Hollywood Bowl & Rose for No Reason

I was in charge of our June date, so I decided we should go to the Hollywood Bowl to see the opening concert. It was a 10th Anniversary Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame Concert, with two new inductees: Kiri Te Kanawa (!!!) and Josh Groban. I had never seen either of them perform in concert, and they were both amazing.

We went with a group of friends from church and had a wonderful time. We brought plenty of snacks to pass around and share, and enjoyed a beautiful night under the stars. The finale with John Williams conducting Star Wars and coordinated fireworks was pretty spectacular as well. My photo of the stage didn't turn out too well, since we were sitting WAAAAAY up high, but you get the idea.


Here we are after the show finished (look at the clock! 11:30pm!) waiting for our bus to take us back to our car, which was parked at the zoo. And it WAS a zoo in that parking lot! I'm glad we didn't park at the Bowl.


PJ was going to get me a flower for the date, but couldn't find a perfect one. So the next day, he and Avery went shopping and came home with THIS! So gorgeous. The picture doesn't do it justice. I am one lucky lady.

Diving for Dinner

Alex likes to dive for his bites of food. It gets dangerous sometimes....but it's so funny.

Disneyland Revisited

Some friends of ours offered to get us into Disneyland FOR FREE! We couldn't pass up the opportunity to go back, even though it had only been a few weeks since our first time there.

We did both parks: Disneyland and Disney's California Adventures.

Here's a montage of the letters in front of California Adventures and if you look really closely you can see Avery posing in all the letters.

We hit our favorite rides first, like Finding Nemo and the Carousel and It's a Small World. We really lucked out with lines and never had to wait very long. Avery was so brave and even went on the Matterhorn!

Dumbo
Teacups

Toon Town

Goofy's playhouse

Giving the Sorceror's Apprentice Mickey a HUGE hug.

LITTLE EINSTEINS LIVE!!!

(Avery's absolute favorite show)

Conversations with Crush

An interactive show where audience members get to ask Crush the Turtle whatever questions they want. My favorite was when he named all 63 of his kids.

Near the end of the day: still smiling

Asleep before we even left the parking lot.

Talk about a long day! We got there at 8:30 am and left after 11:00 pm. The kids were awesome. The only time Avery freaked was at the fireworks---she doesn't like loud noises.

Other than that, we had an extremely successful day. We have to pinch ourselves every now and then to remind us that we LIVE here. Wow. Who knows if and when we'll be back, but we enjoyed getting to know Disneyland these past two trips.

Cute Kiddos

I have the cutest little kids in the world.

They take after their daddy
Maybe we should have a dozen more...

Jolly Jumper

This is mostly for the grandparents who want to see my bouncing baby boy.

DISNEYLAND

We went to Disneyland this month for the first time! It was a spur of the moment decision, and we're so glad we did it. We went on a Wednesday, in hopes that the crowds wouldn't be too bad. The kids did great.

Dizzy teacups

Bumper cars at the Bug's Life area

Yay Alex! Riding the carousel!!

I love how Avery and I look exactly the same in this picture. It was the end of a very long, but very fun day.

Bed Bugs Bite

My poor darling baby girl woke up a few weeks ago with bites on her neck and shoulders. Then the next day there were more on her back and hips. At first it looked like a rash or maybe spider bites, but then we came to the realization that they were bedbugs!!! Oh my grossness.

We figured they came from her bed, (duh) which is especially probable given the fact that we bought it off craigslist. It's a pine captain bed, with five drawers in it, so there were plenty of places for the little rascals to hide. We tossed out the mattress and pillow, then took the frame outside. PJ inspected it with a flashlight and found the telltale signs of shed bug skins. Ewwwww. We researched some internet sites to figure out how to get rid of them, as we've heard it's tough to do.

The entire weekend was spent scrubbing down the frame with rubbing alcohol, leaving it in the sun to bake all day, washing ALL of our bedding and clothing in hot water and drying them all on high (why did this happen AFTER we moved from the apartment with the washer/dryer in our unit?!?!), calling an exterminator who went to TOWN spraying down the frame and the rest of the apartment, keeping the kids entertained outside for five hours while the house aired out, shopping for and buying a new mattress, and then putting down sheets and blankets on the carpet so Alex wouldn't get poison on his toys and put them in his mouth. Such a NOT fun experience, I assure you. But so far so good. I'm knocking on wood that there has been no further sign of them. I get the heebiegeebies every time I think about them. YUCK.