After the wedding, we brought the girls inside. It was so hot out, and Lil was stressed out ... we were worried for a time we'd have to bail before dinner. But the cool, quiet indoors calmed the girls down ... and then there was music! and food! And everyone was happy again.
One of the groomsmen came up to me and said, "Did you know your son is the center of a dance circle?" Ummm... Nope! No idea! Apparently, when the DJ said, "Everyone form a circle around that guy..." he was referring to my 7-year-old son.
This is not from that dance circle -- because I missed that -- but this was later on, Brian caught some of Braden's moves:
The 2nd Annual Down Syndrome Awareness Walk will be held in Neenah on Saturday, Oct 1st!
You can register online -- registration is $5 per person and you get a t-shirt. New this year -- you can prepay for lunch online, too ($2.00 per person). I hope you'll join us!!
For more about the walk and the events that day, read HERE - Rachel Coleman of Signing Time will be returning, we'll have a lot of other entertainment (bouncy houses, clowns, petting zoo, craft table & more!)
If you'd like to donate to our team, you can do so here: DONATIONS (or through the Firstgiving button in the upper left corner).
All funds raised stay in our local community.
I hope you'll join us! We had such a wonderful (if cold) day last year, celebrating those in our community with that little something extra :)
A couple of my favorite pictures from last year's walk ...
So the real purpose for our trip to California was to attend Uncle Mike's wedding! My baby brother got married -- and now we have Aunt Cathy in our family, as well.
Nana & Karly, getting ready at the hotel
Boppa Bob, helping Lil fix her ribbon ... Ruby resting on Daddy's lap (big yawn!)
Daddy and his little girls
We were hanging out in the shade ... waiting for the wedding to begin, and my mom says, "Hey, Michelle -- is that Braden on the roof?!"
Why yes ... yes, that tiny black speck ON THE ROOF is my son.
Can you see him? I knew it was risky leaving him with the groomsmen! ;)
But, he came down off the roof to do his task of delivering the rings!
After swimming in the pool, we got dressed and headed down to this neat little patio outside the hotel. We had a pizza & cupcake party for Lilya's 7th birthday!
My dad & step-mom had arrived, too ... and Uncle Mike was able to sneak away from his wedding preparations for a quick visit, too!
Lil was thrilled to have cake!
We had to sing Happy Birthday quickly -- she couldn't keep her tiny fingers out of the frosting! :)
Karly & Braden have swarmed Uncle Mike
Braden, teaching the girlies some dance moves for the upcoming wedding!
Friday, August 12 -- Lilya turned 7 years old! So, for one month, we officially have TWO 7 years olds, as Lils & Brades are exactly 11 months apart!
Since it was another beautiful day in California, we headed out with Nana & Nice Wolf to the Santa Monica Pier.
Family Photo in front of the Pacific Ocean!
The girlies, checking out the waves
There was a man there, with his parrots ...
Karly was hooked!
Ruby was a little leery at first ...
but she did great, GENTLY petting the bird.
Lil wanted nothing to do with the birds, and put herself as far away as possible. She watched Ruby and this bird very closely!
This green bird? Her name was Ruby!
This was the bird Karly held for a long time, he gave the kids kisses!
As we were getting ready to leave the birds & walk on, the man stepped behind Karly and squirted her arm with a water bottle. Because she still had a bird on her shoulder, she completely froze, and said, "EWWWWW!" It was really very funny :)
I definitely think the highlight of the pier were the performers -- besides the man with his birds, there were artists and singers. The little girls really enjoyed the music!
We played some carnival games ... ate some lunch.
We walked down to the end ... did you know the end of the Santa Monica Pier is the end of Route 66??
That guy that looks like he's going to jump? That's Nice Wolf ... and he didn't jump!
Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and swam in the pool! This was the day I sunburned the top of my head -- oops! I guess I need to get a hat...
We woke up early again on Thursday, and checked out of our hotel. We were changing hotels -- moving up to the LA area, and staying in the same hotel my Mom & step-dad and my Dad & step-mom were going to be staying at, too. After all, the real reason we went to California was for my little brother's wedding!
But, we had a busy day planned, before we checked into our new hotel -- first, we had to go to DISNEYLAND!
In front of Sleeping Beauty's castle!
And since this was the day before Lil's birthday, we got her a Happy Birthday pin to wear around the park, so people would say "Happy birthday" to her all day!
We went on a few rides ... we went on the Pinocchio ride, then Dumbo:
Rubes & I on Dumbo
Brian, Karly & Lil were ahead of us (Braden opted out)
Then we went on Alice in Wonderland, which is another dark ride, but the girls were getting pretty tired of those.
Karly went to visit the White Rabbit, but no one was home ;)
After an all-important popcorn break, we went to our next stop ...
It's a Small World!
We were really impressed by the size and just how pretty this ride was! We had been on the Florida version, but this was even better, in my opinion!
Dad, Lil & Braden -- ready for the ride!
Inside, characters from Disney movies are interspersed with the dolls -- Lilo & Stitch were a favorite!
