Sea World! Last day of vacation.

Our last full day of vacation was off to a later start than any other day, as Sea World didn’t open until 10AM. We had a rather nice breakfast provided by the hotel (Comfort Suites Mission Valley).

We got to Sea World without issue, and made it through the gates. The first major stop was the roller coaster/water ride. It was rather interesting, in the sense that it started out as a water ride and then became a roller coaster, and that it used an elevator to make the transition. Unfortunately the ride was designed to soak everyone who rode it.

Poor Elaira sitting in the front was completely drenched, and the high was around 70 degrees that day. For us Arizona’s, that is cold!

We made our way to the Dolphin show, which was entertaining, and followed it up with the Sea Lion show. The Sea Lions were apparently in mating season, and didn’t really want to do the show, so it was funny, but not exactly by the script.

I found Sea World a little annoying and tame after Disneyland. I just wasn’t very excited by everything, and I wasn’t super impressed by anything. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves, Landon loves looking at fish.

Oliver seemed to like it too, although not as much as Landon. Ollie spent a lot of time strapped to me in his cinch worm, napping, or riding in his stroller. And of course he spent time being carried around too.

We did see the Shamu show, which was good, but not great. They had a river ride that I was interested in doing, but it was cool outside, and the ride very obviously soaked everyone on it. They had dryers you could spend $5 on to get hit with hot air after you got off the ride, and there was a rather long line for those. In the end, we skipped the rides other than that first one. We did get to see a hoard of Bees decide to claim part of the walkway, which was mildly disturbing.

Honestly, to me, the best part of Sea World was the kids play area. They had a “baby tank” for kids that were under 38 inches. It had a blue squishy floor and soft blocks to play with. Ollie loved it.

He spent a good 45 minutes basically playing fetch with us. He’d bring the block to whichever adult from our group he felt like handing too, and that adult would toss it back into the “pool.” Then Ollie would go fetch it back. Sometimes he’d bring back two!

The older kids climbed up cargo nets, jumped through tunnels, and found themselves on a bouncy trampoline area.

We were pretty much done with the park by dinner time, so we packed up and hit Pei Wei’s by our hotel for dinner. Landon and I got in the hotel pool with Laura and the kids for a bit, and then it was finally time for bed.

We woke up Friday morning, had breakfast, and then headed home. The kids were much grumpier on the way home, and we made a stop at a rest area for a potty and leg stretching break. Later we had lunch at In-n-Out burger in Yuma. My phone was giving us directions, and it had us come home via the city of Maricopa, which confused us, but worked out well. It was rather nice to be home!

Overall we had an amazing vacation. Bobby and I are already talking about possibly returning to Disneyland next year!

Disney breakfast and the beach!

We woke up Wednesday, and Landon was not happy with the sudden change in the pattern from the last three days. He was hungry, he wanted breakfast now, not in fifteen minutes. Alas, I was the mean mom and made him wait, because I knew that we were going downstairs to have breakfast with Goofy!

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I most likely wouldn’t have sprung for a character breakfast on my own, but ours was included in our travel package from Costco, and Laura’s was included in her travel package from AAA. All I can say is that I’m so glad we did this. It was amazing.

First of all, there was a TON of food. It was buffet style, but the chef came out and talked to us about what Landon could have on the buffet, and then followed that up by making Landon some Mickey Mouse pancakes in the back. Landon got some fruit and some bacon off the buffet while he waited for his pancakes, and met with Chip.

The character part of the character breakfast was pretty cool. In the park, there were often lines to meet and greet the characters or get pictures. Here, the Characters came to us, and posed with our children and interacted with them. Ollie was still a little scared of the giant people in costumes, but he warmed up a little bit to Pluto.

