Five, Six, Pick Up Sticks

Two pink lines means going from three kids to four, which means our family goes from five to six. Two pink lines means all that. Who could guess it would reflect such significant change?

But there it is.

Two pink lines.

Baby #4, due June 3rd, 2012.

There and Back Again

So four days after I returned from New York, we packed up and headed to Disneyland. Well, at least four out of the five of us did.

We left Rory at home this time, knowing she wouldn't handle the long lines, even longer days, and tiresome travel well. Saturday, we hopped on a plane for one of the only times the girls have flown where dad wasn't doing the flying.

Thank you Jet Blue, for your inflight entertainment, and snacks. It made the trip both ways nice and smooth :).

Sunday morning we were up bright and early, and were sad to see extremely large crowds throughout the park. Lots of friends had told us that Disneyland in October might as well be a ghost town, so we were prepared to walk right onto the rides. Not so. Sunday we spent ten hours at the park, and rode only about ten rides. But we tried to make the best of it, and powered through.

Dany's favorite ride, the Astro Blaster

 

The Finding Nemo Submarine ride

One of the rides that elicited the most giggles was the teacups.

I know for a lot of people, it's their worst nightmare, but we got such a kick out of their constant laughter, as you can see below.

After that, we stopped for lunch, where Maisie and Dany watched Darth Vader and Darth Maul battle some padowans at the Jedi Training Academy. Maisie is very into Star Wars lately, and one of the souvenirs she bought with their earned Disney Trip money was a set of Star Wars action figures. Next we headed to the Matterhorn, or as I like to call it "The Whiplash Express".

I'm smiling still, because this is before the ride started. Yikes. We had to stop and get a picture of the castle. Dany was disappointed that there was no ride inside the castle itself.

The kids were pretty hot and tired by that point, so we checked out something I can't remember seeing since my first time in Disneyland at age five. Anyone else remember the Captain EO show, with Michael Jackson? Sweet 80's nostalgia! Dany got her groove on with the 3D glasses while we waited in air conditioned bliss.

Next we checked out the Haunted Mansion, which they completely redecorate for Halloween in the theme of Nightmare Before Christmas.

Maisie was very wary of the whole concept, and didn't handle the first ride through well at all. Part of that could have been due to the fact that they also redid Space Mountain with a lot of scary images of skeletons and stuff and she absolutely hated that. We were completely blown away when she asked to go back the next day, saying, "I know all that stuff's not real, so there's nothing to be afraid of." Tough kid. While I took Dany on the Astro Blaster, and the rockets, Teag took Maisie to see the parade after his attempt to take her to the Indiana Jones ride was foiled by the 80 minute wait.

After that, we headed back to the shuttle and our hotel for dinner and bedtime. The next day, the crowds seemed to be a little thinner, and we were able to get on a lot more rides. No matter where we go, if there's a carousel to be ridden, my kids want to ride it.

Fantasy land has always been one of my favorite places, I love all the kiddie rides there. So while we were in the area, we let the girls have a go at the Sword in the Stone.

Unfortunately, no King Arthur's in the family. Teag finally got Maisie to the Indiana Jones ride, but don't let her expression here fool you.

She hated it, describing it as "too violent". We discovered that riding the train around the park is a great way to save your feet if you're trying to get from one end to the other. Plus, they've created the tracks so that they run through other rides which is kind of fun.

Dany really wanted to see the parade, since she'd missed it the night before, so we stopped among the huge crowds and watched all their favorite Disney characters drive by. Once it was over, we quickly jumped in the line for Small World, knowing that the crowd would have dispersed by the time it was over. Yes, we willingly got on It's a Small World.

Then we headed over to Toon Town, so the kids could see where Mickey and Minnie live. I think they really liked the weird-shaped houses, and funny things to see there.

Our last day was mostly spent at California Adventure. The crowds were very small there, and girls got to do a lot of the carnival-type rides on Paradise Pier. They also loved Soarin' Over California, and rode that one twice. I think both Teag and I were surprised at what some of their favorites ended up being, like Astro Blasters and the Jungle Cruise. We had a really good time together, and the girls were such troopers! Not bad for our first foray into the Happiest Place on Earth.

New York, New York!

