Disneyland 2022

This year Isaac and I were struggling to come up with something to do for spring break.  Our neighbor, April Pearson, casually mentioned that we should go to Disneyland with them.  At first, I just laughed it off because I didn't want to intrude.  But she mentioned it multiple times, so I finally asked if it would be okay if we did join them.  

I made the kids some fun shirts to wear while we were there.

This made planning a little weird.  I didn't know how much we were going to do with the Pearson's vs by ourselves.  I was going to book a nicer hotel than the one they picked, but Isaac told me I should just stay at the same place they were.  Then, we were trying to plan activities to do the half day we had in California before we went to Disneyland.  Pearson's had their own plans, and didn't seem to want us to tag along, so we came up with our own agenda.

 

 

When we landed, we got our rental car, made a quick lunch stop at Subway, and went to the beach.  It was April, so it wasn't super warm, but that didn't stop the kids from playing in the ocean.  I think they're crazy. 

                                                   

                                        

                                        

Then, I found a place that had a pirate dinner.  It was super weird.  It was kind-of a play, with talking and staged fighting scenes.  But it also had a trampoline performance, some silk performances, and other random stunts.  Hazel fell asleep in my arms, and I was able to carry her to the car, buckle her in, and then carry her all the way to the hotel room without her waking up.  I think the other kids had fun there.  (There is another similar Renaissance dinner place with jousting that we will have to try another time.)  

                                                    

The following three days we spent at Disneyland (and California Adventure).  Disneyland recently started a "Genie+" pass instead of the fast pass.  Basically, you pay an extra $20 per person and you can select a time to go in the lightning lanes instead of waiting in the regular lines.  I spent a great deal of time the month before our trip researching Disneyland.  I hadn't been there since I was in high school, and there are so many die-hard people that go all the time, that if you don't know the system, you can't get anything done.  So our family decided to buy the Genie+ pass all 3 days.  April didn't want to spend that much extra money for 3 days, so they decided to wait until they got there to buy them.  But that lead to them not buying the pass the first day.  So we ended up splitting up from them the entire first day because we could go in the lightning lane.  Apparently, this was a good decision for us because we got tons of rides done the first day.  The Pearson's waited in line forever and had rides break down on them, so they got frustrated by mid-afternoon and just left.

             

             

Hazel was still too young/short to go on quite a few rides.  But Isaac and I found that if combined our Genie+ with the Parent Swap option, we were able to ride most rides back-to-back with the other 3 kids (Isaac and I trading off sitting out with Hazel).  This actually turned out to be a really efficient way to do things because our kids got to ride most rides twice with very short lines.  

                                       

I also decided to let the kids try "pin trading".  Apparently, before Covid, all the cast members at Disneyland had pins that kids could ask to trade with.  But since Covid, they moved all the pins to little bulletin boards in the gift shops.  While we waited for the others to come off rides, we could let Hazel go trade pins.  She had fun doing this, but it was super successful for Luke.  He's my kid that really likes stuff and is super tempted by gift shops, so it was really nice to allow him to go into a gift shop and feel like he got something.  I just bought a big pack of "seconds" pins on ebay before we went.  I told the kids it didn't matter if their pins were ugly, that was what they wanted so they could trade for better ones.

Anyway, Disneyland was pretty fun, but it was super crowded.  Ever since Covid, they made people get park reservations and only let a select number of people into each park.  Aspen's violin teacher, Abby Sorenson, had a season pass to Disneyland and wanted to join us, but the reservations were all full.  Then, one day, all the reservations just opened up again.  So it was the first time the park had reached capacity since things shut down during Covid.  So without the Genie+, the lines would be unbearable.  (Not all rides had a lightning lane.)          

                                      

                                               

Isaac was the most excited to see the Star Wars land.  He and the kids waited over 2 hours to go on the new Rise of the Resistance ride (because you had to pay an extra $20 per person for just that one ride). Hazel got a nice long nap as I wandered around Star Wars land waiting for them.  But I parent-swapped him and took 2 of the kids on it a 2nd time super quickly.

 

                              

The next day, we went to California Adventure.  This part of the park had Cars land, which was really cool.  It felt like we stepped straight into the movie.  They also had an Avengers land where we saw a cool live-action show where Spiderman swung across the roof.  They had a nice nature area with a river run that Isaac liked because it was a lot quieter over there.  And the family all liked the "Soaring" ride.  This day, the Pearson's decided it was worth it to buy the Genie+, so we were able to go on lots more rides with them. 

                                    

This evening, we left the park and had dinner at Downtown Disney.  We went to a restaurant called "Black Tap" that I wanted to try because they had crazy shakes.  The shakes were good for photos, but kind-of weird to eat.  But it was definitely pricey.

                                     

Our third day, we went back to Disneyland.  Unfortunately, the Star Wars ride was broken the entire day so we didn't get to go on that again.  It seemed like lots of rides were broken on this trip.  Space Mountain broke frequently (once we were in line for a long time waiting for this before we had to leave), Pirates of the Caribbean was closed.  

