Birthdays, School, Trip, and Halloween

Get ready for a really long post.  Lots of pictures.  I missed posting about Reagan's birthday, so we will start there.

This year Reagan wanted a zombie cake. Isn't it a work of beauty?   

Reagan turned 5 years old this year and she thinks she is just as big as the other kids.  She is very sassy and loves to pose and dance around, but also loves to play guns and zombies.

I also missed posting about the first day of school.  

 Here is the big 6th grader.  Last year in elementary school.  Jr. High next year.  What???  His teacher is Mrs. Ferrari.

E-run is in 4th grade this year.  I love her teacher Miss. Brown.  Erin is really excited about science this year and that is, in part, because of her teacher.

Owen banowen is in 2nd grade this year.  He has gotten so much better at his reading, but his writing is still crazy, so we will have to work on that.  His teacher is Mrs. O'Toole. 

Reagan started Kindergarten this year.  Her teacher is Mrs. McIlrath.  The kids call her Mrs. Mack.  She hated Kindergarten at first and worried and worried about it.  She didn't want to make a mistake or get behind in her work.  She likes to go now and likes that a few of her friends are in her class. 

They are getting so old and big.

Erin had a birthday too.  She turned 9 years old.  

She wanted a shooting star chocolate cake.  This is what we came up with.

Erin is becoming her own person.  It is fun to see her personality coming out.  She is really quite funny and (Reagan is sitting on my lap as I type and she says to say Erin always laughs).  Erin likes to pick her own clothes, music, etc.  She is pretty opinionated about it.  She, along with Liam earned enough money to buy their own iPods.  Whenever she is home, she has that thing with her and is listening to music.  She LOVES music.  

This is what we do before we go to church.  Doesn't everybody?   

Picture Liam took on his iPod to "show everyone's personality".  I don't even know what that means.

We took a fun family trip to California last month too.  We have been planning it forever.  We woke up at 3:00 in the morning to make it to the airport for a 6:00 flight.  April drove us to the airport, we got out, said goodbye, she pulled away and we realized I forgot my license.  We tried to call her, but she didn't have her phone on her.  The kids and Cameron got through security and had to wait for me.  I couldn't get through without my  license.  I got hold of April when she got home and she was good enough to drive all the way back to give me my license.  Thank you April!!  I got through security and we went to board.  We sat for a couple of minutes and boarded.  It was a close call.

It was the kids' first time flying, so they got to take turns as to who got to sit by the window.  Owen and Erin got the window on the way there and Reagan and Liam got the window on the way home.  As we were starting to go faster to take off, Owen got really excited.  Then we started flying and he loved it.  In fact, when we were up in the air, he screamed "We're all gonna die!" because he was so excited.  He didn't really think we were going to die, but he had to let the excitement out somehow.  It was a little embarrassing. 

Liam's selfie on the plane.

Erin took lots of pictures on the plane, this is one I'll show.  Owen got excited to see the clouds too.  He would pull on my arm and jump up and down in his seat and say "We are above millions of clouds!!"

We got to LA, got our rental van and headed out.  We went to see the LA temple first. 

I think the kids just wanted to go to our condo, but we had most of the day to kill before we could check in, so we drove around LA quite a bit.

We drove down Santa Monica Blvd. and stopped to walk up Rodeo drive.  This weird rock sculpture was where we parked so we could walk and of course the kids wanted to climb all over it in spite of the sign saying not to.  We got a few dirty looks before we saw the sign, but no harm no foul right?

Cameron wanted to get a picture of the kids in front of a famous store.  Here they are in front of Gucci, but his thumb is sort of over the lens.  

Here is looking up Rodeo drive the way we had come.  I didn't like it at all.  It was so much excess!!  It just felt weird to me.  But we went and can say we were there.  The trees were fun to see.  

In fact, the kids all loved the palm trees.  Owen started calling them something weird and the name caught on so that's what they called them for a while.  

Just some pictures from the kids' iPods.

We went to Capitol records and got a couple of pictures.  

