San Francisco Zoo and Beach

Our Zoo trip happened kinda randomly. My mom, Pat, and her husband, Louis, have two boys ages 9 and 10. Louis' grandson Desi who is 13 and his friend Stephen, who is also 13, were visiting for a while and there had been some boredom and poor behavior going on. Mom and I both felt it was due to a lack of structured time, too much free time. So we decided the next day we'd take all the kids, including my own three girls and all her hoard of boys, to the zoo and then the beach, which was only right across the street from the San Francisco Zoo. Here are a few pictures from our trip!

Here's all the kids together (and a statue of a baby elephant too :) top one in the cap is Stephen, then Lainey, hugging Maggie. Next to Elaine is Sam, and next to him is Ben, these are my brothers, then sitting on the ground is my nephew Desi and he is holding Katie, the sun was in everyone's eyes so that's why they all look cranky :)

Ben, Sam, Louis, Mom






The Giraffe's were Katie's favorite thing! She called them "Gaff" she got so excited and didn't want to to leave them at all!

This little guy was watching over everything while his buddies ate lunch. too cute!


This gorilla was so cool. I went to the low windows to observe, while everyone else was up above to see the enclosure with out glass. This gorilla came over and played "peek-a-boo" with me , yielding this great close up. Stephen had followed me over there and once the gorilla popped up right next to him, startled him a bit :) didn't get a good shot of the gorilla next to stephen, but this was so fun!


More Zoo stuff to come later, this blog is driving me nuts trying to line up pictures and text.

OUCH!

Here are some pictures of our poor little Katie Kat. She was bitten by another child her same age at a birthday party. There's really no blame involved here, i mean the other kid was all of 18 months, and she is 17 months. Katie often bites when she is frustrated or upset, but having not witnessed this first hand it's hard to say who started this whole confrontation but it's obvious who ended it :)
Now this bite turned into a lovely shiner the next day, a big bruise formed all across the bottom of her eye and she looked like she'd been in a bar fight! LOL! We got asked by everyone what had happened but nobody ever guessed that it was a bite...i mean who ever gets bitten by a toddler in a place like this? OUCH! She got over it pretty quick and even gave the boy a hug later, kids forgive so easily, if only we could learn from them :) And all in all the wound wasn't that bad and healed quite quick, it's been just over a week and not a trace remains of something that looked so swollen and awful! Quite the event.

preface to the Disneyland Blog

Ok so i am still getting used to this blogging thing and it is driving me nuts with how it looks while i'm composing it and even in preview and how it actually turns out on the page....i'm sorry that the captions i made for each picture did not show up next to the actual pictures, i can't even get it to leave the gaps between paragraphs or pictures, if anyone has any way to help me i'd really appreciate getting better at using this thing!!

Disneyland - a little more catch up!

May 9-16, 2009....Disneyland....wow, where to begin?! We have so many great pictures, it was an all around amazing week! For starters, we were staying at the time share condo that my mom has and it was AWESOME!! It had a living room/dining room, full kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a small balcony and a GREAT view of the fireworks at Disneyland. So the first day we got there we had left a bit late and really taken our time driving, stopping often for the kids to get out and stretch and eat, andthen we hit some SERIOUS Los Angeles traffic and what according the GPS should have taken us about 1 hour, took us more than 3 hours. So we arrived at somewhere around 8pm. The staff was very helpful to bring our things up the room as i was trying to corral the kids and Adam couldn't get everything in one load by himself. We were on the 9th floor (out of 15 floors) so from our sliding door we could clearly see the "Matter Horn" and "Space Mountain" as well as the giant Ferris Wheel at California Adventures. The kids were excited to be able to see a part of Disneyland even though we weren't going into the park until the next day. The next day was Mother's day, and Adam made pancakes and bacon (the kids call this 'special breakfast') for everyone, especially me and my mom. My mom and her husband (the kids call him Boppy Lou, because his name is Louis) and my brothers Ben (10) and Sam (9) were in the room right next door, she had called ahead to make sure they could accomodate us. That was nice, so we each got an extra key card to our room and traded so that we could easily access each others units, that was fun. Louis had gotten injured the day before we all left and his foot was bandaged up and he was pretty heavily medicated. He was a trooper though, never really heard him complain the whole time! There were lots of special fun things that happened but i'll tell them as i show pictures of them and that should pretty much tell the story of our week :)












Maggie loved the dumbo ride, when she finally went on it, but that's a whole different blog altogether!











