Memorial Weekend

Sorry for the lag in posts, dear readers-- I'm usually a bit more consistent than once a month, but hopefully this little beauty makes up for it. I couldn't even bring myself to talk about it and relive the horrors until today, so here goes! This past holiday weekend Jonathan got Friday and Monday off, so we decided to try camping.

Camping is one of those American past times, right? Like baseball? It's fun? But I think the Camping Gods are still angered at us for some reason. The two times we went in Pennsylvania we got rained out and flooded, and then last year we discovered the dual personalities of Marshmallow Man and Chimney Sweep and got 0 sleep thanks to naughty kids. I swore camping off, but since it'd been a year and my memory tends to wane I caved. And because it's cheap entertainment. And the kids can get dirty. And I don't have to clean the house or do dishes for a whole weekend.

We headed up to Mt. Charleston where it's always 30 degrees cooler than in Vegas, so the weather was a perfect 65 degrees, we'd gotten there early enough to select a prime spot, and the kids were in heaven playing in the dirt. Zachary worked hard loading up the fire pit with wood, then unloading it back into the box. Repeating it 50 times.

We played a few rounds of Skip Bo, discovered our new camping neighbors had like 15 dogs who only responded to Russian, and when it started getting dark we made a fire and roasted hot dogs for dinner, of which Lucy downed two (this is important to remember for later). Oh yeah, she also had like half a watermelon. Looks cute and harmless, huh?

Then we roasted S'mores, which for me is the main event. Jon has some serious roasting skills and gets 'em just the way I like 'em. Mmmmmm. Apparently Lucy likes them too because she had like 4 or 5....

Our bellies full and with the sounds of Lucy's comment that this was her "Best. Day. Ever," we headed to the tent for bed. Trying to be mindful of the other tents surrounding us 20 yards in any direction, we tried to get the kids quickly and quietly to bed-- and they cooperated for once! I love camping! But here's where things got dicey. Groggy and with my mind in a fog, I vaguely remember Lucy waking up a couple of hours later crying, "My tummy hurts! My tummy hurts!" I hear the muffled sounds of Jonathan trying to get untangled from his sleeping bag quickly so he can dump her out of the tent before the inevitable happens. I may be a little slow now and then, but don't think I don't know my kids will gag and puke for the smallest of reasons. We are constantly surrounded by the threat of public upchuck incidents. In the back of my mind I can remember thinking "Pull off her pillow case and have her throw up in that!" but it was pitch black and cold and I was trying to keep Zachy asleep (as well as the rest of the campground), and it was not to be. I heard the ZZZZZip of the door, and the half ZZZZZip of the bottom, and then BLLLLLEEEEEEECCCCHHHH!!!! Then twice more. And add Jon's anguished "Noooo!!!" to the sound track. Unfortunately our darling Lucy must have turned her head while barfing because it sprayed EVERYWHERE. All over herself and her sleeping bag, all over Jon and his $75 polar fleece and his sleeping bag, all over BOTH air mattresses we had in the tent, and all over the floor of the tent. I don't even know why this surprises me anymore.... Jon calls it the "Cardon Specialty."

(How we slept that night-- all 4 on the mattress in every direction and only 2 quilts.)
We stripped her down BAWLING and put her in bed with Zachary (who thank heavens was still sleeping) and she feel asleep in about 10 seconds which just added insult to injury for Jon, who was trying to assess the damage. We figured it was probably only midnight, so we could still pack up and head home, since we were down half of our clothes and bedding. Or, we could try and make due with all 4 of us on our little double air mattress which is what we did. Jon who was down to just his garments then had to mop up the barf with wet wipes-- and let me just say that it was DISGUSTING. That stuff will haunt my dreams forever. Partially digested hot dogs and s'mores. Shudder. He dry heaved a couple of times, so at that point I started laughing hysterically because I figure you can either laugh or cry. All in all we were putting on a pretty good show for our nearby neighbors. Jon chucked everything stinky out the tent door, zipped it up and try to squeeze on the mattress with the whole family and we spend the rest of the night tossing and turning and freezing. At the crack of dawn Lucy was up chipper and happy as always. Then we reminded her of the barf debacle and she sank back into her sleeping bag and said, "I'm embarrassed!" Hmph.

