DISNEYLAND ...and... WAY too much going on!

Obviously, blogging has NOT been a priority for me as of late! Sorry, for any of you who don't get to see us all that often & care, that I've kept you out of the loop!! I realized that my last post was from mid-July, so a LOT has happened since!

August was a pretty big month. I turned a whopping 26 -and I actually feel younger than I did turning 25, so I think that's a good thing. Rachel & Sam started school as well. At the end of the month, Chuck started a new semester at BYU, therefore stopping his job as a clinical engineer at Intermountain HomeCare. This semester is his first of the last three! One year from now we'll be getting ready for graduation!!! I can hardly wait for this period of life to be FINALLY over!

I am really enjoying the journey in the meantime, though. The kids are doing just great & I am having a lot of fun with Mary Kay, as always :)

September was pretty much just a month of getting into the swing of the new schedule & prepping for Disneyland!

On October 2nd, we left for Disneyland. It had been more than 10 years since I'd been and more than 13 since Chuck had been. Both of our families used to visit Disneyland ALL the time, so we were both SOOO ready to go back. It was so great to get to take our kids, who love Disney as much as we do. I think Sara may have enjoyed it the most! She is the most animated little girl and she laughed & giggled & wiggled the whole time.

We got to go with my family, so we still got to ride on some big-kid rides, too.

It was pretty rainy the whole time, but it was misty rain, so it wasn't bad. It made for shorter lines! On Tuesday night, we got to go to Mickey's Halloween Party & went Trick-or-Treating in Disneyland!! Our family is "almost" just right for the Incredible's Family: Sara's just a girl instead of a boy... but she's just the right age & has red hair, so we made her Jack-Jack anyway!

 It was so much fun to dress up, but the funnest part was unexpected -we got so many fun comments on our whole family being dressed up. There was even a family who asked for our picture! Their little boy is a big Incredibles Fan & he thought it was just great. We got so much candy, it was ridiculous! We even waited in line to see Mickey & Minnie in their Halloween costumes.

All of the characters couldn't get enough of Sara. She's just too hard not to smile at & touch her chubby rolls!

We took part of the day on Thursday to drive to Huntington Beach & show the kids the Ocean. They loved it! It was really fun to go back & play in the water. The weather had cleared up enough to at least play a bit. Rachel even got knocked over &; covered by a wave and it didn't even faze her! She just got back up & ran around, playing.

Sam came into the water with me for a bit, but decided he preferred playing in the sand.

Sara liked both the water & the sand.

 We really weren't planning on being able to stay too long anyway, but then I got stung by a sting ray.

 I knew it wasn't a normal cut from a shell or glass or something, because it felt like a really bad bee sting. I made it back up the beach, but when I sat down, I knew I wasn't going to be able to get back up & walk. Then, shortly, I went into shock, my dad called 911 who got the lifeguard to us, Rachel got really scared & I spent an hour in the lifeguard building soaking my foot in scalding hot water. So fun :) It still hurts a bit, but I'm just glad it was me & not one of my babies!

The rest of Thursday & Friday were our last days in Disneyland. It was so much fun to take the kids on all the rides & watch their eyes light up.

They loved the characters, but we didn't get to see too many of them because of the rain :( We decided we're going to work really hard to go back every year! The kids all loved it, we loved it and I can't wait to go back!

We drove there and back. We rented a Chrysler Town & Country and I fell in love! It was such a great vehicle with so much room! My dad set up DVD players in the back seats for Rachel & Sam. Sara slept a lot of the time. So, they all did really well on both trips. On our way there, we stopped in Henderson, NV and visited the strip. Not so much what I remembered it to be :( Pretty much porn everywhere, yuck. When we got back to the hotel that night, Rachel was looking out the window while we were changing into jammies & I told her she really needed to keep the window shades closed. Her response: "But Mom! I'm looking at the world!" I had to try really hard not to laugh because all I could think was, "Yes. Yes you are." The "world" was definitely what she was looking at.


Luckily, the next day was Sunday and we got to stop and visit the Las Vegas LDS Temple and the LA Temple before we got to our hotel across the street from Disneyland. The LA Temple had the visitors center open, so we got to go in & feel the Spirit. That was nice since we didn't get to listen to much of General Conference with the different frequencies while we were driving.

Driving home was just a straight drive, but it was fine because the trip home always seems shorter than the trip there. We mostly missed the post-BYU game traffic when we hit Provo. We got home, unloaded the cars & got pizza!

This week, I got really sick on Wednesday and it has royally sucked. I don't remember being sick like this since I was a kid (not including pregnancy, obviously :)! I'm still not feeling better, hence this blog getting updated while I miss church.

Hope you at least enjoyed the pictures of my adorable kids!