Faces

I captured these photos while Jackson watched Yo Gabba Gabba a few days ago. The time from 1-12 is probably about 45 seconds. I showed Tyler last night and he said, blog it. So here it is.




Between his many faces and constant sound effects, it's pretty easy for us to figure out what this little guy is thinking!

Fourth

Oh yeah - the Fourth of July, just 2 weeks later. Honestly it was not one of our fondest fourths. It was actually our first one spent in Orlando, but didn't go as well as we'd planned. Jackson was really sick all weekend and none of us had slept well the night before so it wasn't the most joyous of occasions! But we did a little swimming, bbqing with friends, and watched the Disney Fireworks with friends from our new church building.


Jackson loves getting balloons every time we go to the grocery store!




Ready for our bbq.



He loved his little flag!

I'm realizing these pictures are pretty lame but with a super sad baby I was lucky to get these! Jackson is normally such a happy kid that it is such a transformation when he's sick! You can tell from his face in this one!


But there was a beautiful sunset that weekend!


One of the coolest things of the weekend was when I saw a herron kill and eat a snake in our backyard!

At the end of the video is when it started swallowing the thing! It was so crazy watching it, hopefully in a few more months Jackson can enjoy it with me a little bit more!

THE Disney Day

Monday, June 27th might be the most well executed Disneyland Day with a group of 12 adults and 3 babies in history. No lies. It was near perfect. Obviously Tyler and I have a lot of experience at the Florida Parks and can guarantee a great experience with ride time maximization and wait time minimization, but at Disneyland we were on foreign ground. But we definitely conquered!

I grew up going to Disneyland, but hadn't been for 9 years. Tyler hadn't been for 20 years. We have often talked about Disneyland but since we have passes out here in Florida, we didn't think we'd go for years. But that all changed when the Jennings family decided to go for our final day in Cali. Everyone looked to me and Tyler (ok mostly Tyler) to guide them through the park, so the night before we did a quick overview of the rides and went in with a good game plan. We planned to maximize on our fast passes but also the lovely little bonus of having 3 babies would allow us to get 3 "rider switch" passes for all the big rides.

Tyler's mom bought the tickets through a broker and so we had to leave extra early to pick them up beforehand. We had thought they were passes to just Disneyland alone, but when we showed up to buy them at 7:30 am we found out they were park hoppers, allowing us to go to California Adventure too! We were all so excited for this extra bonus, but immediately Tyler and I started discussing a change in plans to our plan of attack for the day haha.

Anyways, here is the good stuff. We got to the park and Tyler immediately ran over to Indiana Jones to get us all fast passes, and the rest of us stopped to take a picture.


Then we all ran over to Matterhorn and the madness began! We were able to ride all the big rides (Matterhorn, Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, Thunder Mountain, and Splash Mountain) all before 11:45 am. We didn't have to wait in any lines, since we got fast passes and rider switches for all of them!

Here we are after getting soaked on Splash Mountain!


Oh and we also were able to ride Storybook Canal Rides, Finding Nemo Submarine, and Pirates of the Caribbean all together with the babies. All before 11:45 - do you realize how crazy that is? Well it was.

We had one of the largest groups ever on that tiny boat haha!


In line waiting for Pirates.


Then from noon to 3 we all split up and did our own thing at Disneyland. During that time Reese was able to meet all the princesses in Fantasyland and was totally in heaven! Some of us who waited behind with the babies went back and rode the big rides with others for a second time, we went on the Haunted Mansion, got some lunch, and then got all 3 of the babies to sleep in their strollers!


Then we headed over to California Adventure to do some of the big rides over there. Sneaky Tyler had actually ran over during our break and gotten fast passes for Soarin and the Screamin Roller Coaster. So ... we went right to Soarin and all 5 Jennings kids and their spouses rode it together while Grandma and Grandpa stayed outside with the babies. When we got off the ride we found them all awake and having so much fun together!

After soarin we went and got fast passes for the Tower of Terror and while we waited for our time slot, we all hung out in the Bugs Life area. There is nothing like that in Florida so it was fun to see and go on rides with the babies for a little bit! Probably the cutest moment was when all 3 grandkids rode a spinny ride with Grandma and Grandpa together in their car.


Then most of the crew rode tower of terror and some of us headed over to Toy Story Mania. And can someone please explain to me why there is no fast pass line for this ride? It's Tyler's favorite ride at all of DisneyWorld so we couldn't leave it out, but the line was over an hour! There wasn't a way to work the system sadly. But we were able to rotate in and out of line while some people rode the roller coaster and got some well needed refreshments!

Jackson had fun giving kisses to everyone in line, he and Avery got pretty "close" on this trip haha!


