harder, but worth it

I still feel like I’m recovering from Vegas. NO, not like THAT. I just mean, getting back into the routine of things and catching back up! BUT I’m still thinking about that week and how crazy and amazing it was all at the same time. It went by too fast if you ask me. We love traveling with the boys whenever we can. It always makes things a little bit harder. Kids are hard. And they are LOTS of work. But when I became a mom, I knew that I wasn’t going to sacrifice certain things that I loved JUST because it was harder with kids. Your life and business doesn’t have to stop once they enter your world.

But you do have to work harder.

In my experience though, it is always worth it. The sweat, the tears, the late nights, the planning, the preparation- the SACRIFICE. It’s all always worth it to make sure that you are bringing your kids along to experience something that you love to do so much. Traveling is that way for us. It’s a huge passion of ours and so whenever we can go experience something new, we bring them along! And it always takes more preparation. And there ARE certain things we might have to miss out on. But bringing our family with us while we work is something I hope we ALWAYS do.

We took Cruz and Rider onto the strip at night to see all the lights and the Bellagio fountains. Yes, we were THOSE people with a stroller on the strip. But they LOVED it. It was completely worth the efforts to take them to see the lights and the fountains and all the different fountains in Las Vegas. It was an experience that they might not have had otherwise.

And Cruz keeps talking about ‘BOSS BEGAS’ in his cute high pitched voice that just makes you want to die it’s so cute.

He LOVED every minute. I know that traveling with the kids is hard. I know that it would be easier for Jay and I to just have my mom stay home with the boys while we catch a flight there and back in the same weekend. I know we’d save a lot of money if we didn’t bring them. But it’s not about that for us. It’s about being together as a family, bringing them along with our lives, and giving them the opportunity to experience new things.

Sacrifice it might be for me. But although this job as a mamma is the hardest work I’ve ever done, I’d work even harder and sacrifice even more to give them the entire world if I could. Having them come along for the ride has been the greatest thrill of this thing called motherhood. And discovering that we actually DON’T have to sacrifice our own lives to have a family. 

It was a great week. I can’t wait until we travel again. It looks like this summer we are going to Dallas, North Carolina AND maybe NEW YORK CITY. NYC has been a life long dream of mine. So we’ll see what happens!

vegas bound!

This is where I’m going for a couple of days this week!!

Woo hoo! Jason and I are heading to Las Vegas for WPPI which is a huge convention that happens annually for photographers. We are STOKED to be able to make it this year! So we packed up and headed out! And YES. The boys are going with us! We love traveling with them and bringing them with us whenever we can. And we are blessed this trip to have my mom on board to help watch them when we are at the convention. I’m so thrilled that she was willing to come. We rented an awesome house in Las Vegas from Home Away.com so we all have room to spread out. It’s SUCH a great alternative to renting a hotel. We’ve stayed in multiple homes from this site and we haven’t been disappointed yet.

The boys actually travel pretty well. So long as the snacks don’t run out and the DVD player doesn’t die. And I’m so grateful they do because I LOVE to travel. Traveling with kiddos might be hard sometimes, but it’s always worth the experience. We never wanted having the boys to slow us down too much. I think kids join your life and go where you go and do what you do. So while it DOES take a lot of planning to head out of town with kids, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

We’ll take lots of photos! Can’t wait to share them!

* Image found on Pinterest.

california 2011

I wanted to post a few pictures from our trip. I didn’t get AS many pictures as I would have hoped. Especially while we were at Disneyland. BUT, when you are taking TWO kids into a theme park, accompanied by strollers, diapers, clothing, food, toys, snacks, carriers, blankets, bottles, sippy cups, wipes, jackets, shoes- THE LIST GOES ON- the LAST thing you want to carry around is your huge camera. And for a photographer to say that means- WE HAD A TON OF STUFF WITH US.

So I snapped happily on my phone whenever I didn’t have my camera with me. Which was the entire trip to Disneyland. I need to invest in a small camera that I can throw in my purse. The last one I had… well, let’s not talk about it. So I’m thankful that the iPhone’s have a decent camera in them in the meantime!

San Diego NEEDS to be my new home someday. For real. This was the view from where we were staying. I was standing on the porch when I snapped this pic. We were right on the bay and it was fantabulous.

Aw. Sweet boy couldn’t get enough of this flower.

I was REALLY GOOD and didn’t work THAT much while we were supposed to be on vaca. But Jay caught me checking in on my emails.