The aftermath! Two sleeping bags, two air mattresses, and lots of clothes and wet wipes didn't make it out alive.

This is her without any pajamas, wrapped in a blanket by the fire to stay warm, complete with dried barf in her hair. Love you Lucy!! At that point I didn't even want to try to cook breakfast, I just wanted to GET. HOME. NOW. and begin the mountain of laundry that awaited me. I even considered asking the Russians if they'd trade their 15 dogs for our 2 kids, but they actually packed up and took off faster than we did. They must have heard everything the night before. What's that you say, Mom and Dad?? Karma's a what?!? Oh yeah. It is that. Apparently I puked in my Uncle John's brand new (3 day old) truck while camping, so I suppose I had it coming.

Luckily Whitney decided to save our weekend and my sanity by showing up Saturday afternoon, and took a very sheepish Lucy to the movie Rio while I cleaned. We then got pizza for dinner, got U-Swirl, and watched the new "Star Trek."

Monday morning we decided to get brunch at the Wicked Spoon which was crazy good! Do you see this dessert plate I'm pounding down?!? Chocolate covered strawberries, fudge, a whole case full of different gelattos, chocolate delicacies, pastries, cheesecake, crepes, etc. They're known for having really unique items all individually portioned and they sure didn't disappoint.

That evening we had a BBQ with our good friends the Kelly's who recently graduated from dental school in Philly and are visiting family here before they move to Page, AZ. We love seeing them!! This is Taylin and Zachy eating hot dogs-- they are about 6 months apart in age.

Jon grilled the burgers and did a GREAT job-- it being only his second time and all. I think I officially LOVE having him cook!


Just like old times! Dixon and Lucy hanging out on the trampoline. They seem to have picked up right where they left off. I can officially say Memorial weekend certainly ended better than it began!

Disneyland Re-Visited (Feat. Grandma and Grandpa Cardon)

**Note to Reader: This is one LONG post. You may want to head to the bathroom, grab yourself a snack and an ice cold drink, before you settle down for this nice long snooze, er, read. Otherwise feel free to skim through the pictures!**

Last week Jonathan was required to attend the California Dental Association's (CDA) convention in Anaheim, CA as part of his AEGD residency. Originally I thought there would be no way we could go too because I did not want to wrestle kids alone at the park while he was attending class all day, but as it worked out we invited his parents to come with us and made a magical vacation out of the whole thing!

Grandma and Grandpa Cardon flew in early Wednesday morning so we swung by the airport, picked them up and headed on to Cali-for-ni-A. We made great time to our hotel (thanks to the kids being entertained in the back with grandma and grandpa) and debated whether or not to use up one of our 3 days in our park hopper passes that afternoon since we were all eager to get started, or just wait and get 3 FULL days Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We opted to wait since it was already 3 p.m. and the park closed at 8 p.m. and headed instead over to Downtown Disney which seemed like a good compromise.


We played at the Lego store and admired the ENORMOUS giraffe made entirely out of legos, as well as Woody and Darth Vader.


Then we got dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which is just a fun, super kid friendly place to eat. We shared the chocolate volcano which is this humongous chocolate cake with ice cream-- and Zachy certainly enjoyed his fair share!

We headed off into the sunset and back to the hotel to rest up for an early morning wake-up call to get to the park!


Jon didn't have classes that day, so he got a whole day to vacation with us (PAID for, mind you) so he was on cloud 9. I remembered from the the month before that for some reason the "Finding Nemo" submarine ride gets busy QUICK so we hurried over to Tomorrowland and rode the Buzz Lightyear ride, did the submarine ride (which Zach LOVED), Space Mountain, and Autotopia. Then we headed over to Adventureland to ride the Indiana Jones ride, look at Tarzan's treehouse, do the Jungle Cruise, and ride my personal fave, Pirates of the Caribbean.

We had a reservation for lunch at the Blue Bayou (the restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean) and enjoyed the super cool ambiance while we chowed down on monte cristo sandwiches.

