Month: November 2019

The last stop is Disneyland.

I have been here so many times growing up, I grew to dislike Disneyland. So, when Eli started to show interest in Mickey Mouse, I really didn’t have a desire to go. But Eli changed my mind.

That smile! That smile right there is why we decided to go. We also thought this is the magical age so we didn’t have a choice. And I’m so glad we did!

Trying to keep a six year old with ADHD, an emphasis on the HD, boy in the same line for an hour. We thought many times if it was worth it. But then seeing that smile and listening to him laugh! Right there, it was worth the long lines.

His imagination went wild in Toon Town.

Mormor couldn’t walk very far due to her knees so we rented a wheelchair for her. That was the best thing ever! We didn’t have to wait in the line for some of the rides.

We would go to a ride, and the employee would put our name on the list. That spot on the list saved us a spot in line without standing in line.

With our name on the list we were able to leave, walk around, and eat ice cream while waiting for our spot to reach the front of the line. The lines were long. We had to wait about 2 hours per ride. It was crazy!

When it was time, we would come back to the ride, and get on.

A lot of time waiting in between attractions.

Seeing Mickey Mouse was like Eli seeing a celebrity walk down the street.

He had a few minutes to talk to him. He was so excited!

He is so cute dancing, ha!

This is the scenery from the Cars ride. They did a fantastic job making it feel like you were out in the dessert of Utah. Out of all the rides in the entire park, this one hands down was the best. Also had the longest line.

I’m not sure what deal was made, but Eli sure was happy 🙂

We all got a chance to push Mormor 🙂

Experiencing Disneyland during the holiday’s was new to me. Everything was lit up. It was a fun experience.

This was new to me. I have never seen the tree lighting.

He played hard. Pretty tired as we left the park.

It didn’t take Eli long to get to bed each night. Three days at a theme park, I was pretty tired as well.

Next on our little vacation is SeaWorld. I haven’t been here in a long time and a lot has changed. For starters, the whales.

Growing up my parents took all of us to SeaWorld every year. So, I have been at this park about 22 times. I remember the trainers swimming with the whales and it was fun to watch.

Now they just swim around and pose.

And do a few jumps out of the water. Eli thought it was pretty fun to watch and he doesn’t know the difference. It’s always incredible to see how big they are.

They really didn’t do anything….

We were soaking wet from the dolphins splashing us.

Still wet 🙂

The petting mini sharks was crazy.

I love Eli’s laugh! He was pushing my hand in the water and wouldn’t let me pull it out. I did not like those little fish feeding on my dead skin. Too weird for me.

We purchased the food option so all our food was included in the ticket price. If theme parks offer this, we always purchase it. This food deal was pretty amazing. We ate a lot! The vouchers were good for certain hours of the day and had to be used or loosed. The first hour we weren’t hungry so we all grabbed drinks. The second hour we grabbed lunch. And then dessert. And snacks. And by the time dinner came, I didn’t use my voucher. The food was definitely theme park quality, but it was good.

This was only half of what we received with one sitting. I’m not sure if this is normal or the employees that day didn’t pay attention to food portioning. I left the park stuffed!

I had fun every year my parents took me, and I definitely had fun bringing Eli. Eli LOVED the park. He is at a perfect age to enjoy all the animals.

We went to Coronado Island a couple of times.

We took the ferry over the first time.

Eli was in heaven! Look at all that sand!

He played.

And played until the sun went down.

We were supposed to find a place to rent golf carts, but we couldn’t find it. We ended up walking to the other end of the island and taking a bus back.

The other side of the island was windy.

Yup, windy this direction as well.

We played in the water and mud. Eli was looking for sea shells.

The shore and rocky beach was beautiful.

Still playing in the sand. Just another part of the beach.

We did some shopping on the island as well.

After Paul’s conference we went to the island for the second time. This time we drove.

Again, playing in the sand.

