Oh, Baby Cakes!

I am going to put these baby pictures of my kids on the wall going downstairs. If you've been to my house and seen the five black frames that have been hung on the wall for about a year, all with a picture of the same stranger inside, you'll know where I mean.

These babies are just so cute! I miss them. I've often thought how fun it would be to have them be one year-old babies together to see how they would react with each other. Then one of them (usually one of the teens) manages to act like a one year-old, the rest respond accordingly, and I get my wish! It's not so cute without the one year-old baby body to go with it.

See if you can tell who is who. Answers are at the bottom. They range in age in these pictures from 3 months to 13 months. I just chose the baby picture I liked that best fit the personality of the child.

Did you get them all? We have Rachel, Camille, Erin, Krysta, Kevin, and just to trick you, Erin again. I'm going to print both picts. of her and decide on the one I like best.

Universal Studios

The last two days of our California vacation were spent at Universal Studios and at the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The first thing we did was go on the Universal Studios Tour. Seeing all of the movie sets was really fun. At the end, in the subway set, I got drenched. If it's a warm day and you want to get wet, sit in the 4th car on the right side. Unfortunately, it wasn't that warm. When the water hit, I jumped out of my seat and sat on the child next to me. I was just "sheltering" the child from the water. The fact that Rachel also got drenched (and squished) should just be ignored.

While the rest of the family went on the Revenge of the Mummy roller coaster, Rachel made a few new friends.

Before driving home the next day, we went to Mann's Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was fun to see the handprints and footprints of really famous old-time stars like Bing Crosby...
...and Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe.
It was also fun to meet famous (wax) actressess and actors like Lucille Ball (my favorite!!) and...
...Shrek (apparently Kevin's inspiration). Next time we will have to make time to go into the actual wax museum.
Seeing all the people gathered around Michael Jackson's star and all the tributes and flowers was interesting.
Ah, Hollywood, a nice, expensive, place to visit; sure glad we don't live there!

Summer Beatle

We interrupt this family vacation to bring you...Paul McCartney! Krysta, Erin, Curt and I went to the concert. It was incredible. Sir Paul stayed on stage for almost 3 hours. His band even took a break while he stayed and played a few songs with just his guitar. (Those young 'uns needed a rest.)

Months ago when I got the tickets, I wondered how we'd choose which two kids we'd take. (The internet would only allow 4 tickets per address.) Rachel wasn't interested and when Camille heard the concert was 3 hours long, she decided she didn't want to go.

When I told Kevin I had Paul McCartney tickets, he said, "Isn't he dead?"

"No," I responded.

"Well, then isn't he like 90? He must just stand there and talk to people." replied Kevin.

"You're tending," I told him.

That was easier than I thought.

That biker dude behind me could whistle louder than anything going on on stage. I covered my ears every time he let loose.

As you can see from this picture we were rather far from the stage.

Good thing for the two big screens on either side.
See the little person by the white tent? The one in the dark suit on stage holding a guitar, just below the drummer? Yes, that would be him.

Here's the "close-up."

About half way through the concert, we walked around and found some standing room much closer to the stage. After that, we had as good a view as those who paid the big bucks.

I spent time putting together the video clips that I took that night. Trust me, I made an awesome video. Well, it was just okay given the abilities of my camera and me. However, apparently Blogger and Vimeo have limits on what they can upload. Come on, it's only about 4 minutes! My technology, my skills, and my imagination are not in sync. One or more are always lacking. Anyway here is a snippet. It's a little jumpy because I was trying to video and move to the music. What was I saying about my video skills?

Paul McCartney from Sydna Graf on Vimeo.

Krysta pulled a Ryan a was able to sneak down to the 2nd row during the encore!

This is Krysta's video. We missed most of the song because we were trying to pass a security guard to follow Krysta. I theorize that security tends to ignore cute girls in shorts. Bald men in jeans, not so much. (Curt went first and talked to the guard.) We had to hustle back up the stairs in shame.

Yesterday from Sydna Graf on Vimeo.

This is her explaining that when the guard was distracted by other fence hoppers, she snuck in.

We had a great time. On the way out I heard a mom tell her family, "Pack up the van, we're heading to Denver (the next concert stop)" I would agree!

Whale Watching

Our second day in California we went on a whale watching trip out of Long Beach. We found an internet deal where if you buy four adult tickets, you get one adult ticket free. Strange to think that our family has five "adults" and two children. Stranger to think that there might actually come a day when we all start acting like adults.

We passed by the Queen Mary, aka the Grey Ghost. This former luxury liner was painted naval grey in WWII and transported tens of thousands of troops. It is permanently berthed at Long Beach. You can take a tour (the ghost tour sounded fun/scary/weird) Part of it is a hotel where you can book a cabin and stay the night.

