Merry Christmas

Christmas gifts this year:

Josh- gears building toys, air rocket, minky blanket, legos, geode kit

Hayden- Sweatshirts, shoes, Nintendo switch games

Sawyer- clothes, xbox games

McKinley- clothes

Dreidel

Hayden looking real handsome while we played Dreidel tonight.

Children of Note concert

Josh joined the after school choir with Miss Nancy this year. They sang uncommon Christmas songs from around the world.

Tree of Life

Tonight we went to see the Tree of Life in Draper.

Winter Concert

Hayden had his winter concert tonight. Then he and I had dinner at Panda Express while Josh and Kent went to Josh's  Reflections award ceremony.

Broken

Sawyer tripped and fell during gym class. His knee immediately swelled up, so I took him to the pediatrician, who sent us to get an x-ray. A few days later went to the orthopedist specialist. A couple days after that he got an MRI. That's when we then learned that he has micro-fractures and bone bruising. He has to use crutches until Christmas and then take it easy so that they can heal.

Sinterklaas time

Sinterklaas came to visit last night. They got their chocolate coins, initial, stroopwaffels, sprinkles for toast, and Speculaas.

Yum!

Saturday soccer

After losing both games on Friday, it was an especially nice treat to tie 3-3 this morning. On top of that, the sun was shining!

After naps we visited La Jolla Cove for the first time. We loved it!

The sunset was gorgeous!

Saw so many birds, including Pelicans.

We paid the kitschy tourist shop $8 to go down into the sea cave.

And then we saw tons of seals and sea lions hanging out. We were SO close to them too! I wouldn't let her pet them though. But she could have!

BYU happened to be in town playing San Diego State about 5 miles from our hotel. So we watched BYU play a disastrously bad game. But had fun anyway.

We left San Diego early Sunday morning around 6:30 PST. We hit another spot of traffic in Nevada that delayed us 2 hours, but we finally made it home! 

Friday soccer

McKinley played her first game at 11:45 am. Her second at 6:00 pm. At least after that long drive we were able to bask in the warm, California sun. Oh wait, nope. Rain. Chilly, chilly, rain.

Soccer trip

McKinley has a tournament in San Diego. Since we just got back from California on Sunday, the boys opted not to go with us. We left on Wednesday night to try and beat the winter storm and break up the long drive a little bit.

Ha!

On Thursday...

We hit traffic at 3:30 pm near Hesperia, CA, two hours drive from our destination. We moved a total of 10 miles from 3:30 pm until 2:00 am. It was awful. We pulled in to our hotel by 4:00 am.

We're dead tired. Happy Thanksgiving.

Cali- Saturday

I made us go to Death Valley on the way home. The kids were not thrilled to hear this.

We only have a few hours today to see it, so we only hit a few highlights.

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. Sandboarding is allowed here. But we didn't bring one. That would have been fun though!

The sand is ridiculously soft. The temperature was about 74 degrees so we could have stayed here longer but we had lots more to see.

Next is the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail. You can see the salt deposits on the creek bank in one of the pictures. There are little fish that actually survive here in the creek. The plant life is also adapted to live here in the salty conditions. It's called pickleweed I believe.

Zabriskie Point. Just a little walk up the hill on the trail to the lookout. 

Dante's View. It was chilly up here. This is the overlook of Death Valley below.

We saw a little mountain goat in the parking lot.

Next we went to Artist's Palette. Another cool canyon area with a short walk to an overlook. No kids got out for this one. It was starting to get dark now.  On the way we came across a friendly coyote approaching cars looking for handouts.

We made it to Badwater Basin in the dark, around 6 ish.

It is the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level. 

We are on the Salt Flats, which are difficult to really see in the dark.

Someone picked up a salt chunk to check out.

McKinley wanted to test if it was really salt.  It is.

So did Hayden.

Death Valley is one of the parks designated as an International Dark Sky Park. Some people were setting up telescopes for the evening. There was no moon that night, so I imagine it was going to be spectacular. 

This grainy phone picture shows two of the planets that were easily visible while we were there. Venus and Jupiter or Saturn I believe.

My kids were done and wanted to get to the hotel that is another 2 hours away, so we couldn't stay to watch stars all night.

Then we drove to Pahrump to stay overnight.

Cali- Friday

Our last day in Disneyland. We did a bit of park hopping today. We got the max pass today and secured a few fast passes at each park to catch the rides we didn't get to do the other days. We started in Disneyland and then ended in California adventure so we could watch the Color of Lights holiday show in the evening. Josh loved Midtown Mania in California adventure so we did it a couple of times with our fast pass. He also loved the Incredicoaster which surprised me since it's a very fast roller coaster that even does an upside down loop. It was a far cry from our last trip with me and him riding the kiddie rides most of the time.

I don't know why but I found this ride to be hilariously adorable. The cars are doing a little dance!

Cali-Thursday

Thursday- California Adventure

The company paid for a special experience today. We got Cars Land to ourselves (the company) from 6-8 am. Hayden is grumpy because he didn't want to be awake at 6 am.

We had a buffet breakfast at V8's Cafe. The hot chocolate was scrumptious!

We were able to have character meets with both Mater and Lightning McQueen!

Then at 7 am the Radiator Springs ride opened up for us to ride as much as we wanted until 8 am when the park opened up to everyone.

They had trouble with the ride first thing though, so we went to ride the tractors in the mean time. Radiator Springs opened back up while we were in line. So everyone else left to that while Hayden and I rode the tractors before heading over.

Cars Land is my favorite spot in California Adventure, and Radiator Springs ride is my favorite ride! The scenery is amazing! We rode and rode until everyone was sick of it and ready to move on.

McKinley did character meets with SpiderMan and Captain America.

Tower of Terror is now Guardians of the Galaxy.

It's a screamer! Hayden and I were the only ones willing to ride more than once (even though we didn't get the chance). McKinley needed a few minutes to settle her stomach after it.

We tried a few Disney snacks. My favorite ended up being a lemon ice cream cone drizzled with white chocolate.

California Adventure closed today at 5 pm for an employee party, so we headed back over to Disneyland to finish the night with the fireworks.