Disneyland - Day 1

 We spent a fabulous 4 days at Disneyland during our trip to the US. We convinced my parents to come with us and had a great time having them there. They had not been to Disneyland since they took us as kids in the mid 80s. I think they had a lot of fun watching my kids have a blast!

We flew to CA on Sunday. My dad is so good with my kids and was giving them horse rides at the airport.

My darling cousin and her family live about 10 minutes from Disneyland. She came and picked me up at the hotel and we went and got In n Out for everyone (woohoo) and brought her family back to the hotel for all of us. It was fun to see her brand new baby and get to visit for a couple of hours. It was a great start to our trip.

 My cousin and her family with my family!

Monday morning we got up really early and got to the park when it opened. We try really hard to plan our Disney trips for the slow weeks and we did not get it right on our first day. It was  the last day that the Christmas decorations were up and they had the Christmas parade and fireworks so the park was really busy the first day. We had not been planning to see any of the Christmas stuff so that was a fun surprise. I've said it before but Disneyland is crazy magical at the holidays. I'm so glad we got to experience it again!

Emery is a Minnie Mouse fanatic so we decided to book breakfast with Minnie on our first morning. I've got to say that 3 is THE BEST age to take a kid to Disney. It was so much fun to watch her take it all in. She was blown away by having breakfast with Minnie but she did not like any of the other characters.

After breakfast and ready to go party at the park!

Ems also loves Dumbo so she was thrilled for the Dumbo ride. We rode it a lot on this trip.

Small World selfie:

Small world is my absolute favorite at Disneyland at Christmas. It's super magical. All the characters are dressed in traditional holiday garb and the musical is "Small World" and "Jingle Bells" combined. I took lots of pictures but they are mostly blurry because of the moving boats but I did get this picture right before the Small World exit. It is just a feel good ride and I love it!

I love this pic of my mom and dad. We had lots of time standing in line to visit and take pics. It was great to have them there even though it made our group big!

Jungle cruise (photo bombed by our "guide")

Watching the Christmas parade with Emery was a blast. She was so thrilled to see all her favorite characters.

Ems fell asleep while waiting for the fireworks, which were incredibly spectacular. I recorded part of the show and she has probably watched it a hundred times since then. It's a bummer she missed it but she was wiped.

It was a fabulous first day at my favorite place with my favorite people!

USA Trip - Washington Coast

Allen's mom flew to Portland on December 31 and was able to spend New Year's Eve with us. We had a pretty low key night with treats, games, dance parties and watching the ball drop.  (Pictures to come)

The next morning we got up and headed to Long Beach, WA where we stayed at Mom Frost's time share. We stayed for a few days and the weather was gorgeous! It was sunny for almost the entire time we were there which is rare for the PNW at this time of year. We took lots of walks along the beach.

I wanted to take some pictures of the kids in the sea grass growing on the dunes at the beach. Allen thought it was SO FUNNY to photo bomb all of my pictures. You can tell how funny the kids think he is though and they are lucky to have such a great dad.

The downside is that I was never able to get a non photo bombed picture of them all looking at the camera. Allen was busted for that one.

 I do LOVE this picture of the kiddos with Grandma Frost:

Carter thought it was so funny to make sand poo and pose appropriately (or inappropriately as it were). Please do not judge unless you have a 10 year old boy living at your house. I'm confident that anyone who DOES have a boy between the ages of 4 - 104 will understand how ridiculously funny he thought he was.

And then the girls had to get in on the action. Sigh.

We found out that it was clamming season in WA and decided to try our hand at it. It only happens twice a year, once in the winter and once in the summer. The tide must be at a negative level to find clams. Unfortunately, that means it is pitch black when digging in the winter. We bought some boots for Allen and me to wear and the kids thought they were so funny to clunk around in.

Marsh's Free Museum is an iconic landmark in Long Beach and we spent a surprising amount of time wandering around looking at things. It's super hard to explain but it's a shop full of old carnival games that still worked (some really old ones from the 20s and 30s), funky musical instruments, taxidermy stuffed animals and everything else you can imagine. It was a really fun afternoon.

Our kids thought this passion tester was the funniest thing in the world and did it over and over again. Best $5 in quarters we have ever spent. I'm sure the shop owners were thoroughly annoyed by us by the time we did it 20 times.

The result of all of Allen's passion (hahaha)

Jake the Alligator Man is another icon, albeit a very weird one. People have bumper stickers and tshirts with this "guy" on it. It was kind of gross.

We took a long drive to one of the lighthouses in the area and the scenery was so beautiful. One of my friends asked me if it made me miss the PNW and it really didn't. I always forget how much I hate being cold and I felt cold the entire time we were there. It sure is a gorgeous area of the country though!

We got to the lighthouse right at dusk and it was so beautiful stuck out on a little peninsula. I believe it has recently been purchased by the coast guard to become an operating lighthouse again. It was very weather- worn but love it and think it added to the charm. 

The lighting was amazing  and I caught this picture of Makenna right before my phone battery died and I am so sad I wasn't able to get more pictures of the kids. I know I'm biased but she is sure beautiful!

Later that evening we tried our hands at clamming. Here's the deal: You can go out an hour before low tide which was at about 8 p.m. It was already pitch dark and cold. Allen and I had the boots we had purchased and a clam gun but we only had a couple of small flashlights and it was hard to see. We had watched a few  Youtube videos of how to spot the places where clams are in the sand and it looked pretty easy. Yeah. Not so much. We were total rookies and while it was super memorable and funny, it was unfruitful. Our kids' feet got soaking wet within minutes and they were miserable and cold. Allen's mom took the girls back to the condo while Allen, Carter and I tried to find clams. It was easier without the girls because I wasn't worried about someone being swept into the ocean in the pitch dark after they left. But alas, we only found 1 measly clam. We were so confident going in that we thought we would have to put clams back because we would have reached the legal limit (20 clams per permit carrying person). It is so ridiculously hilarious now. Anyway, here we are after our attempt. Carter was so annoyed but I thought it was so funny and a great memory.

