Northern CA and time with family

After our fun adventures in Southern California, we headed up north to my parent's house. 

Brek in the car pretending to have a mustache

He thinks he is so funny!

We were able to attend the monthly Biggs Family gathering at my cousin's house, and was able to see several cousins and aunts and uncles. 

Daddy and Brek playing the Didjeridoo. 

Brek called it the "di di di di (this sometimes went on for a while) doo."

We went up and celebrated my birthday at my brother Mark's house, with his wife Eliana and all their kids. Brek LOVED the cousin time!

Playing dress up. Poor Colby got dragged in; he's such a good sport

A close up of our princess and prince.

So I decided a few years ago that for my birthday I wanted to make a tradition of making a fancy or fun cake. Last year I did the triple layered cake of brownie, cookie dough, and funfetti. This year I found an Oreo cake. There are oreos baked into the batter, plus an oreo whipped cream in the middle. I didn't care for how the decorating of the outside went, but I decided it didn't matter all that much. It was heavenly tho.

All 29 candles!

It was a perfect cake for sharing with my family!

This year, on Joe's side of the family, for each person's birthday, all the family members submit a word or phrase that makes them think of the intended person, and then Joe's younger sister Janelle puts it into the first letter of their name. Here's my Birthday Letter A:

Anyway, back to family time. Here's pictures of Brek and his cousins playing on the trampoline.

 

Trying to capture a Kodak moment of the kids:

Originally, our vacation plans were only going to allow for one day to hang out with my brother and his family, but my grandfather ended up passing away, so we extended our trip so we could attend the funeral services, (I ended up missing Girls Camp), and we had a longer visit at my parent's house (even tho my mom had to leave and go be with her mom and siblings.) This meant we had several more days for Brek to play with cousins and for us to hang out. We were able to attend my oldest niece, Heather's very first piano recital, and we spent an evening playing games on another day. Also, the youngest, Anna, who is Brek's age, was able to join us for a trip to the Folsom Zoo, a visit to the Sacramento Temple, and a ride on a real steam engine train. This was the first time that Brek and Anna have gotten along, and it was so much fun! I'll do a separate entry for the zoo. 

We also ended up celebrating our 5th Anniversary while at my parent's house, and we had my dad join us for lunch at Leatherby's. The other big deal about our trip and our visit to my parent's house was that we ended up adopting a cat: 

She had been hanging around my parent's house for about a month. My parents never fed her or encouraged her to stay around, and yet she kept coming back. Whenever we went outside, she would come up to us to be pet. We took her to the vet to see if she had a chip in her, and she didn't have a collar, nor had there been any signs posted in the neighborhood of a lost cat. My dad still teases me that we stole some little girls kitty. Well, we called our landlady and asked if we could bring a cat home and she said yes. Her name is Muser, which is a Russian word, meaning trash. It comes with a backstory of a family I taught in Russia who had a cat, and I misunderstood their pronunciation of their cat's name, and I thought they had said it was Muser, which I thought was a very strange, but very funny name. After 3 months of me calling their cat "trash," they realized I was pronouncing the name wrong (which I didn't even hear a difference when they told me her real name), and ever since I have wanted to name a cat Muser. We love how friendly she is! And she's a beauty. Brek is still learning to be gentle. haha!

The only bummer part of our trip was that we didn't see friends. Since our original plan was to only be at my parent's house for a couple days, we figured our priority was to be with family. Then when our plans changed and we stayed longer, I felt embarrassed to call people up and say "now I want to see you." I probably should have just sucked it up and maintained important relationships, now that it is all said and done. Lesson learned. I won't make the same decision next time. But all said and done, although saddened by my papa's passing, it was wonderful to be with family and we still enjoyed our trip, even the extended days. :)

The Beach

So of course we couldn't be in southern California without spending some time at the beach. And Brek knows all about the beach thanks to Elmo. We were at Newport Beach, not far from my aunt's house.

Brek was a bit hesitant about the sand.

We kept walking. He stopped.

Putting a toe in, to get a feel.

Trying it again.

 It seriously took him at least 5 minutes to take more than a step or two. He thought we were all really strange when we took our shoes off and just walked in it. Finally I offered my hand to hold as we walked across, and he pulled down on it like it was gonna help him not walk on the sand.

Once we got to the water, he was pretty cool.

Sure do love seeing my boy with his Papa!

He totally loved the water. I've never seen a kid this calm around the waves for the first time.

He may not look happy, but he really was.

Then Daddy came.

After some good time in the water, we set to building a sand castle. Definitely a beach requirement!

Thankfully Papa stepped in and made it even more awesome.

