Family Vacation

Recently, the "Chaos" family went on a short get away. We jetted down to So.Cal. for a week of fun, family, and frolic. We spent a day and a half visiting with family before heading to San Diego to act like tourists. Once in San Diego, we spent a day at Legoland. They offer a generous home school discount as long as you visit on predetermined days. The normal price of admission is $54 and up per person. With the home school discount we paid only $17 per person. WOOT! How can you beat that? We also visited the new Sea Life Aquarium at Legoland. Not nearly as awesome as the Monterey Bay or Long Beach aquariums but the kids really enjoyed the many Lego structures incorporated into the displays and tanks. We had "kids enter free" tickets for the aquarium, so more money saved. WOOT again! We spent a day wandering around the wharfs and Sea Port Village area. We also took the 2 hour harbor cruise. The boys really enjoyed seeing all the naval ships and aircraft carriers. On our last day in beautiful S.D. we visited the San Diego Wild Animal Park. What an awesome place! Although it was super hot, the animals were all out and about and we were able to see so many awesome sights. The only drawbacks were the bees swarming everywhere making it difficult to sit down and rest anywhere and the park is HUGE, making it virtually impossible to view everything in one day. This is one place I would like to go back to simply because I know there was so much more to see but we just ran out of time. One big plus of the day was that, once again, the kids were free! WOOT, WOOT! On top of all the money that we saved at the amusement parks on admission, all our lodging was also free. My Honey travels often and he earns lots of points at those hotels. Because of this, we almost always are able to get our lodging free. Thank goodness, because we spent way too much on Legos at Legoland!

Anyway, without further ado, here are some pictures of our family get away. Don't forget that you can click on any picture to enlarge it. Enjoy.

The Boys, Uncle Rob and Grampa.

The Boys, Uncle Rob, Grampa, and My Honey.

The Boys with Grama and Grampa.

Off to Legoland.................

The Boys at the touch pool at the new Sea Life Aquarium.

Pretending to be underwater.

The GIANT Lego pumpkin! These are all over the park right now.

The Boys on one of the rides. This one requires you to use your own strength to pull yourselves to the top of the tower. Notice who is putting in all the effort.

Goofing around.

Little Man with a Bionicle......His favorite toys!!!

Muffin Man with a Bionicle.


Mini Land........This is my favorite area in Legoland. They have so many awesome replicas of famous landmarks and EVERYTHING is made of Legos. I could spend hours just looking.
Here is the war memorial.

The Daytona Racetrack. Look at the detail!

Excalibur. The hotel My Honey and I stayed at when we got married in Vegas

The Freedom Tower.


The Harbor Tour of San Diego.

A Naval destroyer that passed us in the harbor. AWESOME!

The USS Mercy, one of two Navy hospital ships.

The Boys on the Merry-Go-Round at Sea Port Village.




Off to the Wild Animal Park.

The giraffes.

The rhinos.

Look at the huge expanse of area they have to roam around in. Just one of the things that makes this park unique.



A cheetah

Here are some pictures of My Honey and the boys feeding the Lorikeets. That was FUN! They were landing all over us.





Here are some STRANGE, unidentified animals that were loose in the park.

The birds are loose and just all over the park but they do not leave because they know a good thing when they find it.

Here is a beautiful bird in the tropical bird area.

The lions were just majestic!



And here is a cheetah we were able to see up close and personal. We were sitting on a bench looking at our map when a side gate opened and this woman walked out with this beautiful cheetah on a leash. She proceeded to do a talk about cheetahs and we had front row seats. We are literally 10 feet from this cheetah in the picture. It was purring just like our cats only A LOT louder. Too cute!

Summer Memories

Summer is over and tomorrow is the first official day of Autumn, although here in Arizona the Summer sun blazes on. We are still having triple digit heat and I am anxiously awaiting Autumn temperatures. We started our new school year back on August 4th and things are going really well. I switched to a new curriculum and I love it! Even better, the boys seem to really be enjoying it! P.E. begins this next Friday and I am looking forward to getting the kids out to the park early on Friday mornings. I am going to use the time to get a bit of exercise myself and walk the path while they are in class. Although I am glad Summer is over, I can look back fondly on all our activities. We stayed busy every day and really had a wonderful few months. We were so busy that I seldom made it to the computer to blog about any of our great adventure's. So without further ado, here is a synopsis..........

The boys and I made a solar powered S'more oven. What better way to cook s'mores than in the 120 degree heat of the sun! After about an hour in the sun, the chocolate was well melted, the graham crackers were toasty crisp, and the marshmallows were warm and soft. MMMMMM!


We spent quite a bit of time at the bowling alley this summer. Our bowling alley generously gives every school aged child in our city a summer pass that is good for one game and shoe rental per day for 100 straight days. Being able to get out of the house and into a well air conditioned building AND have something fun for the boys to do is quite a treat in the summer. Both Muffin Man and Little Man made great improvements in their bowling this summer.




We always met friends at the bowling alley.............




And we usually spent at least part of our time goofing off or acting like a super hero................



Sometimes we even dressed like them....................





And sometimes we learned lessons on why it is a bad idea to run while carrying a 7 pound bowling ball...................(if you can not see the photo well, just click on it.)


You have NO idea how scared I was when I saw Muffin Man go down face first on the ball! And the sound of that ball and face connecting was just sickening! I thought for sure he was going to have no teeth left, or a broken nose or jaw! God was looking out for my little guy that day and all he ended up with was that nasty bruise and a sore chin. AMEN! I think he learned his lesson about running in the bowling alley.

We had a wonderful visit from good friends from New Mexico. It was so fun to visit with them and see their little ones. The kids had a great time playing and we hope to visit them at their home SOON!


We celebrated both of the boys birthday's at home with family.............



And we had a slumber party in the middle of the month with friends......





We started taking Karate lessons and just love it! The boys are doing so well. Both have gained so many new skills over the summer and are working hard toward that yellow belt!




Along with all the activities shown above, we also spent many days lounging in the pool, playing with friends, playing with video games, and just hanging out with each other. And that about covers it. The lazy days of Summer have passed and we are back to the grind of school and schedules.......But honestly, it really isn't so bad!