Thanksgiving 2012

We started our Thanksgiving break on Sunday night. We left right after church and drove down to Anaheim, checked into our hotel and got a good nights sleep! Monday morning we got up bright and early, headed to the hotels continental breakfast and then in line to be at Disneyland right at opening!!

It is my brother in law's (Ray!) 50th birthday next week and we got to celebrate with him at Disneyland! Woohoo! It had been 3 years since our last visit, so the Bud and Emma barely remembered, Mo didn't remember and Henry had never been!

We were able to quickly get onto Space Mountain, Nemo Submarine and Autopia. We did all of these with little to no wait. Next was Matterhorn with a little wait (Henry and I did Tea Cups while we waited)! Then we swapped and I got to go on Matterhorn while the rest went on the Tea Cups.

After this the parked started to get busy. We were still able to get in quite a few ride including Buzz, Star Tours, Snow White, Billy Hill Billy, Big Thunder, Jungle Cruise, Splash Mountain, Pooh & Pirates. We also watched the parade and fireworks. Me and the kids as well as my sister and niece left after the fireworks and shopped Main Street on our way home. N8, Casey & Taylor (my niece and nephew) stayed and went on Splash Mountain 5 more times and were totally soaked! The park was busy, but fun!

The next day we got going just as early, but we were moving a little slower after our full day. We headed straight for Toy Story Mania at California Adventure while Ray ran and got us Fast Passes for World of Color. We did Toy Story Mania and Screamin' then a few of the rides on the boardwalk, Ariel, Grizzly Bear Rapids and Soarin' (only part of the group did Grizzle and Soarin') and then had lunch. Then we made our way into Cars Land! Most of us got in the single rider line for the big Cars ride. Mo was too young for the single rider and the regular line had a wait time of 2 1/2 hours. So Ray and his dad took Henry and Mo to Tow Mater.

Then we headed back over to Disney and did Pirates, Pooh, dinner and a long wait for the Haunted Mansion. The long wait was caused by Mitt Romney!! He happened to be at the park and they cleared the ride for his family making our wait time even longer! Then we went back to California Adventure and found our spots for World of Color. It was awesome, but holding kids on shoulders is tough!! We shopped our way out of the park while N8, Casey and Taylor went on Grizzly Bear Rapids 10 times!! They were dripping!

Wednesday we came home (after a stop at Costco!) and did some Thanksgiving prep and went to dinner. Thursday morning we got going and headed over to the Collage for the Turkey Trot. N8, Bud, Emma, Casey and Taylor ran while the rest of us cheered! N8 was determined to beat Taylor and Taylor was determined to beat N8! Well, N8 lost by about 20 feet or so!! This was Bud and Emma's first 5k. Bud did awesome and came in at just about 30 minutes. Emma had a great time, but a harder time with the run.

After cleaning up we started Thanksgiving prep and N8 took the kids out geocaching!

 

 

 

 

 

Then home for Thanksgiving dinner,

 

 a walk to the park, looking the ads, a trip to the madhouse of Walmart and our 2nd night of Shanghai Rummy!  Friday was a little more shopping, a movie (Wreck it Ralph), an adult dinner, Ticket to Ride and more cards!

All in all an awesome Thanksgiving week!

Time to give thanks...

What a week we had!! I don't think I'm ready for a new one to begin. We began our Thanksgiving week at the happiest place on earth-Disneyland!! It had been about 3 years since our last visit and we were excited to be there. We went with my sisters family and her in-laws. It was a blast! Thanksgiving week is a pretty busy time, but with our expert guides and our superb use of fast-passes we got in everything we wanted to go on!!

This time Bud was tall enough to go on pretty much everything. And since he didn't know any better we could get him on everything at least once!! I can't wait until we get to go back.

On Thanksgiving morning our local track club held a turkey trot. N8, 2 of my nephews and my niece all ran. They did awesome!!


On Friday we of course did all of our Black Friday shopping! My sister and I were at Wal-mart at 4:30am to find all of our deals. Later that day she and I did a fun craft (which I will be posting on tomorrow or Tuesday) and the rest of the group went to Fossil Falls:

On Saturday we were ready and set to go sand-boarding at the Olancha sand dunes. But when we awoke to the sound of rain (it hadn't rained here since February!!) we thought the days plans would be thrown out the window. But as we made a birthday breakfast for my brother in law, the clouds began to clear and we packed up to go. As we drove up we encountered more rain, but were optimistic. Our optimism quickly left as we arrived at the dunes only to find extreme wind and cold. It was in the low 40's and there were winds at least a sustained 50mph! It was insane, but an adventure to say the least. This was the best picture of the entire thing:

Doesn't my nephew look "cool" as we all cower in the wind!!!

So we all trekked out the the dunes, then all trekked back to the car and drove onto Lone Pine where we ate our picnic lunch in the car!! Then we drove on up to Manzanar, a former Japanese Internment Camp from WWII. It was really interesting and made the day turn out much much better!

Now begins another week and lots of loads of laundry, putting up Christmas decorations and recouping!!