I had such a fun time in New York last year, that when my sister-in-law called me up and asked if I wanted to accompany her for her first time out, I did everything I could to make it happen. And, with the help of many awesome relatives who agreed to watch my kids, the trip was a go! We arrived in New Jersey Friday night, and were the very first ones to get a look at Trev & Erin's new digs. Sweet set up! Due to some rather lame setbacks from lawyers and bankers, they had literally only taken possession of the house the night before. Despite that, they had managed to set up a startling amount of stuff in their house, and were very hospitable. Thanks guys! That Saturday, we headed into the city. One of the first places we hit was Dylan's Candy Bar, home of some very creative candy paraphernalia.

I managed to find some sweet M&M's Star Wars candies for my kids, and with souvenirs accomplished, we moved on. We tried to get lunch at Serendipity again, but after waiting 90 minutes with no end in sight, we bailed and found sustenance elsewhere. Next we hit Time Square...

Where we saw a very large poster for the show that Tristin and I would be seeing that night!

That's right, Wicked on Broadway! Needless to say, we were extremely excited. And even though we weren't seeing this show, I just had to snap a pic of Harry Potter.

After a long day of hoofing it around the city, we said goodbye to Erin, and Tris and I had some much needed downtime at our hotel before the show started. Check out this view from our window!

Tris and I got all dressed up for the show, and tried unsuccessfully to take a picture of ourselves in all our finery.

We were extremely proud of ourselves that we managed to ride the subway without getting lost, and locate the theater without any problems at all.

We ended up with some pretty amazing seats; ridiculously close to the stage, but far enough over that you can't see all the way back. We missed a tiny bit of scenery and action, but all in all it was a pretty incredible experience. The talent level was amazing!

After the show, we took the subway back to the hotel, picked up a few Big Macs, and vegged out for an hour. The next morning, we took it really slow and slept in til ten. It was wonderful. After we got moving, we made our way to Grand Central Station, where we hopped on a train to New Haven, Connecticut.

Tristin was awed by the size of the main concourse, and just how many people could mill around in that space.

We had a few train mishaps when a bridge that had risen to let a boat through didn't line up the tracks when it came back down, but Trev and Erin rescued us, and we were on our way to New Haven to visit Trajan and Lauren and the girls. Trajan had just had his tonsils out a few days before and was mostly high on Percocet, but it made for some very interesting conversation! We had an incredibly delicious home-cooked meal by Lauren, and got to spend some quality time with all the East Coast Bayly's.

Unfortunately, Lauren didn't feel comfortable leaving Trajan alone with the girls for our foray into the city the next day, so we had to forge on without her :(. Trev and Erin met us in Grand Central Station, and we were on our way to tour more of the city. We visited the fireman's memorial wall where I found myself getting a little choked up at the sights depicted.

We also got tickets to come back later to tour the new 9/11 Memorial Fountains. After that, we headed to Battery Park, as Tris really wanted to see the Statue of Liberty.

Then for some reason, Tris really wanted to crush the Statue of Liberty.

Actually, that is how big the statue really was from where we were standing. In the above picture I had just utilized my camera's sweet zoom :).

Somehow we managed to keep walking by all the "Occupy Wallstreet" protesters and all the noise they were making.

We then had lunch in Little Italy, followed by a fresh canoli, and shopping in Soho. By the time we were done with that, it was almost time for our tour, so we headed back to the start of the line. They only let a certain amount of people in at a time, and you have to pass through a fair bit of security to get in. For anyone who doesn't know what they've done, my pictures really don't do it justice, and I would recommend finding more out about them.

The fountains themselves are built where the actual towers were, and all around the perimeter of both are the names of those who perished.

Off to one side is the sole tree that somehow managed to survive the catastrophic destruction.

And watching over all of it is the as-yet-unfinished Freedom Tower.

The park still has an incomplete feeling to it, and I'm anxious to see how it looks once all the construction fences are gone, and the buildings are finished.

Our last day was spent with Lauren and the girls, and then it was off to the airport for a late flight home. It was a hectic, fun-filled trip, and I needed at least a couple days to recover afterwards, but it was such a good time, made better by some good company. Thanks again Tris, we'll have to do it again!