King of the Castle

Not much else. We came. We saw. We played. We watched sand crabs and Brek went back into the water after playing in the sand. He got knocked down a time or two by the waves, getting his face and hair and everything, and he was so chill about it. My mom said she heard him talking to the waves, saying ever so calmly, "You knocked me down. Now I'm gonna jump over you." He's so funny.
Sure was fun!

Brek's Roller Coaster Ride

So, our 2nd time riding the roller coaster, my dad took this video of Brek. Now we wish he had also taken one facing forward, so Brek could watch it over and over again and "feel" like he's riding it all over again. But he loves to watch this video. Seriously. LOVES. He watched it about 50 times in one sitting, and I'm not exaggerating. I guess it's not super exciting, but wanted to have it for the memories.

Disneyland!!!

When Joe & I first talked about our need for a family vacation, and something exciting to create memories and show love for our little family, I mentioned Disneyland thinking that Joe would totally shoot the idea down. I was completely surprised when he got very excited about the idea, and was even up for my life-long dream of doing 2 days. Of course we invited my parents to join us, and we were thrilled that they shared the experience with us, and especially with Brek. They kept voicing concerns about how Brek would do considering he has a pretty big fear of characters. We just decided to steer clear of them, minus seeing Mickey. We tried to indoctrinate Brek as much in the way of Disney; we soon discovered we didn't have much by way of movies or books in our home, so we started borrowing from the library. But still, by the time our trip arrived, there was much that was just gonna have to come as we went. So, without further ado, a documentation of our totally epic and first ever family trip to Disneyland!

Waiting for the Tram ride, aka the first "train" ride of the day, and the "2nd" ride so far, because what kid wouldn't count the escalator as a "ride."

On the tram, showing his "happy face."

Brek was so excited to see the big castle, which we had been seeing in commercials prior to our trip. He was even more excited to get to walk through it. We didn't stop for a picture, which now I kinda wish we did. Oh well. Our first ride was the carousal. When we first got into Fantasyland, Brek started getting a bit overwhelmed by EVERYTHING, so by doing the carousal, which he has done before at other places, it was a bit more familiar. He still got a bit concerned, so Papa had to ride with him. But, he calmed down and had fun. And this led to him seeing other things/rides, so he started to get excited about all that we were doing. 

 

Next up was Dumbo. He chose to ride with Papa.

In the Yellow one, which is the color Brek wanted.

 

Grandma in the Red one.

 

Taking a Kodak Moment

Next was the Casey Jr Train.

Brek telling me that he wanted to ride in the monkey cage.

Lucky us, we were at the front of the line so we got to be monkeys.

Being a monkey with Daddy

 

Next was the Storybook boat ride:

Watching the boats through the gate

Going into the whale

After the boat ride, we did It's a Small World, which is seriously one of my most favorite rides. We were gonna hop on the train for a "rest" time, but there happened to be a show starting in the theatre, so we decided to stop and watch it. I'm glad we did. Minus the speakers being REALLY loud, we loved it. I wish I remembered what it was called; it was fairly new while we were there. It was about Mickey painting the map. It was partially projected and part real life. Pretty cool. Mickey gets trapped "inside" the map, but then towards the end you see him flying up along the map and then he appears in real life. It was pretty awesome! There was another song where a few dancers came out carrying these huge balloons. And I mean HUGE. Ginormous! And then suddenly, they start putting themselves inside the balloons. So the balloon was suctioned around their waist, so their arms and heads and upper bodies were inside, but their feet were outside of the ballons. The dancing was pretty entertaining; and then at the very end of the song they popped the balloon. And our other favorite thing about the show was the trumpet player. He played for King Louie's "Want to be like you" song and for Princess Tiana. Needless to say, that guy had some chops! And as the corny musicians that we are, we really enjoyed it!
Following the show we moved on to Toontown. Brek was totally excited about the roller coaster, granted his facial expressions don't always show it. 

Watching the roller coaster

There's a cute smile

 

 

 

Riding with Daddy

 

Joe said he really didn't have any emotions during the ride. But once we got off, he turned around to face us and said, "That was REALLY fast! Let's do it again!" So we did. Horray! My boy loves roller coasters, just like his mommy!

 Sorry for all the boob shots. It's the only way to capture Brek.

There's a little reaction to the excitement!

Maybe a little nervous?

Needless to say, it was awesome! Whenever anyone asks Brek what he liked about Disneyland, he tells them "Roller coaster!"
Following our two times on the roller coaster, we went over so we could meet Mickey. We'd been talking him up a bit so that Brek would know he wasn't scary. Post Disneyland, if Brek tells you about seeing Mickey, he usually says, "I gave him knuckles, high five, and he wasn't scary." Yep. Basically sums it all up.

