Happy 8th Birthday, AUDRIANA!

Sister Sofia was very excited for Audriana and her big day!

8 years ago, on October 11, 2002, a baby girl was born -- we named her Audriana and she was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to us. She continues to amaze us everyday and we are so thankful for her. She adds so much to our family and keeps us all on track. She delights in knowing and following the rules and she especially loves making sure her little sister Sofia is following the rules, too, which is the cause of many arguments between these 2 girls! She is the first to tell us that we have left the kitchen with a pot on the stove and the burner still on (hello...it's called cooking!!!). She calls us back into the kitchen and if we aren't there immediately, she simply turns the burner off! She watches the clock and reminds us when we should be leaving so we are not late (Martin just loves that...yeah, right!). :-)

Things Audriana loves: Soccer, BTR (Big Time Rush -- Carlos is her favorite), ICarly, going to school, playing with friends during recess (typically always boys), reading joke books, reading non-fiction "book of facts" type books, legos, pirates, and Country music!

She's simply amazing and she's simply ours to love and watch grow. We love you, babe!

Yup.....she sure loves her Uncle Mike! He got her a very cool erector set thingy that she can build to her hearts content!

Mom and Dad got her the Star Wars Trilogy DVD's (the original ones from the 1970's IV, V, and VI). She's waited a long time to be able to watch these movies -- I told her that she could watch Star Wars once she turned 8. : ) We also got her a Paper Jam's guitar, a nerf football and Bop-It! Fun!

Jenny had fun trying to figure out how to play "Bop-It"! LOL!

Jenny and Courtney were here tonight, as well as Aunt Kristi, Uncle Mike, Grandma and Grandpa. This year we are not having big parties...just simple family dinners. Audriana chose spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread. I also made a green salad and it turned into a really good meal! Grandpa and Grandma had a good time trying to figure out just how this "Paper Jam" guitar worked!

Spider Man cake....she chose chocolate cake with cherry filling.

Jammin'

Aunt Pam, Uncle Todd, Lily, Brook and Jaime never dissappoint with gifts for the girls...but this was certainly one of the best! Audriana loves it and spent a good part of the night (after all the presents were open) playing with the Buzz Lightyear robot on the kitchen floor! : )

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!

Of course our little Natalie Wells-Dutton turned 8, too! Her birthday is Oct 10th and she had a really fun swimming party at the North side YMCA. Kim and I have had fun raising these 2 awesome girls together!

Our Sofia is READING!

This is one of those times where I sit back and think about how fast my babies (who really aren't babies anymore!) are growing up! I came home from work tonight and found Sofia on the floor with a bunch of BOB books around her -- and she was working so hard to read each and every word! She was sounding out each 3 and 4 letter word very carefully, getting most of them right! She gets it -- she knows that she needs to sound out each letter to read each word. She sat there for over an hour tonight doing this -- working so hard! The sweetest part was when Audriana was sitting next to her "helping" her read. I love our girls so much and times like these fill my heart with such pride!

Sofia first soccer game -- and she's a soccer SUPERSTAR!

Today Sofia played her first soccer game....and I am proud to announce that she was AMAZING! We could not believe it as we watched her little face get the most determined look on it that I have ever seen. She was going for broke~and it was so fun to watch! She kept her eyes on that ball and ran after it like she'd been playing for years! She did not disappoint...scoring 5 goals for her team (the only 5 goals that the team scored, by the way!). Audriana is taking some of the credit by saying "she's so good because she has been watching me for all these years!". LOL! In any case.....we do believe that we have another soccer star amongst us! Go Sofia! We are so proud of you!
I forgot how fun it is to watch 4 year olds play soccer! They really don't even know which way to go -- which is why Michelle (one of Sofia's assistant coaches) was helping them out on the field! So funny! Not to brag, but Sofia knew which way to go......

Here she is turning the ball around and ready to play it down the field for her first goal!

The other team had a player who was 5 and had played soccer before -- so it quickly became the Sofia and Maya show.

Go Sofia!

a TRiP oF A liFETimE!

At the Spokane airport...ready to check in for our flight to Orange County! The girls, as you can see, were very excited (even at 6am!)

We met up with the Meadows family -- the boys, Justin and Jake, were ready too! Although on different flights, we all arrived in Orange County within 10 minutes of each other!

On the plane....ready for take off!

Can you see her excitement?

We landed in OC, met up with the Meadows, got our rental cars, and headed straight down I-5 to San Diego! We checked into the San Diego Courtyard Hotel Circle, and decided to let the kids swim and the adults relax before our big San Diego Zoo adventure on Sunday.