We almost missed the Hollywood sign, but there it is on the hill.  We kind of drove all over.  Santa Monica, Sunset Blvd., Beverly Hills, we were in a sketchy neighborhood trying to find the Face Off warehouse.  (It's a TV show I like) but we couldn't find it.  We made it to our condo and the room wasn't ready yet, so we walked over to Disneyland to get our tickets for the next day.  Then we walked back and the room was ready.  The kids were all so tired from being up early that morning, so we just got in our room, the kids wanted to go swimming, so Cameron took them down to the pool and I got food and stuff set up and we made it an early-ish night.

The next day was Disneyland!  It was everyone's first time there except me, so we stopped on Main Street USA and got first time buttons for everyone.  It was fun to see it all decorated for Halloween and the villains were roaming about.   We went straight to the Indiana Jones ride which turned out to be Liam's favorite ride in Disneyland.

Next was Star Tours and Liam got to be the rebel spy they show a picture of on the screen.  That was pretty fun for him.   

This was Space Mountain which I loved and Erin loved, but the rest didn't really like.  Notice Reagan with her eyes closed in this picture.  This is because on all the scary rides, she would just close her eyes through the whole thing.  We would get off a ride and the kids would all say Wow!  That was so much fun!  and Reagan turned to me and said "If it is a fun ride, that means it's a scary ride mom."

She thought Buzz Lightyear would be scary too because it was dark, but after much happy, excited talk from me, she decided she liked it.  This is Cameron and Erin.

Reagan and I.

and Owen and Liam.

Then we went on the Disney Railroad.  Reagan was okay with that one except when it went in tunnels and was dark.  In the tunnels, it showed dinosaurs and...

the grand canyon.

We rode the train to New Orleans square where we had lunch and then went on the Haunted Mansion, (which I like better when it is not Halloween and Jack Skellington) Pirates of the Caribbean, Winnie the Pooh (Reagan loved, the others not so much), and the Monorail. 

The kids were trashed by this point and we walked back to the condo, ate, swam, and watched fireworks on the roof.

The next day was California Adventure.  We were told to go straight in and get FastPasses to Radiator Springs Racers, but it was closed, so we went to ride on California Screamin.  SO much fun!!  Reagan wasn't tall enough and Cameron was okay with not going on it, so it was just the four of us.  We went on it three times throughout the day because it was so fun.

This is part of the track for California Screamin. By this time, Radiator Springs Racers had opened up, so we got FastPasses for that one.

Then we went on Mickey's Fun Wheel on one of the swinging cars.  

Boys on one side, girls on the other.  The swinging actually made me just a little sick.  But it was a fun one too.

Tower of Terror was next.  I loved this one too.  we are on the back row in this picture.  Reagan is hanging on for dear life.  She didn't like this one.  Each of the kids had their own small backpack with snacks and their drink in it and Cameron was holding onto all of them during this ride.  He lost hold of one of them and it flew up into the front row.  I thought it was pretty funny.

We then went on Soarin Over California.  Liam left his backpack on the ride with his iPod in it so we spent about 45 minutes trying to get it back.  We finally did because the nice operator went to look for it himself.  Owen loved Soarin.  He was squealing and laughing the whole way through.

Then it was Grizzly River Run, Golden Zephyrs (stupid),  Silly Symphony Swings and Radiator Springs Racers.  I liked the Racer ride, but I think it was so over-hyped that I wasn't all that impressed with it.  

We then ate lunch at the pier.

We went to wait in line for Toy Story Midway Mania.  This was the longest line we waited in all three days.  It was about an hour to get into.  It is a ride and a video game where you are trying to hit targets from your car.  It was okay.  The kids all really liked it though.  Cameron's score was the highest by far though.

This is us on Screamin again.  We are in the second to last car.  We rode on King Triton's carousel and Reagan loved it.  Then Goofy's Sky School,

Reagan thought she'd like to try the Jumpin Jellyfish ride.  

It was about 30 seconds long, but she loved it!

