Hotel CaliFarnsworth

Wow! It has been a LONG time since I have blogged! I will try to catch up this week! I'm sorry. Hopefully you will enjoy the coming posts!

First things first. On November 11th, the kids had a day off of school. Veterans Day. I didn't want to just sit at home with them but I didn't want to spend a lot of money either. So I did some google-ing and found out that the California Science Center is FREE and open on Holidays! YES!
The museum looked pretty cool on the internet and with only parking to pay for I decided that was how we would spend our day. The very first hands on thing we came too the kids LOVED. It was outside! They had a lever with a truck attached to it. Kids could pull on rope at different points on the lever and lift the truck. My 3 little ones could lift the truck all by themselves on the rope listed as "Effort x1". They felt strong like Superman!Once I actually got my kids inside the museum they were excited to find this contraption.This little Whisper Tunnel was so much fun for them they played with it for quite awhile. Just when I thought I had convinced them to go into one of the rooms (we were still just in the hallway) this kind youth came up to us and put on a Science show for the kids. My kids thought she was magical.She was really nice and even did her many "tricks" four of five times for my kids. Once inside the first gallery, Preston, Chloe, and Derek got to do many cool things. They got to rock out:
meet robots:
experience recycling: participate in experiments (isn't Chloe so cute all decked out nerdy-like--hee hee): keep their chemical reaction experiments (Chloe HAD to keep hat she made. It was the hard foam they make boogie boards out of): check out hearts and brains from various animals, (the octopus brain was the most unexpected for me):
play puppets: meet skeletons: pump blood for a giraffe (and other animals, including a human girl): and enjoy the rose gardens. I thought we were done when we discovered that the museum actually has a couple of buildings. We decided since we had some time we'd check out the Space Building too. So glad we did! Preston LOVED it! Preston about peed his pants with excitement when he saw this: "the Great Bird. Mom it's the Great Bird by Leonardo Da Vinci" Preston was in heaven. He even got to fly a Wright brothers plane using a simulator: I will spare you all the pictures I took of the real Apollo that I took. I was fascinated. It was so cool to look at. The kids got to fly a real police helicopter too. Okay, they got to sit in it and push all the buttons and pull all the levers. Derek liked the real astronaut suits they had on display. One of my kids favorite things in this building was the wing room. Each child would put on some airplane wings on their arms (they were foam) then stand on this silver plate on the ground. Wind would push at you and cause your foam arms to fly. So funny! Here is Chloe with her foam airplane arms. The museum was so much fun. I am sure we will make this a yearly visit. We were there for hours and did not see everything. In particular they have a show that I really wanted to see so we will be back for sure. On the way to the car the kids found this bike rack to be loads of fun. Thank you California ScienCenter!

Okay, so everyone KNOWS I am down for FREE fun! Ha ha! The other day we went to Bass Pro Shops with some friends. I admit that when I heard we were going there to see it decorated for Christmas I was LESS than thrilled. I mean, it isn't even Thanksgiving yet so it's a little early for me to do the whole Christmas thing. And then it's Bass Pro Shop. . .that's a BOY store. Actually I like Bass Pro Shop. I like looking at the fish and sampling their roasted almonds. But that doesn't take too long to do and then I'm pretty much done with the place and I overheard a friend say that we were going with that we'd hopefully be done before 6pm. What in the world??--that's what ran through my head.

We head out to Bass Pro Shop at 3pm. When we walked through the door I admit I was all smiles. The entrance is decorated so nicely! Then we walked into their "Winter Wonderland" and I knew we were going to be there for a loooong while.

The first thing that caught my son's eyes (Chloe went to a friends house to play instead of coming with us) was this Car set (pictured above). They had it all set up and were letting the kids play with it. It is a Nascar racing track. It is FAST. They had it at only half speed and it was quicker than anything I have ever seen. I couldn't get Doug to stop staring at it or my boys to quit playing with it!

Next, the archery center caught their eyes. Now you must understand that they have all these fun stations set up in the downstairs of their shop. Hands on toys that kids are encouraged to play with. The workers are all dressed up and passing out tattoos and stickers. The archery center was awesome! They had little taxidermy animals with targets on them. The bows and arrows were nerf type ones. There is a sign posted that says, "Shoot 3 and win a sticker!" Too cute.