On the trip out, all of the kids stood at the bow of the ship along the rail and whooped and hollered every time we'd hit a wave. Even though we saw three types of dolphins, sea lions, seals, and the biggest animal (including the dinosaurs) to EVER live on the earth, the blue whale, they had the most fun riding at the front of the catamaran. They only stopped riding up front when the pitiful retching of a few very sick passengers drove them up to the top of the boat. None of us got seasick, but since my head was toying with the idea, I thought it best to just sit up top and breathe the nice fresh air. Hence I have no pictures of the antics going on up front with the kids. Oh well, I also didn't notice the sick people, which might have been enough to drive me over the edge. Good thing the kids inherited Curt's iron stomach and balance.

Look! I did it. I put a video on Vimeo and then on my blog! Unfortunately, I accidently uploaded the unedited version, so you will get to see a lot of blue water. My new point and shoot doesn't have a view finder which is a disadvantage in bright light, so I'm not always sure of what I am getting. Oh well, better luck next time.

Dolphins from Sydna Graf on Vimeo.

Sit on a buoy, sunbath, swim, eat, repeat. Sea lions have the life!

Erin and Krysta managed to crack a half-hearted smile for this picture of downtown Long Beach. After I told them we would not be eating lunch if I didn't get a few more happy faces, they produced the next picture.
That's better. Nothing like the threat of no food to bring everyone into compliance. Now at least we can pretend we loved taking pictures. I should have recorded the sigh that emanated forth after I was done with this picture. You'd have thought I had asked them to pose for 20 minutes instead of 20 seconds.
Then it was off to the beach. However, this time it was colder. A hint that it's not swimming weather is when the locals are making fires and wearing sweat shirts. Who'd have thought that we should have brought warmer clothes to California in June?! But that didn't stop the kids, including Curt, from having fun in the ocean. Maybe we'll have to go to Leigh Beach to have a warm beach experience.
I was on the same vibe as Angie when I took this feet in the sand picture. Though the St. Thomas sand looks a lot softer and cleaner.
Next up Universal Studios!

Disneyland and California Adventure

After spending the night at Grandma's, we started finally started our vacation. But first we spent an hour and a half touring the metropolis of Hurricane. All of those last minute errands added up. One would think that our destination was Hurricane. Meanwhile to ease her boredom, Rachel prepared for Disneyland by pretending to ride on top of the Sequoia.

But we finally made it to the beach that night...

...and to Disneyland the next day. This was the first time we entered the park without a stroller. Last time both Camille and Rachel were in strollers. We didn't know what to do with all of our stuff. Some silly children thought that mom would carry it for them. Then they tried to get dad to carry items. All soon learned that less is more, and all you really need is a camera, a phone, and money.
When I was little I so wanted to live in a tree house just like this. I still think it would be fun.
Here we are on the Small World ride. This was Kevin's favorite ride!...when he was five. Look how much he seems to be enjoying it now.
Yes, Erin's enthusiasm is also unbounded.
Our new favorite ride was the Tour of Terror. This is a picture of a picture of us just before another drop. Rachel looked at me half way through and said, "I want to get off." "We will," I told her, "in just one minute." DROP!
The second time (we convinced Rachel that it really was fun), we planned on holding our fingers up and circling our eyes. Not all of us made it, but the guy behind us obviously heard us talk about it and joined in.
At first I thought the drop was more of an illusion. How in the world do they get that thing to drop so far and so fast and then catch it? But when I looked at my purse floating in free fall next to me, I was convinced that the drop was real.
We only had one long wait. Our neighbors were at Disneyland the same day, so the kids had friends to wait with in the Splash Mountain ride. Here Kevin models his friend's hat.
One of Krysta's favorite rides really is the Winnie the Pooh ride. Frumpalumps (or whatever they are) and Woozles, oh my!
Have you ever been on the Storybook Boats? Neither have we. This is a ride we have always skipped, but everything was closing for fireworks and this is one of the few still open. Besides, we had to do a few kid rides for Rachel. We would race by on our way to the "big" rides and she kept saying, "I want to go on that." Finally we did.
The ride turned out to be a tour of cute miniature castles, homes and gardens from various Disney stories. Ironically, of all the boats we rode-Jungle Cruise, Small World, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean-it was the Storybook boats that had the greatest risk of tipping over. The employees had us load in a certain order and really cautioned us not stand up because of the danger of capsizing. We even all had to stand up together at the end of the ride to keep the boat balanced. Really, the little kid ride is the most dangerous boat in Disneyland?

I had video from the World of Color show that we saw at the end of the day, but it didn't load properly. Someday I will get the hang of this video blogger thing. But if you'd like to see the entire show, follow this link to the YouTube video. It's incredible what Disney can create out of water, light, music and fire. Movie scenes were also projected onto a screen of water. This show was wonderful and worth the 40 minute wait in line just to get our fast pass tickets to come back at night.

Fifteen hours later we ended our day. How fun to have kids that can go all day long!