Family Shot

Driving a Toon Town car while we did bathroom and water breaks

Leaving Toontown, we went to Tomorrowland and rode the Finding Nemo Submarine. Brek actually fell asleep on the way over and wait in line, and woke up right as we got down into the submarine. I was glad he didn't miss it, because Finding Nemo is one of the movies he had actually seen before our trip, and he talked about it all.the.time.

See, he's still waking up.

He still talks about the "scary fish" he saw on this ride.

After the Nemo ride, we stopped to eat dinner. Following dinner we went and visited the Tiki Room. Joe had never been there before, so I liked that he got to do something new. Then we went and rode Pirates and did the Haunted Mansion. Sometimes he says the rides were scary, but other times he'll say they weren't. Joe had never done the Haunted Mansion either, so I was happy he got to do it. Then Joe and Dad wanted to ride Splash Mountain. Brek was obviously too short to go on it (but he wanted to, so we watched the big drop at the very end for a bit and then moved on.) I personally don't care for the ride, so my mom and I took Brek to ride Winnie the Pooh. 

When I came with my oldest niece, we rode this ride about 10 times. Brek was done after one time; granted, he doesn't really know much about Winnie the Pooh, but yeah.

The big boys were still in line (this was the longest line of the day. Seriously, all the other lines were less than 30 minutes, but Splash Mountain was over an hour, and Brek did awesome for all the waiting we did have. Seriously, no melt downs or fussing.) So, like I was saying, big guys still in line, so us three went back to Fantasyland and did the Dumbo ride again and the Carousal again, and then we did Peter Pan.

Not sure if he enjoyed it from this picture.

After Peter Pan, we met up and went over to do Space Mountain. We did a switch-pass for this ride so all 4 adults could ride it. While we waited in line for it, the 3 boys went over and did the Buzz Lightyear ride. Brek then slept for the rest of the line and while we took turns riding it. I love Space Mountain. Seriously one of my favorite rides. Not my all-time favorite, cuz that is over in CA Adventure, but definitely my favorite in Disneyland.
Then, with Brek still sleeping, we went and caught the Fantasmic show. My dad loves that one. Brek woke up for part of it, but he liked seeing Mickey again.

So that was day 1. We stayed until the park closed. Brek loved it. (Granted, when we got home that night and we asked him his favorite part, he said the rocket ride, which we hadn't actually gone on.) We didn't have any meltdowns all day, which I thought was amazing. He really did great with waiting, and whenever we saw Disney characters, he wanted to stop and observe. He never got scared. We didn't actually go and see any of them up close, minus Mickey which I already mentioned, but sometimes he would wave to them, and he seemed pretty cool with all of it. It was such an awesome day!!!

Now, day 2

Ready to go

We were a little bit slower going on day 2, but that was expected since we had such a smooth and full day the day before. For day 2, we opted for CA Adventure. Having been, we now have a few opinions on how we'd do things next time around, but I'll talk about that later.

So cute and excited for having more fun!

We started with the Monster's Inc. ride, and then went to Bug's Land. I liked that we all got to ride together in the same hot air balloon.

Brek was a bit more cuddly for day 2, but still in good spirits.

Then we did the Ladybug ride

Waiting in line

Getting a good "happy face."

In our ladybug

Followed by the bumper cars:

Watching the action

So proud to hold his car "ticket" for him and Papa.

Yes, that's my husband. sigh

Love Brek's face in this one!

Hi Grandma!

Up close

Now that's a good looking dude.

Grandma's having fun!

So is Brek!

Bet you can't guess what happened right after I took this picture?

Or after this one.

And then we rode the Caterpillar Train. He liked this one

Awww. I really like this picture!

Then we went and saw the Bugs 3D movie. Joe was the one adult who hadn't seen it, and yet he sat in our rented wheelchair, so he missed half of the effects. Sadly, Brek was trying to take a nap during it, and if you've seen it, you know that it definitely was not the right moment for a nap.

Papa makes a cute bug!

After stopping for lunch we went to Cars Land

Picture with Grandma

Riding on Mater's tractors

Hi Papa and Daddy!

Now they're just sitting there

Followed by Luigi's Flying Tires. This was one of the coolest rides.

Photo Op

The Grand-parentals

Family Picture

Sadly, the fast McQueen Racers had a REALLY long line, and Brek was too small for it anyway, so we went on to the Little Mermaid ride. 

Some of them look so happy!

