The Rest of Our California Adventure

So... trying to finish documenting the rest of our trip is like trying to catch up on scrapbooking all the photo prints I have in boxes from 2003-2007. Which is another way of saying it's not gonna happen, life is attacking me too quickly. So here is a little longer sum up of the rest of our trip -

Wednesday (4/16) we hung out at the resort and spent an afternoon at the pool - as Melodie demonstrates in the photo above. Uncle Mark came ready with water balloons so we could have a balloon toss. The kids made friends with kids in the pool and invited them to come play...

...but everyone knows that all the kids really wanted to do was nail each other with the balloons. Corey took a cheap shot at his boys during the toss, before they had a chance to take one at him. Eth got a nice welt on his shoulder there, Joseph on the left of his back.

We had an easter egg hunt on the grassy lawn area, the kids loved that. I was lucky enough to be able to sit and watch as I enjoyed my happy place...

(love the binky barely hanging on to her little lip!)

Thursday the older kids went to California Adventure. (Note to kids - when you read this, go get Mel and her camera and then bring her camera to me so I can put her pictures here...) While they were doing there having fun, Corey worked on Movie Mouth (which he officially gave me permission to begin to use by name here, before now he made me go edit out all "movie mouth" phrases so it wouldn't come up on search engines, cause he wasn't ready yet, but they are almost ready!!) So, as he did that, the girls and I played Legos. I had come prepared with Lego Disney princesses which I hoped would be as cool as the real thing they experienced the day before. It was, and now that we're home, the only lego we lost that we're aware of was Flynn Rider's hair, not bad!)

Later that evening I took Sophia and Natalie on a walk. They enjoyed the world around them, Sophia kept picking flowers for Natalie (sorry, Marriott grounds crew!)

and I took a lot of pictures of the flowers and my little girls.

Friday we headed back to Las Vegas. When we got to the hotel there, we watched a little bit of tv to kill the time and wait for the rest of the kids to arrive so we could go get dinner, and as we did, we watched "Say Yes to the Dress" which I thought the kids would like cause of Studio C's "Yes to the Vest" sketch. Kinda finny. Something about that show made Corey get sucked into a downward spiral of financial sadness (thinking about paying for all the wedding dresses for his 5 daughters?) He took the kids to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, but I stayed home and wasn't in the mood for that, as I had eaten 4 head of Romaine lettuce over the course of the afternoon as I drove the car. You know, to keep myself awake and alert, since I needed ot be awake and alter for 6 hours, and you can't eat raisins or peanuts or candy constantly for 6 hours, or I would have gained 20 lbs. After that Corey went to Denny's for some quiet personal time and we went to bed.

Saturday, we drove down the strip for some reason. Just to let them know that "Las Vegas" is not the Marriott hotel with their free continental breakfast in Henderson. When people say "Las Vegas", they are usually talking about something different. So we decided to show the kids a tiny bit of what that was. We put on Brandon Flowers singing the song of the sad truth about Babylon ... "didn't nobody tell you? The House will always win!" So we sang that several times and saw lots of people walking around and lots of big fancy glittery buildings. Abi was excited to see the Statue of Liberty. Corey and the kids saw some Kiss Street performers out the window who were wearing very little clothing. Then they were grossed out and decided they actually don't like Las Vegas anymore. Ok, I guess we're all done then! Good, let's go home.

One brief stop for gas and food Wendy's take out by the Flying J in Beaver City, always a highlight for little kids. Hi pretty baby!!! Do you want a Frosty?

I was actually really in the mood for a chicken sandwich, so I was happy too. I speed demoned limited ourselves the rest of the way home, as Corey said: "leaving dust and lettuce heads in her wake..." left Las Vegas 12:30, home at 7:30. I went the speed limit the whole time, totally legal and no speeding ticket. But it is true that I did throw out the window the stumps of 4 lettuce heads that I ate as I drove to keep myself awake. I think it's okay since they are plants and therefore biodegradable, right? Sorry if that is illegal, but they were crowding up my dashboard.

...And the sprinklers were on when we got home, and didn't turn off... for several hours. We got drenched out in the dark night as we tried to turn them off, but couldn't understand why they were on in the first place. Our landlord was out of town and we didn't want to bother them, they were on all night and all Sunday (sorry Mother earth!) and after a google hangout talk with my siblings, my little brother, who is currently having sprinkler issues himself, gave me some advice and sent up a follow up picture of his sprinkler box to me on Monday morning, and after a short tinker with it I got it turned off. Someday we'll learn all this homeowner stuff, even if we never end up owning a home. So, that was the rest of our trip.