Nine.

My baby is 9.  Nine years old.

Every day of those nine years I've been grateful to be his mom.  He's a joy.  Funny, fun, frustrating, obnoxious, silly, sweet, but always a joy.  (And most of that has been chronicled on this blog!)

We celebrated with dinner at one of his favorite restaurants- Serranos.  And of course we had to have them sing to him while he wore the sombrero.

And we had cake.  He wanted the cake from the video game Portal.  The cake that inspired the term "The cake is a lie".  (I don't get it either)

And he wanted a "combustible lemon" on top.  (Again, from Portal, and again, I don't get it either.)  so I stuck a firecracker in a lemon and called it good.

Of course when he found out what "combustible" means, he flipped out and wouldn't let us try and blow up the lemon.   It's his birthday.  There were no exploding lemons that day.

The Anderson's came over to help celebrate.  They came bearing gifts, including some paper (colored!) markers, and more blue painters tape which Christopher was very excited to receive.

The Beach

I think it's a law or something that you can't go to California and not go to the beach.

Christopher thinks so too.

"Are Nick and Maddie and Zach going to the beach?"
"Yes."
"I will go to the beach too."

So we played in the sand, ("Look at this big hole!")

and played in the surf,  and generally enjoyed our afternoon in the sun.

Disneyland part 2 - Disneyland!

Happiest Place on Earth.  This is my happy spot. I'm so grateful to be able to share these things with my kids.

Anyways, Disneyland! We went on nearly everything at least once, except for the lame little kid rides and Splash Mountain, because Christopher did not want to get wet.

I was really hoping he would be able to pull the sword from the stone and be the next King, but clearly he didn't want that responsibility and didn't give it his best shot. 

In line for space mountain.

So many choices!

What I finally settled on.  And it was amazing. (And huge!)

I won a trivia contest while standing in line for a Dole Whip.  I knew that Tarzan's Tree house used to be the Swiss Family Robinson Tree house.   But of course I let Christopher wear the cool pin. 

Disneyland Part 1 - California Adventure

I took so many pictures while we were in Disneyland.  Camera phones really are a blessing and a curse.   So I sat here staring at my computer trying to figure out how to share the best of these pictures.  There's too many for one blog post.

I'm already guilty enough of over sharing pictures, I should break it up a bit.  But how?  By day?

We jumped back and forth based on Christopher's whims.  By picture type?

 Cause there are two types really: 1) just Christopher,

2) a selfie with both of us. (and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that my mouth is open in most of the selfie pictures.  Apparently I was demonstrating a scream of some sort, as the selfies were usually while we were on a ride)

And then of course there is the random picture of a picture because I didn't want to pay for the actual picture itself.

In the end, I decided to divide it up by amusement park.

So today, I shall focus on our adventures in Disney's California Adventure.

Fortunately, (for me)  Christopher is a pretty adventurous kid when it comes to rides.  He won't go on anything (once) that might get him wet.  (Which is totally fine with me.  I hate being wet and cold in amusement parks)

Of course, he was not a fan of the Tower of Terror and refused to go on it a second time.

And of course we had to get lots of ice-cream. (We're waiting for the ice-cream cone place to open here.  Where else would you get an ice-cream cone, but in a store shaped like a traffic cone?  They also had paper cones filled with bite size churros and a chocolate-chili dipping sauce.  YUM.)

Since it was just Christopher, getting a treat was so much more affordable!  With 4 kids, you have to budget the funds a little better.

Another one of the great things about vacationing with just one kid is they get to call all the shots.

There's no arguing about what ride to go on or what to see next.

It was a pretty sweet day.

Christopher & Me - Road Trippin

So Christopher and I decided that we did not like the idea of being left home alone for a whole week while everyone else was off having fun.

And - Christopher was going to be turning 9 that week,

And - The last time Christopher went to Disneyland, he was just a baby.

He has no recollection of going to Disneyland.  I had to fix that.

So we went on a bit of a road trip.

We had some deep and meaningful conversations.  He wants to be a Delta pilot when he grows up.  And is favorite airplane is the Airbus A-330.  And did you know that Southwest only flies Boeing 737's?

Thankfully we were fortunate enough to have family that lives right near Disneyland and was kind enough to share their home (and their pool!) with us.

Stay Tuned Ü

Youth Camps

The very first week of summer had my three oldest going to various church camps.  Maddie went to Girl's Camp (in California) and Zach and Nick took their dad and went to Scout Camp (also in California).

Maddie sent me random pictures of her and her friends doing various activities.  But she had a lot of fun, and told me all about it for days.   We recently had a ward split, and she was pretty upset to be separated from all her friends, but by the time camp was over, she had made a whole bunch of new friends.

I got some fun pictures from scout camp as well.  Since the boys took their dad with them, he was able to take some good pictures for me.

Nick brought a good portion of 4 years worth of school papers to burn for kindling

So, the question remains, with EVERYONE ELSE in California for the week,  What shall Christopher and I do?  Especially since his 9th birthday is at the end of the week.  We really should do something fun.  And being stuck in Arizona while EVERYONE ELSE is in California is not that fun.