Lots and lots and lots of cars go wherever we go. I find them everywhere. In the car. In my diaper bag. In his car seat. They are oozing out of our lives as we know it. And a WHOLE BUNCH followed us to San Diego. And followed us home. This kid LOVES him some cars.

Love my Epiphane bag. So. Much.

Aw. Brothers.

This is where we stayed. If you travel a little or a lot- it doesn’t matter. You NEED to check out HomeAway.com for lodging. It’s the first and almost only place I book through to find places to stay when we travel. I love it and we haven’t had a bad experience yet!

We have some pictures of us filming our promo video too, which is why we went to San Diego to begin with. But I’ll save those pictures for another time, maybe. It was a great time for sure! After our few days in San Diego, we headed North to Newport Beach to shoot THIS wedding:

Freakin’ rad. It was such an awesome wedding. We can’t wait to share the whole thing! Then we spent the last two days that we were in Cali in Disneyland! The happiest place on earth should also be known as the most exhausting place on earth. For real, right? Wowzers. But we had a great time and the boys loved it. I’ll never NOT do something just because it’s hard that the boys are small. It’s harder to do certain things now, but I refuse to miss out on life and things that I love JUST because it’s more work. SO. We went to Disneyland. And it was MORE work. For sure. But worth it and such a fun time!

And best picture ever…….

I wish I would have taken more pictures in Disneyland. Note to any mommy who’s taking two kids under two into Disneyland. You probably won’t be taking a lot of pictures during that trip. I was constantly making sure no one was about to have a meltdown, while planning out our route in Disneyland, riding rides and coordinating with meals and nap times. Whoa. It was worth it. Fabulous memories for us and I’m happy that both of my kids can now say that they’ve been to Disneyland more times within their first two years of life than a lot of adults can say. HAHA. We love Disneyland too much. And go as often as possible. Which is like twice a year. But I wish it was more.

Maybe it will be whenever we live in San Diego someday.

home

We made it home from California yesterday! What a trip! What a week! I didn’t bring my computer ON PURPOSE so now I’m playing massive catchup. But I haven’t had a TRUE vacation with no emailing and no blogging since, well…. since Cruz was born I guess! Crazy. It was so great to get away. We started the week with a few days in San Diego before heading North to photograph the wedding we had. And I have to say that San Diego has GOT to me on the top of my list of places I’d move to tomorrow. I mean, for real. If we had a chance to move there, I’d move in one big, huge giant heartbeat.

We love it there.

The wedding we shot was fabulous. Filming our promo video was a insane amount of fun. We have more filming to finish up in October, so I’m really looking forward to that. Mostly, I can’t wait to see it all come together and to use it as a way for couples to visually see who they are hiring for their wedding day or Lifestyle Session. We’ve dreamed about doing our promo video since very early on in our business, so it’s pretty nuts that it’s here and that we are doing it.

Then we went to Disneyland! And it was such a blast, except taking two kiddos who are in diapers and strollers is a MESS LOAD of work. And I made the decision this time that we were NOT leaving the park for naps so they just had to sleep wherever we were. It was interesting. No one napped, really. But it actually really did beat having to trudge OUT of the park and back IN to the park all in the name of good naps. It was better this way! But, still exhausting because Cruz didn’t nap at all and then had a really hard time crashing in the stroller come bedtime because he was WAY to excited to be at Disneyland. So he didn’t go to bed until past eleven for both nights we were there. Which made the car ride home, well…. interesting to say the least!

All in all, we had a GREAT time. It’s awesome to be home. We are back to the grind and hitting the ground running this Monday morning. Although I DO wish I could be on vacation, permanently. Wouldn’t that rock? Yes. And I DO have a major itch to move to San Diego now. It’s pretty much my dream place to live someday.

Maybe someday!

I hope everyone has a great Monday! Here’s to a fresh week of work, creativity, and exhausting new hurdles to jump through with my ‘terrible two’s toddler’, I’m sure!

work hard

We’ve had some more hard days with Cruz. Pardon my absence in blogging. I hate when I can’t every day or at least every other. But real life happens, right? And right now, I have a very difficult little boy on my hands who demands all of my energy. Even WELL past his bedtime when he’s supposed to be sleeping. He won’t be. He’s trying ALL of our last ounces of patience these days. And so when it’s quiet in my house, I have to work. And I have to work hard and fast so that we can get some things done. While it’s quiet.

*Sigh* When does this stage end again?