Ollie sleeps at night with a Pluto doll, so I wasn’t surprised that this character was able to get this close. The best part was the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. He came over to talk to Landon, and Landon started telling MH all about Super Mario, and how Mario eats mushrooms which make Mario grow. This ended up becoming the most entertaining conversation ever, as MH talked about eating and drinking different things to get bigger or smaller, and Landon actively engaged him, using Mario as his frame of reference. The two were deep in conversation, but MH started trying to extract himself, and failing, because Landon was so excited to talk to someone at length about the properties of Mario mushrooms. We were laughing hard core.

Even Ollie warmed up to MH a little bit.

We also got a visit from Baloo the bear.

If we’d wanted to hang out longer, there were even more characters floating around. We spent time with five of them without having to really wait around or anything. It was awesome. Also, the food was great, and the kids had a blast. If you find yourself at Disneyland, I highly recommend a character meal!

Once the meal was over, we went back to the waiting area, because they had this room that was a tiny theatre room showing Disney cartoons. I kept the kids down there watching TV, and the rest of the adults went back up to the rooms to finish packing. The Disneyland hotel was pretty good about this, and we got all of our luggage on carts and the bellman stored it until we were ready to go. We did a little last minute shopping and exploring of Downtown Disney. (I really wish I’d gotten more beignets, but I didn’t think about that until later).

Finally it was time to go, and we got our cars and loaded up our luggage. We had some minor issues locating the address for the hotel we were heading to in San Diego, which resulted in some frustration and separation of our caravan. We managed to find the hotel, find lunch, and get settled. Then we were off to find the ocean!

It was cloudy and cold on the beach. The water was FREEZING. The kids found themselves playing a sort of chicken game with the water, running out after it, then running back to dry land as the water chased them.

Still, all of the older children managed to get themselves into the water at least a little bit. Even if it was freezing and all of the adults never went more than ankle deep.

Oliver, on the other hand, was cranky. He hadn’t napped well, and we kept him a safe distance from the water. He did have a sand fight with his Daddy, and he was covered in sand. He liked the sand, overall, but would have rather had a nap.

Which is why it was no surprise when he passed out on the drive home. Bobby and I packed our boys up after about forty five minutes on the cold beach and headed back to the hotel. Ollie did not wake even after we arrived safely in our room.

We decided we were too tired to deal with anything else, and ordered some food to be delivered to the hotel room. We watched some TV, played on our laptops, and read books, while we relaxed and stayed in for the night.

Disneyland, Day three in the Disney Parks

I forgot to mention how Bobby and I stopped by the Jazz Kitchen Express and got some fresh hot beignets for dessert. These were SO TASTY and I want to have them again. Anyone know of a local place to get beignets?

We had a second day of Magic Morning Early Entry for staying at the Disneyland hotel, although it took a little doing to use it. I didn’t realize we needed to show our Hotel Key Cards to get into the park, but we managed. We started the morning in Fantasy Land, finally. Everyone loved the Peter Pan ride, and was very excited by it.

Landon and I had read a graphic novel version of “The Wind and the Willows” and watched the Disney movie as well, so I expected him to be excited by Mr. Toad’s wild ride. I mean, he loved the story, and we’re riding in little motor cars. Instead, he freaked out. Total Freak out. We rode anyway, and he just didn’t like the ride at all. We went ahead and rode Snow White and Pinocchio, although Landon hated those too, and Ollie wasn’t thrilled by them.

The boys wanted to ride the Casey Jr train, and we quickly found ourselves all stuffed into the Monkey Cage.

We followed that up by getting in line for the Storybook Canal ride, but the line was long and slow moving due to a lack of boats. I think they only had about 5 boats going at the time. Bobby noticed the line for the Tea Cups was short, so Damia and Elaria snuck off and rode that.

The rest of us waited in line, and Ollie got annoyed, overtired, bored, and sad. We tried to bribe him with food and games, but he was not having any of it. By the time we got on the boat, it was meltdown time.

The ride was really cute, and Oliver did calm down a little once we started floating around some.

We found ourselves in front of “It’s a Small World” at about 9:40, so we decided to go for it again, as Oliver loved it and Dirk had missed it last time.

