Phoenix Temple Open House

We took the opportunity to tour the Phoenix temple before it was dedicated.

To help with traffic we had to park at Wet 'n Wild and they would bus us over. The kids were actually very excited to ride on a bus.

We walked through and of course it was gorgeous!!

Here is our family afterwards: 

Then we took a gift card and went out to dinner together. 

A beautiful day with my family.

Jason and I have since had the opportunity to attend the temple dedication and even go to the new temple a few times. What a blessing to have it so near to us!

Beach Retry

After our miserable windy beach experience on Monday. Jason was worried about trying the beach again. But I thought that was exactly why we needed to go again... so we could have a good experience to take over the bad. 

And it turns out I was right. It was FABULOUS!

Warm and sunny, with a light breeze.

And the waves were really big. There were several surf instructors/students taking advantage of the big waves.

We were so glad we went back and the kids loved it.

Except Corin, who didn't want to touch the sand. Which is crazy... he loves playing in sand at parks

Pictures:

Then Jason packed our stuff up while the rest of us played/rinsed off the sand in the hotel pool.

The we all got changed and drove back to AZ, stopping for a quick lunch at MacDonald's on the way.

Overall we had a blast and glad we have those memories to look back on. A few months later, the kids still love to talk about it!

More Disneyland

For the next day we went back to Disneyland. 

It was back to regular hours after the two early days, which was perfect, since my kids were finally tired enough to sleep in, the later start was great for the third day.

This morning the kids got Disney shirts as gifts, so they could wear them in the park. (though Terra decided not to)

Trying to get a picture as we wait for the rocket ride: 

My big kids waiting for the Jedi show to begin: 

watching Jedis

Getting read to drive on autopia.

Parker was really annoyed that he couldn't really steer. he wasn't planning on driving crazy. He wanted to drive the right way, but he really disliked that he couldn't *really* control it, and that even if he didn't steer at all, we would still go the same way in the long run.

The girls drove with Daddy: 

Parker and me in the car behind Jason and the girls.

Then we split up. I went with Parker to go on Star tours, while everyone else went on Finding Nemo.

Then Jason and I used fats passes and went on Space mountain twice in less than half an hour while Janet stayed with the kids.

A picture of the picture fro our first ride: 

On our way out for nap time we took this picture: 

See how things have changed in seven years:

Then we went back to fantasy land after nap. 

Janet and Corin watching us go on teacups

We wanted to see the musical on stage near toon town so we played there to kill time, and a little after the show:

We could NOT keep shoes on this kid.

Here we are waiting for the show to start:

During the show we also got a few churros to share. Yum!

They shot out these confetti streamers at the end of the show and the girls collected a bunch of them.

They played with them for days.

Cheapest. souvenir. ever.

We went on a couple more rides.

One of which was the monorail.

 Jason didn't want to go on it, since he claims it "isn't a ride". But the kids wanted to so I managed to drag him onto it. 

The kids all claimed it as their favorite ride of the day, though Jason still refused to see it as a ride.

We also rode the Disneyland Express that evening, bringing us to New Orleans Square so we could re-ride Pirates, Jason wanted to go on since he had stayed off with Terra before. 

Funnily enough Terra wanted to go on this time and the big kids stayed off with me. (she ended up loving it)

Then we headed to the hotel for our last night.