Hotel California... part one...

I spent some time going through the 500+ photos today - reducing them to the shots that I knew were winners... 

Eliminating about 59 of the "It's A Small World After All" pictures... even though I KNOW that's what everyone wanted to see... 

and I was left with 72.

Too many?

Yeah, I thought so too...

SO - you'll get them in small doses.

and maybe somewhere along the way I'll realize that you don't need to see EACH of the kids attempting to pull Excalibur from the Stone - just me.  Wait, I didn't do that did I?

I present to you - Day One.

Well, the last part of day one...  they frown on you taking pictures of your little girl in church who can barely sit still because she knows that we'll soon be leaving for Disneyland.

And pictures of the car trip?  Aside from the very blurred picture of a sign advertising "$3 Craps" in Las Vegas (which was BEYOND hilarious to a 7 year old) there just wasn't much to report.

First stop in California...

Okay Second stop... the first was in a small podunk town for gas and a potty break - but the "potty break" didn't happen thanks to the whiff we got of that bathroom. We have standards people.  And apparently really really strong bladders.

I present the Redondo Beach Pier...

and that's the Veggie Teen up close and personal with the local Pelican wildlife.

M knew to keep her distance, but really wanted to see that HUGE bird!

My kind of shop...

The sky was FILLED with cool kites - there was crazy wind - and this kite gave sweet M a little bit more reason to hold tight in the wind.

Awwww... You'd think that they liked each other... maybe this really IS the happiest place on earth?

The walk-ways all along had these cool fishy themed reliefs on them, M decided this was the only way she was getting to pet a dolphin. 

And then I realized that "petting the dolphin" actually meant "caressing the layers of Seagull droppings that are coating the ground"...

Ick - where's the hand sanitizer?

And thus we became familiar with beach bathrooms... better than Podunk town bathrooms...  a little.


Oh yeah - we went to Disneyland too... 

See :)

 Goal #1 of Disneyland - Use all of the different bathrooms within the park.

Yeah, didn't happen.

Goal #2 - Ride all the rides once.

Also, didn't happen.  Is there ever a week when all the rides are even OPEN?

Don't worry - I have a lot more "happy happy joy joy" pictures to share...  and maybe a few "snarky snarky boy boy" pictures... but those will have to wait - it was a VERY jam packed Spring Break and I'd like to milk the fun for all it's worth here at least... in person it went by WAY too quickly!