Oliver perked up once we got inside and was once again enthralled. He danced, he looked around, he pointed, and was overall happy. When we finished the ride he cried because he was sad again.

At this point, 10AM had finally rolled around, so Dirk and I took the girls and headed over to CA Adventure. We rode Tower of Terror, which was excellent. Both girls were totally into the ride, and were frightened and excited.

This was my favorite ride in CA Adventure, because I loved the weightlessness in the elevator, as well as the atmosphere creation of the ride. When we got off, we headed over to the big rollercoaster, and ended up grabbing a fast pass. We had Turkey legs for lunch and did the bakery tour to kill a little time before our Fast Passes were good. It was a nice, long, rollercoaster with some great turns in it, We all really enjoyed it. Both girls loved our morning of big rides.

We went back to Disneyland to meet up with the rest of the family. Laura and Bobby had taken the boys back through The Haunted Mansion, because it was their favorite ride ever. We took the train around the park and did some shopping.

We’d been doing the Disney Pin trading the entire time we were there, and made an effort to do some last trades. All of the kids got to pick a NEW pin from the wall, which seemed to make them all happy. We took some family pictures at the center of Disneyland.

We went over to ride Splash Mountain with our second special Hotel Pass, but alas, the ride was SHUT DOWN. So we went over and rode Big Thunder Mountain instead. After we were done, I took Darion, Damia, Elaria, and Landon back through to get a fast pass that was good from 4:10-5:10pm. We then finished up some shopping and headed back to the hotel. We took about an hour break, and I fed the older children peanut butter sandwiches for dinner, because I had a plan.

Dirk and Laura went off on their date, Bobby took Ollie to go adventuring, and I took the rest of the posse back to ride the Monorail into the park and use our fast passes. Bobby and Oliver returned to the park for some fun, exploring, and food. Ollie took a nap and overall they had a great time.

In the meantime, my posse greatly enjoyed Big Thunder Mountain, and we moved over to Splash Mountain to see if it was running. It was. Fast Passes weren’t good until 11PM, and I wasn’t so sure we’d still be in the park that late. Instead, we did the unthinkable. We stood in line, for an hour. I’d laid down some ground rules with the understanding that if the rules were broken, we’d return to the hotel and go to sleep, but thankfully the kids were excellent for me the whole time we were there. The kids really enjoyed Splash Mountain, and we went ahead and ordered the picture to be delivered to the hotel.

After that, we walked over to the Haunted Mansion, and rode that again. The line was less than 20 minutes, and this gave the girls some negotiating power for our next ride. Landon still shook like a leaf when we rode it, but when asked, he claimed to just be “cold.” Landon and Darion were thrilled to be back at their favorite place in the park.

While we waited in line, we talked about our next ride. The girls wanted to do Space Mountain, and Landon seemed fairly excited by this idea, despite his earlier reservations about riding it again. Darion was talked into agreement by his sisters, and fueled a little by Landon’s enthusiasm for the idea. I knew Space Mountain would have a long line. On our walk to the ride, we stopped and got two popcorns, four churros, and two bottles of water. The wait time said it would be about an hour, and there were no more fast passes for this ride. I did observe the wait at Star Tours was around the two hour mark!

We sat in line and ate our snack. The sun was going down, and it was actually a getting chilly. The children would do a penguin huddle when they got cold, which was adorable. Someone came out and told us the ride was broken, which causes a bunch of people to leave the line. We kept moving forward for a while due to the exodus, and then, people started being let on the ride. We ended up waiting about 75 minutes for the ride. Landon was falling asleep there at the end, but he woke up and really loved the ride. It was amazing. I was just in a good place or something, and had this wonderful feeling of euphoria as we rode. The kids loved it. Is it bad that I had us sit in a way that would allow for the best picture?

