Disneyland, Day 2

 Emma loved "helping" push the stroller around, which I was okay with, because usually if she wasn't pushing the stroller, she was asking me to hold her. By the end of the first day, my feet were killing me. Fortunately, after that Kurt and Papa took turns distracting her and holding her.

 On day 2, the girls wore their Tinkerbell shirts to meet Tinkerbell.

 Tinkerbell's friend, Rosetta, warmed the girls up while we waited to see Tinkerbell.

 At last, our favorite winged friend!

 Papa carrying Emma on his shoulders.

 We rode on the Jungle Cruise this day. The girls loved the animals. They were convinced the animals were real.

 We rode on the train, Casey Jr. We were in the monkey cage. The song from the ride was stuck in my head for several days afterwards.

 That day for lunch we ate with princesses! The girls got to meet Ariel, Belle (pictured), Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Naomi was much more into it than Emma, but I think Emma was tired by this point. Naomi was pretty excited to see all the princesses.

 That night we watched the parade on Main Street.

 The girls each got a churro. Emma's was nearly as big as her!

We also went to Toon Town. Naomi decided to fish coins out of the wishing fountain (shhh!) to use as spending money. Yes, 3 cents gets you far at Disneyland. ;)

Disneyland, Day 1

 We arrived at our hotel Monday evening, just in time for dinner. Our hotel room had baskets of fruit waiting for us, and a bunch of balloons tied to a special Disneyland mug for Kurt for graduating from medical school. Naomi quickly made the comment that she graduated, too, from preschool, so the mug was both for her and for daddy. I thought it was pretty cute. :)

 The next morning we headed into the park at 7 am for our "Magical Morning". If you buy a 3-ticket package, you can opt to get into the park an hour earlier than everyone else. We used our hour to go on some rides than normally have really long lines. Our very first ride was the Finding Nemo-themed submarine ride. I wasn't able to get many pictures of the girls on rides, so just understand we went on a lot more rides than pictured. ;) Above, Kurt, Papa and the girls are riding the famous teacup ride.

 Here are the girls at the beginning of the Small World ride.

 That morning, we got to eat a special breakfast with Minnie Mouse and several other characters. The characters went around to all the tables and signed autograph books and took pictures with all the kids.

 The girls wore their special Minnie Mouse outfits for the occasion.

Moving In

Emma watching Barney amidst the chaos of moving in. And if you're looking closely, you can see the very last box Kurt packed up--it's marked "the last chopper out of Vietnam".

 Kurt and his dad drove the truck from Utah to California while me and the girls went with Kurt's mom. Us girls decided to stay in a hotel half way there instead of drive straight (we couldn't leave until Paula got off work anyway--she had a half day of school).

We found a park within walking distance of our new place.

 Since Kurt and Boyd weren't sure if they'd get to our rental office before they closed, the office came up with the brilliant idea of chucking our keys in the bush if we got there past closing time. As Kurt neared Loma Linda, he realized they might actually make it, and since Kurt was nervous about having our keys sitting outside in a bush, they called the office to tell them how close they were and to please wait. They got to the office at 5:06--six minutes past closing. The door was locked. Our keys were in the bush.

Naomi cleans our new windows.

 When Kurt and Boyd got to the house, they discovered that the carpets had not been cleaned, and there was a layer of grime over everything. There were cables sticking out the wall that the manager said they would take out, but didn't. Our precious 8'x10' plot of grass they claimed had an automatic sprinkler was dead. The one sprinkler was broken. The A/C was broken. And the keys in the bush did not include any keys to the garage. With only a day left with the truck, I was freaking out. We had a truck full of stuff and nowhere to put it. And I wasn't sure I wanted to live there if the management was going to be so crappy to us.

