got everyone's autograph in except for Pluto and Goofy. And they are always around so I wasn't to worried about it. Lots of fun and it definitely was a nice addition to our trip!

My favorite!

Zane was super excited to hang out with Chip and Dale!

The main Mouse himself!

You may be wondering where Lucy was in all these pictures. Eric and I decided that it was not worth it to force her to get the picture taken with them. She was just too little and too freaked out by them all. Her time will come and I was satisfied with the pictures of her with the princesses.

Andrew and Zane's Disney Adventure

Andrew and Zane had SOOOO much fun at Disney this year. It was very interesting to see the stuff that they remembered from last time and the stuff that they had forgotten. They remembered the autograph books and getting pictures with the characters. They also remembered the roller coasters and this time Andrew hated them. He went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and then Splash Mountain and absolutely refused to get on another one. Even the Goofy one in Toontown. What can I say? I hate roller coasters too so it didn't hurt my feelings at all. Zane and Eric went on all the rest together and Zane still liked them. He never wanted to go on them a second time but he was up for anything once!

One of the boys favorite things was going to Tom Sawyer Island (pictured in the back). They thought his fort was TONS of fun and definitely worth doing. They spent almost an hour there playing and running around. It was a nice break from waiting in line and doing the roller coaster thing.


We got tons of pictures of character and signatures too. If I am ever on top of it I intend to put together a little photo album of the picture and then the signature next to it. Yes they do sell books that you can do that with but I am too cheap. Those books are almost $20! and I figure I can find an album for cheaper than that.

Andrew's favorite things about Disneyland were all the kid rides (i.e. not roller coasters), meeting Donald Duck, seeing Lightening McQueen and Mater and Buzz Lightyears Astro Blasters. I think he could have ridden that one all day long.

Zane's favorite things about Disneyland were Splash Mountain, Playhouse Disney "Live on Stage", meeting Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Big Thunder Mountain. He also loved the train that goes around the edge of the park.

All in all the boys had a great time and did wonderful. We kinda walked the legs off them since we only brought a stroller for Lucy but they were troopers the whole time. They slept amazing by the time bedtime rolled around too!

The Princesses

In an effort to make as much sense as possible I am going to post about our trip in random order. Follow that if you can! I was so excited to take Lucy to meet the Princesses. The day we went was the day we had our early entry. First thing we hit was the Nemo ride and we managed to get on the second boat of the day! Lucy was all decked out in her princess wear and I was feeling pretty good about getting all the stuff accomplished that we needed to get done. Unfortunately we did not get in line early for the princesses like we should have. We were too busy riding Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland. Oh, and the spinning teacups. Anyway, we ended up standing in line for an OBSCENE amount of time (almost an hour and a half I think) but the line really doesn't ever get any shorter and I will be more diligent about it next time for sure. Anyway, we did get to meet some princesses and even hit it at shift change so we got an extra princess thrown in!

Miss Lucy right before we got in!

Belle and the rest of us!

Pocahontas, Lucy and I.

All of us with Snow White. Andrew was surprisingly NOT terrified of her this year!

Pocahontas and the boys (her hair is AMAZING! and real, not a wig)

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty for those not up on the princesses) and the boys

Aurora, Lucy and I

Aurora thought that Lucy was too cute and very impressed that she had dressed like her. Lucy was of course terrified of her and would go nowhere near any of the princesses so that I why you are getting all these pictures of me. Oh well. Maybe next time she won't be freaked out by them!

Home at Last!

We got home tonight after a long day of traveling. I am too exhausted to blog about the whole trip so I will just have to leave you all hanging until tomorrow (or the next day) when I find the time and energy to upload photos and make a beautiful display of all our adventures. For now you can just enjoy the new title picture and thumb print photo. We had a blast! Stay tuned for the exciting details!