After the ride, Landon was hyper for about five minutes, and then wanted to be carried so he could sleep. I knew it was time to head back, so we got in line for the Monorail, as I thought that would be the easiest way to get all the children, especially the sleeping one, back to the hotel. Once we’d waited about 15 minutes, the monorail director came over the speakers and told us that there was only one monorail running right and, so based on the line, our wait time was somewhere around 45 minutes to an hour. Landon was asleep and it was after 9pm. We decided to walk back.

We got about 200 feet from the line, and the Fireworks show started. All of the children (and even me) were too distracted by the pretties to keep walking, so we waited and watched the fireworks from the empty Jedi Training Academy area.

When the fireworks were over, I got us organized for the mass exodus from the park. I carried a once again sleeping Landon (who had woken up and been amazed by the fireworks). Damia grabbed onto my belt, and then she took Darion’s hand, who took Elaira’s hand. Chain of people in place, I had them go single file behind me, and we fought our way out of the gate. Every time Landon would doze off, he’d let go of me and practically fall to the ground, before waking up and grabbing on again!

We managed to get back to the hotel room shortly after 10pm. We all went to bed happy and tired, knowing our Disney adventure was almost at an end.

CA adventure day two at Disneyland parks

Our first day out in the park, we hadn’t been sure what to expect, so I’d left my camera at the hotel. Day two I used this awesome bag that Tiff had given me, a Lowepro bag that I turned into a diaper/camera bag. We were able to carry all the things we needed for Oliver and Landon, as well as have a nice, safe space for my camera. Because of this, I was able to take my good camera into Disneyland (and later Seaworld) without major worries. Which means you get more pictures.

Day two in the park, we had this coupon for Mickey’s Toontown where we could get in to Toontown when the park opened, an hour before the general populous of the park. We’d been briefly to Toontown the day before, and I wasn’t impressed, but we thought the boys might enjoy it. We split up, Bobby, Laura, and I took Landon, Oliver, and Darion to Toontown, and Dirk took the girls to hit Space Mountain again. I honestly thought I’d be bored or unhappy, but Toontown with low crowds is AWESOME.

We walked in and were greeted by Pluto and Dale.

The boys had a blast exploring the whole of Toontown

There were no lines for the two rides in that part of the park, so we rode Gadget’s Go Coaster two or three times.

And we also walked right onto Roger Rabbit. Overall, the boys got to pull on all the doors, open all the boxes, and blow up the Fireworks factory.

Dirk met up with us towards the end, and we went over to the Jungle Cruise and Indiana Jones. Landon was not tall enough for that one, so we did rider swap, Dirk, Bobby, Darion, Damia and Elaira rode it the first time, and then Laura and I took the girls and rode a second time. By the time we were done, CA adventure had opened, so we went back toward that park.

We got tickets for Soaring over CA right off the bat, which was good because our return time was late afternoon. We had a terrible experience at the Corn Dog Castle for lunch, I waited in line only to discover they had nothing allergy friendly there at all. Laura’s family got corn dogs, but we had to search out another place to eat. We ended up at Cocina Cucamonga Mexican Grill. There we had another drawn out experience with the allergy issues. It took forever for them to find an ingredient list that let us order for Landon. They did have a list, and could feed him, so that was an improvement. The food was pretty good too, and the prices were not too over the top.

The kids really loved the Grizzly River Run raft ride, even if we did get soaking wet. We used rider swap again, and we noticed yesterday that they don’t take the fast pass from the person who is doing the swap, so we started using the fast pass, meaning that Bobby could take two people with him when he went to ride again. Since Darion and Landon LOVED the ride, and because Damia and Elaira had been Bobby’s “plus one” a couple of times, we let the boys go with him, and they came back wet. So wet, that Bobby decided to show them the spot where bystanders get splashed the most. Darion was unprepared for the splash that came,

and Landon was even closer to the fence, down where you can’t see him crouching beside the blonde girls. He was soaked all the way through and his pants were still wet when we got back to the hotel. I had to take a hair dryer to his shoes the next morning to get them dry!

