Disneyland & California Adventure Park Day 2 (Oct 08)

Sommer, Cousin Savi, and Grandpa Hal

Syd waving to the parade at California Adventure.

Brooklyn's favorite: Playhouse Disney!

Gavin and Sydney watching the show.

The kids working Grandma for some more goodies!

Grandpa and Syd!

Going for the crazy rolling coaster in Toon Town.

Three princesses. Cute baby Tinkerbell Sayla.

Love the real smiles from you Syd. Oh how that girl melts my heart.

Sydney and her FAVORITE princess of all Cinderella!

Living and Breathing Disney-Disneyland Day 1 & Grandma is 50!

So these candy tubes were full of candy before we got to the house.

Sydney was in heaven with all her girl cousins and the closets full of every girl dress-up imaginable.

Here's the reason we were all in town for....Grandma Michelle turned 50! Wahoo Mom you made it! Thanks for being such a fun Grandma and taking us all to Disneyland for your big day!

The three amigos eating princess Cinderella waffles! Yes, the house even came with princess shaped waffle irons.

I could have posted about 100 pictures of the girls in different dress-ups.

Minnie and Mickey

Now we know that Brooklyn is really a Hom. Yeah that's a turkey leg i just let my daughter devour all by herself at the California Adventure park. Get it B!

What's so embarrassing about walking these two into the park Cody? What it's not normal to put your kid on a leash? Well, Syd and Gav loved it!

Front row seats to the parade. This parade may have been Syd's favorite thing all day!

What a fun Grandpa to take all these kids on the teacup ride!

Sydney's little hand did not stop waving the whole time during the parade! It was so fun to watch her experience Disneyland.

One, two, three, attack Pooh!

Sydney had got to walk along with these two and she loved every second of it.

Rides!

Brad and I got home from NYC late Tuesday night and then off I was again on Thursday morning! The girls and I joined my Mom, Dad, Cody, Ashlyn, Gavin, Isabella, Sommer, and Sayla to a little trip to Cali. We stayed at this amazing house, called the Disney Theme House. It was a rental that was in walking distance of the park that my mom found on VRBO.com. http://www.vrbo.com/144143 The family who owns the home won some TV home makeover, and Disney came in and made the house all decked out Disney style. I would recommend the home to anyone. The kids just kept coming up to us every three seconds with some new toy they had discovered. It was a blast and i could go on and on about the house and all it had, from the candy everywhere, the pool, and specialized gifts for all of us. We had a great time seeing family on my mom's side that all live in Cali and came to see us all at the house and to help celebrate my mom's big day! Well we hope to see everyone again really soon at Disneyland! Sydney still talks about it every day!

Days 3, 4, 5...NYC...

Beautiful Central Park.

Go Yankees!

The Church is true in NYC.

My favorite piece of art at the MoMa. If you can't read why, the picture says, "I don't care! I'd rather sink than call Brad for help!"

So embarrassed that we went to the ESPN Zone twice!

Letterman

Oh yeah these are to die for. Magnolia's Bakery cupcakes.

That's right Sommer is not wearing any shoes as she walks across the Brooklyn Bridge. That will tell you how much walking we did this day!

Finally we are eating what did happen to be the best steak we have ever had at Peter Luger's in Brooklyn.

Walking the Brooklyn Bridge.

Central Park

Sommer posing for us in front of the famous boat house that they talk about in the movie 27 Dresses.

Riding bikes in all around Central Park.

The view from a top Belvedere's Castle in Central Park (think Stepmom with Julia Roberts)

Sweet ride.

What you are tired? This was just the day of continuous movement and stair climbing subway rides.

Faster Homs!

Day Three: We rented bikes and road around the city and mostly Central Park (one of my top 3 favorite things), lunch at Pop Burger, we saw the musical Chicago (just so so), shopping after the show to every stinking H&M to find the one store that carried kids clothes, walking, more walking, and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to just then catch a cab to the restaurant Peter Luger's in Brooklyn, took a nice plush ride back to the hotel.

Day Four: The MoMa (Modern Museum of Art), to Union Square for the market and lunch at Republic, shopping at Union Square and the Brooklyn Industries store for our Brooklyn at home, cupcakes at Magnolia's Bakery, pick up our tickets to the David Letterman show (which aired Friday, Oct. 17th w/ Tina Fey and Frank Caliendo), dinner at Serafinas, the Letterman show (always try to get into this FREE show), then more shopping around in Times Square and back to the loved ESPN Zone for games and dessert.

Day Five: The best breakfast around at Normas, packed up our stuff and checked it with the bell hop, took a long ride up to Yankee Stadium, then tried to ride the tram to Roosevelt Island, but it wasn't running on time for us, split from Sommer and Ryan, saw the Temple and Lincoln Center, walked back to our hotel through parts of Central park. And bye to NYC!

NYC OCT. 2008 - Days 1 & 2

Views from the Station Island Ferry.

Just taking a rest on the ferry after the Century 21 shopping experience.

The Lady.

Yum! Rice to Riches!

Best soup ever @ Bread.

Wall Street, etc.

Riding the subway to our dinner at Asia de Cuba.

Top of the Rock. What a view at night. So amazing it didn't seem real.

We decided to jump on Sommer and Ryan's trip to NYC! Thanks to my mom for coming out to watch our girls we had a great time and did so many things each day. I am going to list what we did, but just for my own reference for when we go again next year (wink wink Brad). So here we go.....

Day One: take 3 hours to get to the hotel from JFK (that was a lot of fun), check into the Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Times Square, walked around Times Square, ate some pre-dinner pizza, checked out Rockefeller Center, went to the top of the Rock look-out, then to dinner at Asia de Cuba-very good restaurant, but pricey!

Day Two: Explored Wall Street and the financial district, checked out the rebuilding of Ground Zero, shopping at Century 21 (like TJ Max on steroids), lunch at Bread and Rice to Riches afterwards, shopped a little more in SOHO, took the Staten Island Ferry, pizza again before the show, we saw the play All My Sons (Katie Holmes, John Lithgow, Patrick Wilson, Dianne Wiest) such a good drama and very well acted, then we stayed to watch the stars leave the play-yeah Katie. we love you. etc., then the boys won and we went to the ESPN Zone to watch the games and eat salts and sweets.