The kids had a blast and swam for about 3 hours! The weather was perfect, too!

Beautiful hotel...and a beautiful outdoor pool.

The next morning, we got ready and headed down to the lobby to meet up with Tim and the kids. Ready for the San Diego Zoo -- everyone was so excited for our day to begin!

I love this picture of Tim, our girls, and his kids Emiel and Cadey.

Awww.....my best buddy Tim! I love this guy and we've been friends since our days in hotel school at WSU!

Zoo....touching, feeling, and learning.

Tim arranged a private animal showing for all of us -- it was so incredible to be so close to these animals. We got to touch a few of them, too! This is a Meerkat - eating some sort of wormy things.

This one we did not get to touch....but it was so cool to see him up close! A definate WOW for all of us!

After a fun gondola ride across this enormous zoo, we ended up eating lunch near the Elephant Odyssey! Again, Tim did not dissapoint and treated all of us to lunch!

Sofia and me in front of some awesome elephants!

Here's a great group shot of the Alfaro's and the Meadow's at the Zoo.

The giraffe's were amazing, too! My favorite.

The kids had a lot of fun reading the Zoo map and trying to figure out where we were and where we needed to go.

Martin and I visited the San Diego Zoo 10 years ago for our honeymoon and it was fun being back there again with him! I love you babe!

After the zoo, we all headed over to Tim's house where we got to just hang out and relax. Tim made an enormous Mexican feast, which was amazing, and all the kids played in their pool. Me, well, I had a couple of cold beers and took in the beautiful view and scenery that we had from their deck.

Kids playing in the Murphy-Mulligan pool!

HELLO LEGOLAND! The next morning we all woke up early and arrived at Legoland. Because it was a monday morning, and most kids were in school, we were blessed with no crowds at all. This was a fabulous park and I would recommend it for anyone who has kids under 11 or so. Our kids loved it and even the adults had a great time!

The girls were thrilled when we agreed to their begging to get their faces painted. I think this was the first time for both of them -- and they both turned out so great! Fantastic! The only thing we didn't think about was that we should have gotten their faces painted AFTER the water park! At least it lasted for about 30 minutes or so!

The awesome Legoland Water Park! It was virtually empty and the kids really got to play without all the crowds that are normally there.

The kids enjoyed floating down the lazy Lego river......while Martin enjoyed taking a little break!

We had to have a little ice cream!!!

The next day was Tuesday and we were at the gates of SeaWorld when they opened. Again....as luck would have it, the park was not crowded in the least and we got to enjoy all the wonderful things that SeaWorld has to offer! We had never been here before, so we were really impressed with how big this park was. Not only were there big dolphin shows to see, but there was also animals and tons of rides!

This was a shot of the group after we all got soaked (look at Sofia!) on River Rapids ride (all 8 of us got into a round innertube and rode the rapids)!

A fun 4-D show - starring some of the Sesame characters!

We were able to get into the splash zone of the world famous Shamu Show! Yes, we all got absolutely soaked....but it was worth it! Great fun!
After a very long and full day at SeaWorld, we drove up to Anaheim and checked into the Anaheim Courtyard. We were surprised and thrilled to enter our room and see that we had been upgraded to a "Kids Suite", complete with bunk beds and Disney gifts for the kids! The Meadows family was also upgraded to a kids suite and gifts! So cool -- thank you Mitch Healy, GM of this great hotel!

After we all collapsed (remember, we've been going strong since early Saturday morning!), we woke up ready to spend the next 3 days at Disneyland and California Adventure Park! Woo Hoo! This was the original reason for our trip! We could not have been more excited!

Oh, I also forgot to mention that my friend Mitch gave all of us free 3 day passes for the Disnland shuttle bus -- we were able to walk across the parking lot to the big Marriott and catch the bus very easily there. We would never have made it if we had to walk back and forth -- walking all day at the parks was enough for our poor, old feet! : ) We were at the gates by 10am, which is when the park opened and ended up staying until 9pm that evening! The girls were such troopers and did not complain or get cranky or tired at all. The evening ended with a beautiful water show inside California Adventure Park called World of Color. It was stunning!

I'm really glad that we stumbled across Mater and Lightning McQueen! There was no line at all (no crowds!), so the girls were able to scoot right in and get their pictures taken with the cars from the movie Cars! This has been a favority of the girls for years -- we still occassionally watch that movie on movie nights...even though they have seen it 20 times!