Anywhoo. We are getting ready to leave town again! I’m hoping the the terrible two’s, or whatever it is that is going on, stays HOME while we travel. We are heading to California soon here to film our promo video for Session Nine! We are then going to be shooting a wedding on a YACHT. And then we’ll be in Disneyland for a few days. We. Are. Excited. To say the least. And I’m thrilled to be getting out of this heat, although I do tend to enjoy it. I’m ready for a break. But the monsoons better take a break too while I’m gone because I really don’t want to miss those.

Exciting things going on right now for us. But for now, I’m off to bed. Because my almost three year old just MIGHT decide to wake up screaming and crying in the middle of the night. For no apparent reason. And then I’ve gotta be up by 5:00 to ensure that I actually get some work done. I’m trying to remember that when you work hard, amazing things happen. So don’t give up or give in too soon. Because nothing that is amazing just comes to you. And nothing that is worth it is easy. So I’m trying to stay focused and work hard. Because I really want to play hard next week. And there’s lots to do until then.

bisbee trip 2011

This past weekend we were able to travel South to Bisbee, AZ for a rad photo shoot that we can’t wait to reveal. We went with some clients/friends of ours who were busting at the seams to do a 50′s inspired photo shoot at The Shady Dell. Have you ever been there?? Oh my gosh. It’s the coolest place ever. We stayed in a trailer that looked like this:

Rad. Seriously rad. They have a wide assortment of trailers, all of which are authentically decked out to the max to fit the 50′s perfectly. It’s seriously like a time warp as soon as you get there. I had NO IDEA this place was there until our friends asked us if we’d be open to traveling for the shoot.

UM YES.

So we ventured down there for a night and snapped our little cameras away! It was a blast. It was my first night EVER away from Rider AND the first time Jay and I have gone on a mini vacation/getaway with NO KIDS since we HAD kids.

Sad moment, huh? We’ve totally made a mental note to do that every once in awhile because it was great for us to have a break together. And while we were working the whole time we were there, it didn’t really feel like work. So that was nice. Up until now I’ve been spending 8-10+ hours a day behind my computer and can’t complain because I love what I do. But it was nice to leave the computers behind for at least 24 hours.

It was weird to have been away from Rider since he’s only 9 months old. I think Cruz was over one the first time I ever left him over night. But it wasn’t as hard as I thought since we had a blast! It’s always refreshing to get a break as a mom and to allow yourself to sleep in until 8:30 am once in awhile, uninterrupted. Yes, 8:30 is BIG TIME sleeping in for me. But it rocked.

Bisbee is SUCH a cool place! Have you ever been there?? I had NO IDEA the gem it was until we got there. The downtown area is kind of to die for and we ran into ALL SORTS of interesting things. To say the least.

Cool place that I never really paid much attention to. It was great to get away for work and I CAN’T WAIT to go back. You should take a road trip and stay at The Shady Dell and eat at Cafe Roka. OMG Amazing.

We’ll be revealing the two photo shoots we did with The Blackwell’s soon! I’m so excited to share them. We all had such a great time!

austin 2011

Ok FINALLY. Here it is! A quick glimpse into our time in Austin! We went to Austin to photograph a wedding but we also decided to turn it into a mini vaca while we were there.

But let me start by saying, the wedding we photographed was INCREDIBLE. Holy moly was it such a great time!! Jen and Steven were fabulous and their day was nothing short of amazing. It was such a special time and a huge celebration! People from ALL over the country came to Austin to watch them tie the knot. And that’s pretty special, if you ask me!

My sister Danielle was born in Austin, TX and hasn’t been back there since we moved away when she was a baby. So we brought the kids and Danielle and her husband Cameron came along to help us with them and to be able to see Austin too! It was SO FUN having them with us! If you travel with more than one kid, I definitely recommend a 2:1 ratio.

Spoiled, I know.

But it really made a huge difference having them there through all the travels. Plus, it allowed us to work and not worry about the boys but to still be able to bring them so we could be together as a family. I am SO grateful!

SO, we landed in Austin without TOO much craziness on the plane. We had one huge meltdown by Rider, but other than that the airplane ride was great! SO we landed and got settled in the place we stayed. We have some good friends who live in Austin who graciously opened up their home to us without hesitation and provided so much more than we could have asked for! They were awesome hosts and again, we were SO grateful that they allowed us to stay with them. They don’t live too far from downtown, which was OOBER convenient and made it a fabulous time for us to be able to see the city some!

