Another Trip to Disneyland

Please excuse me while I post about another trip to Disneyland. :)

This afternoon we went with our friends from church again. This time, Keith, the Dad was able to accompany us and we were able to show him how much fun having annual passes can be! It was another wonderful day of fun and fellowship and a lot of laughs. Once again, it wasn't too bad, crowd wise for a Saturday, so we were able to get on a lot of 'good rides'.

We started off at Disneyland. Once again hitting some favorite rides and attractions. While we were wandering Frontierland, I spotted a familiar face sitting on a nearby bench chatting to friend. It was Miss Barrett, Hannah's teacher!!! We knew she was also an annual passholder (another reason I really like the lady, in addition to her being an awesome teacher of course!) and it was fun to run into her while Hannah is off track. She was so excited to have run into us. She hugged Hannah and even had her friend take a picture of the two of them as well! :) We made our way over to California Adventure, hitting one of Hannah's most favorite rides, Grizzly River Run. It's a rafting-like ride that you get wet on, or depending on wear you sit in the raft, you can get soaked, which is what happened to all of our party that went on the ride! Us Moms sat this ride out because we didn't want to get wet. After riding the ride back to back and getting pretty wet each time, this is how Hannah looked. It's a good thing we had sweatshirts for the kids to change into, their shirts were were so wet, we could ring them out. The Dads got soaked too! Another of Hannah's favorite things to do at California Adventure is the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail. So we spent a little time in there, letting the kids rock climb, do the slides, and of course walking the rope bridges. Within the RCCT, there is a cave where you can go in and discover what animal you are most like (it's taken from the movie Brother Bear). Hannah ended up being a Salmon. I'd say the characteristics fit her pretty well. :)We walked through Paradise Pier and rode some of the rides there, all with minimal wait times, which was really nice. What better way to finish the day then with some ice cream from Burrr-Bank!

A Trip to the Library

This morning we went to the Downtown Library. I spent a lot of time at this particular library growing up whether it was the summer reading programs, checking out books to bring home, and the older I got, doing research for papers, etc. Today was the first time I'd taken the girls there. Usually we go to the little library in the city where Hannah goes to school and we pass by several times a day. I thought going to the big library would be something new and different for the girls.The library has a children's room and it's exactly as I remember it from years ago, even smells the same. LOL. As a new library card holder for this library, I could only check out two books this time. So each of the girls picked a book and we brought them home. Hannah chose a chapter book and has already read seven chapters just today! She's excited to get the book finished and go back for another.

California Adventure with Friends

Disneyland twice within 48 hours?? Life is great! LOL.

This afternoon we went to California Adventure with a family from church that we've become friends with. Last week they bought annual passes and we are really looking forward to many more trips with them, especially after the great time we had today!

The family has a little girl who just turned 5, and two boys, ages 11 and 14. Both our girls adore the boys, Eli and Zach. Hannah has even come home from spending time with them wishing she had an older brother. LOL.

I was very proud of Hannah getting up and joining in on the call to get up and dance with the High School Musical street show. She's not one to get up and do things like that, but seeing how she knows the songs word for word and has learned some of the dance steps, she decided to be brave today.The lines were pretty short for a lot of the 'good rides' today. The kids rode Grizzley River Run twice. The second time around, Hannah sat on the edge and came off soaked...and was laughing about it. We had just finished dinner as the Block Party Bash parade was going through the gates backstage. The kids enjoyed watching the parade from where we were sitting.

Trip to Disneyland

What better way to start off Hannah's vacation than with a trip to Disneyland. After picking up Hannah and a trip through the McDonald's drive thru, we were on our way.