And here is cleaning our lone clam.

We also spent a lot of time playing in the heated outdoor pool, sitting in the hot tub, eating at yummy restaurants where we had the best clam chowder ever, playing games and watching movies. It was a wonderfully relaxing few days and we were all finally feeling healthy and over our jet lag!

Next up: Disneyland

USA Trip - Christmas

I'm feeling the pressure to get caught up on blogging since it is already February! It has been a busy beginning of the year between traveling and MOVING. Yes, we have moved to a different house but I will have to write a blog post about that later.

We were able to travel home to the US for 3 weeks during December and January. It was really busy but also really fun. We feel like the first couple years of living overseas will be full of learning experiences to figure out how to travel internationally with 4 kids. We learned a lot on this trip alone! We left the KSA on December 23 at 1:00 a.m. and flew to London and then onto Dallas. We had a pretty short layover in Dallas but Steve (Allen's brother) and his family came to the airport to visit with us for about 30 minutes. It was a short time but we loved seeing them and it gave us a little energy boost to make the last leg of our journey to Portland.

Makenna and Lauren were thick as thieves the moment they were together. It was so cute to watch them chatting and giggling like no time had passed. Cousins are the best.

Allen, Steve and baby Ben who was leery of us but much loved!

I could tell as we were boarding the flight from Dallas to Portland that the people around us were not happy to see us board with 4 kids. I know people don't love to fly around kids normally but all 6 of us slept for the entire flight. Like didn't even stir. We were exhausted and were going on 40 hours of traveling.

My sis picked up in Portland and the kids were so excited to see their cousins. Emery crashed out as soon as we got her in the carseat. We knew that she was a little bit sick at that point and that she just needed sleep.

After getting everyone settled and into bed Allen, my brother and I headed to Target to finish up our Christmas shopping. We did the bulk of our shopping online (thank goodness for Amazon) but had some odds and ends to get there. We ended up shopping until the store closed and this was our cart by the end. I was bound and determined to not have to do any shopping on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve morning started with a fun breakfast made by my nieces Brooklyn and Morgan. They made snowman and Santa pancakes for all the kids. You can see my sister's AMAZING new house in some of these pictures. It is a true dream home and every detail is so well thought out and beautiful.

After breakfast Allen took our older kids and the cousins ice skating. I stayed home with Emery who was very sick and grumpy and jet lagged. After ice skating Allen took her to the insta-care clinic and we found out she had strep. Poor thing was so so sick.

On Christmas Eve we acted out the Nativity with all the cousins. Again, my cute nieces did all the work of putting the costumes together for everyone.

The kids also made and decorated cookies for Santa before we ushered them all to bed.

I expected the kids to be up early on Christmas morning but they all slept in after a late night. (There was lots of giggling and talking late into the night on this trip and we just decided not to fight it.)

Christmas morning on the stairs. Emery was still feeling sick and wasn't very happy for most of the morning. It was a bummer because this was the first year she really understood Santa and Christmas. See how unhappy she is in this picture?

Our family before opening stockings. Santa left soooo many yummy treats that we can't get in Saudi that we had treats for the entire time we were in the US.

A rare happy moment from Miss E.

After LOTS of present opening this was the aftermath. It took us a few days to get everything cleaned up and put away.

Allen's cousin Shaina makes these darling custom dolls that I ordered for the girls. They just love them! They are very high quality and affordable. Here's a link to her shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/KrinkleKut

Later that day the kids had a gingerbread house decorating contest and had a lot of fun eating the candy!

Emery spent most of Christmas day and the following days sick and asleep. The jetlag for the little girls was pretty brutal. It wasn't as bad as when we arrived in Saudi but they were up at all hours of the night for the first few nights. I can safely say I hate jet lag!

Addie succumbs to sleep at the dinner table!

Emery and Addie really love my niece Brooklyn and she spent so much time playing with them. She dressed them up in old dance costumes and taught them songs that they performed for us. I wish she could come live with me to be my little helper. She is awesome!

One fun treat is that our dear friends from Seattle came to visit us on the way home from Utah. We got to spend the entire day playing together and we all had the best time. We lived in the same neighborhood in Seattle and had kids the same ages and genders and the fact that we adore the parents,  it was a match made in heaven. They are some of the best and most supportive friends we have ever had!

The kids were so happy to play with their cousins all day so Allen and I were able to run errands together. We did so much shopping while we were in the US. What most people don't understand about living here is that other than food shopping we really don't buy anything. Prices aren't that good and it's super inconvenient to get places and deal with prayer times.  That means is that anything we wanted and needed for the previous 6 months was put on a list to buy in the US and we also had to try to anticipate anything we will need for the next 6 months. It was honestly totally overwhelming and took a lot of time. We did get to stop at a few of our favorite places and grab food between errands. Of course 5 guys was on that list.

This is the food we bought at Costco to bring back with us. We actually went back to Costco another time and bought 60 pounds of meat that we froze and brought back and more snack foods. It's really hard to find healthy snacks here so we brought lots back with us. I think we also brought back about 15 pairs of new shoes. It was crazy!

Up Next: New year's Eve and time at the Washington Coast with Allen's mom