Saloons and Silver mines

Once we left California, we got really excited about being on the road again. In my normal, everyday life, I am a super planned, hyper organized, list loving kind of person. Somehow, however, I haven't been feeling the same way on the trip. I mean, of course I still keep the inside of the RV organized and I plan school lessons and what not, but I am kind of loving the freedom of being able to go where we want, when we want, with no prior planning.

We were on the way to Vegas, just for fun, and then we were going to go to St. George. But, on the way to Vegas we saw signs for an old mining Ghost town, called Calico, and thought the kids might have more fun doing that. So, we literally made a 10 second decision, turned off the freeway, and changed our plans.

Isn't that a great view? I love travelling to such different areas, where the beauty is so different than what we're used to, but always present.

Hands off my gold!

Draw!

We sat Hayden up here and right after the picture was taken, the surly old cowboy shop owner yelled at us and basically kicked us out of the store. Oops. 

This guy was so great. He was just wandering around the town, singing cowboy songs and talking to everybody with his thick southern drawl. That moustache just doesn't lie. 

We actually got to walk through the silver mine, which was pretty neat. They had some replicas of little kitchen and sleeping areas and such that the miners would make for themselves while underground.  

Boys boys boys. Sometimes I don't mind having all sons because it means I'm the queen. 

There was a little train that took us to some of the old mines right in the side of the mountain. 

It was a fun little stopover and I  think the kids will definitely remember this one. 

The happiest place on Earth.

It really is the happiest place on Earth. I just love Disneyland. A whole bunch. This was my fourth time here (Matt's fourth too, but only our second time there together). Jonathan hadn't been in over 20 years! We came when we were kids with our siblings, Mom, and Oma. It was really fun to have some brother time and do all the rides we remembered going on together, like Space Mountain.

I loved that my kids could create Disneyland memories that include their Uncle and Aunt, and their cousins. And of course we got some nephew/niece time too!

They were so happy! See the t-shirts? Lisa made one for everybody! She's awesome like that. Isn't Sadie's outfit just the best?

Sistas. I am literally wearing this shirt as I write this post.

Marshalls! They're almost all looking. It was the best I could do. 

Sully! We didn't get a ton of pictures of us with the characters, because honestly, if I'm going to wait in line for something, I'd rather it be a ride. 

These two totally bonded. I loved it. 

Look at all these cute cousins! This whole trip was a surprise for the Marshall kids, and the best part was that Oliver and Hayden got to tell them the news. When they got into the hotel room we all jumped out and surprised them! Then the boys told them about Disneyland. It was a very intense and loud 5 minutes. 

She is so good at smiling for pictures. 

Watching the parade. I'm honestly not a parade person, but this one was pretty incredible. 

She is just so cute. And the only girl amongst 5 boys. Which makes her somehow even cuter. 

Last time we were there, Cars Land was under construction. I have to say, it was really cool. I don't even like the movie very much, but I loved the Land. The Radiator Springs ride is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that the wait time was NEVER less than 2 hours the whole time. We got fast passes so that we didn't have to wait. 

I know it's all red-eyed and blurry, but the red-eye fix on iPhoto is really more like a turn-yourself-into-a-demon button so I just left it alone. If I were less lazy I'd photoshop it. 

I just noticed the kid who doesn't belong to us in the bottom left of the picture. Oops. 

Maaaaaaybe she will be enough to satisfy Matt's wish to have a little girl and he will quit bugging me about it. 

It was 40+ degrees this day. Not exaggerating. That is just too hot to be outside. In fact, Oliver even got a bit of heat exhaustion. So went into the animation studios in California Adventure for a few hours in the afternoon to wait out the heat. 

I know it's so cheesy and cliche, but it's still kinda cute, right?

All in all, we had a really amazing time. It was slightly tricky dealing with the different height restrictions on the rides, especially since Sawyer and Sadie wanted to to everything and were very jealous of their brothers. But with 4 adults, we totally made it work. I think we will wait for about 4 more years to go again, and then we won't need strollers and naps, and no one is left out of any rides. I'm already counting down!

San Diego

We've been to San Diego twice before, but somehow we missed Coronado beach. Somebody mentioned it in passing to us, so we thought we'd go check it out.