By this point Zachary was out cold, so Lucy got to pick the lineup and she was begging to do the Haunted Mansion. From there we did Winnie the Pooh, Thunder Mountain RR, (Splash Mountain was STILL closed!), and all the little rides around Fantasyland since the lines were all super short.

Zachary, well-rested and ready to go again, got to go on Casey's circus choo-choo and LOVED it. He was very stoic about the whole thing, but every now and then he couldn't help but let a smile slip out.



We did some more rides around Fantasyland that Zach had missed, and then we all went and did It's a Small World. By that point we'd basically done just about all of the major sights and rides so we headed back to the hotel to relax.

Lucy and Zach got to take a quick dip in the pool with Grandpa before bed.

Friday morning we were up and at 'em in order to get to our Mickey and Pals character breakfast. I'd never done a character meal with the kids, so had no idea what to expect (and they are expensive!), but basically it was a buffet style breakfast where the characters come up to your table to meet you. They also put on little shows and skits as part of the entertainment.

Meeting Stitch! Zachary LOVED Stitch, even though he was probably the one character Zach had never seen a movie about.


Meeting Daisy Duck! Zach kept pointing at her and calling her the "Quack, quack!"

Meeting the Mouse himself!

Another hug and kiss for Stitch.

Zachary dancing along as Stitch taught them how to surf-- he totally got into the dancing and it was really cute to watch how excited he was to meet the characters!

Finally getting a hug from Pluto. We missed Minnie Mouse coming around while we were up dancing which was kind of a bummer so we don't have a picture with her.


One last picture in front of Goofy at the hotel where we had breakfast, and then on to Disneyland!





Lucy was all excited now to keep meeting famous peeps (and thought there would be princesses at breakfast, but hey, you can't please everyone!) so we headed over to the Fantasy Fair and got to meet Belle (who Lucy's a regular with now) but also two princesses she's never gotten to meet-- Tiana (from Princess and the Frog) and Ariel. She was SO excited!

Then we hopped the Disneyland RR for Zachy's sake and rode it around for awhile.

We got off to ride Peter Pan's Flight, and then did Alice in Wonderland. The kids had had kind of a rough night previous, and were hitting that point of grumpiness and all around exhaustion that takes the fun out of it, so since we wanted to stay out late for the fireworks that night we decided to head back to the hotel and take some naps.

Jonathan finished with his classes at 3:30 p.m. so he hurried and met us at the hotel and we packed up to head back over to the park. We started with the California Adventure side since this would be Jon's last time to do rides, and we did Ariel's carousel, California Screamin' (the roller coaster), the swings, and Soarin'.

We also watched the 3D Bugs movie at Flik's Fun Fair.

Once it got dark we headed back over to the Magic Kingdom and staked a spot at a little cafe where we'd be able to watch the fireworks. Even though it was a little chilly and we were out way past bedtime, the kids did GREAT.

Saturday was our final day in our park hopper passes, so we decided to finish up what we didn't see at California Adventure, starting with the 3D Muppet movie. We also did the Monster's Inc. ride and saw Aladdin at the Hyperion Theatre.

While Jon's parents did the Hollywood Tower of Terror, I took the kids on some of the kiddie rides in Flik's Fun Fair.

We got lunch, headed back over to Magic Kingdom for a couple of hours (where the crowds were AWFUL!) and did the Tiki Room and a few other rides again, and called it a day. But not before Zachary said hello to McQueen and Mater-- the pies de resistance of the day. Perhaps even the trip.

Following in his daddy's dentistry footsteps, he must have been checking Mater's teeth for a cavity.:) We thought maybe we'd head to San Diego and do Sea World since Jon didn't have to be back until Tuesday, but we were all so tired we headed home Sunday morning and have been valiantly striving to get back into our routine but with no luck. We are over-tired, over-stimulated, and over real life.:) My head is in a fog and there are about 25 loads of laundry to be done, and we all wish we were back at Disneyland. Zachary has looked at these pictures on a loop slideshow for about an hour now. He LOVED his first Disneyland experience! In fact, I'd even venture to say if we end up going next year for our 3rd year in a row I'm officially making it a tradition.:)