Maggie finally got pooped out, this picture was too cute to pass up!

!!!Princesses!!!!


















































this was the Jedi Training Academy and my brother Sam got picked out the audience to participate. He got to fight Vader and Maul and he was the only one who force pushed the storm troopers, it was pretty fun to watch, he is now officially a padawan.













Meeting Mickey and Minnie was fun for the kids, we met them at their houses in ToonTown, we had to wait in line for each one and i snapped a few fun pictures of them in line and in the houses too!















































Now this was an interesting story. This little girl is named Isabelle Bautista. Her dad is Elaine's pediatric dentist, right here in Modesto. We happened to run into him in line for the princess vanity faire. he was holding the spot with his daughter Isabelle. Elaine and Isabelle became instant friends and as it turns out their birthdays are only a day apart and they both attend the same dance school and would be performing in a dance together in only a few short weeks! Crazy, it really is a "small world after all."



This was one of those special moments we had, Maggie and Lainey were both picked to dance in the parade with the characters, they had a blast, got to dance around all over and be a part of the fun. it was definitely memorable!!















Can you find Maggie in the first picture and Elaine in the second....look closer!!



























Posing in toon town, having a blast playing with Everything!!!
































































Every time we passed this statue of the White Rabbit, the girls had to stop and check him out, they really seemed to like it......this is the girls on the tea cups, we all rode it together and they had a blast! So did we, and amazingly no one got sick!




















Another great moment. We had been standing in line and were picked to open the park that day! They took a picture of us in front of the whole crowd of people waiting to get in, then a picture of us in the park before anyone else! then the girls got to push THE button announcing the park was opening, it was quite a special moment, they introduced us to the whole crowd and made a pretty big deal of it. We felt special and that's one of those moments we may never have again so we loved it!































knock knock...at the white rabbit's house, anyone home?

Tinkerbell didn't think it was fair that Katie couldn't be in the picture because she was sleeping, so she walked Elaine and Maggie over to the stroller and had us take this picture, it was so cute and sweet! We really liked the new Pixie Hollow at Disneyland, it was fun meeting the different fairies.

The last two pictures were taken while Elaine was on Splash Mountain, Maggie was a hair away from being tall enough but she was excited to meet a few characters instead. The great thing was that their favorite rides were Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Matter Horn, they totally loved the Matter Horn, they both rode it 4 times, crazy thing though was that Katie was only about 3 inches away from being tall enough for that ride too! CRAZY! They were real sports when it came to scary rides, they rode Star Tours and the Matter Horn and Splash Mountain, and were a little afraid the first time but i continually explained that every ride was safe if they stayed sitting in their seat and stayed buckled, after the first couple of rides they began to realize that it was true and they then LOVED every ride they went on! They even did Soarin' Over California in California Adventures. Katie was too little for a lot of rides but luckily she was able to ride all the kid rides which the other girls loved too. Katie is going to be a dare devil like her sisters, she was so excited for every ride she was able to go on...no fear whatsoever! She grabbed onto the bar or whatever was holding her (sometimes it was only our arms) and she grinned most of the time! This was such an amazing experience getting to take our girls to Disnyeland at this age, each age will bring new adventures and joys, we can't wait to go again!!

a little behind....time to catch up! - Wheel of Fortune

ok, for those of you who are waiting to hear when i'll be on wheel of fortune i'm afraid i've got sad news... not gonna happen this time. I got a call back and was really psyched to go and interview personally with the producers and show them why i would ROCK on "wheel." Well they made us go through several elimination rounds in which, while playing the game with other people, we were narrowed down based on personality and attitude. Not surprisingly i made it past that with flying colors. Then we played some more wheel, and more and MORE. by the final round of eliminations and games i was so frazzled from all the different puzzles (which i think was their goal) when i took a turn in the final round i guessed a letter that had already been guessed. Now you might think, oh well, people do that on the show all the time. While that is totally true, they are looking for any excuse to not like you, and unfortunately that is a big one. They tell us over and over to use the "used letter board" which tells you which letters are available and which have already been picked and i knew this very well from the millions of rounds of wheel we had already been playing. But i was so sure on one of the words which i thought had a T in it, so i guessed T without even looking at the "used letter board," apparently i wasn't the only person who had thought that, but i was the one eliminated for it, because i guessed it without looking at the totally obvious board in front of me telling me it was NOT available. I think they figure you must not really be paying attention if you guess a letter that clearly in front of you is not available. While they can't do anything about that happening on the show, they do everything they can to prevent it, including disqualifying would-be contestants for doing it. Anyway, i didn't get picked to be on "Wheel of Fortune," i was so annoyed with myself that day and a few days after that, but luckily it was not long until we were leaving for Disneyland, the distraction reminded me that my family was more important than any opportunity to be on a show or win big bucks (or not) could be. But you can bet if that Wheel-Mobile is ever in the area again, i'll be there!!! I'm young, got plenty of years to practice and try again!