The amazing thing about this beach is that the sand is gold. Well, pyrite, but it glitters like gold for as far as the eye can see.

Sawyer wasn't a big fan of the wind. It took him about an hour of hiding under his blanket to 

cheer up. 

Don't I have the best looking' boys? Their future significant others are so lucky.

When in doubt, make a weird face at the camera. 

Beach bums. (See what I did there?)

Oliver got his first body boarding lessons. He was a natural. 

These waves were so great. He was singing Beach Boys the whole way home. 

Once he decided that the wind wasn't the end of the world, he came for a walk with me. Kids and the ocean. It's magic. 

Sigh. I love this guy. 

It was so fun to watch them having fun together. As your kids get older, they slowly turn into your very best friends. 

This little heartbreaker. Am I right?

Then we went to Legoland! The kids didn't even know Leogland existed, so we decided to make it a surprise. As we were pulling up, we played "Everything is awesome", which, if you have kids and have seen the Lego movie, is probably the only song you have listened to in about 4 months. 

They were crazy excited. Surprising kids is the best. 

.

Emmet even danced for them. They LOVED it. 

Chewy! There were so many life sized creations. 

There was this great playhouse with giant Lego blocks. I honestly think the younger boys would have been happy to stay and play with those the whole day. I wanted to buy some but they're not for sale :(

We actually ended up going for two days because it's kid of a buy-one-day-get-one-free deal. (Really, two days isn't necessary, if it was already paid for, why not?) I was really glad we ended up going, because it was great for Sawyer to get a taste of what it's like to be on a ride, and we didn't want him to be afraid of anything at Disneyland. 

We spent some time just wandering around downtown, enjoying the beauty of the city and the balmy weather. We stepped into this fabulous art gallery which was mostly full of the works of Chuck Jones. The entire place made me think of my mom, who was most likely the biggest Merrie Melodies fan out there. Her nickname (not kidding) was Bugs Bunny, because she was the best prankster out there.  There was a lot of Disney art as well. I kind of wanted every single piece. We weren't allowed to take pictures of course, but we did snag this great one of Wile E. Coyote. 

We are just in love with San Diego. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows a lot. Probably more than is healthy, but whatevs.

We went to Balboa Park, which was huge and beautiful. The Natural History Museum has the incredible exhibit right now called "Real Pirates".  It features discoveries from the real pirate ship called the Ouida (pronounced Wee-dah). In 1984 a sailor and fisherman from Cape Cod, after years of research and planning, discovered the long lost pirate ship of Captain Sam Bellamy. They had rooms and rooms of artifacts recovered from the ship, including weaponry, kitchen utensils, pirate treasure, and even the shoe (and leg!) of the youngest ever pirate, a 9 year old boy. There is so much fascinating information in this exhibit that I can't even come close to relating it all. It's a travelling National Geographic exhibit, so I strongly urge you to check with your local museum to see if it might travel near you- it is so worth checking out. 

This dino, although it looks like a T-Rex, is an Allosaurus. It actually lived 75 million (million!) years before the Tyrannosaurus, but they are closely related. Some theories suggest that the T-Rex evolved from the Allosaurus. 

Sawyer really loved looking through these. Lucky for him, they're all over this museum. 

Beautiful gardens at Balboa. Sigh. It's so difficult to get everyone smiling at once! But I'll take what I can get. 

La jolla is probably my very favourite place in all of San Diego. It's beautiful, somehow always warm, even when the rest of the city is cool, and is protected from the constant wind that is present at every single other beach in San Diego. I could go here every day.

I know we have like 5 million selfies like this, but I just don't care. I like to document everything. So deal with it. 

So, there was this big pile of sea lions, just happily basking in the sun. You can see that they're all dry except for the one by the water. We sat here for about 10 minutes watching him. He was just waiting for the waves to come crashing over him. He kept sticking his head near the water, as if willing a wave to come his way. It was hilarious. Even Sawyer was cracking up. 

Oh, these boys. 

So that's how we spend almost a month. Of course there was some school/work involved, and by month's end we were more than ready to move on with the trip. Our wanderlust is too strong to want to be in any given place for more than a few weeks. At least for now. Ask me how I feel after 4 months of RV living with 3 small boys!