After we got settled, we decided to go grab something to eat downtown. Austin’s downtown is LEGIT. Have you ever been there? Oh man. It’s a photographers dream. So many cool spots, awesome people and lots and lots and lots of character!

We ate at STUBBS. It’s famous in Austin. And we understand why. It was FABULOUS food. We wanted to eat BBQ because well, we were in Texas. Duh. (Notice the milk bottle in the top lefthand corner and the beer bottle in the top righthand corner haha!)

Cruz was very fascinated with this bike.

And then THIS GUY walked up. Please check out his shirt, specifically right above Cruz’s head. Innappropriate? Ya, I know. I HONESTLY DIDN’T NOTICE until I was uploading these pictures to this blog. I was just thinking the picture of Cruz talking to random strangers (with Jay) was super cute. I never even saw his shirt. WOW. The kicker? I’m 98% sure that this bike did not belong to this man.

The people in Austin were so friendly. At least to us. And we had fun with so many random strangers that would jump in shots or talk with us. I loved it!

Austin is a fun city.

I love this face.

Some other fun shots.

I love this picture. I love him.

This is where the bats were supposed to fly out. We literally stood there for over 30 minutes, past 8:30 pm and they hadn’t flown out. When it was just about dark, Jason noticed that they were flying away on the distant horizon. So we totally missed it and so did everyone else on the bridge. SO WEIRD. So we went back a couple nights later and we were able to watch them fly out. They didn’t leave until it was pretty much dark so we weren’t able to see them in the sky. BUT, we did see them flying out from under the bridge. And it was kinda loud and smelly!! And there literally was 1.5 MILLION bats. It was crazy.

We ONLY ate at places that were local to Austin. It’s one of my favorite things ever to try new places and one of those that we tried while we were in Austin was called Mighty Fine Burgers. OMG. YUM. If you’re in Austin it’s a ‘must-go’!

Aw. My sweet picky eater. He loved the fries though!

This is Jackson. Rachel and Tim’s little boy. We stayed at their house. Cruz and Jack were BEST FRIENDS the whole time we were there. He still asks about Jack. I wish we lived closer to them because they’d be such great little buddies.

After dinner on this night we went to a store called Whole Earth. They had some REALLY cool stuff inside and we all had fun shopping. Then we all goofed off on the hammocks that they had hanging outside their store.

He’s always picking his nose. I have more pictures of him picking his nose than I know what to do with it. How do kids learn how to do this?? I can assure you, we did not teach him this.

We did a photo shoot with The Allen’s while we were there. We had a blast walking all around downtown snapping pictures of them and of all kinds of things too! One thing is, it was FREAKIN HOT. I mean, humid HOT. I’m used to the dry heat! But it was NOT dry. And it was HOT.

We were able to snap a family picture while we were at it. I love this picture.

Some other shots of us roaming around downtown.

Other cool stuff I saw. I know this post is long. It’s almost over, I swear.

He loved checking out the planes as we left. We didn’t want to leave.

So you guys. PLEASE go check out Steven + Jen Stamps wedding. Their wedding post is up on our site and you’ve got to check it out! They got married at The Driskill Hotel and it was SUCH an amazing day and celebration!! We were so honored to have been asked to be a part of their day! And we loved traveling to another location for a wedding. With our kids.

We totally have the bug.

I can’t wait for the day when we can travel on a regular basis, nationally AND internationally. With our kids. It’s pretty rad.

We loved Austin. I would totally move there if the right opportunity arised. Humidity and all! Ok wow. This post is SO long. Thanks for reading it. And thanks for waiting for me to post it. These past several weeks have been some of the craziest of my life.

But I feel like I’m ALWAYS saying that. God keeps opening doors for us. Including us getting a few of our weddings published in a pretty well known magazine to be out later this summer. SO STOKED. I am so grateful for this job. I am so grateful that God told me to ‘wait’ for all the years that I desired to do this but never did. Because it definitely wouldn’t be what it is today if I had relied solely on MY timing. It’s rad.

Can we please travel somewhere else to shoot a wedding? I want to ASAP.

we made it home!

And let it be told, we had an AMAZING time in Austin, TX. That city is INCREDIBLE. One that, aside from the fierce humidity, I could totally live in.

Maybe we will someday.

The boys were incredible travelers. We had a few hiccups, meltdowns and temper tantrums. But that is to be expected when you’re traveling with a 2.5 year old and a 7 month old. Needless to say, it went incredibly well. The weather was mostly great, the company we stayed with was priceless, the wedding was beautiful (with a true life ghost story coming from yours truly) and the city was, well, let’s just say 5 days there was not enough time.