It's a Small World is a favorite of mine....mainly because it is one of the vivid memories that I have as a 7 year old child when my mom and dad took us 4 kids down to Disneyland via our camper. I know now what a labor of love that was!

We spent about 3 hours at Toon Town! Great rides, fun things for the kids to do, and lots of characters walking around! Even though Minnie's house was closed, we were able to tour Mickey's house and even get to see Mickey and have our picture taken with him! Fun!

Pluto and the kids!

Sofia and Goofy!

Sofia and I on Thunder Mountain Railroad -- getting ready to roll! This is a great roller coaster ride and we all loved it! Sofia surprised all of us with her love of all the fast roller coaster rides! She went on every one of them -- not afraid one bit -- in fact, usually pestering us to "do that one again!". The only ride she could not ride, due to a height requirement of 46 inches (she was only 42 inches) was the Indiana Jones ride.

Here is Sofia with Cinderella's castle behind her.....she asked me to take this picture. Adorable.

California Adventure Park at night....just before the World of Color show began.

Audriana's favorite ride, hands down, was the Indianna Jones ride. This picture was taken just after we finished riding it for the first time. She got to ride it a total of 6 times during our 3 days at the park because Martin and I loved it, too, and wanted to ride it too. This is a very popular ride and most people wait 1 to 2 hours to ride it once! We literally walked right onto all these rides (Wednesday and Thursday).

We rode this real steam boat around Tom Sawyers Island.....it was nice to sit and rest our feet for a few minutes!

Another favorite ride was Splash Mountain. Audriana got to sit in the very front seat and this is how wet she got! Hahaha!!!

Cute Sofia and Jakey having fun in Tarzans Treehouse.

Here's a shot of the Splash Mountain drop...(above)

One of my personal favorite times was watching Sofia get to meet Tinkerbell. The boys and Audriana did not want to wait in line for this, so they headed over for another ride on Astros (?thats not the right name?) and I stayed in line with Sofia. Aren't they cute together? They chatted and whispered and laughed together for a couple of minutes, then posed for this cute pictures. She loved it!

Awesome....the picture with Woody says it all. Fun Fun fun!

No one was sure if this was Chip or Dale....hmmmm....

Awww....Angie and I just had to get a picture with Minnie. : )

Now with the kids......

Space Mountain was closed Wednesday and Thursday, but we knew that it was opening back up on Friday, our last day. So, the minute the park opened, we were there and booked ourselves over to that ride. Even as early as we were, we still waited about 30 minutes in line. Good decision because we saw later that the wait soon strethced to 90 minutes, and no more Fast Passes were available! We were so glad that we got to go on it because it was awesome! Both the girls loved it. Very fast...very dark.....very scary.

Yup...more ice cream. Compliments of Aunt Pam and Uncle Todd! This was their "Mickey Ice Cream" that they had been waiting all week for!

Audriana really became a pirate lover on this trip. She wore a Pirate Mickey Ears hat for the first 2 days in Disneyland, and on the 3rd day, she bought this Pirate D0-Rag and plastic hand-hook! She was in 7th heaven with this stuff! ARGH!

The Haunted Mansion was another ride that had been closed the first 2 days of our visit. It was closed so that they could add in all the "Haunted Halloween" items to the ride. We went on this one fairly early -- in fact, after Space Mountain, we came directly here (as we knew that this was the other popular ride that would have long lines today because they had been closed). We actually went on this 2 times. It was really cool. I remember going on this with my Dad and Todd when we were little....

The Meadows and The Alfaro's -- friends forever! They were such fun travel partners!

The one gift that I really wanted was a hand cut portrait of the girls. This artist had been doing this for 30+ years and was excellent. It took her all of about 5 minutes (total) to cut both of the girls' portrait and put them together for me. I think the cost was $20 and I got 2 copies...one for me and one for grandma! : ) Old fashioned, maybe, but I just love it!

Our last rides of the trip was inside California Adventure Park. Friday was our last day, and after we had done the last few things that we wanted to do in Disneyland, we decided to escape the crowds, and head over to California Adventure Park. We went again on our favorite ride, Soaring Over Californina (total of 4 times), and then decided to go on the scariest ride ever -- the TOWER OF TERROR! Oh man! It was insane! The picture above is a picture of the picture that they take of us on the ride and offer to sell. I think the picture shows how much we all loved this ride.

Audriana really wanted this t-shirt.....it says "I survived the Tower of Terror!"

This week was truly a magical week filled with fun and lots of good family memories. We had a great time and I will never forget it. There's nothing like a child's first time to Disneyland.........thanks for the memories!