We went on Goofy's Sky School again because Owen loved that one and our last ride of that day was California Screamin again.

We did get the kids ice cream and sat and watched the army guys from Toy Story do a little program thing while we ate.  Erin got a sucker because she doesn't like ice cream.  Crazy!

The next day was Disneyland again.  We decided to get the big rides out of the way because it wasn't too crowded, but it would get that way in the afternoons.  

We started with Peter Pan which was about a 45 minute wait for about a minute and a half of ride.  All the kids didn't think it was worth it.  Then we did the Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain.

This one was Cameron and Reagan's favorite.  I had never been on it and it was really cute and fun. 

 We took the train again and did Autopia which is where you can drive the car by yourself.  Owen drove Cameron, Liam and Erin rode together and took turns driving and Reagan and I went together and she really wanted to drive...until she really got to drive.  Then it was really scary for her and she didn't want to do it anymore so I took over and would get her to drive every once in a while.  

We had to ride King Arthur's Carousel for Reagan and she once again loved it. 

We went to Toon Town to Goofy's house.

We saw Goofy outside of his house.  We didn't get pictures of many characters, because the kids didn't really care.  We did see Cinderella, Tiana, Belle, Alice, Queen of Hearts, Goofy, Micky, Minnie, Hook, Jack Skellington, Aladdin, Jasmine, Jafar, I can't remember who else.  When we saw Alice, we were pointing her out to the kids and Owen kept saying "Where?  Where?"  She was standing right next to him and she bent down and waved to him and he still said "Where is she?"

We tried to see Mickey in his house and did walk through his house, but the wait to see Mickey was 45 minutes, so we decided not to see him.  

This was in Mickey's house and since Reagan had gotten a Pluto hat earlier, she needed her picture taken here.

This is pretty indicative of how we all felt by this time in the day.  We were pretty pooped out.

More pics in Toon Town.  We had gotten FastPasses for Indianna Jones and Space Mountain before, so after Toon Town, we rode those last two rides and decided it was time to go home.

Each of the kids got a hat.  Mickey, Goofy, Pluto and Minnie.  We didn't even plan that Ha!

For memory I will write each person's favorite and least favorite rides.  

Favorite Disneyland 1st day Cameron: Indiana Jones.  Amy: Space Mountain.  Liam: Indiana Jones.  Erin: Space Mountain.  Owen:  Star Tours.  Reagan: Pirates of the Caribbean.  

California Adventures C: Grizzly River Run A: California Screamin L: Ferris Wheel E: California Screamin O: Soarin over California and Goofy's Sky School R: Swings.  

Disneyland 2nd day:  C: Splash Mountain A: Splash Mountain L: Indiana Jones E: Big Thunder Mountain O: Splash Mountain R: Splash Mountain.  

Least favorite rides C: Space Mountain A: Matterhorn L:Peter Pan E: Peter Pan O: Doesn't have one R: Indiana Jones.

The next day we slept in a little, ate breakfast, checked out of the condo and started driving to San Diego.  We stopped at this rest area to let the kids see the ocean for the first time.  They kept saying it just looked like the sky.

Here's our van we rented.

We stopped by the San Diego temple.  So pretty.  

Liam wanted a picture of just us.

We hung around there for a while and went shopping for a few food items.  We checked into the condo and the kids swam.

The next morning we took an hour harbor cruise.  We met a nice British family in line.

This is the USS Midway which we didn't tour, but next time we'll have to.  It looked pretty cool.

I took this picture because it has the ship they used in Pirates of the Caribbean in it.  Second one from the right 

This is what it looked like on the ship.  We were sitting on the edge of the ship looking over the railing.

A bunch of sea lions and birds.

If you look over Owen's shoulder, you can see the guy who was narrating the tour for us.  He knew everything!  He knew the kinds of birds, airplanes, helicopters, boats, and he talked pretty much non stop the whole time.  Cameron really enjoyed this cruise.

The kids thought this seagull was great.  He was riding the air currents, just keeping up with the boat.

