Snow day

It finally feels winter in Boston. The last couple of weeks we have gotten some pretty good snow storms which is pretty fun. Now if only we could get Jack to enjoy sledding. The other day he and Alisa played in our backyard for a good 45 minutes and had a good time. Alisa is Jared's cousins daughter that lives here in the Boston area. They have a ton of fun playing together. She calls him "Guack" which cracks me up.

Disneyland

We went to Disneyland with the Poulsen family this year. We were supposed to leave the day after christmas but a storm came through Boston so we didn't get to leave until three days later (stupid wussy bostonians). Anyway, I'm over it now. So we spent the first day in California catching up and just hanging out then the next day we headed to Disneyland. It was super crowded but a ton of fun. One of the first things we did was head over to Splash Mountain (after pirates of the caribean and the haunted mansion) and being the mean mom that I am I made Jack go it twice because we couldn't see him in the first picture.

waiting in line the first day

The haunted mansion was all done up as the nightmare before christmas, very cool.

waiting in line for the Buzz ride, Jack has a scary grin

It's a small world was all done up for christmas too, Jack turned to Jared and said "this is great Dad". So sweet.

We waited in line for over an hour to see Mickey Mouse and then Jack got scared and wouldn't hug him.

It's a small world at night.

Jack loved the carosel

Safari

Saturday we headed down to San Diego (about 30 minutes outside of San Diego) to the Safari zoo which was pretty cool. We took a tram around the park that had roaming rhinos, zebras, giraffes, etc. and it was pretty fun but I think the best part about the ride was the tour guide. She sounded really excited about her job in a very saturday night live kind of way. What do I mean by that? Well her voice was very monotone...I don't know how to explain it, you just had to be there.

Jack looking at the Cheetas

Jack throwing a fit!

And then acting sweet!

Big lazy lion.

My Lion

My Gorilla

Jared making a face like a Gorilla

Wade, Kali and Miles, we miss you guys. Maybe you should move back to Boston!

Scott and Kristy, thanks for that awesome trip!

Jack had fun in the petting area, he was a little nervous at first but he thought they were pretty cool.

Jared and Jack near the elephants.

Bowling for the first time!

On our last day in California we headed to the bowling alley to kill sometime before heading to the airport. Jared's family was flying out several hours before us and we all had to check out at noon so this was a fun distraction for us on a rainy day. It was really fun watching Jack bowl for the first time, although I think I had more fun watching him than he had playing. The first couple of times I helped him roll/throw the ball down the alley then we used the metal guide that they provide for kids and of course we had the bumpers for him too. He really liked laying down on the ground after he rolled the ball so he could watch it hit the pins. What a big boy!

My Parents came for a visit

My parents came for a visit last year and we had a great time. This was my dads first time visiting Boston so we did quite a bit of site seeing. The weather was pretty rainy and cold but we still had fun. We headed over to the USS Constitution, the U.S.A's oldest floating war ship, in fact it is still in commission which is pretty cool. We had a tour of the boat and went through the museum. My dad is a "sailor" he has a sailboat and wishes he had a huge 50 footer that he could sail from alaska to mexico, so he loved the tour. One of these pictures is of him getting saluted by another sailor, my dad was in the Navy way back when. We also headed up to New York and went to Joseph Smiths house and the sacred grove. I wish the weather would have been better and Jack was pretty sick of sitting so asking him to stand still while we took the tour was out of the question. He just wanted to touch everything and run around ( I don't blame him, it was a long drive) we then headed up to Niagra Falls and that was truly amazing. We rode on the Maiden Mist down by the bottom of the falls and all I could think about was how in the world did a handful of people survive that fall. Crazy! Again the weather was less than desirable but on the positive side there weren't very many people there because of the rain and cold so it was pretty nice. I'm going to try to find the other pictures from the falls. Notice Jared isn't in any of the pictures because he couldn't come with us due to school. boo! I guess we will have to make another trip next summer so he can come along.