Trip Pics ~ Day 2

Welcome to Hollywood! What's your dream? Everybody comes here; this is Hollywood, land of dreams. Some dreams come true, some don't; but keep on dreamin' - this is Hollywood. Always time to dream, so keep on dreamin'. 

We drove up the coast on Thursday through Oceanside where they have had a farmer's market open the past two times we have been by.  This time we left with a new poncho thing for me. I love it. And a huge jug of olive oil.  The 89 year old man selling it said he made it himself.  Not until we got back to Austin did Peter notice the package says, "made in italy."  We laughed.

Michael Jackson's star

We headed for Hollywood. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the sign. blah.  Needless to say, it is underwhelming and the kids were sticking close.  Peter said it is better than he remembers it as a child, but there are still too many bag people for comfort.

Look our singer Campbell has her own star too!!

For you, Dad!

 There was a wax museum, and Guinness World record museum and Ripley's Believe it or Not.  I convinced Peter we should do one of them, so we went into Ripley's. It was a good call. Weird stuff, but it entertained all of us.

Creepy unicorn man.

Conleigh chillin' with MJ.

 From Hollywood, we drove through Beverly Hills. No star sightings but a ton of traffic.  We landed at the Santa Monica pier.  You always see pictures of it but I loved being there and it wasn't overly crowded which was great too.

see the girls in the back car of the pier coaster? they were the only ones on the ride.

Alex chose to give a game a try for his activity. No luck.

See my new poncho?

We ate dinner in Venice beach and fell into beds at the hotel. Seriously, our lights were off by 8:30pm (which is 10:30 in TX).

Part V: Rope swing love in Idaho

Conleigh couldn't get enough of the rope swing.  She was over there falling in and climbing out and doing it over and over.  It was her and about 5 little boys.

The other two kids loved it too, but Conleigh had the stick-to-it-ness the most.

This rope swing was over at the 'beach.' There is a beach a short walking distance from the cabin. It was a daily visit for us this trip.

We {heart} Warm Lake!

Schlitterbahn virgins no more

We took off on Thursday morning for a day at Schlitterbahn.

The kids have reminded me many times this summer that they have never been there.

I have never been there.

It is only a little over one hour from our house, but it just never hit the top of my radar.

ready to walk into the 'bahn

WE LOVED IT!

The Thursday before school starts is a good time to go. The crowds were very low and the waits

 for the rides were short.

You use a tube for a lot of the rides. Campbell is such a trooper. She isn't afraid of anything.

Our family loved the whole day. It is really nice because you can take your own food in and set up shop at a picnic table.  We learned a lot. There are two parks and we had all our food at the old park and then we were hungry in the new park.  We only had a little bit of cash, so all three kids gobbled up a Texas size Dippin' Dots.

The only negative of the day was losing two kids - at seperate times. Poor Alex got down one of the rides way before the rest of us and then couldn't find us. He asked an employee who blew a whistle. According to Alex, that is when the green shirt expert-at-finding-parents man arrived.    Peter and I each saw him before he saw us and the sweet boy was just boo-hoo'ing when he got to me.

I was really glad we had talked about what to do if they couldn't find us. Right before closing time, the same thing happened to Conleigh. Only the ride she was way ahead on had two choices of how to end the ride.   She found her way back to our picnic area where Peter was waiting.

I hope they'll get past their, "have you ever felt like you'll never see your parents again," fear, so we can go get our bahns schlittered again next summer! It was a blast.

Genius. What parent can not let their kid have an icee with all these choices?  Nice way to close the park at 6:00pm.

We are a Family

done watching the opening ceremonies. not sure what i thought of the overall show.

i liked seeing the royalty and the humor of rowan atkison (mr. bean).

before bed, i thought i'd join show us your life this week at kelly's korner.

this week is show us how you display pictures.

i took a few shots of what i would say is my picture wall. it only has six pictures on it.

they are big. our walls are big. there aren't many walls but the ones we have are high and big.

a picture sure shows how off kilter the pictures are.  a little straightening is in order, i believe.

 there is a table behind the couch. i need to decorate it, but the kids are usually flying around on the couches, so there is a good chance of the decor being knocked off by flying pillows, etc.

a closer angle shot of the wall.

my favorite thing on this wall is not a picture. i saw this saying at someones house during a meeting and asked her if i could copy down the words. then i had a calligrapher in the neighborhood make this large sign for me.

i think the words are large enough not to need repeating.

love them all, the people who belong to these names and the words that describe family.

We interupt our Disney trip to show The Color Run

 So, we see a sign hanging in Torchy's Tacos back in December. Color Run. Sounds fun. Family Friendly. We sign up as Team 78750. Friends in the neighborhood join our team.  Event day comes.

Before

 We all wear white t-shirts as suggested. The idea is at every kilometer of the 5K, they toss powder paint on you and you are a colorful mess at the end.

Waiting. Start time was 9:00, but uHaul stuck in mud made delayed start time to 9:30. Wind was cold and blowing hard. 

 

Kids not happy.

The start. See the green paint flying and the yellow paint further away.

Color Run turns into Mud Run (uphill).

