Our Austin Vacation

The week before school started, we took a little last-minute vacation to Austin for 2 days. We went to a cavern, the capitol building, a museum by the capitol building, and our hotel. We had fun!!!
The people that went were our aunt (mom's sister), me, Emma, mom, Nathan,( our oldest cousin)and Brandon (our other cousin on mom's side). Me, Emma,and mom woke up early and drove down to our aunt's house. We put our bags into her car, and off we went!!!
We kids watched about 4 movies during the first part of the garland-Austin ride. We were soaked in TV-watching!!!
Our first stops were right across the street from each other!!! We went to a museum about the capitol building first. It had a ton of info about the history and information about it. We saw many cool things there. There was also the Capitol building we visited. It had things that we could look at like the pictures of the old governors and when they were Governor, some meeting rooms that were not being used we could go in, a TON of stairs(excruciating,there were quite a few!!) and a little gift shop. We loved it there!
Then, we went to our hotel. We put our stuff away and decided to go to the hotel's swimming pool. We played and then went back to go to bed. In the morning, we both went back and forth to each other's hotel rooms. We then packed our bags and headed home.
As we headed home, we stopped at a cavern. It had a gift shop, and I got a mood ring and Emma got a crystal. When we went in the cavern, we walked very far. We actually were walking for almost forty-five minutes! As we headed home, we knew our first vist to Austin was a BLAST!!!!

Our California Vacation; Days 6 - 8

We Drove Down to Carlsbad for our second half of our Vacation. Our first stop was Legoland. On day 6, we went to a water park, also known as the "worlds first Lego-themed water park." They had a fun water raft ride that was AWESOME!!!!! They also had a ride where you got to build "walls" around your raft with Lego shaped, water proof, rubber. They also had an open slide where you sit down. Emma's second favorite was probably that. Her first was that, until she tried the raft ride. There was also a closed slide, which was probably Emma's least favorite favorite, obviously because she did not try it. We also went on a pirate-themed attraction. All you did was use a water gun and shoot the other people on the ships and the shore. You did get a little wet, but it is not to bad. There also was a "mini boat ride," and it had a bunch of story themed characters, like romeo, Juliet, and Aladdin. We all enjoyed getting soaked in fun!!


On day 7, we took a day trip down to San Diego to go to the Zoo. We had heard such wonderful things about it and couldn't believe how big it was! First we went to see the polar bears, who were still sleeping and then we went to the Pandas. Some were sleeping in trees but one was eating bamboo and because there wasn't a big line we got watch her eat for a while. Very Interesting! We left there and made our way around most of the zoo. They even had heat lamps in the safari area that had the giraffes and stuff. Really cool. The Elephant area was huge and had lots of different elephants there. We ended the day seeing a bird and sea lion show that was really good and a children's show that was funny.

On day 8, we went to the rest of Legoland. We went to a place called mini land USA. It had a bunch of USA buildings that were mini, but made out of Lego's. They had some things that were auto also. They said that it was made out of thousands of Lego's, possibly millions!!! They also had a car driving thing. We went there first, so there was no line. They called it a driving school, which made sense because there were traffic lights and stop signs. They also had the famous granny smith apple fries, which were SO GOOD!!!!!! The park was doing a promo for the upcoming Lego Harry Potter game so they had a life size Hagrid made out of Legos! We adored Legoland!!

Our California Vacation; Days 1 and 6

While we were waiting to get our hotel on the days we arrived in Anaheim and San Diego, we went to 2 different beaches. We went to Huntington Beach and Oceanside, California. Huntington Beach was having a surfing contest, so we got some free samples along the way.


At Oceanside, California, the black sand stuck to our feet, and it took a while to dry off. We had fun at the beaches.

Our California Vacation, Part 1;Days 2-5

Disneyland was our first stop on our California Vacation. We went there from Monday to Thursday, riding on everything from roller coasters to boat rides. They had two parks; Disneyland and California Adventure. We met all of the "Mickey Mouse Gang", which included Mickey, Minne, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, and (some)Princesses.

California Adventure was the second park built in Disneyland. It was built in the 90s and was a 1 mintue walk from Disneyland park. In fact, when you walked into the entrance, Disneyland park was on one side and California Adventure was on another. Our favorite rides in this park were the (famous) Toy Story Mania!, California Screamin', Mickey's Fun wheel, Ariel's Carousel, Soarin' Over California, and Aladdin, the musical. This park was so awesome!!


