Back from Cali...

So, we just returned from our annual vacation to California with Lorey's family. Everyone seemed to have a great time, the weather cooperated well, and overall it was a great experience. I took a TON of pictures, and even have a video I'd like to post of Ryan taking care of Darth Vader, so I'll get to that this weekend (finally off work).

The bird above just kind of wandered the place posing for pics...

The first day of the trip we went to San Diego. We went to the Zoo there for the first time, and while it was quite big and had a large selection of animals, it just seemed to be missing something. I can't really pinpoint it, but personally I've enjoyed a couple different zoos (Hogle in Salt Lake, and the Phoenix Zoo) a little bit more. Either way, the kids had a good time and that's really all that matters.

These guys look thrilled I keep taking their picture... :)

We then travelled to Anaheim to prepare for 3 days at Disneyland. The first day we went was on Monday and since it was just before Veteran's Day, the park was pretty crowded. Not horrible, but it's been better. We decided to take Veteran's Day off as kind of a free day, and we all went to see Madagascar 2. The movie was pretty funny---I saw the first one so long ago, I'm not even sure how to compare the two, but it was good. Then, we went back to the park on Wednesday and Thursday. Perfect weather, no crowds, it was awesome!

Sierra is finally big enough to ride most of the "fun rides" now. She went on Big Thunder Mountain railroad, Splash Mountain, even Space Mountain! I think her favorite was probably Space Mountain or the Star Tours ride where the crazy robot drives you around and tries to give you motion sickness---he's usually pretty successful---for me at least. Ryan was big enough to go on Indiana Jones for the first time, and he thought that was pretty cool.

We returned home on Friday and Lorey's family stayed with us for the weekend. Talk about a full house! At one point, there were 8 kids trying to have a bath in rotation... how people have that big of a family, I'll never know. But, the house survived, the kids had a blast, and once everybody left, we just took it easy.

This week's been a normal busy week for everyone. Ryan and Sierra both got back to school, and I got back to work. Lorey went with Ryan to help out (she's been going every week or every two weeks to give the teacher an extra set of hands/eyes) on Wednesday, and got his progress report from his teacher. Everything checks out well and she says he's a blessing to have in the class. We agree... most of the time. :)

Oh, speaking of my work, we had a bomb threat called in to the store on Wednesday. It turned out to be nothing, and basically just gave us an hour outside to hang out. Was pretty freaky though, so I'm glad they cleared the building out ASAP and at least took things seriously.

So, that's about all I've got right now (I'll add a Go Jazz/Utes/Duke here for good measure), but I'm looking to get those pictures/vids up this weekend, so look for them soon-ish.

Until then!