Fundamental difference between men and women

Woman: looks at clock and notices friends are arriving in two hours. Perfect. Just enough time to put fresh towels in the bathrooms, refill the soap dispensers, set the table, dust the living room, finish preparing the food, pick up the toy room, get the kids in their costumes, and maybe, if I have time, put a comb through my hair and put on some lipstick.

Man: looks at the clock and notices friends are arriving in two hours: Awesome. Two hours of DJ Hero before they get here.

The Beach

On Thursday afternoon we went to the beach.  I was so excited to see Ryker's reaction as he combined two of his favorite things in life: water and sand. 

Since it was the kids' first time at the beach we decided to chronicle it in the sand.

When we first arrived Ryker ran right into the water, and got rolled by a big wave. He did a somersault and came up coughing. I thought that would scare him and he'd be done, but nope. It didn't even phase him. He just stood back up and kept on running. This is pretty much what Ryker did the whole time.  Ran, and ran, and ran.  He would yell "on your mark, get set, GO!" Then he'd chase the wave out, and then scream and run and try to beat it to the beach.  He was in heaven. 

Our cute little family at the beach.

Almost all of my pictures of Ryker are of him running because that's what he did almost the entire time.  He wouldn't stand still for a picture.

Daddy buried Ryker in the sand.  Ryker was all for it until he realized he couldn't move, then he wasn't such a fan.

Miss Ruby loved the water.  She'd squeal and laugh as she dipped her feet in.  The beach is hard with a baby though.  There was sand everywhere and she kept getting it in her mouth and eyes.  She was done after about a half hour and we headed to the car to get out of the sand for her to have a quick snack.

Disneyland - Way too many good pictures

As the week continued we fell into a routine.  Disneyland until we were exhausted, eat some food, take some naps, maybe swim in the pool, then more Disneyland until we were exhausted again.  These pictures are in no particular order, but they're from approximately days 3-4 of our trip.

Grandpa was a huge help on the trip.  He had an appreciation for the nice air-conditioned hotel room, and he didn't mind at all taking the kids back with him when they needed a nap.  Grandpa and Ruby had some great bonding time, and Grandpa even wore her in the baby carrier.  Awww....

Adorable.

The timing was a bit off on my picture here, but here is Grandma and Ryker on the merry-go-round.  That's them on the far left.  Ryker LOVES his Grandma and they have a lot of fun together.

Ryker enjoying the beautiful grounds at the hotel.

My sweet baby boy.

We went to the Storytellers Cafe for breakfast one morning.  Ryker especially loved the Mickey Mouse (Missey Mouse) pancakes.

This is one of my favorite family pictures ever.  I think they had had enough Disneyland for the day.

Ruby loved the merry-go-round.  She has no problem at all hamming it up for the camera.

Ryker also loved the merry-go-round, but he's less enthusiastic about posing for pictures.

My two cute boys.

I don't do Tea Cups.  But Ryker, Josh, Grandma and Sarah had a great time on them.

He got a little upset that it wouldn't come out.

This is on Small World

Small World was one of my favorite rides.  Both kids really enjoyed it, and I loved watching them see it for the first time.  Ruby especially loved the music and danced on my lap the whole time.  I have video of it that I'll try to upload.

Family picture in front of Small World.

This was one of Ryker's favorite rides.  He was so proud that he got to actually drive a car.  He asks all the time to drive my car, so he was thrilled to finally have a chance to get behind the wheel.  He went on it a couple of times, here he is rounding the curve like a pro with Grandpa.

One of my favorite parts of Disneyland is the Blue Bayou.  It's the restaurant in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  The atmosphere is awesome, and the food is great.  The Monte Cristo sandwich changed my life...mmmmmmm...

Another cute Ruby/Sarah picture.  These two are so photogenic together!

Ryker was very generous with sharing food on this trip.  He'd eat everything he could, but it seemed to bother him if there was still food left so he'd start feeding everyone around him.  Here he is "sharing" something with Grandma. 

Disneyland - First Couple of Days

One of the things I worried about before our trip was eating out.  Ryker is usually pretty good at restaurants, but since we had Ruby we haven't gone out a lot so he was out of practice.  We only recently dared to go out just the four of us...and that was just IHOP.  But, things went really well.  Ruby-Roo can sit in a high-chair now and eat her baby food, and she loved being a part of everything.  Ryker was a super star and behaved really well the whole time.

Here we are at the Carnation Cafe on Main Street Disneyland.  This is the first place we went - we were all starving!