 What no one predicted was THE MUD on the course!  Apparently, it rained pretty darn hard at the race site in East Austin the day before the race. Hello! It turned into a mud run.  The kids were troopers for sure, but both Alex & Conleigh had their shoes stick in the mud when they were walking.

Shoes. Trash.

I was needlessly worried about this girl. She had the time of her life and did the whole 5K with her friend Jessie by her side. Those kindergartners were impressive.

After

 We had taken the stroller for Princess Campbell but the race course was too wet to use it.  Campbell was a trooper. She didn't complain at all. Conleigh didn't enjoy the scene at all. Poor girl got lost in the mix of 10,000 people and ended up on the big hill alone. When I found her, she was holding her sneakers and looked like she had been on the streets for a week.

Walking in socks.

Waiting for Dad to get the car.

As the days go by, the memory of the event will be better.  I doubt we'll be doing a 5K in the near future.

Camping at Inks Lake

Paddle boating on the lake

Cally & Lexi Hall, and our three crazies

Game table. Lots of chess going on.

All wet in the lake

Family Time

We just enjoyed such a nice family evening.  Today we purchased the newest fad, duct tape.  Guess who was completely into crafting with it? Alex!  he has made three bracelets, 2 wallets, and a bow.  He is all about watching You Tube and following the duct tape tutorials. 

Meanwhile, Conleigh and Campbell were getting completely muddy in the backyard with our neighbor, Cameron. Drought? What drought? Peter said that water is soaking down to the roots of the trees. Nice justification. Anyway, they had a great ol' dirty time.

The girls and I spent Saturday night in Houston with my parents, so we could celebrate my dad's birthday. It was really nice to be there. On the way back to Austin, I met up with a woman who was selling her Cricut Expression for a really good price. I had tried to tell Peter I would like one for my birthday, but I don't think I had explained it very well. Then when I saw this one listed on craigslist for such a great price, I went for it. He was happy that I bought it, and tonight Conleigh, Campbell and I got busy experimenting. It is pretty cool.

Tonight was a great evening of all of us being around the table doing various crafty things. It was very nice to not have the TV or computer going.

A Day in the Life - Sunday

Well, this will complete the week of ~A Day in the Life~ segment on my blog for now. It's been good to be accountable to writing and to documenting how our days are spent.

This morning our church celebrated 35 years.  I wanted to attend church, Peter chose Sunday school, Campbell went to Sunday school, and Alex came with me to worship. We needed to pick up Conleigh about noon, so we only attended one hour at church.  I loved the 9:30 worship. It is "rock & roll" church and the music really gets to me. The drums, guitars, organ, piano. It is great. Alex really enjoyed it too. After worship, he asked me if we could do this every time and he said, "we all get ready for church, everyone goes to Sunday school and he & I go together to big church."   He is so sweet when he isn't overly hungry or tired.

The bishop of our synod was here today and did the sermon. His topic was What Are We Doing Here? He talked about how Jesus would go find the 1 lost sheep even though he had 99 following him.  He said it all so much better than that.

So on our way to south Austin to pick up Conleigh at Grace & Katie's, we stopped off about half way to look at a piano that I had seen listed on craigslist yesterday.  We are now the happy owners of a piano! It isn't at our house yet. I still need to figure that part out.  It is pretty old, but it looks nice. It is Baldwin brand and hasn't been played in a long time, I'm sure.

Then we head on further south and arrive at the Golson's.  Conleigh immediately asked if she could stay longer.  It sounds like a fun party. They swam, made tye-dye shirts, watched movies and played.   After a short visit with everyone there, we went through the drive-thru at Whataburger and then went to the Brick Fiesta.  What is the Brick Fiesta you ask?

A LEGO convention!  When we arrived the tickets were sold out, there was about 1 1/2 hours left of the public exhibition and they were telling people that you could wait in the line and may get in for a few minutes before closing.  We decided to give it 10 minutes and see how much the line moved. We saw about four other families from our neighborhood in the line. And, we got in with over an hour to spend at the exhibit.  It really was amazing what people have built with Legos. Alex was in wonderland. He loved it. The girls were interested too until Conleigh finally announced, "Can we please go home? I cannot stand to see any more legos."  With that, we exited.

Batman!  The 13 year old in the background by Conleigh built this. He designed it himself and it took three months to construct! He was willing to sell it for $6,000.

Next stop, Amy's Ice Cream.  Enough said.

Harry Potter fans unite!

For real...all Legos.

This Dinosaur which was huge was Alex's favorite. It had the date 2003 on it.

When we got home, Peter sanded the table a little bit, Conleigh went to her room for a nap, and Alex and Campbell put their bathing suits on and I sprayed them with the water hose for about 20 minutes. They laughed and laughed.  We had a hodge podge, what-can-you-find-in-the-kitchen kind of dinner. 

Peter directed the kids on a little pick-up around the house while I ran to Wal-mart for a few things.  When I got home, we got the kids in bed and Peter hooked up his new amplifier for the golf cart. Oh goodness, we are going to be low-ridin' through the 'hood.

Peter and I are watching Hope Floats.  I made him watch this when we were first dating and he still remembers how terrible it was.