Then, we went to Toon Town, where Mickey & Minnie and their friends live. After the little kids had a turn 'driving' Mickey's car ...
we got in line to wait to meet the Mouse himself -- Mickey!
And this is where the camera battery died. So, the rest of the day is on a disposable camera, which we haven't developed yet -- but I can tell you, our other big celebrity sighting was R2-D2!!
I think the kids were even more excited about R2-D2 than Mickey Mouse!
Ruby fell asleep and actually missed R2-D2, I believe ... and it was getting pretty hot. We hopped on the monorail and rode to Downtown Disney & back, just for fun.
We also went on the Jungle Cruise -- which is full of animatronic animals and cheesy jokes, but is fun. I had forgotten Braden didn't go with us last time ... at one point, there were 'piranhas' in the water and Braden, who was riding up front in the boat, yells out, "Somebody get me out of here!!" Poor kid! He was fine, once I told him they were robots...
It was a long day, so we headed out of the park with promises of finding Nana and Nice Wolf at our hotel.
For years, Braden has wanted to go to Legoland California. He'd see ads for it in his LEGO magazines, look at pictures and videos on websites, and tell us how much he wanted to go there someday. Last week Wednesday, Braden's Legoland dream finally came true.
Braden loved hanging out with life-size versions of Batman and Darth Vader, made entirely out of LEGO bricks...
But his favorite LEGO creations at the park were at the center -- called Miniland USA. Miniland features various parts of the US (New York, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and a few others) built to 1:20 scale, using over 20 million LEGO bricks.
The result for Braden? A couple hours of excitedly running around, examining LEGO creations closely, and yelling, "Wow, look at that!" every few seconds.
Braden checks out part of Washington, D.C. in Miniland
Running on to New Orleans and New York
Braden and the City That Never Sleeps
New to Miniland USA this summer is a new section that seems like it was created just for Braden: LEGO re-creations of key scenes from all the Star Wars movies, plus the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series. Braden was in LEGO heaven...
Soon after we left Miniland, we came across the Legoland mini-golf course -- which again was perfect, since Braden loves to play mini-golf but we rarely get time to do it. The course was fun, with little LEGO creations popping up throughout the course.
To my surprise, Miniland and mini-golf didn't even end up being Braden's highlight of the visit. That honor instead fell to something that hardly had anything to do with LEGOs, part of the "Castle Hill" section of the park, a huge playplace called Hideaways.
Braden poses in front of his favorite section of Legoland
For over an hour, Braden crawled through tunnels, climbed rope ladders, walked on wooden catwalks and slid down huge slides in this massive three-level playplace. There was thankfully just one entrance/exit, so all the parents could just wait there while the kids wore themselves out running and climbing and jumping.
And there was so much more after that... there was the water park, which got Braden onto a lazy river ride -- something he'd never been interested in before -- by being able to play with floating, oversize LEGO bricks while you float around the river. There was a bizarre thing called Pharoah's Revenge, in which kids fire foam balls at targets using stationary air guns -- Braden played in there for a while and then came out... with a black eye. He had apparently put his eye a little too close to where a ball was coming out. He wasn't really hurt, just a couple marks around his eye, but it made us wonder what he'll look when it came time for him to the ringbearer at his uncle's wedding in just a few days.
Overall, Legoland seemed to be tailor-made just for Braden. His sisters would have been bored with the park but it was perfect for him.
We spent a full day there, from their opening at 10am until about 4:30pm, breaking only for a couple snacks along the way (he had a huge breakfast, so I didn't push having an actual lunch there). Lots of families were leaving the same time we did... when we got our tickets we also received a little card stating that "Kids eat free at Legoland after 5:00" but my guess is that those families who actually make it that long at the park likely didn't show up right when it opened. Even with how much he loved the park and everything in it, it was Braden's idea to leave, saying he was getting tired. We stopped by "The Big Shop" -- a huge LEGO store in the park -- to get some souvenirs and then headed back to our hotel to meet up with the girls, eat dinner, and crash.
After our early morning trip to Target, the boys dropped us off at the hotel for an adventure of their own. I'll have to ask Brian to blog about their trip to Legoland!
But don't worry about us girls ... we had plans of our own. We had visitors!
We were so thrilled to get to meet Denise and Ella! We've known them online since Ella was a baby, but never had the chance to meet in person, since they live across the country. I'm so glad they took the time to come see us -- it was fun and Denise is just as wonderful in person as she seems online!
Okay, are you prepared for the cuteness?!
Ella hugging Ruby...
Ella hugging Lil...
Ruby, not wanting to be left out of the hugging...
Another big hug for Ella & Ru!
Yay! A picture of all 3 girls, looking at the camera!!
This was so cute ... When Denise fed Ella through her g-tube, Lil was fascinated. She kept looking for her own button!
Silly girls!
It was too chilly to swim at our hotel pool (which, of course was outside, since it was California!) but we had a great time just hanging out.
When Brian & Braden returned, we all had In & Out burgers, for my very first time! And they were a thumbs-up, all around... although Braden's still in love with the very cheesy quesadilla we got at the Mexican restaurant on the way to the hotel the day before.