Miss Roo was a very happy girl despite being about two hours past nap time.  Her nap schedule was shot most of the trip, but she managed to be happy and smiley the majority of the time.  I'm sure it helped that she was at the happiest place on earth...

Ryker chowing down on his hot dogs.

Ruby and her Aunt Sarah.  Two pretty girls hanging out at Disneyland.

The next morning Ryker saw Mater and Lightning McQueen.  He was thrilled.  Cars is is favorite movie.  I'm sure he felt like he had just met his favorite movie star. 

I was back at the hotel for naptime with Ruby, and Ryker and Josh met Goofy!  Or Goosey as Ryker calls him. 

Ryker loved the splash pad area of A Bugs World.  He got soaked and loved every minute of it.  He had one small session of time-out here though for knocking over a little girl.  Rules must be enforced...even at Disneyland.

Very happy very wet boy.  Right after this though he took a pretty hard spill on the concrete.  He scraped up his forehead and had to go to the nurses station to get ice and checked out.  Josh said it was karma for knocking over the little girl. 

Miss Roo splashing her feet at the splash pad.

I love this picture of Ruby and Grandma.

Eating lunch on the balcony that afternoon.  You can kind of see the scrape on his head poor guy.

The lobby of the hotel has a TV with old Mickey Mouse cartoons on all the time, with little chairs and rocking chairs in front for kids.  Ryker thought that was the neatest thing ever and begged to watch cartoons every time we passed through the lobby. 

That night Josh and I went out on a date, with Grandpa (Pa-pa)  back at the hotel with the kids.  We were trying to remember the last time we went out to dinner together, and as far as we can recall it was for Valentines Day.  We were past due for sure.  We went to the Napa Rose restaurant at the Grand California.  It was fantastic food, and great conversation.  I just had to take a picture of my dessert because it was like a work of art!  In the middle of dinner we felt the ground start to shake.  I looked up and the chandeliers were swaying back and forth.  The first thing that came to my mind was that we left our kids for the first time in months and there's and earthquake!  But it ended quickly with no damage.  Apparently Ryker and Ruby slept soundly through the whole thing.

Disneyland - The View

Call us lucky and spoiled - we are both. We got to stay at Disney's Grand California hotel. We had a two bedroom suite, complete with living room and kitchen. I'm a complete doof and didn't take any pictures of the inside for some reason, but I think I got video which I'll go through soon. The best part of the hotel was the view from our 5th floor room. It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. It overlooked California Adventure.

When I first walked in Ryker was already there with Rachel. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the window yelling "Dinneyslan!!! Dinneyslan!!" over and over. It was adorable. Here is what he was so excited about:

Ryker eating lunch on one of our two balconies.  This one is off the master bedroom.

Wow.

Awesome.

Jumping Jellyfish!  Ryker said that over and over the whole time we were there.  Too bad he was too short to ride it...

Amazing.

Disney's new water show World of Color started just the week before we were there.  The crowds were out of control, but lucky us, we had a fantastic view from the balcony.  It was hard to get a good picture, but we video'd the whole thing.  Here are a couple shots that turned out.  The show was fantastic by the way.  It would have been worth battling the crowds if we had to! 

Disneyland - the trip

I'm not going to try to catch up on all the posts I'm past-due on. Way too much fun lately! Instead, I'm just going to post about our vacation to Disneyland! Get ready for major picture overload. We took over 450 pictures, and after looking through them about 70 of them are great. So here goes!

We left June 13th. We went with Josh's family - his parents, and two sisters Sarah and Rachel. Dan and Steph couldn't make it because little Avery is due to be born any day now! We're glad she decided to stay put until we got home. Josh's family drove, but with two babies we decided to fly. Here is our trip.

Here is Ryker at the airport.  Look at my little man carrying his backpack like a big boy.  He was so excited to fly on a big airplane!  We had been talking about it for weeks.

Our little family at the airport.  I wish I had a picture of how much stuff we took.  It was insane.  Travelling with two very little people takes some very big suitcases.

The kids both did great on the flight.  The plan was that Ruby would sleep, but she had other ideas until right before we landed.  Here she is sound asleep as the plane landed.  Ryker loved it.  As we took off he yelled "like Wonderpets!!"  I don't think he had any idea what was going to happen and he was so thrilled when we went up in the air like the Wonderpets. 

Here is my best attempt at getting a picture of Ryker in front of the airplane.  Getting a two year old to pose for a picture is challenging.  I learned that many, many times on this trip.

Miss Ruby-Roo sound asleep at the airport.