But Toy Story Maina was a lot of fun, I rode with Alise and she did so awesome! I hope everyone was glad we rode it (I know Scott was, he and Tyler were able to ride it twice because of rider/baby swap!) After our California Adventures some of us made it over to the parade at DisneyLand and some of us just took our time leaving the park.



After all this we were exhausted! We considered staying later and going back to ride more in Disneyland since the park didn't close til 1 am I think but by about 7 we (and the babies) were all ready to go. We had done it all anyways!


We're so grateful to Vicki for allowing us all to go! We had such an amazing trip that we will remember forever! Avery and Reese both did so good, they will be experts when they come to Florida! We rode for his gluuuuhr!

After the wedding it's the after party!

The last part of our California trip was probably the most eventful! Troy and Tammy took off on their honeymoon to Mexico, but the rest of us had so much fun in Cali! Each day was a new adventure and we'll document the first 2 here!

SATURDAY - Day in San Clemente

We spent the morning at the beach and it was so fun being there with Tyler's siblings! Jackson actually fell asleep on our 5 minute drive down there, so Grandma ended up driving back home to let him take a real nap. I left my camera in my diaper bag so I didn't have it with me and thus have no pictures. I'm not sure if anyone of us were stopping to take pictures actually. The boys had tons of fun boogie boarding and competing in paddle ball while the girls laid out, walked on the pier and chatted. We all had fun watching Reese and Grandpa explore the beach together. It was her first time at the ocean and she loved it!

That afternoon we all went over to the tennis club and had fun swimming. Jackson joined us for the afternoon and did so great in the pool! It was probably the longest he's stayed in the water all year. It helps to have Grandma, Grandpa and all his Aunts and Uncles to entertain him :-)

That night we all went out to dinner at Pizza Port and walked over to a little frozen yogurt place in downtown San Clemente. We were quite the sight all 17 of us walking down the street together!




Later that night some of us went and saw Kung Fu Panda 2. It was a fun movie but we weren't so stoked when we found out our tickets were $15 each since it was actually in 3D haha.

SUNDAY - Day in San Diego

Sunday morning we went to church at one of the San Clemente Wards at 9 am and then spent the rest of the day in San Diego. After church we went home to change and get a quick snack before we drove the hour drive down there. Jamie and Nick had told us about the Church's new Mormon Battalion Historic Site. It is a really nice building down in Old Town San Diego that tells and shows people what the Mormon Battalion was all about.

It was a beautiful day and we had so much fun! We were able to go on the tour with just our large group and Jamie even knew the sister missionary giving the tour so it was lots of fun. Travis and Avery got dressed up in their pioneer gear!


We went from room to room learning about the people on the battalion.






Twinners looking out from the top of the building.


We got to pan for gold at the end of the tour!


Afterward we were all pretty hungry so we headed down to Hodad's. I forget who had the idea but one of the Jennings men had seen this place on Diners Drive-ins and Dives and heard it was THE best burger place in town. So all 12 adults and 3 babies show up at this place and it was packed. And it was totally a Dive so there was a long line down the road just to get a table. Luckily we had the brilliant idea to order it "to go" so we only ended up waiting 20 minutes instead of an hour plus like everyone else in line.


The place was only about 1/4 mile from the beach, so we got a nice spot in the grass to enjoy our crazy huge burgers!



The next item on the agenda was probably the most special of the whole trip! We were able to stop by and see Grandma Carol. Tyler's Grandpa Jennings remarried Carol after his first wife passed away. Tyler and his siblings all love Grandma Carol and hadn't gotten to see her in a few years (a misunderstandings between Carol and Tyler's aunt & uncle) had caused a falling away - but we would not be deterred as we all wanted to see her and have her meet her great grandchildren! It was a glorious reunion and a lot of love was expressed! I personally was so excited to meet her and I know it meant a great deal to Tyler to see her again! Hopefully we can keep in better contact!



We ended Sunday night hanging around the house, and just needed a light chicken salad dinner to follow our fatburger feast that afternoon! And top it off with some crazy game playing and we ended up with one pretty jam packed Sunday. We played for his gluhhhhr!

I almost forgot to include these pictures! We had the grandkids in these darling blue and white matching outfits all day on Sunday and that night we took some pictures of them with their grandparents.

I think we might have waited a little too long to take these since Jackson was a total disaster. About 3 minutes after these were taken he was asleep in bed.


The next morning we went to Disneyland and I'm thinking that will have to be in a post all of its own...

Troy + Tammy

They did it!! Troy & Tammy were married in the San Diego Temple 2 weeks ago - June 24 and it was a beautiful day for a wedding!



Reese loved seeing Tammy in her princess dress :-)








How I'll remember the temple grounds... Jackson running his fastest to go explore!