I sort of felt like I was having the time of my life.

Also, please note: if you are planning on traveling ANYWHERE that requires getting onto an airplane with children, you MUST have a 2 adults to 1 child ratio. My sister and her husband came with us to help us with the boys while we worked, and I found myself wondering how the heck people travel without help! They were SO gracious to go with us and to help us with ANYTHING we needed. It was priceless to have them along and I am forever grateful to be surrounded with people who constantly help me be the kind of working mom I want to be. It was so much fun that they were there with us!!

AND, I quickly discovered two ‘traveling must-haves’ that will accompany me wherever we may go when the boys are little. That includes this:

And this:

Seriously. Both of them (mine each are different colors than what’s posted here) made traveling TONS EASIER with two kids under three. It was pretty amazing how NOT stressed out I was as we traveled to Texas and back.

I will be posting my ‘ghost story’ and pictures of Austin soon. Not to mention, pictures from the wedding we took there at the incredible Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin.

Glad to be home. Sad to be home. It was so much fun, I’d love to go back.

* The items that are pictured above are The Combi Twim Sport Double Stroller and The Petunia Pickle Bottom Boxy Backpack. To die for and HIGHLY recommended by ME.

traveling!

Tomorrow, we are heading here:

Yes, we are going to Austin, Texas!! We are photographing a wedding out there for a very sweet couple and we are so excited! They have been on our calendar for a year now so we have been anticipating this for awhile now! So stoked that it’s here!

We decided to stay a few extra days while we are there AND we are bringing the boys with us! Little mini-vaca while we work. We’ve landed some other Lifestyle Sessions and the wedding is on Friday! So while we are there, we are going to try to see this:

Did you know that a million bats fly out from under a famous bridge EVERY NIGHT in the downtown area at dusk??? CRAZY and I can’t wait to see it!

Pray for us as we fly with the boys. Cruz is SO excited to go in an airplane! And my sister and her husband are coming with us to help us with the crazy monkeys.

So fun!

disneyland 2011

Pardon my absence. We’ve been vacationing in Disneyland for the past few days and with two little guys, that’s hardly a vacation! I hardly had time to think, let alone blog or do anything else! Ha! It was a very fun trip, although doing Disneyland with your small kiddos is quite a different experience than with zero children. We were so excited to take Cruz though. Since he’s now two, we were stoked to watch him take it all in and somewhat understand and remember this trip. And we were right! He’s still talking about it and talked about it the whole way home! I did manage to take a few pictures, although I intended to take many more. That’s what happens when you have a 5 month old who hates his life the entire trip.

Seriously. Rider couldn’t have been more difficult.

But we started out the trip in the car with NEW cars for Cruz to play with! He loved it. We even set up our laptop so he could watch the movie Cars, Toy Story and even Monsters, Inc. Definitely made traveling with him a little easier in the car.

We stopped to let him play at McDonald’s and to feed Rider. We got him a new car and decided that spoiling him a little bit on this trip wouldn’t do any harm. Not like he needs another car, but he was excited to get a new one nonetheless. At this point in the trip, Rider wasn’t fussy at all. He had slept the whole way and was a pretty happy and content little guy!

And then after a couple more hours in the car, little man was tuckered out. Aw.

Then we got there and checked into our house. Yes, you heard me. HOUSE. If you are ever traveling anywhere, especially with a lot of people, you NEED to check out HomeAway.com. We were able to rent a 6 bedroom, 5 bathroom house for super cheap for 3 nights! There was 9 of us, including the boys and everyone had their own rooms and bathrooms, basically. Cruz and Rider each had their own rooms too! It was so nice to be able to spread out and be comfortable while we were gone. Hotels are great, but they get pretty pricy quickly and you usually don’t have the option of a suite that’s big enough for 9 people without it being super expensive. I ALWAYS check HomeAway.com before I resort to hotels if I can because it’s an awesome way to stay places for pretty inexpensively! Check it out for sure.

We got up the next morning and headed to Disneyland!! This is where I didn’t take as many pictures as I would have hoped. Rider was a PILL the ENTIRE day. I think he was cold all day long, but I couldn’t figure out what the problem was. I tried to bundle him up, feed him often, change his diaper, check his teeth- EVERYTHING. He was not happy. I then thought (stupidly) that I would take him on a couple of the rides that you can bring babies on and see if that would distract him. First, (and I’m not really sure why) I took him on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Which, looking back was a horrible mistake. Ha! It was too much overstimulation and he was a wreck when we got out.

