Mickey's Halloween Party

We accidentally went back to Disneyland. It was Cole's fault. The guy who kept saying, "Why are we even going to Disney? It's going to be so expensive and the kids are going to be ornery and it's going to suck" when we went last March actually suggested we go again for fall break. And then when I reminded him that we'd have to sell a child to pay for it (I'm not saying it wouldn't be worth it... just stating the facts) he said he'd get a painting side job to pay for it. Did you catch that? Cole was so excited about going back to Disneyland that HE AGREED TO DO MANUAL LABOR. I was shocked. But not so shocked that I couldn't start buying tickets before he changed his mind.

Then I emailed my mom and told her we were thinking about going for fall break. She immediately emailed back, "I'm in! I'm all in!" It was a tough sell. She loves Disneyland more than anything.

 We didn't tell the kids we were going back - we just dragged them out of bed on Wednesday and told Caulder he had to go to school early. It was the school's fall dance day, so we told him my mom was coming with us to watch him dance. But there's no fooling the Twist. When we got in the car he started making a list of clues about what was going on:

• Mom had a sotcas (suitcase).
• Wer hedeg in the drecshin uv the erpot and iduho. (we'er heading in the direction of the airport and Idaho.)
• Dad told me that wr goeg to the bigist librere in the werld. (Dad told me that we're going to the biggest library in the world.)

So we told them when we got to the airport that we were heading back to Disneyland, and their reaction was amazing: they both just froze and did absolutely nothing. It was totally anticlimactic. Stinking kids. (Side note: blogger is flipping my pics and I don't know how to fix it. Stinking blogger.)

Disneyland was just as magical as we remembered. The boys absolutely loved it, although Tukk is still just a couple of inches too short to go on the big rides.

This is the real reason we brought Yaya. Heh heh heh...

 After getting up at 5:30 am, flying to California and spending all afternoon at Disney, they were tired. We experienced a little of this:

And a lot of this:

 But then we tanked up on churros and everyone was happy again.

 Caulder's new favorite ride is Splash Mountain. He got to ride in the front a few times, and he loved it. Once we even got to stay in the log and go for a second turn without waiting in line again... it was a Disney miracle.

I think he rode this ride 8 times while we were there. He couldn't get enough of it. At one point my mom said, "What happened to this kid? This has everything he hates: crowds, loud noises, scary stuff, and water. But he loves it." We think it's some sort of Disney-loving gene passed on by the Yaya.

Tukk loved every ride. I think Winnie the Pooh was his favorite. It's a totally messed up teeny kids' ride with heffalumps and woozles and strange spinning colors. I'm pretty sure it somehow took him back to the days when he was jacked up on morphine all the time, because that's the only way you could enjoy it. My mom said it's a testament to her love for the boy that she took him on it 3 separate times.

He also loved the carousel, and of course Pirates.

We took Caulder on Star Tours for the first time, and it blew his mind. He thought all the robots leading up to the ride were hilarious. He totally gets robot humor.

We boarded our "flight" and were told our ship had a rebel on it that Darth Vader's forces were gunning for, and then they showed a picture of Caulder up on the screen. CJ couldn't believe it! His reaction was classic. After the ride he said, "They probably said I was the rebel because they knew I would never join the dark side!"

Tukk was quite the crackshot on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster ride. Until he discovered that he could make the car spin, and then he spent the rest of the ride trying to make me barf.

 Caulder's second favorite ride is still Thunder Mountain Railroad. I think he did this one about six times, and he even got brave enough to keep his hands in the air the whole time.

Tukk practiced his sweet climbing skills ON EVERYTHING. Every fake rock, gate, fence, sign... I'm surprised he didn't get us kicked out of the park. We finally took him to the tree house so he could climb somewhere it was actually allowed.

We also stopped off at the Lego store so our little junkie could get his fix.

He didn't really even look at any of the Legos you could buy - he just spent the whole time doing this:

Tukk (and, if I'm honest, Tukk's mother) had a churro beard pretty much the whole time. That's the best way to tell whether or not you're having a good time at Disney: the thicker the churro beard, the more magical the experience.

 But our favorite part of the trip was Mickey's Halloween Party on Friday night. It was AMAZING. They had spooky Halloween lights everywhere, fog on all the water, giant lit-up Mickey ghosts. It was complete awesomeness. The kids got to wear their Halloween costumes and trick or treat, which they loved. After we hit a couple of trick or treating spots we realized EVERYONE was in those lines and no one was riding the rides, so we ditched the candy stations and starting hitting rides. We walked right on all the big ones... I think our longest wait was about 5 minutes. Plus we had a giant bag of candy. And, you know, some churros. We were loving it.

They do special Halloween fireworks, and no one does fireworks like Disney. It was an explosion of magical fantasticness.

By 11 that night this boy had nearly reached max Disney magic/churro/candy capacity. He was in serious lunatic stage, and we couldn't stop laughing at him. The dude is hilarious.

Tukk was super excited to get his glowing Mickey ears. Which you can almost see in this super crappy picture.

And then the crash came...

The force was no longer with this Disneyland Jedi.

And the Tukk was out cold.

Disneyland, you are a ridiculously overpriced, money-sucking, financial black hole. And you are worth every penny. Especially when I'm not the one who has to do the manual labor to pay for you. ;)

Soaking Up the Summertime

We've been trying to pack as much outdoor time in as we can before the horrors of winter set in. A couple of weeks ago we took a trip to Salem Pond for a picnic.

