Halloween

 We all got dressed up for Halloween this year. Our friend, Mary, brought Me her costume and helped U with his.

Matthew (he made the jet pack; it even holds his candy), U and Me, Sarah and Megan

U & Me

Where is Megan?

Megan and Matthew designed our car decorations for the Trunk-or-Treat.

Scary spider!

Lots of decorations and spider webs around the back of the van.

Sarah helped with face decorating.

Megan wanted a fire truck with her Dots and York peppermint patties.

We enjoyed carving pumpkins. Matthew thought they had a lot of guts.

The finished pumpkins

All lit up

U's ghosts

Sarah's frog

Matthew's stormtrooper

Megan's happy pumpkin

October Happenings

Team photo from one of Sarah's swim meets.

Matthew spent the first week of school after Fall Break home with a cough. He came with Me to pick up Megan.

In pickup line another day. He loves reading and will do so anywhere he can.

We went to the Mesa Temple Open House.

Matthew, Me, Megan and Sarah

Megan really liked going through the temple so she and U went through a second time.

Cork Oak on temple grounds. Matthew and Me found and identified it while waiting for U and Megan to go through the temple a second time.

What a tall tree!

Megan likes eating pears down to the very core.

One of Matthew's Tegu block creations.

Sarah went to Homecoming with some friends.

We went to Bahama Bucks and Me ended up with a very blue tongue.

Megan and Matthew participated in Battle of the Books at their school. Do you see them?

We got yummy Kneaders treats one evening to support a friend's club.

Legoland California Days 3&4

Thursday was a bit of a bonus day. We had initially planned on going home after spending a few hours in the park but ended up staying an entire extra day due to low crowds and nice weather. Since we had checked out, we did change hotel rooms although ended up in the room right next to our initial room. It was a nice day. After eating breakfast and loading up the car, Megan and Matthew played on the Castle Hotel playground a bit. Then we headed to the park.

First in line at our gate.

Matthew was selected to open the park. Here he is pondering on the enormity of that responsibility.

Pulling the lever.

Scarecrow applauds Matthew on a job well done.

Matthew, Scarecrow, Me and Megan

We were first on Ninjago.

All three of us were on the leader board :)

We rode Coastersaurus.

We went on Kid Power Tower 4 times in a row in all possible configurations (Megan and Me together with Matthew alone; Matthew and Me together with Megan alone; Megan and Matthew together with Me alone; all alone). We were the only people there are the time.

Matthew and Megan on the spooky fire truck.

We went on Skipper School before heading to Deep Sea Adventure.

Megan pointing out the fish she created.

Matthew's fish.

Matthew and Megan enjoyed building with Legos and Duplos. Matthew said, "Mom! You need to send this to dad: Legos and Duplos can stick together!!!"

Megan and Matthew went on the Royal Joust and then we all went on Lost Kingdom.

Yeah, Technic!

We all went on Bionic Blasters together.

Matthew and Megan went a second time so they could spin faster.

We went to Build N Test where Megan and Matthew created cars to race down a racetrack.

Megan with her car.

Matthew with his car.

We went on Ninjago.

Megan with Gretel and her huge gummy bear. Megan kept saying, "Gummy bear!" over and over again during the trip.

Matthew enjoyed building a big roller coaster in Rebuild the World.

We went on Technic Coaster and Megan went on Bionic Blaster before heading over to the Lego World.

Did you catch last night's episode of everyone's favorite show?

Matthew outside Emmet's suite.

There were fun Lego and Duplo builds throughout the area.

Megan, Me and Matthew in Emmet's Suite.

With Emmet.

Matthew at Driving School. Megan drove as well.

Me and Matthew on Skipper School.

Megan and Me on Skipper School.

Matthew on Skipper School.

We ate Granny's apple fries while wandering through Miniland.

We ended our time in the park on the Coast Cruise. We had the same skipper as the day before and he was still funny!

All lit up at night.

Megan and Matthew worked together on this scary build. It is a lava skeleton that shoots lava.

Friday morning it was a bit rainy and misty. Matthew enjoyed participating in the morning stretches at the Dragon Den during breakfast. Then we headed into the park.

Riding Ninjago.

On the leaderboard.

We were the first to ride Technic. Definitely a favorite!

We went to Rebuild the World.

Matthew built a smaller roller coaster that he could put on the world.

Matthew with the roller coaster on the world.

Megan built a fountain.

Megan with the fountain on the world.

We then went to SeaLife Aquarium where we got yet another stamp. (We got one each morning after they verified our passes.) The kids' arms are looking a bit like barcodes!

Love the jellies!

Matthew with the Lego diver.

In the dive cage at the end.

We saw a worker feeding some of the fish and sharks in the last tank. It was really cool!

Megan and Matthew on our way out.

We intended to drive all the way home Friday afternoon. However, we discovered that our car had an ant infestation. There were so many ants! We ended up spending a fair bit of time trying to clear them off of the car before leaving. (They were in both the inside and outside of the van.) Then, when we stopped in Yuma for dinner, we saw a lot more ants. I hadn't slept well the night before and so was exhausted anyway. We raised the white flag, bought some ant traps and spent the night in Yuma. We finally made it home the next morning. 

Ants on the roof of the van. It was amazing how many ants there were.

The hotel we stayed at had yummy Belgian waffles as part of its breakfast.