We had these special passes from the hotel that let us “fastpass” Ariel’s Adventure, even though that ride doesn’t actually have a fast pass. I was so thankful for this. Since it was new, we wanted to ride it, but the line was super duper long. The hotel passes practically let us walk right up and jump into a passing clamshell. I’m sad to say that I wasn’t super impressed with it. I didn’t feel like they did a great job taking you “Under the Sea” or immersing you in Ariel’s world. The animatronics were pretty awesome, and the music was catchy, but it is NOT worth an hour in line. The kids did seem to like it overall.

When we were in line for the Corn Dog place, Landon and Darion had spied the “Jumping Jellyfish ride” so we took them on that, and then we went over to the Ferris wheel. We rode in the “Non-swinging” cars, for which I am grateful, I don’t think my tummy would have liked the swinging cars. The view from the top was amazing! My boys loved it. It always amazing me how Landon is scared to sit on my shoulders, or slide down tall slides, but he loves Ferris Wheels.

We walked past Toy Story Mania, but the line was over an hour, and we decided to skip it for now. On our way to the A Bug’s Land, we ran into Landon’s favorite character!

We saw the 3D bug movie, “It’s Tough to be a Bug” and the kids rode the bumper cars, while Ollie played a little bit on the edge of the splash park. Oliver never really got wet or anything though, which was good.

We finally went over to use our fast pasts for the Soarin’ Over California. The ride was pretty cool, I loved that Kronk told us the safety features. The ride was really neat, although it made me a little queasy every time we would cut to a new scene. Laura’s kids LOVED it, and fought over who got to ride it the second go around with Bobby and his rider swap.

Once we were done with that, Bobby and I snuck off for our date night. I gave Dirk and Laura the key to our room, and they took all the kids back to the hotel for an early night. They ordered pizza and made Landon a peanut butter sandwich from my stash, watched some TV, got the kids washed and ready for bed.

Bobby and I went over to the Blue Bayou for our date. We were seated right next to the water, and could see the boats going by for Pirates. (We road Pirates yesterday with everyone, Landon didn’t like it, although I’m not sure why. I think he just doesn’t like animatronic people. Although we did ride the Pooh Corner ride that day also, and he really loved that one).

The food was excellent, the atmosphere was amazing. We had a wonderful time on our date. After we finished, we checked out how long the lines were for things, and decided to go shopping for a bit. We checked out some of the nicer stores and settled on what we wanted to bring home from our trip. As we were exploring, I noticed that there was one thing I sort of wanted to do that didn’t have a long wait, and talked Bobby into joining me.

It was pretty retro and neat, and it brought back some good memories. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and turned in to prepare for Day three in the park!

California Vacation, day 1 to day 3

We had SO MUCH FUN on our vacation. I can’t tell you happy the whole trip made me overall. I think it was a little too much, at least for my family, we probably should have gone home after Disneyland. But we really did have a blast. I’m already trying to talk Bobby into our next Disney trip. It’s addictive.

I’m going to start writing about our trip, and this may turn into a bunch of separate posts, so feel free to skim as needed.

Day one we left our house around 7:30AM and started driving. The kids were rather well behaved, Ollie only freaking out after he woke from naptime. We met up with Laura & Dirk and the three kids, Damia, Elaira, and Darion at Wendy’s on the way.

We had lunch and I took the kids outside and we ran around for about 10 minutes while the menfolk took the cars and got them gassed up, then it was back on the road.

We found ourselves at Disneyland around 2-2:30ish, and pulled up in front of the hotel, where a bellman helped unload the car. While we waited to check in, Goofy showed up!
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Despite being early, they managed to get us checked in and told us we would get a text when our rooms were ready. Because we were two parties traveling together, they got us connecting rooms, so we could prop open our doors and free flow between the rooms if wanted too. We explored a little bit before getting into our rooms. The rooms were great, and they had this amazing LED firework headboard that was beautiful. We loved it.