Then there was our fav ultimate big park;DISNEYLAND!!!!!!! We chilled on some snacks and loved the rides in this park. They had the coolest rides there, with everything that made you dizzy to laughing!!! We liked all the rides but our favorites were Autotopia's Winner Circle, Astro Orbiter, Space Mountain, Dumbo The Flying Elephant, It's A Small World, Mad Hatter's Tea Party, Inventions, Pirates Of The Caribbean, and many more. We enjoyed everything about this park!!


We stayed at a hotel , which was a five-ten minute walk each day. Here was how our day went: we got up at 7, went to the park at 8, went back to the hotel at three to play at the water park and eat dinner, go to the park somewhere between 5:30 and 6, and then come back home around 8:30. We sang happy birthday to Grandpa twice; at the restaurant where he got a free sundae and in our hotel with the cake I won. We enjoyed having the cake that I won at the supper market on our last night in Disney. It was covered in German chocolate and coconut shavings. The weather was only 75 degrees there, so we never got too hot or too cold. We loved all the little things about the hotel and the weather!!!

This was the first part of our California Vacation. We enjoyed how friendly the workers were. We loved how there were similarities and differences between the rides in Disneyland and Walt Disney World. We will never forget the biggest part of our California Vacation!!!

Our California Vacation; Day One

Our first day in California was all about flying for 2 1/2-3 hours. We were looking forward to the nice weather; only 75 DEGREES!! We saw our Grandfather at the DFW airport, where he told us he was going to Disney with us!! My mother gave it away at the security line when she smiled at me when I saw my Grandfather and said " I bet we should text him and follow him!!!" I knew then that I was going with him, so I wasn't as excited as my sister when he told us about Disney.

We flew over Southern Texas, Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California to get to Orange County Airport. We Checked into our hotel, got groceries, and then went to Disney. At the store, I was standing on " The Winning Number" and won a free cake for us to have in my g-pa's bday in our hotel!!!( His birthday was actually that Wendsday, so we ate it as a bday cake in honor of his birthday!!!!)We had fun on the day of flying to California!

Abby; the "new" blogger

I know it has been 6 months since we have posted, but we are very busy. My parents have been rushing around with every thing from working to 1 o'clock in the morning to running errands all day. Hello, I am the new Blogger for our blog, Abby. Many of you probably know me from my parents, so my name is familiar to you. I am 9 years old and love to Dance and play basketball.

"ICE"

We've been wanting to see the "ICE" exhibit every year, but we never have seemed to make it there. We had planned on going before Christmas, but everyone in our family had colds, so we opted to wait until after Christmas when we also thought the crowds might be lighter. The girls and I met Brian during lunch on a Tuesday when we thought the place would be empty. We were wrong. There were a lot of people there, and this meant about a 30 minute wait to go down THE slide. It was fun and amazing, but we could have done without the crowds. I had also heard to put on several layers of clothing as it would be 9 degrees inside. I was thankful to have on our 4 layers of clothes, but it sure was time consuming when we 3 girls had to use the restroom. I think I'll always have to live south of the Red River; I'm not cut out for a cold climate.

Christmas Morning

The girls were up around 6:40 Christmas morning, and they couldn't wait to see what Santa had brought and open presents. It is so fun as a parent to see the excitement of your children on Christmas morning. This Christmas was extra special as it was the first "White Christmas" Jennifer has seen (other than when we were in Chicago for Christmas). We opened the gifts, put some things in the oven, and we headed over to Jennifer's sister's house for Christmas lunch.

We left there, and we came home to prepare for Brian's side of the family for Christmas dinner. It was an exhausting, but very fun and special day!

Christmas Eve

We were surprised by a Christmas Eve "blizzard." Brian had planned on working, but he had a bad cold and decided to take the day off. We went to a 2:30 church service that had way more people at it than we anticipated, bought a few last minute gifts, and then headed to an early dinner at Outback. It's a good thing we did, because by the time we left Outback, the roads were getting bad as well as the snow.

After we got home, everyone headed outside to play in the snow. Bailey was leaping around like a reindeer trying to catch snow flakes or trying to play fetch with snowballs, the girls made snow angels and Brian supervised.

The night ended with the girls picking one present to open. Then both picked one from Nana and they were rewarded with American Girl dolls (which was their guess). They were so excited!