Disneyland Day 1

We recently took a trip to Disneyland over rodeo days here in Tucson. (Yea, we get time off for rodeo, that's something I didn't even get when I was growing up). I started picking out pictures of us at Disneyland, and quickly realized that all I was picking out was pictures that I will caption "here we are in front of __ attraction" or "here we are with ___ character". I guess that's all we took. But since that's what everyone does at Disneyland, here we go. Day 1 was spent in California Adventure.

So this isn't Disneyland (obviously). It's the snowstorm at our house as we drove away toward Disneyland. 

Here we are opening morning. Adie took the picture.

Second ride. Mater's Junkyard Jamboree. Yet another variation on the "spin around in a circle" ride. If I figure cost per ride as amount of time spent per ride divided into total amount paid, I believe I spent over $1 per person every time we spun in a circle.

We saw lots of characters. Chase loves his Cars characters especially. So, here we are.

Oh, here we are again. 

Adie had very particular taste in rides. She rode Tower of Terror (which surprised us) as well as California Screamin (which also surprised us). She didn't like either one. But she liked the Jumpin Jellyfish. 

For lunch, we went with some friends to a character dining experience called Goofy's Kitchen. It was expensive as well, but considering we were the only ones in that part of the restaurant and we had about 8 characters stop by in an hours time, our kids got plenty of time to see characters they loved. 

Parker loves animals, especially furry bears named Baloo. 

Adie got to go on Soarin with her friend Kenzi.

The boys got ready for riding Autopia on day 2.

Adie much preferred the carousel to California Screamin'.

Advertising to an engineer

Tonight I received an advertisement from Terminix for termite treatments. Included on this advertisement were the following facts:

- Get a Terminix plan for preventing termites starting at $23.25 per month (I'm guessing it goes up from there and doesn't include taxes and fees)
- Termites infect an average of 1 in 30 US homes per year (fixed from month).
- Average treatment and damage repair of those homes is $8184

So, assuming I'm an average home in the US (Our house is in a higher than average area, but they aren't advertising that. They should though), that means roughly once every 30 years I'd get termites. (This assumes that all average homes have equal probability of getting termites, again, not true, but they don't use this to their advantage). So, 30 years at $23.25 a month for 12 months a year (30x12x23.25) is  $8370, a cost higher than the average repair cost of termite damage. That tells me that they should customize the advertisement for my local area. The problem with that is I'm guessing even though the infestation rate is higher in my area, the average cost for treatment/repair is lower because our termites are not very aggressive. They must like the $8184 value (big scary number) better than the actual infestation rate value for shock purposes.


Doesn't everyone read and analyze their junk mail? Or is that just engineers?

A day at the park

We went to the park today after Adie got home from school. Here's a few pictures from playing there. Yea, there's green grass here.

 Adie likes to ride with no hands. (She may or may not have training wheels)

 Parker wanted to go down the slide a lot, but it was a love/hate thing.

 It was a bit windy, but we all had some fun.

 Parker is finally walking. 18 months old.

 Adie wanted to take Parker down the slide. He wasn't thrilled (but he was never really thrilled going down the slide).

 Helmets on for safety!

 Parker playing with mom.

 Adie loves to pose for the camera. 

 Adie is probably our most photogenic child, or at least she thinks she is.

 Parker loves swings.

Chase loves to climb. and he'll even smile for me every once and a while.

 Chase had a last second change of heart about going down the slide and was waiting patiently while I took his picture. I rescued him after this.

 Sabrina even worked up the courage to take the camera today so she could document that I was there too.

This is probably one of my new favorite pictures. I just love the way it's framed and the expression on Sabrina's face. Good job me.

The End, Day 11

Day 11 dawned a bit overcast and rainy. We kept trying to figure out how to make it to church and to see the Portland Head Light, the most photographed lighthouse in America. We packed up and headed over to the light house and the rain stopped and we were able to enjoy a little while walking around.

The flight home was a bit crazy. It was a fight to keep Parker sleeping, and Sabrina and I took turns holding him. Chase also melted down for about 15 minutes at one point. Fortunately, Chase settled down and Parker decided he liked sleeping. 

We flew on Jet Blue, so they had TVs in the back of the seats. Adie tried watching for a while. Unfortuantely, late at night, there's not really much on for little kids. 

Maine, Day 10

After spending the night in Ellsworth Maine (and having the people in the room next to ours complain to the manager as we were bringing our bags in) we headed out to Acadia National Park.

We went to the top of Cadillac Mountain as well as to sand beach. It was surprisingly nice at the beach, considering it was freezing at the top of the mountain. (Mountain is a bit generous perhaps, it was only 1532 feet tall). If I had realize you could drive all the way to the top, I might have tried to make it for sunrise. As it was, we were there about 10 am. At the beach, everyone had fun and didn't want to leave.

These guys kept having a blast.

Aunt Camille drew this in the sand.

Because of Aunt Camille drawing in the sand, Adie decided she wanted to as well. She copied all the letters. 

That night, we got take out, Red Robin. The hotel we stayed at had a kitchen, so we made the kids macaroni and cheese instead of buying it from the restaurant for $5 a piece.

Parker decided he didn't want to go to bed. It was way too much fun to hang out with everyone else.

Maine, Day 9

This morning dawned wet and dreary as we waited for Jason and Camille to come join us on our adventure.  After they arrived, we trekked up the Maine coast to Ogunquit, Maine. I feel like this was the equivalent of Jackson Hole on the coast. Very much an upscale tourist trap. However, since we were playing tourists, it was fun to visit.

We got fresh Maine lobster. Sabrina was willing to eat it until I pulled a larger chunk of meat out of the claw that looked very claw-like. At that point, she was done with the lobster. However, she still finished the delicious clam chowder they had. I've come to this conclusion before, and I don't think I'll have to come to it again. I don't like lobster. Not worth it. The meat isn't that good I don't think. I gave Maine lobster a chance because I wanted to try the best, but in the end, I still didn't like it all that much.

 After lunch we walked around the pier area. Lincoln and Chase got to be quite good buddies on this trip, and can see them plotting. You can only imagine what they'll be coming up with in the future.

It was beautiful up there, even if it was a bit chilly.

After we finished up in Ogunquit, we headed to Freeport Maine, home of the original LL Bean store, as well as a high end outlet mall. There was an aquarium in the LL Bean store that had an area the kids could crawl into that was a hemispherical dome. They loved being even closer to the fish.

 There was a giant shoe outside the store. Very random.

After Freeport, we packed it in and headed to Ellsworth Maine, a little town just outside Acadia National Park. The one downside to much of the driving done on this trip was that it got dark pretty early up there, so we didn't see as much in the evenings as we would have liked. Once we got to the hotel though, we all put on swimming suits and headed down to the pool. Apparently Lincoln doesn't trust his dad to help him when swimming, but he sure likes his Uncle Brett helping him out. :) It was fun to see the kids in the pool hanging out.