Basketball

The boys have been playing Jr. Jazz basketball since December, but with everything going on cancer, Christmas, Disneyland I haven't had a chance to post pictures.

I'm coaching Logan's team again this year and it's so fun to see how the team has grown. They are so much better than when I started coaching them 2 years ago.  It's the same kids that are on the soccer team which is mostly kids from our neighborhood.  The kids all play great together and the parents all visit like an after church social.

Landon is also playing basketball this year.  He is so much better than Logan when he was in kindergarten.  Having an older brother helps boys this age be better than their older siblings were.  It's so nice for me to go to his games and just watch them.  Coaching Logan's team causes me so much stress that I'm exhausted after his games. Landon has a great coach and he gets to play with his cousin Hudson.  There is also another boy on his team from our neighborhood named Tate.

Both boys are key players and usually score at each game.  Logan has had as many as 6 of his teams 18 points and Landon averages 4 points each game.  Next week is the last game, it's been a very fun season.

Disneyland Day 3

The last day in the park was so much fun.  We were able to use our Magic Morning to get into the park an hour early to ride some of the rides and have fun.  Everyone did their favorite things.  The boys liked Space Mountain and I took Alyssa over to the Tea Cups and Dumbo.  She and I had a very fun time just daddy and daughter.  Our last day we divided up to do our favorite things, Robert came with our family. 

Then just after 10:00 a.m. we went back over to California Adventures to ride the Cars ride and of course ride Screamin.  We also did Toy Story Mania for the first time, its a favorite ride of ours too.  

 
While over at the pier we saw some characters the boys like from a cartoon show. 

Alyssa loves her cousin Makenna and while waiting for riders on Soarin, they danced to some music.  It was loads of fun to watch them, then they ate some cotton candy.

Food at Disneyland is so good.  There is an amazing treat shop over by Splash Mountain and this year we bought treats again.  They boys got an amazing mouse cookie, Jill got a cup cake, and I found an amazing white chocolate cookie. It is all so good. 

We rode our favorite rides right up until closing time at 8:00 p.m. The kids were exhausted but wanted so badly to use their money to buy a lego set.  Our rule is that they can use their money for a souvenir to be bought on the last day.  The first day at Downtown Disney the boys found a Lego set that they "had to have". The rest of the trip they didn't even want to look for other souvenir's.  So as the park closed on Thursday we walked back to the Lego store and picked up their new Lego Ninjago sets.   Then we had another long walk back to the hotel.  Their feet were getting tired, but they all made the long journey (Alyssa got to ride in the stroller).

We all got to bed and woke up Friday morning for an early morning drive back to Salt Lake (8:30 a.m.). The kids traveled well admiring the boxes their Lego's came in.  I wouldn't let them open up the sets until they got home.

We all had lunch in Las Vegas at McDonalds, then got back on the road. Just north of Vegas we waved to our great neighbors the Burton's as we passed each other, they were headed to Disneyland.

It was quite the site seeing the Roundy's van, the Buxton's van, and our van all driving in a convoy. We love our Honda's.

The temperatures were in the 70's while we were in California and driving back to the inversion and 7 degree temperatures of Salt Lake really makes me wonder why in the world we would want to live here.  The inversion has been horrible this year.  So many days without even being able to see the sun has everyone's energies down.  With such dreary weather, it made the timing of our trip so great.  The sunshine we all got to feel was just what we needed to make it through the rest of the winter.

We pulled into the Salt Lake valley and all had one last dinner together at Kneeders.  The next day the Buxton's would be driving on to Omaha (another 12 hour drive). It's always so cute seeing the kids say goodbye to each other.  Logan and Landon get so sad and even cry.  Many tears were shed as we left Kneeders. We will miss the Buxtons.

Disneyland Day 2 California Adventures

We walked again over to the park and this time we opted for a day at California Adventures. We had planned on using the magic morning there, but it's only good for Disneyland.  So we killed an hour getting hot chocolate at Downtown Disney and at 10:00 a.m. we headed into see the new Cars land!

 

Cars land is almost unreal at how big and how grandiose it is. There are a couple of rides but the Cars ride is the best one. Another is for kids which Alyssa loved where you sit behind a tractor and spin around.

The last ride at Cars land is a hover craft type ride which was novel, but one time was enough.

Alyssa was too small so I took her over to Bugs Life and we had so much fun riding some of the kid rides.

California Soarin is my favorite ride!

Landon loves to do things older kids can do. He usually isn't scared, he just does whatever they do.  Logan is a bit more sensitive and gets scared much easier.  Somehow we talked them both into doing Tower of Terror.

Poor Logan's body locked up the minute the ride started and this picture shows me trying to assure him that he will be okay.  As the ride was over Landon loved it, "my bum wasn't even in my seat!" and Logan hated it, "I never want to ride on that ride again!".

The food at Disneyland is fantastic.  If you can get past the outragous prices, it's amazing quality.  Throughout the day I saw people gnawing on turkey legs and I had to try one.

They really were amazing, and to prove that I ate the entire thing here is the bone!

Here are the girls sharing cotton candy. 

My favorite memory of the entire trip was Logan riding on Screamin!  He was very scared, but wanted to try the roller coaster that makes you go upside down.  He had never ridden it before and Landon couldn't ride on it still because of his height. I kept a camera focused on him and took pictures throughout the ride.  They turned out so good. Here he is at the beginning of the ride. 

At the fast acceleration.

Going upside down!

Here is the Disneyland picture of him. This is now Logan's favorite ride and he had to do it over and over again.  I bet he did it 7 or 8 times throughout the three days in the park. 

Arial's ride which the girls loved, but Landon didn't like it at all, it wasn't scary enough.  This ride was scary for Alyssa but we had her do it another time the last day and she loved it.  She was scared of all of the dark rides.

Having dinner out on California's pier. 

Another terrific day at the park and the temperatures were much better.  It actually got up to 70 degrees! In the evening it cooled down a bit more, but again we virtually walked onto almost every one of the rides.

Disneyland

Our hotel is right next to Disneyland so we walked over to the park for our first day!

Our kids love maps and the Disneyland map is the best of all maps.

For weeks leading up to our vacation Alyssa was excited about riding on the "tea cups". She even watched youtube video's about the tea cups.

Logan thought it would be so funny to get a picture as if he was bored on Space Mountain. They boys were so excited to see Space Mountain.

  

When Alyssa couldn't ride with everyone else we found other options like the Tiki Room.

We all brought lunches and enjoyed them in the California sun!

Alyssa loved Small World

Toon Town

Alyssa had so much fun she fell asleep during the afternoon which helped so much to get in her nap.

For dinner we all went to Mile's cafe right next to our hotel.  Because of the cold we all opted for dinner at 6:00 p.m. and the youngest kids all went back to the rooms and went to bed. They boys all went back and walked onto Space Mountain and Star Tours 2 times each!