So, here's where I'll put my opinions about CA Adventure: There was a lot that Brek just couldn't do. Yes, Bug's land is designed for little kids, but that is only 4 rides. There's Cars Land, but he couldn't do all the rides there; he couldn't do any rides in Condor Flats or Grizzly Peak, and there was very little that he could do on the Pier. They seemed like a lot of carnival/fair type rides, but probably cooler because it's Disney, but you get what I mean. And as mentioned, our little guy couldn't do it. So, next time, I wouldn't do CA Adventure at all until the kid is at least 48" tall, that way he can do everything he wants to.

Alright, that's my input. So back to having fun - We then walked around the pier, got to see the Green Army Men drum line, and decided to do the Ferris Wheel. We were crazy and decided to do the moving cages instead of the stationary ones. All of us would say that it was a mistake. For one, that is one BIG ferris wheel. For two, there was a LOT of unsettling motions going on. Wow! And the third thing about it, was that because of it, Joe wasn't feeling well for the next two rides we did, and I'm sad that he missed out on even better and bigger fun.
But anyway, post ferris wheel, all of us, minus Joe went on the Toy Story ride/game. The park in general was busier for our second day, so we did have longer lines, and this one was definitely the longest. Brek actually slept during the wait. And then the ride came, and he slept through that too. He got over an hour nap. He was a tired boy!

See, this is how he slept. The entire ride. And it is NOT a smooth ride!

Sleeping boy from the front

Post Toy Story, Brek woke up. My dad and I went on CA Screamin' which is my ABSOLUTELY.MOST.FAVORITE.RIDE.ON.THE.FACE.OF.THE.PLANET!!! I was really sad Joe wasn't up to riding it. Both my dad and I wish we had ridden it twice. This was actually the only time in our 2 days that Brek started to have a meltdown, and that was because he saw the BIG roller coaster - CA Screamin' - and Brek really, REALLY, REALLY wanted to ride it. I told you he developed a love for roller coasters. He actually saw it on the map first before he saw it in person. He pointed to it and told me, "I want to ride the BIG roller coaster." I felt so sad telling him he was too little. So, to appease him, he rode the carousal, and then Grandma bought him ice cream. Even after we met up again, he was still talking about wanting to ride the big roller coaster, and I caved. So we decided that after we finished everything else we wanted to do, we would go and upgrade our tickets to park hoppers so we could go back to Toontown so he could ride the roller coaster again.
The last thing my parents wanted to do in CA Adventure was ride the Soarin' ride. Joe seemed to enjoy it too. I stayed out with Brek. Then we started walking to the front of the park and Brek saw the Trolley and really wanted to ride it. So we tried to get on it to take us to the front gate, and apparently that one wasn't going that way, so an employee walked us halfway through the park so we could get on it at one end and ride it to the other end. By the time we got to the front gate, every Trolley employee knew who we were. :)

Here we are walking across and over into Disneyland. Expensive to upgrade, but totally worth it for my little boy!

Love that he's holding Grandma's hand

So we had planned to just get on the Railroad, and ride it back to Toontown, but right after we got into the park, the parade started. The parades are one of my most favorite things about Disneyland. I love getting to see so many characters, and it's just fun! We had a great viewpoint at the front of the parade from up at the Train stop, and Brek loved it! Each time a train would come through, he said he wanted to keep watching the parade. And at the very end, Mickey was playing the drums - which Brek thought was totally awesome, being that he LOVES the drums! The drumline marching in front of Mickey was pretty impressive - (Joe especially thought so!) So once the parade was over, we got on the train and rode it back to Toontown. Right after we got in line for the ride, it got busy. So sadly, there was only time to ride it once before they closed it for the fireworks show. But at least we got it one more time and Brek was happy about it. He rode the last time with me, in the very front. I got him to let go and put his arms up the entire ride, which was so cute to see. We also grabbed dinner there, which wasn't the most exciting or glamorous of meals, but it was the only food we bought there for the whole 2 days, and we needed to get some grub in our tummies, so it worked.
From there we rode the train over to Tomorrowland so we could ride the Monorail, which Brek kept calling the "really fast train." And then we went and rode the rockets, since he said that was his "favorite ride" on day 1. :) (Thankfully he has since decided he loved the roller coaster best.)

That was a tight squeeze for all 3 of us, and we were surprised how fast this ride is compared to Dumbo.

And finally, while Joe and I looked at souvenirs  Papa, Grandma and Brek got to watch the fireworks over the "pink" castle. Our souvenirs were a puzzle, a ball for Brek, and an ornament for our Christmas tree.

And then Brek slept

It truly was a magical and wonderful Disney experience. We needed it. We loved it. I hope it won't be too long before we're able to do it again, but even if it is further away than we hope, we still have amazing memories from this trip. Also, if we ever get to do a 2-day experience, we think we'll split it up and do our beach day in between so we're a bit more rested for day 2. But other than that, it was so incredible!