A Few random moments from March and April

So it's been a rather uneventful month and a half since my last post. I went to an open audition for Wheel of Fortune, it was pretty fun, although i didn't get picked as a contestant that day. The people who were picked that day got to go on stage and do a mini version of the game and they would video tape them and pick from those people who would get a final audition. A final audition is the last step to becoming a contestant. But since i didn't get picked that day i kind of wrote it off figuring that was that. It was fun though, none the less. Then a few weeks later i got an email, saying they didn't have enough people for the final auditions so they picked a few random applications to come to a final audition without even having done a previous round. Well they want me to come to a final audition and interview with the producers on April 29th. I'm so excited i would love to be on Wheel of Fortune, even if i don't win a whole lot, if i got on the show i'd at least get $1000, that's what you get just for being on the show even if you don't win. I have a history of getting every job i interview for, i'm looking at this the same way, I know i have the qualities they want in a contestant, and i interview well. I'm keeping a positive attitude and if nothing else, it'll make for a fun story :) We're excited for Disneyland, we'll be going in May, the 9th through the 16th, we'll be staying at a condo just down the street, so we'll have a kitchen and seperate rooms for the kids and everything. My mom booked us this place to stay through her time share, this is the best way to do disneyland for kids, to be able to eat real food instead of junk food, and have a whole week to enjoy the parks not just one day, so if the kids get tired or cranky we just call it a day and come back the next day. This will be so much fun, can't wait to blog and show pictures.

The only other thing of note is that i broke my wedding ring, i can't believe i did it, this is the third ring i've broken. I'm tired of it so we're going to see about trading it in for a band instead. we'll see, i should be getting a call today to let me know if they'll let me trade it in even though it's broken. i hope so. suppose that's all for now, not really too much to report, but exciting to know i'll have more good stuff soon!

And now it came to pass.....

We've been reading the scriptures as a family every night as part of our bedtime routine with the girls. We brush teeth, and put on pj's and then read scriptures and a story before singing time. I've felt for a while that reading scriptures to kids this age seems kind of pointless, i mean they really can't understand what i'm reading, sometimes i have trouble. But i know that the spirit of the law is what is important, and the spirit of the law is about being bonded and remember the Lord in all things, what better way to be mindful of God than to read His word daily. We've been doing this for about 4 months now, and our kids are well behaved, they sit still while we read, all except the baby, but she enjoys crawling from lap to lap while we read.


But today i learned that reading scriptures with our little children has made a bigger impact than i could have imagined! Katie was playing in her bedroom while i was cleaning up in there, putting some things away, filling the diaper basket and other fun tidying activities :) The big girls were playing in their bedroom which was across the hall, their door was closed, but Katie's was open and i could very clearly hear the big girls in the other room. They both don't really know how to read yet so when they look at books they make up words, or tell the story as best they remember, and i can only assume that was what they were doing. I heard Maggie say she was going to read scriptures. She began to "read" very loud and confident, this is what she said, nearly word for word:


"And now it came to pass, in the day of time, they prayed and asked God for help. And now it came to pass, God answered their prayers, he delivered them to where they were going. And now it came to pass, they were many sore and trials. And now it came to pass they prayed again to God and he made them better. And now it came to pass if we pray to God he will answer us too, just like them, and now it came to pass....Amen....that means the end."


I nearly began to cry as i listened at her door. This was the most beautiful "scripture reading" i had ever heard. It told me that not only do my children listen while we read scripture, but that in some way they are actually understanding, truely taking in the words of God at this precious stage in their life. I hope they will be able to hold on to this, i know i will never forget hearing this, as long as i live. A mother has no greater joy in life than to know that her children have learned what she has been trying to teach. God lives, He hears our prayers, and can help us if we but remember to ask.