Jelly Belly, Donner Summit and driving home

For those of you that don't know, the Jelly Belly factory is located right near San Fran, so on the way home we stopped and took the tour.  The best part about the factory is the sample line.  They give you an unlimited number of samples.  It's cool.  I was even brave enough to try some of the disgusting flavors (booger, toothpaste, etc) but the worst one for me was baby wipes.  It was disgusting!  It was a fun couple of hours.

We had to keep these hats on at all times during the tour.

On our drive home we stopped at the Donner Summit to see the memorial to the Donner Party.  I didn't know that half of the group survived, for some reason I thought they had all perished.  It is such a tragic story, but it made Kenny and I appreciate the early pioneers so much.  I don't know how they trekked through those mountains and stuck with it.  They are truly heroes and I am so appreciative to my ancestors for paving the way for future generations to live in the West.  

The monument described below

The brief story of the tragedy

Playing hide and seek at the Donner Park

On the drive home we just took our time, stopped at the two above places, enjoyed the scenery and stopped and stayed in Reno overnight.  It was a long time to be gone (12 days) but we had so much fun being together as a family.  I love you so much Kenny, Emily, and Ashley!!  

She even had to have Mickey Mouse with her when she was sleeping! :)

A great way to pass the time in the car

Our cute family driving home

When we turned on to 1300 W. Ashley recognized where we were and threw her arms up in the air and yelled, "Home!"  We all agreed with her!  It's good to be home!

San Francisco

My brother Mike got married last Saturday in the Oakland LDS temple, so after our Disneyland trip we headed north eight hours and stayed in Oakland for two days.  My brother has been through a lot of trials in his life especially when it came to getting married so we were ecstatic that the day had finally come for him.  He found his sweetheart, Candace, and they were married in a beautiful ceremony in the temple.  They were given many special blessings by the sweet Polynesion sealer.  It was a great day.  June 20th is also Ashley's birthday so we did a little cake at the reception, but we'll throw her a good birthday party coming soon.

While we were in San Fran we saw some sights, got lost a lot, swam, and just enjoyed being together.  It was a nice little side trip.

The fam at the Golden Gate Bridge

It was really windy

The view of San Fran from the Golden Gate Bridge

Really cool pyramid building right by where my brother, Mike, works

Picture Scrapbook

We had so many great and funny times at Disneyland that just showing a picture sometimes can tell the story.  So this entry will mainly be some pictures from our trip.

They are going to be taking these letters down next year for the revamping of California Adventure, so we had to get our picture taken on them one last time.  Just ignore the white legs standing behind the A. :-)

If you haven't been to Disneyland in a while, make sure you do Small World when you go.  When they repainted it they added Disney characters inside each section.  It's really cute.  This was also Ashley's favorite ride so we rode it A LOT.

When we were at lunch one day, Ashley was so sleepy that she just curled up on her chair and fell asleep.  She's a really light sleeper so we didn't move her, plus she looked so darn cute. :)

Knocking on the White Rabbit's door.  Emily has to do this EVERY time we ride Alice.

Ashley has to do everything that Emily does.  Walk like her, sit like her, climb what she's climbing, etc.  Good thing so far Emily is a good example.  This is Ashley "surfing" with Emily. 

It's a good thing that our michievous little Ashley is so cute!

Emily had never been on the swings before and she was a little nervous to go, but halfway through the ride she let go of the bar, held her arms up and yelled, "This is my favorite ride in the whole world!"
Emily's been going on the Matterhorn and Splash Mountain for awhile but only with Daddy.  She didn't think Mommy was strong enough to protect her. :-)  This trip we had a breakthrough and I'm now good enough to ride Splash Mtn. and the Matterhorn with! Whoo!

Eating breakfast in our hotel as Ashley's hamming it up!

Meeting lots of characters is always fun!

We have never seen the wicked queen from Snow White before so when she was out, we had to stop.  We have this thing where the girls can stick out their tongues only to the meanies on movies (Maleficent, Wicked Queen, Ursula, Captain Hook, etc), so this is our picture of us sticking our tongues out at her.  Ashley had already put her tongue back in and Emily was too afraid to do it because after all she can make poison apples!  The Queen played her role perfectly!