                                              

                 

                 

It was also a little chilly this trip, so we didn't want to get wet on the water rides.  I brought some cheap raincoats, and think they made the splash mountain pictures look so funny because the kids (Luke) look like they are in bubbles.

              

                                         

The trip did end on a little bit of a bad experience.  Disneyland was starting it's evening shows again on our last night.  We thought we could see them, but people started camping out spots around noon for an 8pm show.  We decided to go on a storybook boat ride and parked out stroller in stroller parking.  The worker asked if it was our first visit to Disneyland when we were getting on.  We said it was, and he asked if we got our "First Visit" pins.  Isaac asked him, "Do they have last visit pins?"  The poor old man looked horrified.  But when we got off the ride, employees had moved the strollers because of the parade.  Unfortunately, they didn't leave anyone there to tell people where their strollers were.  So we wandered around in the dark for quite a while looking for our stroller, all the while, workers kept telling us we had to leave because we didn't have spots for the parade.  We finally found the stroller and calmed the kids down who thought their souvenirs were gone forever.  And they we had to pressure Aspen to hurry up and just pick a souvenir because she was indecisive for days.  

                                       

                                       

It wasn't the ideal way to leave the park.  But the following day, we had a few hours to kill before our flight home.  We went back to the beach with the Pearson's.  We also stopped for lunch at a place called "Taco Surf".  I got a California burrito that had French fries in it and it was really good.

Overall, we had a really good spring break.  We are definitely not Disney fanatics, and Isaac would probably be totally fine never going to an amusement park again.  But I figure we will probably have to go one more time once Hazel is old enough to go on all the rides.

Easter 2022

 We had a pretty normal Easter this year.  It was right before our week of spring break, so we were able to celebrate before we went out of town.

                                                 

We had our annual neighborhood Easter egg hunt.  This is always a lot of fun.  Each year, I am amazed that an older couple is willing to fill thousands of Easter eggs, invite a neighborhood of strangers into their backyard, and feed everyone a hot dog lunch.

                                       

On Easter morning, the kids had an egg hunt and got their Easter baskets.  It's always a fun, low-key holiday.

Girl's Camp 2022

 I got called to be a Young Woman advisor about 2 weeks before our ward was planning to go to girl's camp.  The YW President, Angela Sorenson, asked me if I would be able to go up there with the girls.  They were planning to go up to Aspen Grove for a very short winter camp.  I was reluctant to go because I didn't know many of the leaders, and even fewer girls.  But I decided to go anyway.

It turned out to be a lot of fun!  First of all, I wasn't anyone's mom.  I didn't have to worry about any motherly responsibilities.  Also, Aspen Grove was in charge of all the food, so we didn't have to spend all our time cooking and doing dishes.  I was just able to hang out with the girls and get to know the leaders.

We did a ropes course one day.  I was one of the only leaders who participated. 

                                              

We also went snowshoeing.  I was following a group of the older girls and they wanted to climb up on an outhouse.  I told them I would boost them up there.  They seemed completely surprised that a leader would let them do something like that.  But I didn't see anything wrong with it because they weren't damaging anything.  

                                    

Then the girls jumped off the roof into the snow.  But their feet sank pretty deep into the snow and they were stuck for quite a while.  I had to help dig all of them out.  We ended up being gone a lot longer than the other people snowshoeing.  

I also got to know another leader, Diane Hardy, really well.  She is an older lady, but super fun.

                                    

                                     

While I was gone, Isaac took the kids to the cabin.  They played in the snow and checked on Isaac's bees.

Afton Cabin 2022

 For Martin Luther King Day 2022, we went up to the cabin with Lacey's family.  It was crazy foggy while we were there.  

                                        

The kids had fun playing in the snow and making a snow cave.

Luke's 6th Birthday 2022

 Luke turned 6 on January 13, 2022.  Having a birthday 3 weeks after Christmas is difficult.  On top of that, having a party indoors during the cold winter, is a challenge.  But Luke is really into "Wild Kratts", so we threw him a Wild Kratt pet adoption party.

                                

I made Creature Power Suit shirts for all the kids.

           

Each kid was able to adopt a pet and make it a house and collar.  

                                  

It turned out to be a pretty fun party.

                                 

Luke is such a fun little boy. He seems to have endless energy.  The kids is constantly running around, jumping on things, and causing chaos everywhere he goes.  He just finished his first Jr Jazz season.  It was fun to watch him run around with a bunch of the neighbor kids.

Luke love stuff.  He is super materialistic.  It doesn't matter what it is, like junk from a birthday goodie bag, but he will treasure that item for 24 hours and then want something new.  We keep trying to talk to him about how his worth is not tied to stuff and to be grateful for what he has instead of looking for something new all the time.

                                               

Luke won the school fun run for kindergarten.

                                               

Luke is in kindergarten and learning to read.  He really struggles to sit still, so it can be very frustrating working with him.  But he is super smart and capable, we just need to channel his energy a little better.

Luke loves hanging out with his friends.  He's always asking to play with neighbors.  I love seeing him have fun with the other little boys.