Disneyland, Anaheim, CA (May 24, 2008)

We decided that since we were so close, we'd hop in the car and drive up to Anaheim and hit up Disneyland. The weather was nice and the crowds weren't too bad considering it was a Saturday. We showed up at 7:45 am before the park opened, so we got to ride about 12 rides within the first hour. Although the kids probably could have made it until midnight, Eliza and Cody were exhausted by 7:00 pm and we left to go back to the hotel and get off our feet. Some pictures of our Disneyland experience follow:


The kids loved Toontown and the Roger Rabbit ride.


Riding the Astro Orbiter with Daddy.


Petting the sheep and goats.


Waiting in line to ride Buzz Lightyear's Ride. This was by far the kids' favorite ride. They got to shoot laser guns at all the aliens. We had to pry the gun from Ryder's hands and we practically had to use a crowbar to get him to let go of the ride. After the ride, we let the kids pick out a toy and Ryder, without hesitation, went straight for the Buzz Lightyear gun.


Eliza and the kids with Ariel.


The happiest place on Earth.


Posing in front of the Dumbo hedges.


The kids with Belle.


The kids with Jasmine.


The kids with Mulan.

Legoland, San Diego, CA (May 22, 2008)

Since we were in the area, we thought we'd check out Legoland...we heard it was a good park for kids from several friends. We bought some discounted tickets from craigslist.com and were on our way. This park is pretty much the Swedish version of Disneyland, but, in Cody's opinion, the park isn't that great. Ryder was only able to ride 4 rides due to his height, and the rides were all pretty unexciting. It was pretty neat to see all of the things they did with Legos, though.


Here we are riding boats in the storybook canal. They had constructed pretty much all of the nursery rhyme characters (Little Red Riding Hood, 3 Little Pigs, Big Bad Wolf, etc.) out of Legos.


Sawyer's first experience going down a pole. She surprised herself at how good she could do it.


Eliza picking Einstein's nose. He's made entirely out of the small legos.


Sawyer and Ryder posing at the entrance of the park.


This boat took us on a cruise through a miniature lego world. They had built the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and New York skyline, and tons of other world landmarks all out of Legos. The guide said they used over 264 million legos to build the miniature world.

Playing on the Beach, San Diego, CA (May 21, 2008)

The kids burying Daddy in the sand.


Building sandcastles.

La Jolla and Seal Beach, San Diego, CA (May 21, 2008)

It was a little chilly, but we had a wonderful walk along the shores in La Jolla Cove in the early morning.


Bundling up.


Seal Beach...hundreds of seals just laying there. We watched them wake up and were able to walk all the way down on the beach, just 3 feet from the seals. The kids were in awe.


Seal Beach.

Mission Bay Park, San Diego, CA (May 20, 2008)

We wore ourselves out trying to fly our kites. We are terrible kite-fliers, so we gave up and moved on to the playground.


Ryder hanging on the monkey bars.


Sawyer kept climbing to the top of the dome and swinging herself down through the cracks into the sand below.

It's a Boy!! (May 19, 2008)

We found out today that we are having a little boy. The due date is October 13th. Eliza now has to take the girly bedroom set that she bought last week back to the store. Sorry Eliza, maybe next time.


A pretty good profile of our little guy.


Here he's either laughing at us or getting a drink.

Cody Finished His Last Final Exam of Law School (May 14, 2008)

Cody finished up law school today. It has been a long road for us. For the past 4 years, Cody has been working full time and heading up to school after work (usually 4 nights per week). Normally, he is not home before 9:30 pm. Needless to say, we are happy that we are just about past this phase in our lives. Cody still has to pass the bar in July and will be taking bar preparation courses at night for the next couple months, but at least there is light at the end of the tunnel. Below are some pictures of Duquesne University and the Pittsburgh skyline:


This is the Duquesne Arch that you drive through to get to campus.


This is the law school. Cody spent a good portion of the past 4 years in this building.


Most people don't realize what a beautiful city Pittsburgh is. This is pretty much what it looks like at dusk on a clear summer night.


Pittsburgh has more bridges than any other city in the world with the exception of Venice, Italy. A little piece of trivia that we learned while on a riverboat cruise for Eliza's birthday last year.


Here you can see that Pittsburgh is situated at a point where the Allegheny River (coming at you from the left side of the picture) and the Monongahela River (coming at you from the right side of the picture) meet to join the Ohio River (exiting the bottom of the picture).

Cutting the Grass (May 10, 2008)

We bought a used riding mower this week. Our lawn was getting to be pretty ridiculous as we haven't spent any time taking care of the yard since last summer. When Cody mowed it for the first time it was more like "plowing a field" than "mowing a lawn". For those who have been to our house, our lawn is deceptively big (Cody's brother Kyle can attest to that as he was the first one to mow it last year when Kyle and Whitney were living with us. He mowed it with a push mower and it took him over 5 hours). Not only that, but our front yard is on a very steep hill (the picture below is taken at the crest of the hill, but the picture doesn't do it justice). Ryder, Sawyer, and Savannah (cousin) took turns mowing the lawn with Cody. Needless to say, the yard looks 100 times better than it did last week.

Look at that grin on Ryder's face. He could do this all day long.