 That night Kurt and Boyd got some sleeping bags out of the truck and slept on the floor. Paula and I were extra grateful we got to sleep in beds at the hotel. The next morning, Boyd went to the office and talked to the secretary there (the manager was out, naturally). After that things started to get better. They sent someone to clean the carpet and arranged to have someone clean the rest of the house. They fixed the A/C and gave us a garage door opener (although we still don't have a key to get in through the garage door close to our house). Kurt and Boyd were able to get most of our stuff into the garage and return the truck. Unfortunately, this set us back two days, so we weren't able to start putting things away until late Saturday, even though Kurt and Boyd got there on Thursday.

But despite the problems we had on move-in, we love our new place. Is it so much more open than our last house and my kids love having a room dedicated to toys. Okay, actually I think it's more me loving not having toys scattered all over the living room. And not to brag or anything, but after putting away all my dishes, I still had several cupboards completely empty. I keep finding new empty cupboards I never even noticed before. It's a nice change from having to invent new ways to maximize a teeny tiny kitchen. :)

Utah Fun

 We had a lot of fun spending time with family in Utah, hanging out at the pool, and visiting. The girls also got to enjoy a ride in Papa's "new" Jag.

 Woo hoo!

One day we got to make chocolate bears with Nicole and the cousins. Here is everyone with their beautilicious bears. :)

Check In

So much has happened lately, I have over 300 pictures to sort through before I can start posting pictures! But I thought I'd check in and let you guys know we're still here. We have successfully started moving in to our new place. Our stuff's here, but we have yet to put it all away. We had a few issues the first days we were here with our apartment. Namely, everything the property manager said they would fix/clean before we moved in was not fixed or cleaned. But the manager is working with us. They sent someone to clean the carpets and then the house, which meant we couldn't move everything in for a couple of days. That set us back, giving us less than two days to unpack and prepare for our trip to Disneyland. We got back today, but now we're all so tired from walking around for 3 days, everyone is taking naps. Except for Naomi. She's still going a mile a minute. But hopefully within the next few days we can get the boxes out of the house and start feeling like a functional household again. And maybe then I'll post some pictures of our new place. We're loving the space, and once the boxes are gone I'm sure we'll love it even more. I still feel pretty lost driving around town, but give me a year. I'll get it eventually. And give me a few days and I'll post some pictures of our adventures. Stay tuned!

We're Here For RSL!

 On Saturday Kurt and I celebrated our 6th Wedding Anniversary. It just so happened that there was a Real Salt Lake soccer game against FC Dallas that night, and since Kurt is a huge Real fan, we decided to splurge and go to the game. Despite being a huge fan, and wanting to go to a game since 1996, this is Kurt's first MLS game! Better late than never, right?

It was a chilly/windy night, and since our coats were packed up in the moving truck, we borrowed jackets from Kurt's mom and dad.
The game was really good. Even though Real was playing better, the score stayed pretty even throughout the game. But, they scored the winning goal in the last two minutes of stoppage time (kind of like overtime). It was a great game!

I think there is some blog obligation here to record some sort of stats for our first 6 years:
2 kids
3 1/2 houses (we're on the way to number 4!)
3 degrees achieved (two Bachelors, and one MD)

Happy Anniversary to my best friend! These have been the best 6 years of my life!

Emma is Swimming!

 We arrived safely in Utah. It still hasn't sunk in that I'm moving. I wasn't there when they loaded up the moving truck, and I never saw the empty house. I think in the back of my mind my subconscious is convinced I'm just on another vacation and that we'll be headed back to Rochester in a week or two. But I'll be back someday, right? Right?

 But I'll focus on Emma now. Last year Nana got Emma an infant life jacket, but she HATED it. And she did  not want to be held in the water, and she definitely did not want to sit in an infant floaty. So this year she graduated to a toddler life vest, and thankfully she is okay with it. It's a good thing, too, because her desire for independence in the pool has not changed!

We were only in the pool for an hour, but by the end, she was able to kick and move around by herself. She loves to jump in the pool, and half the time she doesn't want me to catch her. She even tried to jump off the diving board by herself, but I stopped her just in time. Seriously, I can't take my eyes off that girl for two seconds. I thought I'd be okay taking two kids to a pool by myself when we're in California, but I'm having second thoughts.