Easter fun!

We have had a pretty uneventful few weeks after our exciting vacation, everyone needed some recovery time:-). We decided to get back to painting, and ended up tackling our most dreaded wall - the wall paper wall. Removing it wasn't as bad as we thought, made a bit of a mess but came off fairly easily. Brian had to do some patching and sanding but we were able to prime and paint this weekend. We are down to the dining room (AKA our Lego room) and the family room and we've got a good start on those already. After that, it's just the spare room/office and all the bathrooms. I will be doing those at a very slow pace, whenever I suddenly get in the mood again! We also had our blinds installed last week which was another nice touch - slowly but surely we are bringing our house into this century!

We had to have our doctors visits for our green card applications last week. Brian and I had to get MMR shots, and we all had to go get some blood work done at the lab to be tested for various diseases. Adam was not a fan. That is putting it mildly. But, it got done so that's a big thing to check off the list! Now we wait for my long form birth certificate to come in the mail and a few other small things, and our application will be done - then the waiting begins. It is looking like we won't be able to travel out of the US for the summer because of this application, but I am hoping at the very least to be able to travel by the end of August so we can go to Vancouver for a friend's wedding. I hate not knowing how long everything will take, but such is life.

The kids got two Easter egg hunts over the weekend! We did one in our backyard with Lynsey's friends Alice and Maggie on Saturday, and then a small one Sunday morning in our house. Everyone had a lot of fun!

Disney Adventures Day 4 - Wednesday, April 5th

Last day! We had early entry to California Adventure again, but this time it seemed like the lines were longer to get into the park. We didn't get in until just after 8, thankfully we were still able to do Midway Mania again for Nathan before lines got long (which happened basically right after we did it), California Screamin' for Lynsey, and the swings for Adam. Also got to try Soarin' around the World which was really fun! Definitely the parks were getting busier as the week went on. Still a good time though, we did a few favorites and then went back to the hotel to check out. They let us use the pool after checking out which was so great of them, I can't say enough about how great the hotel was to us! And all the staff at the Disney parks, too - they were so accommodating! Definitely went above and beyond, every last one of them. Truly a magical experience!

After swimming, we headed back to Disneyland for the last time (so sad!). We had some ice cream for lunch ('cause vacation:-D) and did the Buzz Lightyear Astroblaster ride. Not as cool as midway mania, but Nathan still liked it! That was the last ride we did, we picked up some souvenirs and t-shirts for the kids and said good bye to the theme parks! 

We drove to a California Pizza Kitchen for dinner and made our way back to the rental van place. As sketchy as our initial experience was, we had a very nice shuttle driver that actually took our van to the airport so we didn't have to transfer the kids (Nathan was sleeping) and all our stuff. He was super friendly and gave me a much better feeling about the whole thing! There was traffic at the airport (at 10pm! Welcome to LA!) but thankfully we had some extra time so we were okay. Adam was definitely getting close to unraveling while we were waiting at the gate, and the beginning of the flight was dicey for sure. Nathan slept so that was good, Lynsey also fell asleep after a bit, but it took Adam quite a long time to finally give in - still fighting sleep like a champ! Everyone was pretty good about getting up and walking around when we got to Seattle, had to wait for our shuttle to take us to the parking lot and finally - at about 2:50am, we were in our van on the road home! What a crazy long day! It took me a while to wind down when we got home, but thankfully everyone slept in a bit the next morning (and by that I mean getting up between 8 and 9am!).

We are almost back to normal now, lots of reminiscing about good times we had! Adam is still a bit tired and his rants are a bit over the top still - I am hoping this will die down as he gets back into routine, it has been a bit unbearable since we got back. Lynsey was a bit sad on Thursday, it's always a bit of a letdown to come home from a fun vacation (maybe this is also part of the reason Adam has been difficult as well, always expressing it in a different way!). I just can't get over how much better everything went than I thought. I honestly wasn't really even looking forward to this trip, I was so sure it was going to be so stressful. It was not perfect for sure but it ended up being a really fun trip where we made some awesome family memories! Now to get on top of making a photo book so Adam can keep reliving his good memories - we got a few pictures printed already with our photopass and he has already looked at them a lot:-).

Disney Adventures Day 3 - Tuesday, April 4th

On Tuesday, we had early entry into Disneyland Park so we attempted to take advantage of that. Unfortunately we didn't get to the park until about 7:50 so we didn't get too much time there before all the "regular" people streamed in:-/. We went to the Fantasyland part of the park and had a great time there! Everyone enjoyed the tea cups, and again Adam tried so many rides - dark rides! I thought after the Pinocchio one he might be a bit traumatized, but he was fine to try more again. Nathan by this time was also showing some aversion to some rides, but he just needed some "persuasion" and then he usually ended up enjoying the ride (he did cry about not wanting to get on a few times, but always once the ride started he was fine and started having fun!). We finally did Dumbo that day which all the kids liked (Adam definitely preferred the rides that were outside in the light!). Around noon we headed over to Splash Mountain - I think everyone enjoyed that one! Nathan again was really hesitant, but since he could sit with me he was okay with it in the end. He did have to wear his dad's coat draped around him though! We ate at the Hungry Bear restaurant and Lynsey and Brian did Indiana Jones while I took the boys back to the hotel for, you guessed it, some down time at the pool! Nathan actually fell asleep before I could take them so Adam had to wait for Brian to get back - thankfully he was patient!

We went back to California Adventure in the late afternoon and as we were walking into the park, a kind soul stopped us and gave us her 4 fast passes for the Radiator Springs Racers ride for later that evening! Nathan was adamant that he didn't want to do it again, so we decided we would do the rider switch thing (where one of us waits with Nathan and possibly Adam and then when the first one of us is done, we switch places). First thing when we got in, we got an Access Pass time for Toy Story Midway Mania, and then headed into Hollywood Land where Lynsey got to meet Anna and Elsa and Nathan (and Lynsey since she was done with her characters) got to meet Spiderman and Captain America. Nathan was pretty thrilled! When it was time to do Midway Mania, we had to drag Nathan onto it. He absolutely loved it! It turned out to be his favorite ride! Such a timid boy! Good thing his parents know what he likes;-). We grabbed a quick bite to eat, but it was getting late so we had to hustle over to the cars ride. It ended up working out really well to do the rider switch, and Lynsey got to go twice in a row! Lucky girl, some people waited in line for several hours just to do it once! Late night, but everyone was a trooper!