Today kicked off Halloween Time the Fall season at The Disneyland Resort with everything decorated so pretty with fall colors and leaves and pumpkins, special shows, and special fall foods and treats. All the decorations made for some really great backdrops for pictures. I was extremely happy that both the girls cooperated with so many picture taking opportunities today. We're now entering my most favorite time of the year at Disneyland...the holidays. Arriving to the parks shortly after noon, we made it in time to see the new High School Musical 2 street parade at California Adventure. It was really good and look forward to seeing it again!After the parade, we spent some time roaming about Candy Corn Acres, a new thing this year. There were candy corn carrots, candy corn corn, candy corn grape clusters...There was candy corn everywhere! From there, we headed over to where the 'real' magic is, Disneyland, where we spent the remainder of the day. We strolled back to Woody's Halloween Roundup and spent some time taking pictures and the girls coloring and decorating a little pumpkin, and enjoying the music of a Cast Member playing the fiddle and singing 'Fall' songs. Since turning 7, Hannah has now reached the 'magical age' whereas she can go on rides by herself. She's very excited about this and today she tried driving her very own Autopia car all by herself. She had a little trouble keeping the gas pedal pushed down all the way and her car stalled out on her a couple of times, which unnerved her. When she got off, she was a little upset and might wait a while longer before driving on her own again.It was a beautiful day for going to Disneyland. The weather was beautiful and enjoyable, and the crowds, well, there were none. Popular rides had wait times as little as 10 minutes! Which would have made for an even more perfect day had I had kids that meet the requirements AND were willing to go on them!! We managed to hit some favorite rides, and do some of our favorite things. A fun window to look through, the candy making window located in the shop back in Pooh Corner. This afternoon, the ladies were dipping apples! YUM! We had a really good day. The girls were cooperative and stood in lines well, and Hannah was extremely helpful on several occasion! We're looking forward to a few more trips while she's off track!

Happy to be Off Track

Some of the words from the chorus from the song, "What Time is It?" from High School Musical 2's hit song, fits just fine with today's event:

What time is it?
Summertime!
It's our vacation.
What time is it?
Party time!
While it may no longer be summertime here in Southern California (thank goodness!), it is Hannah's vacation time! As of 11:15 this morning, she is off track from school for the next four weeks!

Some things Hannah has said she'd like to do while on vacation include: spending the night with Gramma and Papa, spending some time at Gramie's, Disneyland, the pumpkin patch, The La Brea Tar Pits, trips to the library, San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park (we have passes), a sleep over with McKenzie and Haylee, reading to Rachel's preschool class, and a few more I've seem to have forgotten at the moment.

Parent Teacher Conference

We've just returned home from having had our Parent-Teacher Conference.

Overall Hannah is an excellent student. On her report card, she scored 3 A's (for Advanced) and 2 P's (Proficient) in the graded areas of Writing, Reading, Math, Social Studies/History, and Science.

The teacher had a lot of good things to say about Hannah. However, she did tell us Hannah can be a bit 'chatty' at times. :::GASP::: No! Not our Hannah! Must have skipped a generation on both sides and the chattiness came from her grandmothers, as I recall a particular grandmother telling me she used to get in trouble at school for talking. :)

Needless to say we're very proud of her and how well she's doing in school! And can't believe tomorrow is the end of the 1st trimester and she'll be off track for 4 weeks!

Collecting Box Tops

Once again, Hannah's school is collecting Box Tops for Education. And while there are class awarded prizes for the most brought in, we are doing a contest within our class. The student who brings in the most Box Tops by November 1, wins a Coldstone gift card. Hannah was at the top, until a fellow classmate brought in 135 in one day!!! Thanks to Aunt Judy who supplied Hannah 35 Box Tops this week, in addition to the bag we got from Gramie last week, Hannah is about 30 Box Tops from catching up. If anyone would like to contribute to Hannah winning, please send us your Box Tops!! :)

An Afternoon with the Cousins

Hannah came home from school this afternoon to her cousins and Aunt Kim visiting. They are heading home to Oregon this weekend, so we had one last afternoon of the kids playing together and visiting. We went to the local park and fed the ducks and went to the playground to play. The kids had SO much fun.

I was really amazed at Hannah on the monkey bars!
She went all the way!

An Evening Hike

This evening after dinner we went for a hike/walk up the local mountain that is popular for walking, biking, and running up. It's been a few years since we've walked it, before Rachel came along, that's for sure. Hannah walked the entire way, not whining or complaining once all the way up. She did a great job! She even pointed out some rocks and the moss on rocks along the way...all thanks to her current science lessons at school. We arrived to the top as the sun was beginning to set, and I got some really nice 'magic hour' pictures.

You can see the local mountains in this picture,
if you look past the brown haze.