We took some bread so we could feed the ducks while we were there. And by "feed the ducks" I mean, of course, launch giant balls of bread at their heads while screaming "Incoming grenade!" I would have stopped this, except everyone knows all birds are evil and will turn on the human race at some point in the near future, so I figured the boys were doing humanity a service.

The ducks soon realized that we were part of the Fowl Resistance Movement and swam away. Have you ever seen ducks swim away from a free meal? That's the power of the Bott boys.

Once we were out of bleached flour-based missiles the boys decided to play in the trickle of water that runs through the park into this giant sludge pond.

It was hot and exhausting work. Luckily there was an easy solution to the heat...

Tukk made it approximately 12.4 seconds before falling into the pond. He managed to keep one shoe dry, and when he asked me to take the other one off I assumed it was because he wanted to keep it from getting soaked. But as soon as I took it off he proceeded to stick it into the water so he could "wash" it. He spent the rest of our park day walking around in one wet shoe while the other dripped in my purse. Somehow these things make sense when you're a 4-year-old boy.

 And of course no visit to Salem Pond would be complete without a trip across the bridge. Luckily Uncle Andrew was there to teach the boys the proper technique for bridge spitting.

We also took a camping trip to the BOG.

 We went for a hike one afternoon and found this from 2004. Ahhhh... good old Sakalou.

 Caulder has been mastering jumping with the remote control truck he got for his birthday... at least when he manages to get it away from Cole. I think Santa had better bring another special little guy his very own RC car for Christmas so he can stop stealing his 7 year old's.

 While we were at the BOG we found this pile of wood shavings, and the boys (and Muggzy) spent about 30 minutes climbing up it and jumping back down. I don't know why we bothered building them a cabin in the backyard... we should have just made them a wood chip pile.

We had to stop for a pic with the bear, or whatever this creature is. The eyes are disturbing. They haunt my nightmares.

 We carnied it up at Onion Days with my mom and dad. I couldn't believe it when CJ was dying to go on this ride. A couple of years ago we couldn't even get him to go on the kiddie coaster.

This was my hot date on the Ferris Wheel.

The redneck truck ride is a must. 

But our very favorite was the giant slide. I'd never been on it before, and it was pure awesomeness. We had to race down it twice (Caulder beat Tukk and me both times), and I'm pretty sure I was laughing the loudest. It's possible that I need to get out more.

 Tukk had his first field trip, and Cole and I both had work off so we got to tag along to the apple farm with him. 

And this weekend we convinced Grandpa Farney to fulfill Tukker's wildest dreams and take us all on a horse ride. Tukk keeps telling us he's going to be a cowboy so we need to buy him a horse. I think we'll start with cowboy boots and see how much mileage that gets us.

We went up Santaquin Canyon, and it is absolutely beautiful this time of year. 

The leaves are so red it looks like the mountain is on fire. Gorgeous.

It was a fantastic night. 

Love hanging out with my cowboys.

I Died a Thousand Deaths

While watching this happen.

It's a game called Deploy that our crazy neighbors play off the back of their boat. The boat doesn't have a propeller, so you can jump off the back while it's moving. Tukker really wanted to try it, so Cole jumped with him... while I had a heart attack on the boat.

My neighbor assured me he only went underwater for 1 second. She is - obviously - a liar. Seven eternities passed while I waited for his tiny little head to bob back up out of the wake. My mom tried to point out that it doesn't look like he even went underwater at all in the video. She's obviously delusional. It was 7 eternities. At least.

Next time we're sticking to rides on Big Mable. My nerves just can't take Deploy.

Or, even better, pizza on Big Mable with no movement at all.

These two think my paranoia is hilarious. 

Since I clearly don't have overprotective issues, Cole and I thought to ourselves, "Hey selves, what would make a 100% safe, panic-free family activity? How about rock climbing? Yeah!"

Our selves are total idiots.

So now my ulcer and I get to deal with free climbing moments like this:

And this:

And watching my children pretend they're mountain goats while they climb things like this. Do you see that tiny little blue dot at the top of the cliff? That's my baby. 

His brother climbed that same cliff in about two minutes. I could barely keep the slack out of his rope while I was belaying him because he was cruising up so fast. And he's the cautious one.

Thanks to these two, I'm pretty sure my ulcer and I are going to have a long, beautiful relationship together.

My Baby's a Preschooler!

The Tukk started preschool last Wednesday. He was so excited he could barely contain himself. Not only did he get to go to school like the big boys, but he got take his new backpack AND wear his new shoes. Epic day. 

His socks said "Small but MIGHTY." I'm pretty sure they were made specifically for him.

 We took him into the school, and after picking out his library book he got to go play while the rest of the kids arrived. Cole and I told him we were leaving, and he just said "okay!" and went back to playing. I had to force him to come give me a goodbye hug, and when he finally dragged himself away from the toys the hug lasted about .25 seconds. Apparently that's all the time he could spare for his mother. He clearly doesn't understand the rules about being the baby. The baby is always required to love the mother, to hug the mother, and - if he can't muster up actual tears - to at least pretend to be a tiny bit sad about leaving the mother. This crap about "I'm a big boy now" does not fly with the mother when it comes to the baby.

You'll be shocked to hear that when we picked him up, the first thing he told us was, "I'm hungee!" It had been two hours since his last meal, so of course starvation had already set in.

Not long after he got home this happened:

I'm telling myself the extended nap wasn't from the excitement of going to school... it was from the heartache of leaving the mother. Yes, I'm sure that's it.