More birds.

After the cruise, we went back to the condo to eat lunch and Erin wasn't feeling super great.  We were going to go to Balboa Park and see the zoo, but decided to go to La Jolla beach instead.  

It was nice.  There were some fun tide pools and we would walk along the boulevard up top until we saw stairs and would go down to the beach.  Then we would walk back up and keep going until we could go down again.

This kid was in his element.  He loved it!

There was a little pier thing you could walk out onto to see the sea lions. 

Here they are.  They were fun to watch.  You would see a little head bobbing along in the waves and it was fun to see them make their way to shore or onto a rock or something.  They were pretty stinky though.

This is Owen after he lost his flip flop.  The ocean sucked it off of his foot.  He was pretty sad.  Then a wave came in and it had his shoe.  He ran to get it and almost killed himself in the process.  It was pretty scary because he was running right toward these rocks you couldn't see because the water was over them.  As the water was sucking back into sea, it was taking his flip flop and he was just running after it.  He did get it just before the rocks and stood up just before another wave broke on his head.

Owen and Reagan collected a bunch of shells.  They thought it was pretty great.

We didn't do much the rest of that day.  Just went back to the condo and relaxed.  That was pretty nice.  Erin watched a few episodes of Say Yes to the Dress with me.  She still didn't really feel too great.

Monday we went to the Mormon Battalion Museum.  It was a cute place.  Really kid friendly.  Liam got to dress like one of the members and Owen just wanted to hold the bayonet.

We had a sister missionary from Taiwan and one from Hong Kong who took us through the tour.  They were cute girls.  

The kids got to pan for gold and keep the two pieces they liked best.  Owen decided he would find all the gold and put it in a pile in one place so the next people didn't have to look for it.  The sisters thought he was pretty funny.

They had a little lookout tower we went up and you could see all over Old Town San Diego.  

After that, we drove around Old Town and went back to the condo to get swimming suits on to go to the beach.

We went to Coronado Beach.  It was so nice and long and pretty.  I didn't think the kids would like the beach as much as they did.  We spent about four or five hours there.  We got to see lots of airplanes fly in and lots of military aircraft.  The Navy SEALS even ran past us and back on a training run.

 Erin really wanted to be buried in the sand, so Reagan and I buried her.

I made a goblin village of drip castles.

Owen made me a heart in the sand.  It says Mom.  Cute boy.

This was Owen's sand castle he named Globby.  Erin made a big mountain of sand she named Mounty, but we didn't get a picture of him.

Owen also wanted to be buried in sand.  

I don't really like the ocean, so I didn't get in much.  Cameron was a great dad and played in the water with them the whole time.

Erin was terrified of the seaweed.  This is Liam scaring her with seaweed.  He was kind of mean, but it WAS pretty funny.

More seaweed.

He made himself the seaweed king.

It was fun.  We didn't have any sunscreen, so everyone got a little crispy.  The girls' backs were a little red, my neck got red, but Cameron got so so so burnt.  He is just now getting over it.  We went back to the condo, relaxed, swam in the pool and slept.  We left the next day to drive back to LA.  We turned the van in and took the shuttle to the airport.  Reagan left her jacket on the shuttle, so it is in LA somewhere.  I really wish we would have gone to see my brother at that time, but we didn't think we would have time, so we didn't.  We ended up at the airport three hours early, but without a van so we couldn't see the Manwarings.  We love you guys!!  We flew home, Amy picked us up from the airport and we got home about 10:30 pm.  What a good trip and I hope there were a lot of memories made.

On to Halloween...

We didn't have a lot of time between the time we got home and Halloween, so I had their costumes made before we left for the trip.  This year Liam was a scary clown.

Erin was a mummy.  

Owen was a black shadow.

And Reagan was a white shadow (with pink crocs).

Jamison came trick or treating again with us this year.  We sure love having the Millers hang with us on Halloween.  We went around our neighborhood, ate hot dogs and scones and were home by 8:00.  Perfection.

Happy Halloween from us!!