A Trip to Hollywood

This afternoon we ventured into Hollywood to The El Capitan theater to see The Jungle Book with Aunt Kim and cousins Ryan and Abby, as well as Gramie and her friend and her little girl. There were so many of us, we almost filled the entire row!The kids all enjoyed the movie and had fun being together. And of course, when our time together came to an end, Hannah was planning out when she could play with her cousins once again. Which wouldn't be a problem if she didn't have school. LOL.

Belt Ceremony

This evening was Hannah's Belt Ceremony. We weren't quite sure what degree belt she'd be moving up to. Based on her Belt Test a couple weeks ago, her instructor told her she'd messed up a part of on her form, so we kinda thought she'd just move up to the Senior Purple Belt. But tonight she skipped a belt degree and went straight to a Junior Green Belt!!

As Grant was giving Hannah her new belt he told her how proud he was of her and how much she had really improved these last two quarters. Hannah was pretty excited!!We talked about it over dinner, and Hannah would like to try and do both Karate and Dance. We are going to trial run it for two weeks and see how she does with 'springing' out of bed in the mornings for school and having a good and cheerful attitude. If there's any problems, then we'll drop Dance.

Weekend Fun with the Cousins

The girls were at Gramie's house when Aunt Kim and Ryan and Abby arrived from Oregon on Saturday night. Since their arrival, it sounds as though the kids have been playing pretty much nonstop and get along really well. When we arrived this afternoon to Gramie's, the kids were all playing on the slip n slide and have a ton of fun! We spent the remainder of the day visiting and the kids playing, as well as meeting Grandpa for dinner. Gramie recently had cleaned out closets and cupboards for a yard sale and ran across these light up snow boots, Hannah insisted on wearing them, despite their being no snow, and it was 90 degrees. Quite a fashion statement, don't you think?Hannah was sad we had to leave, and we reminded her it was she who had school tomorrow. We've already got plans to go to Hollywood this Saturday with Aunt Kim and the cousins. And perhaps it'll work out to see them once before the weekend.

A Weekend with Gramie

After I picked up Hannah from school today, we were on our way to Gramie's work. The girls are spending the weekend with Gramie. Last time the girls went, in July, they had planned on going to the city's Movies in the Park night. They packed a picnic dinner and went to the park, however, the movie ended up not being shown because the conditions were too 'breezy'. This is the final weekend for Movies in the Park, so they were attempting it once again.

The other special thing happening this weekend it that my Sister-in-Law Kim, and her two kids, Ryan and Abby, are driving down from Oregon and will arrive to Gramie's house late Saturday afternoon or early evening.

Kim's husband, Ed, is going away on business for two weeks and Kim decided to drive down to visit family! It's been just over two and a half years since we've seen them and we're really excited to see them and get to spend some time with them over the next two weeks. The girls are especially looking forward to playing with their cousins tomorrow night and on Sunday at Gramie's.

Dance! Dance! Dance!

Tonight kicked off the new season for dance at the dance studio we wanted Hannah to go to. We simply went to try the class out, no obligation, and if Hannah didn't like it, she didn't have to commit to dance. She went to the 7:00 Jazz class and was happy to have her friend Gabby in her class, as well as some of the older girls from our church lending a helping hand. When class was finished, Hannah came out saying she liked it and had fun and wants a pair of dance shoes. LOL.

Parents weren't allowed in the room where the class was being conducted, so this is the only pictures I got, through a little window in the door.

A Haircut and Saturday Fun

One of the Mom's of a classmate of Hannah's cuts hair out of her home. She has a complete beauty station set up in her garage. She cut my hair a couple of weeks ago and this morning, I had her cut the girls' hair. Hannah wanted to go short, however, I kept it just long enough for pigtails and a ponytail. I forgot to get a final picture (gasp!), but she did get about 5 inches cut off! And comes just below her shoulders now.Seeing how our party plans for this afternoon were cancelled, Trudi invited us to come back for swimming, and with temps peaking over 112 this week, me and the girls took her up on her offer and went back with our swim suits, towels, and snacks. Hannah had so much fun playing with Cameron and another friend from school. The pool was so refreshing and relaxing and a great way to spend a HOT Saturday afternoon!