The rooms were comfy and nice, with little Disney touches and hidden Mickey’s. Loved the hotel. Also, the room keys worked like credit cards in the park, and anything we bought in the park we could have sent to our rooms, so we didn’t need to carry it around.

Once we got settled we went over to the pool with the new Monorail water slides. Landon loved the smaller blue slide, but it took a little while to talk him into trying the bigger, taller red slide. Once he did, he loved it.

We had dinner over at the Storytellers Cafe in the Californa Grand. The food was good, and the chef came out and talked to Landon, and specially prepared his allergy free meal for him. When Landon was done, the chef returned and made him a second bowl of noodles! We were very impressed.

We turned in early that night, because we had Magic Morning passes for Sunday, and at 6:30AM Sunday, we were leaving the hotel room, headed into Disneyland. Six of the nine of us had never been to Disneyland, so there was a lot of excitement in the air! We got in the park without issue and went straight to Tomorrow Land, where we started our day with Star Tours. We used the Rider/Baby Swap option, so Bobby got to ride it right after us, and while we went to the Wookie Planet, Bobby found himself podracing. While Bobby rode Star Tours, Laura took the boys on the Astro Orbitor. We followed this up with Space Mountain, which Landon loved, but decided was too scary to ride again. He felt the same way about Star Tours.

Next up was Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, which was a fun Dark Ride where you shoot at targets. Bobby rode with Landon, and I took Ollie. Oliver cried when we first got on the ride, but settled down and seemed to like looking at everything while I shot at things one handed.

After we got off the ride, we could see the above pictures and email them to ourselves, which we did. While we were doing this, Landon decided to go exploring, and promptly was lost. Thankfully he was found again within about five minutes, but those were a few scary minutes.

After that we finished off Tomorrow Land, with the exception of the Monorail, and headed over to the Matterhorn. Landon HATED this ride. He was totally freaked out by the Yeti, and would get extremely upset if he even thought you might want to go and ride the Matterhorn again. We moved through the park, taking advantage of the Fastpass where we could, but we’d gotten though a lot of my “must ride” list before lunch time. Landon really liked Splash Mountain, but his favorite seemed to be The Haunted Mansion.
The first time we rode Haunted Mansion, I was carrying Landon, and he was shaking like a leaf the whole time. When we got in the elevator he held on tight to me. When we were approaching the Doom Carriages he asked me if we could skip it because he was scared, and I told him the only way out was via the ride now! He rode it and shook, but he rode this ride every day we were at Disneyland. Even the third time we rode it he shook!

We had lunch at the Hungry Bear by Splash Mountain and were not impressed with the food, although they were at least knowledgeable about allergies and got Landon a gluten and dairy free burger. They were overpriced and not tasty overall.

Bobby and Dirk took Ollie back to the hotel for a nap, and Elaira went back for a shoe change, so Laura and I took the boys and Damia to Toon Town, which was very crowded. We waited to meet Mickey mouse, and played in his house. We also took the train around and had a good time. Eventually we all met back up for some more rides and fun..

We also saw Mickey’s Soundsational Parade, which was amazing. Bobby met up with us shortly before the parade, and the kids really enjoyed the parade. Overall we were super impressed with it.

After the parade we rode “It’s a Small World,” which was Oliver’s FAVORITE ride. He stood up and danced for the ride, looking around at all the singing dolls with fascination. He loved it.

We left the park and had dinner at a Mexican place in Downtown Disney, and then entered CA Adventure to see World of Color. The show started at 9pm, and my kids were basically asleep at 8pm, Oliver in his Cinchworm and Landon in the stroller. We had fastpasses for seating, but they still recommended we get there at 8pm to wait for the show. Both my boys woke up for the show, but I have no idea how much they will remember. Overall, World of Color was cool, but not worth the wait, especially for my kids.