Scary Moments

We loved our trip to Disneyland and had so much fun (see other entries), but there were two scary moments that we had on this trip.  We had never been on the new pirate island so we talked Emily into going over there.  She loved it and was heading across on the bridge and Kenny was going to meet her on the other side.  She was too fast and ran ahead into a cave and we lost her.  Kenny and I split up and looked all over, but couldn't find her.  I was just starting to hit the frantic stage when I turned around and saw that two teenagers had stopped what they were doing and were walking around with her to help her find her parents.  I was so relieved as was Kenny. Emily had never even been nervous.   When we asked her where she was, she said, "I was just on my own."  Emily is very obedient and never run off so I think I at least got extra worried quickly. We were very grateful that she was only missing for about 10 minutes.

Two days later, we were at California Adventure waiting for the parade to start.  As I've already mentioned, Ashley loves her Mickey Mouse and always wanted him buckled in her stroller instead of her.  She usually lost this battle, but like most parents, we gave in a couple times.  This was one of those times that Ashley was not buckled up.  They were doing bubbles across the street and we watched Emily cross the street for just a few seconds.  When we looked back Ashley had stood up in her car seat and had somehow lost her balance and was falling out of the seat.  We lunged for her but we weren't fast enough.  Ashley hit the concrete with her head and then fell to the ground.  The sound of her hitting the concrete was one of the worst in my whole life and I will never forget it.  She looked like a rag doll when she hit and fell to the ground.  I grabbed her and started panicking.  She already had a goose egg about two inches thick and her cry was so pitiful.  Kenny somehow managed to stay calm and ran and got some ice to put on it.  She finally stopped crying and seemed to be acting normal, but we didn't want to take any chances.  Disneyland has a first aid station with nurses, so we took her there and they checked her out and said she (besides her big bump) looked great.  We were so relieved.  I felt so guilty.  I know accidents happen, but I should have made sure she was strapped in.  I was very grateful yet again that everything was alright, and needless to say Ashley was ALWAYS strapped in for the rest of the trip and will always be from now on.  The pictures below don't do the goose egg on her forehead any justice, but I'm putting them on anyway. 

Mickey Mouse

Well it's been a while since I've posted, but we've been out of town.  We went on our annual summer trip to Disneyland and combined it with my brother Mike getting married in the Oakland, CA temple.  We were gone for a long time (12 days), but had a great time.  Disneyland was so much fun (as usual) and Ashley absolutely loved it!  She knew where places were and even pointed the way for us.  Ashley has always loved Mickey Mouse a lot.  She brought along a Mickey stuffed animal and the first day we were there she held Mickey up as we were traveling up Main Street and said, "Mickey, look, castle!"  "Mickey, look, horsey!"  "Mickey, look, bumbo (Dumbo for you non-Ashley speakers :-)!" "Mickey, look, pirates, yo, ho!"  It was so cute how she was showing him all the sights just like a good big sister would.  We of course met Mickey Mouse on multiple occasions, but didn't really think she knew where he was (because he's inside a house).  On our last day at Disneyland, we went into Toon Town and I was parking the stroller by the Gadget Go Coaster and Ashley looked up and said, "Mickey, meet, pease!"  She totally knew that it was Mickey's house and she wanted to meet him yet again.  We love you Mickey!  Thanks for making Ashley's dreams come true on this trip! :-) 

Ashley's upteenth time meeting Mickey!

She took Mickey Mouse everywhere

Meeting Mickey-she didn't want to let him go.

Friends

Having it be summer time brings many blessings (see previous post) and some interesting times.  Emily is old enough to go and play at other kids houses during the day, but apparently other kids like to come to our house.  On an average day we have from two to eight kids playing inside and out of our house.  I love that Emily has friends and that they want to play with her all the time, but it can get a little chaotic.  One of my neighbor friends came over and stated, "You didn't know that you'd be running a daycare this summer, did you?" :-)  I'll take it though because Emily is not home during the day during the school year so she needs all the time she can get with our neighbors when she is home.  However I haven't quite figured out how to get them to clean up their mess after they're done.  Any ideas?

The gang playing

Time off

Now, don't get me wrong.  I love teaching and wanted to be a teacher since I was in second grade, but now that I have children I LOVE the summer.  I love to be there full time and be a mom and teacher to my children.  This year my four year old, Emily, is not taking naps but Ashley still is.  During nap time I have started to do quiet time with Emily.  She can't make much noise and we play quiet games together, do puzzles, do "homework", read, etc.  I love this time of day to just spend some one on one time with my sweet girl and to see her learn new things.  I love you so much Emily!

Doing our princess puzzle