Disneyland Day 1

We just got back from our Disneyland vacation and I have to say it was the BEST EVER!!!  We went at the PERFECT time.  There were only a handful of rides we even needed to get fast passes for and the rest of the wait times were 20 minutes or less. It was AWESOME!  Max and Kate could both ride the rides this time and they loved them all.  We met so many characters, did so many things...it was magical and I loved every minute.  I have a ton of pictures and video to edit but for now here are the pictures from our first day.

We did 4 days at Disney with One Park Per Day passes.  We spent the whole first day in California Adventure.  We started it off with a bang with Ariels Grotto!  We set the reservation for before the park opened and we were able to get in early!  They even let Dustin and the boys in early so they got like a free extra magic hour.   Character breakfasts are the way to go!  They are pricey (like $30 a person) but totally worth it!  No wait lines, the princesses come to you, and the food is SO GOOD.











We were able to ride all the rides at California Adventure this day!  Max LOVED the cars ride and was so excited when we were able to ride in the yellow car (his favorite color!)

We did a bunch of extra stuff too!  The Disney Junior show, the Frozen sing along show (so magical--there is video to come), a drawing lesson at the Animators studio, and we met Elsa and Anna! 

The Elsa and Anna meet and greet was amazing.  We only waited about 10 minutes!  They led us down a hall filled with Arendelle doors, and we had to knock before they let us in.  Such a cute little detail!  Elsa and Anna were so excited to see our little princesses and they sat and talked with them for forever.  They made them promise to eat all the chocolate at the Royal Ball and to never marry a man they just met.  I have video to come of this too.



 I'm getting teary just looking at these!  It was so amazing!

So you can see that this day was largely princess oriented.  Don't worry! There are lots of super heroes and Star Wars to come! 




Max's Birthday

For Max's birthday this year instead of throwing a party I decided to take that money and take him and his best friend out for a night of fun instead!  We went to Fat Catz, which is an arcade/bowling alley/goofy golf/theater place.  Tons of fun for a 4 year old!  We started out by eating some really good pizza, then we went bowling, then we played in the arcade!  We ended the night by getting some dessert at the Sweet Tooth Fairy.
 








On Max's actual birthday we just had a small family party.  We got him a Captain America costume, Iron Man hands (with motion activated sound effects--he's been playing with them non-stop), a fun How to Speak Droid book, and a read aloud chapter book Super Diaper Baby.  We've already read this and it is perfect for a 4 year old's sense of humor.  Max laughed so hard!


This may just be my favorite picture of Max ever!



Also we're not sure why he put on a baby shirt for his party!  Funny kid.

Happy Birthday Max!!!! 

Bottema Family Reunion

Even though the drive was SO long, I'm so very happy we decided to come to this reunion. I love my Bottema family and we had so much fun! There was so much family history, pictures, things my Grandma had made, and pictures of everybody on display, but this was the only picture I took.


Karen tracked down a cotton candy machine!  My Grandpa used to have a cotton candy machine, and he would hand out cotton candy on Halloween.  These pictures speak for themselves- the kids went nuts over the cotton candy!


We had a cake decorating contest that day and a family talent show.  These are the only pictures I took, but I think I need to mention Carson's Jesus cake and Cody's angry bird pig cake for memory's sake.  Khristen and Sherri sang their opera song that Khristen would sing for all her pageants (with a tamborine solo by Bryce), Cody and his brothers put on a poem/skit about the infamous prank we played on Uncle Paul at another reunion, and Karen's family performed a pretty epic lip sync to Neil Diamond's "Comin' to America"


There was also a slide show of my Grandpa's pictures from Korea. And we got to ride in the Green Hornet!  I don't personally have any childhood memories of this vehicle, I guess it was my Great Grandpa's and it was really cool!


The next day was the 4th and we started it out by going to the Tooele parade!  My kids buckets were overflowing with candy.



We went back to the church for a whole bunch of pretty epic games!

Water war- regular war except the winning card gets to through a cup of water on the loser!  Lose five hands and you get a pitcher of water dumped on you!

This quickly turned into a water fight :)

Cheetoh head-- put shaving cream on a shower cap and throw cheetohs!
Whisper challenge: One person has headphones on with really loud music and has to guess what the other person is trying to tell them ("salted peanuts" bahahahaha!)

Say anything:  Each person takes a turn literally saying anything and the first person to repeat or slip up gets a piece of tape stuck on their face by their opponent!

Human Hungry Hungry Hippos: laundry baskets, something to roll on, and ballons.  Hilarious!

We also had a white elephant auction.  Everyone was given $20 fake money to bid with and we all bid on items we had brought!  It was so much fun!

All five of us girl cousins were born within 2 years of each other.  We have always been really close and are the reason it's so important to me that my kids are close with their cousins!


Okay so I don't have the original picture we are trying to recreate here but just imagine a bunch of 80's hair children in matching 4th of July outfits that are hand painted with puffy paint ;)

Just kidding, I found it!


After the reunion we went to Donald's shop to shoot bottle rockets, tractor rides, ice cream and fireworks!  He also had a caboose that the kids thought was so awesome!