Once World of Color was over, we went back to the hotel to prepare for day 2 at Disney.

Ollie letter 1.7

My dear Oliver,

Today you are 19 months old. We had your 18th month well check a bit late, on June 1st. You were 34.75 inches tall and weighed in at 30 lbs. You were in the 95% and 90% respectively. Your head was up to 51 cm, which pushed you off the chart, just like the rest of this big headed family! You got one shot, which you did not like at all. You cried until you managed to pull the band aid off, then you were suddenly fine. The doctor told me that you are on the “low end” of normal in verbal abilities, but Laura assures me that you will have a language explosion in the near future. Some words that you say reliably include: All Done, Mama, Dada, Laura, Cracker, Dog, Tickle, See you Later, Thank you, Darion, Drink. You have a lot of words that you will say once or twice, but no on command.

You have exactly three and a half people who you love above all others, who you will go to with joy and no fussing. Everyone else creates tears of sorrow and panic. You will go to me and your dada, as well as Laura, and sometimes Courtney. I know when I leave you with others that you calm down and can be good for them, once your fit has passed and you realize that Mama, Dada, and Laura are gone. This tendency to dislike others was making dropping you off at school difficult. Thankfully, Laura is on summer break, so on May 17th we pulled you from school and put you at Laura’s full time. In August you will go back to preschool, most likely a new school, around the same time that your big brother starts Kindergarten.

On May 26th you took a fall at Laura’s during Thursday night dinner. I think you must have bruised your jaw, because you were very sad and would not stop crying. I ended up taking you over to the ER, where they gave you some Motrin for the pain. Once it took effect, after a full hour of nonstop tears, you finally calmed down. For the next few days you would not open your mouth all of the way, and cried when you were given a sippy cup. You seem to be better now, but a straw is your preferred vehicle for liquids now.

Thankfully, you are a great sleeper. You usually sleep through the night with little issue. Your bed has been working out wonderfully for you. You usually lay down happily, cuddle with your stuffed animals. I love that you need a stuffed animal to go to sleep. Ideally you like your stuffed baby Pluto doll.

You love to walk places. You prefer it if you can walk on your own, and don’t like holding onto anyone’s hand. This can cause an argument in the street when we cross. Overall, you just seem to enjoy exploring! You often lead me to the door wanting to go to the park, or just on a new adventure. Once we do get to the park, you love to swing on the swings! That is your favorite part. The only problem is, when we take you out of the swing, you tend to start crying. To combat this, we usually try to get you to play on the playground and save the swing for last. You have no fear of climbing. You will walk over to the tallest slide and start up the ladder without any help. When you get tired of walking, you prefer to ride on someone’s shoulders instead of being carried. This would be great, except you’ve recently started pulling my hair!

While Team Umi Zoomi is still your favorite thing ever, you have gotten to the point where you do seem to enjoy the occasional other show, such as Wow, Wow, Wubbzy, Jack and the Neverland Pirates, The Backyardigans, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. You do not have the patience to sit through a movie yet. You are getting very good about responding when Geo on Umi Zoomi asks you a question, you now sound like you are responding with a correct answer most of the time. I find this rather impressive!

Your second Easter has passed since the last letter. You had your very first Easter Egg Hunt at Prospector Park in Apache Junction. You did well, and managed to gather a few eggs in the chaos. You seemed to enjoy your second Easter!

We’ve just recently started getting into the pool again, as it’s getting hot outside. You really love to float around the pool in your floaty! You laugh and play in the water with a big smile on your face.

You love to play “High five” and even enjoy watching your big brother play the game with me. You will willing give prompted fives to just about anyone who asks, assuming you are in a good mood. You can locate your belly and your mouth.

I’m so excited to watch you grow and learn. Just this morning you said “Landon” when prompted, learning a new word, and your big brother’s name! I know you understand much of what is going on around you. You have a way of making the whole family feel happy and complete.

Love always,
Mama