For dinner we went to Tartine. It was okay, but there isn’t a lot to choose from on this little island.

The next day we traveled to San Diego so Paul to attend his work conference.

That’s my social butterfly. Walking and talking with the bell hop while he is bringing in our luggage, ha!

Since Paul was at work all week, we had all week to explore and have fun.

I have never seen a boat like this before. It was pretty amazing.

He was sure he could move the boat closer to the pier.

The navy was docked at the pier. It’s been awhile, but are those F-18’s? They were flying around a lot while we were there.

We tried several desserts in the area.

This one was from Extraordinary desserts. They looked great, but they were not great. Very disappointed.

Oh Tin Fish, how I love you so! Every time we come to San Diego we go to the Tin Fish. They didn’t disappoint this trip either.

The salmon was so delicious!!

We went to this restaurant one night. Cafe Coyote. This was really good. I had to note this restaurant because we will be back.

The restaurant is outside, in-between two buildings. It was lit up with lots of lights and really fun.

We had lots of fun at the hotel.

I had to make note of this. The parking was terrible. To find a parking spot, we had to be back from dinner about 4:00pm. Then we would have to continue to feed the meter. Then just before we were in for the night, we would have to move the car because there wasn’t parking overnight. We would have to move it about a mile away from where we were staying at a parking garage. Not fun. We had to do this every night. By the end of the week, I was pretty tired of the parking situation.

Of course we went swimming every night!

The last night Paul took me to the company street party and had a lot of great food. Paul loved the apple cider so much he asked for the recipe and they gave it to him!

We went out shopping a lot. One day we were out it started pouring rain. This isn’t a Utah storm that lasts a couple minutes. This lasted for hours! The rain pounded the pavement for hours. We stayed at one store and quickly dashed into the next store until we were closer to the car. The rain was incredible.

We went to La Jalla Cove to see the seal lions.

We went to the San Diego temple.

What a beautiful temple.

It was perfect timing. My marathon in Las Vegas was the weekend before Paul’s work conference in San Diego, so we left for three weeks on a fun family vacation.

When we arrived in Las Vegas, we did the one thing I’m not supposed to do before a marathon. Eat!

We met up with Paul’s sister and her family.

We ate lunch at Nacho Daddy.

And we ate delicious nachos.

Oh, it didn’t stop there. We had nacho dessert. Sweet fried chips, apple pie filling, with ice cream on top. Don’t forget about the whipped cream drizzled with caramel sauce.

After lunch we went to our hotel and checked in. Right after we went to dinner. Oh, I was so full from lunch, but we had reservations, so we went to dinner.

That was our waiter. 🙂

The show started.

Eli was so chatty with the ladies. It was funny.

Dinner came. You eat with your hands. I had to take a picture of Paul’s dinner. There was a whole chicken on his plate.

The jousting began.

Eli loved it!

Our knight won 🙂

The second worst thing to do before a race is to stay up way to late. And not just staying up late, but walking around making my legs tired. After the dinner and show we played some video games.

We did eat a lot, but since the marathon didn’t start until tomorrow evening I though I would be okay. I will limit my food intake tomorrow afternoon.

First favorite: Pumpkin carving! Eli was really excited to carve one of his many pumpkins. He was so excited, he made a few drafts on paper, then the final drawing was put on the pumpkin with a marker and then “ta-da!” The pumpkin is now a cat 🙂

Eli has been getting into Halloween. He has been dressing in a different costume EVERY day 🙂 This day he was a builder and he built a fort out of the couch cushions.

Although downtown stresses me, I love the architecture and the beautiful buildings.

This one is just crazy. I now have bees in my garage. It’s getting so cold out, we didn’t want them to freeze. The little hive has significantly fewer bees than the big hive, and we were worried they would struggle to stay warm. So we clogged their entrance, and in the garage they went for the night. We will bring them back out every morning.

Friday favorites are always nice to look back and see the fun during the week.