THEN, I thought I’d be clear to take him on Pirates of the Caribbean. Again, another HUGE mistake. He screamed, and I mean SCREAMED, the whole time. It ended with me sitting in the boat sobbing with him. All any of us could hear was a screaming baby. No fun for anyone. When we got off the boat, I apologized PROFUSELY to the strangers that sat on the back half of our boat and they were very nice and gracious to me. They said, at first they thought the baby cries were apart of the ride! Haha!! Yea, they were definitely just MY baby actually screaming. *Sigh* So Rider didn’t go on any other rides after that. But he was very difficult the whole rest of the day. And I couldn’t figure it out.

Cruz, on the other hand, was such a good boy! He obeyed and loved every minute of being in Disneyland! We ran into Woody and Jesse too! The line was SO long, so we didn’t wait for a photo op, but we did stand off to the side so he could see them. Then, Jesse decided to come over to give Cruz a high five even though we weren’t in line!! It was so great. I don’t have a picture of it but I do have a video of it. Here’s a picture before Jesse came over.

My mom FINALLY got Rider to go to sleep. This is after he had been awake and fussy and screaming for 6 hours. Yes, from 8 am until almost 2 he was awake and a VERY unhappy little camper. Grammy to the rescue!

The next day, I layered Rider’s clothes like crazy and then I brought several blankets to keep him warm in his seat, as well as hats and more socks. And low and behold, it worked! Come nap time, he actually slept for about an hour and a half in his seat on the second day we were there. What a relief! I felt like I could actually enjoy Disneyland with my family and not have to worry about Rider. He was obviously way more comfortable this day, which is why I thought maybe he was too cold on the first day. Weird, because I thought I had dressed him warmly! But he was not the happy kid we are so used to. This was more like it.

We grabbed breakfast every morning at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen at Downtown Disney. Um, YUM. They have these amazing bengets and egg sandwiches too! It was so fun being with family!

Cruz is a bit obsessed with the Pixar movie Cars, so we were thrilled to run into these two!

Every time we wanted to ride any of the rides, we always had two of us get a Baby Pass (which is AWESOME) and wait with the kiddos while everyone else went on whichever ride we were at. My sister and I were waiting outside of Tower of Terror as everyone else ran to ride it, and while we were waiting these toy soldiers from Toy Story came out and performed for a crowd that was there! It was SO cute! Cruz calls the toy soldiers ‘guys’ every time he sees them, so he just kept shouting, ‘Hi Guys!’ haha! It was too cute! Now that we’re home, he keeps talking about seeing ‘The Guys’. Too funny.

And of course we followed Woody around the whole entire theme park.

I sorta failed at taking good, amazing pictures this weekend. Like I said, I had a pretty cranky baby on my hands and while I did have a lot of family that helped a lot, there was just a lot going on so I wasn’t able to focus on that. Ugh. But I did snap one shot while we saw World of Color inside California Adventure. If you ever get a chance, you HAVE TO GO SEE IT. It’s phenomenal. I mean, it’s unlike anything I’ve seen and I can’t wait to go back to see it again!! For most of it, my mom held Rider and he and Cruz both were mesmerized by the show! It was incredible! I have video of it and I kind of want to post it, but I’m afraid it doesn’t do it justice.

The rest of the trip was great. We went on lots of rides, ate way too much food, and had a blast!! On our way home, the boys were much fussier than they were on the way there. So we had to make extra stops, which made for a long day yesterday! But Jason’s hat kept everyone occupied and laughing.

Then we got word that my mom, sister and brother-in-laws car broke down right outside of Indio! They had to be towed back to Indio to see what the problem was, and it turns out that there was a major problem with the radiator. Now, I’m no mechanic, but I do know that that is not good. They ended up having to stay the night in Indio, rent a car, and are having to tow Cameron’s car back to Phoenix. What a mess! We felt so bad for them but are happy that everyone is ok for sure. Other than that, we all had a great family vacation! We are already planning our next trip for this November!! We love Disneyland and we LOVE going there as a family. As hard as it was to have Rider in the park, I’d do it all over again for the experience of it. It was hard and exhausting. But it was so much fun!

Oh and I have to leave you with a picture of Rider in his new ‘ears’ we got him while we were there. I saw the beanie Mickey ears and he HAD to have them!! More like, I had to have them I guess. Ha!