Christmas

(very very late post. Sorry for the horrible delay!)

We had a blast visiting family during Christmas. Kaylor LOVED hanging out with his grandma and auntie. We also enjoyed stopping by the Bay area to visit more relatives. Kaylor loved seeing everyone.

Thanks to everyone for his presents as well. He's still playing with all of them to this day :).

We went to Rocky Point last week and I finally got around to uploading pics.

We had a blast w/ Brian and Alia. Kaylor loved, LOVED having so many kids to play with.

If you're interested, check the slideshow below (it's about 130 pics... so... enjoy!)

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Character Interactions

We met up with various characters during our stay. Most of the pics are from the bday lunch at PCH Grill (which is now officially our fave character meal since salmon and rice are part of the menu :D).

STITCH
 
Kaylor proved me wrong and didn't even flinch when he saw Stitch (I thought he would since Stitch can look a little scary).
 

PLUTO

He still likes the big noses.

LILO

More interested in seeing inside her mouth than anything else.

DONALD

Nick was bummed that Kaylor didn't share his excitement in seeing Donald. But hey, at least we saw Donald. So Nick's happy in the end.

DAISY

His favorite by far. He was very cuddly with her and even flashed his tummy. (Minnie might be his next favorite. He ran up to her and hugged her legs but Nick wasn't able to get a picture)


POOH
We waited in line to see Pooh and friends. Kaylor was really excited to see them, but got too frustrated with waiting in line (he didn't understand why he couldn't just go up to them).
So he had a meltdown by the time we got to Pooh. oh well.
 

RABBIT
 
Didn't really care much for rabbit. Mainly just liked his big nose.

TIGGER
Tigger was actually the reason why we waited in line. Kaylor saw him and then tried to sneak through the roped dividers to get close to him. It's really too bad he was still in a bad mood when we got to Tigger.
 

"pre-celebration"

Nick took us to Disneyland (last weekend) for my birthday. It was great to get out of the AZ heat, although, with the humidity, it actually felt hotter over there during the day. Nights were awesome though with the nice cold breeze coming in. Kaylor actually freaked out the first night we put the jacket on him. He didn't understand why we put it on him and kept trying to pull at the sleeves. He mellowed out soon enough though when he got nice and toasty in it. (yes, at 65F we froze! haha)

We didn't buy park tickets the first night since we wanted to take advantage of the Disney promo (free entrance on your bday). We basically could use that free ticket towards an annual pass, so we just walked around the outside of the park.

Kaylor wanted to go in so badly though...


Afterwards we just chilled at the hotel where Kaylor occupied himself with playing with the phone and mirrors.

back in Idaho (for a day)

We had a quick visit to Rexburg last weekend since Nick had a presentation at BYU-I. It was nice to see the old campus and check out the temple on the hill.



Definitely interesting to see that even though there was quite a bit of growth on the campus (lots of construction), the dating-happy reputation of the school hasn't faded one bit...as noted by these ads placed in (what was voted as the best place in campus to flirt) the library.

 

We met up with our fave old professor...
   

and stayed with Paul and Sarah (thanks guys!). Kaylor really enjoyed playing with their kids, and especially teaching Carter, the youngest, bad habits (toy scattering)...


We caught up with Wrights before heading back. It's a bummer we only hung out about an hour. Hopefully next time it'll be longer...
 

mealtimes are fun!

He really wanted the strawberry. Afterwards, not so much... :)

Story behind the picture: stepladder

It's a 3-step process.
1. Pull the bottom drawer.
2. Climb the bottom drawer.
3. And since you can now reach it, turn off the TV even though everyone else is watching it.

Story behind the picture: beach buddies

We visited Silver Strand (state beach) while we were down in San Diego. Only one other family was there and they had one child who was very sociable (and gave us a glimpse of how Kaylor might be in the future assuming his personality stays the same). Kaylor wandered over to them to say hi, then the other kid asked our names and introduced himself. He shared his toy shovel with Kaylor and they played in the sand together.

SoCal visit

We had a blast hanging out with Ry this weekend.

And now the slideshow of the weekend's fun (...after 220 photo uploads later. the videos will just have to wait...)

trek to the Grand Canyon

(I think we have a very outgoing child.)

Nick's company sponsored a Grand Canyon trip last Friday so we tagged along.

It was funny how Kaylor interacted with the distributors and the other employees. He was so comfortable with everyone even though he's never met them before. He reached out his arms to anyone who was interacting with him.


On the shoulders of his Dad's boss.


With some Greek distributors. He fell asleep in their arms at the bus.

We stopped at Sedona to see some red rock and check out some shops then we headed up to the park.

one last huzzah

Our flights were ending today so we jetted off to Utah last weekend for our last getaway. We had a blast seeing old friends, and Nick relished the chilly weather.

some highlights:
Kaylor loved the dog (apparently he doesn't mind getting licked and giggles every time)

(video here)

Here's father and son chilling at the Kennecott Copper Visitors Center


Bonding with Brynn (they're almost exactly a year apart)


Lowlights:
None of us got much sleep. Kaylor was up from 2:30 to 5:30am the first night. Just was too wired - the downside of sharing a room with him.
Second night was a little better, but we all still didn't get a full night's rest.

bay area visit

At the last minute, we had to go to the bay area last weekend. We were in Oakland for most of the time, Nick at the temple, while Kaylor and I hung out at the visitor's center.

I now know that long sleeve shirts, no matter how good they look on him, at this age isn't the most practical outfit. Within the hour, I've had to change him to a normal onesie since his sleeves and collar were soaked. He was sucking on them every moment he could.

Afterwards we visited Nick's relatives in San Mateo. Kaylor was quite hesitant at first to approach anyone, but soon he warmed up to everybody, especially to cousin Dylan (thanks Dylan for being such a great sport even after all the hair pulling and ear poking:D)


He was especially very intrigued with Tenchi. At one point, when Tenchi tried to give him 'kisses', Kaylor smacked his lips trying to figure out the flavor hahah...

4th of july

We were back at Disneyland for the holiday weekend.
We missed the fireworks since we had to head back to the hotel (it was already past Kaylor's bedtime and he was getting really cranky). Not that he cares though since he totally didn't pay any attention to previous fireworks shows. The only thing that kept his attention that night was the Electrical parade.

Maybe next year...

vegas or bust?

Bust.

We took a quick trip to Vegas last Saturday (and it was quick, we didn't even last 6 hours), for one, check out a used car that looked too good to be true on the net and two, maybe walk the strip and catch a buffet.

Yeah, it was a disaster from the get-go.

It took us 2 hours to get a rental car. The line at the rental agency was THAT long (we think it may have been due to the fact that Dollar was advertising $15 a day rentals - it was insane). And if two hours wasn't bad enough, they lost our reservation. At least they agreed to meet the original quote and didn't charge us the walk-up rate. yikes.

On the upside, Kayl made some friends. haha. There were two little Asian boys who just LOVED him (Japanese I think based on the few words I could understand, like nani and soshite. Yeah, great good my one semester of Japanese got me :P). They kept making faces at him and trying to make him laugh, trying to tickle, whatever. Kaylor got into it and started yelling along with them. They got rowdy enough to the point that their mom had to drag them off to the other side of the rental terminal to calm them down.

Fun stuff.

Now for the car. It was advertised 4995 for a 2003 manual Civic, 70k miles. GREAT deal. Looked great on the outside, the inside (aside from the dash) was another matter. hehe. The inside was torn up, some handles were missing haha.

By this time we were tired and hungry. (Lucky Kaylor got to sleep in the car.) We decided to skip the strip and head out to the Rio. Nick knew this was going to be a good casino since he had meals there during a previous business trip.

It was the first (and only :D) highlight of the day. Yummy. Crab legs and everything (No Cherrys I didn't swell up :P. C'mon I'm not allergic. ha ha). Everything was awesome all the way up to the gelato for dessert.

At least we didn't leave on a bad note, but I don't think we're coming back anytime soon...

packed park

Peak season is definitely starting up now. The wait wasn't ridiculously insane, but since we typically only go on rides that have a wait time of 15 minutes max, that severely limited our options. We ended up going on just a couple of rides (on fast passes or single rider, whichever was faster).

We spent the rest of the time scouting out ear hats in Kaylor's size and the 2008 graduation hat for Nick (which has been sold out the last time we were there), watching a parade, and watching the closing fireworks show.

2008 Graduation hat



(and of course I had to try out the eeyore piece again ha ha).


First ear hat. (it's an infant size, and it's still HUGE on him).


The fireworks were fun, and we thought the bright lights would fascinate Kaylor. But no, he really could care less, he was more interested in people watching instead. Oh well...

the beach!

Our free flights kicked in this weekend so we took a quick 1 day trip back to SoCal to hit the beach and sneak in a few hours of Disneyland.

Nick loves the beaches there; I think it's too cold, but now that I'm outscored 2-1, it looks like we'll definitely keep coming back there. Yup, baby's first time at the beach, and he enjoyed it...

He LOVED the sand. I think the moment he felt it run through his fingers, he was hooked.


He proved it multiple times too. He usually doesn't scoot. But he did today. He kept trying to leave the towel area to go back to the sand.


And the taste of it didn't faze him.

Oh, he made a face when he first got some in his mouth, but didn't mind it the rest of the time when the sand that kept sticking to his fingers made it to his mouth. haha. At least he's not allergic to it. :D


He liked the water...

even when it got knee deep. (yeah, the pic's at ankle high; the big one already hit, ha ha).


He actually didn't want to leave. He got so upset when we picked him up...


Guess we're going to have to come back another day...

he likes the characters

We weren't quite sure how he'd react to the non-human characters, but he was actually quite fascinated with them.

He was responsive to most of them (especially Cinderella), but we think Brer fox is his favorite. :)

W/ Minnie at a line in California Adventure (CAd)

Mickey had to leave before we got to him, so we only got a pic of him saying goodbye to us. (CAd)

W/ Pluto at a line in CAd

W/ Pluto at Goofy's Kitchen (he loved to yank at his whiskers)


With Goofy at Goofy's Kitchen

(mesmerized by Goofy's whiskers)


W/ Brer Fox at Goofy's Kitchen



W/ Snow White at Goofy's Kitchen

W/ Cinderella at Goofy's Kitchen