Everyone knows that upstairs they have a shooting gallery for kids. You know the type. . .pay two quarters and shoot at targets like a bottle and then the bottle lifts up or whatever. . .well they had a mini set up downstairs that was free! You KNOW my boys were all over that!
Derek was in love with it all. There is a table set up with what I thought were coloring pages. We went to check it out. Yep, it had coloring pages alright but also Letters to Santa pages. An elf came right over and told us that if we filled out the letter (and mommy filled out the back) and if we mailed it at Santa's mailbox (right there) then Santa would email us back! Cool! Derek wrote a letter (I helped him spell some words) and then he wanted to color. He colored an entire picture and then wanted to show Daddy his letter before he mailed it. Doug took him back to the mail box to mail his letter!
Too fun! We also found out while we were there that Santa stops by every day at 5pm! Fun! Derek was soo excited! Since we were there still at 5pm we got to see Santa. Now we went on Monday night and this Winter Wonderland (paradise) only started on Sunday, and it was NOT crowded at all. We didn't have to wait long for Santa (we were third in line)! Oh, and they take pictures of you and Santa (as many different ways as you'd like--families, individuals, etc) and they print you out a copy (and put it in a paper frame) for FREE!!!

Of course we had to get one of the BFFs too!
While we were there we even ended up in their regular shooting arcade gallery to waste a few quarters!
The elves let us know that this goes on daily and on the weekends they do free Hot Chocolate and Smores too. I am so excited! We are for SURE going back and getting a family picture with Santa. We will have to get all fancy! LOL! Chloe is dying that she missed out! We will be back for more fun! If you have a Bass Pro Shop near you GO!! Hurry before it gets out of control busy! And find out all the fun stuff they had there that I didn't take pictures of! Yep, there was more. . .
Thank You Bass Pro Shops!!

So once again we are in that time of year, where Doug lets the kids smash our own pumpkins. Remember last year? I let you in on the why and how this tradition got started. It has to do with our friend Aaron. The kids LOVE this tradition.

Who can say enough about good friends? No one. Taylor has been a great friend to all 3 of our kids since her kindergarten years. I bet she and Preston will always remain friends. Here is a picture of the kids just hanging out--which they LOVE to do!
And here is another one of the two BFFs at Red lobster:

This year my boys came up with a plan for their costumes. They wanted to be Mario and Luigi so badly. They pleaded with Chloe for weeks for her to be Princess Peach. The boys tried everything to get her to want to be Peach. Chloe wanted to be Alice in Wonderland. She fell in love with Alice during the Electrical Parade for some reason. Chloe is POSITIVE that Alice waved to her and is her friend. Anyway, after multiple promises were made Chloe agreed to be Princess Peach. Remember, Shauna doesn't sew. We hunted for costumes. No luck.

Plan B. Quick, find what you can. We did find an Alice in Wonderland costume at the Disney store for Chloe. Chloe was not impressed with the quality. She was disappointed. So she picked cheerleader instead. Oh goodie. Derek picked Lightening McQueen's pit crew guy costume. Cute cute. That left Preston. Hmmm. He didn't want to be anything. He thought everything was "cheesy" and "lame." Finally, he said he would be a pirate. Then he saw the costumes and said no thanks. Preston said he wanted to be a hobo. I thought yes. Easy! So I got some mismatched old clothes and told him I would cut holes in them and paint them (to make them look dirty). Preston said, "No way mom. That is embarrassing. I'm not going to wear dirty holey clothes that don't match." Uh, what did he think a hobo was? Preston then informed me he just wanted to wear hobo gloves (cool, trendy, fingerless gloves) and regular clothes. Uh, no. That is NOT a costume. I then convinced him to be a rocker....AXL ROSE. Oh yeah baby! Next year, he doesn't get to pick anymore. I will just pick for him. This year was a pain with him. Argh. Doug catered a party on Halloween. Here are some pictures:

Uncle Christopher joined the Navy and he and his family moved away from Las Vegas. They are now living in South Carolina. Sara sent us a really cute picture of the two of them after Christopher graduated from Boot Camp. Now we will have to become pen pals with Uncle Christopher, Aunt Sara, Naomi, and Noah. Another pen pal we have had lately is Corey DeMille. Cory is a friend of Doug's from Utah. Doug was his drummer for awhile and they recently "found" each other on facebook. Corey is currently a medic in Afghanistan. Preston, Chloe, and Derek get so excited when Corey posts pictures on facebook. They all gather around the computer while Doug tells them about each picture. They even want to send Corey some of their old clothes for him to give out to the children there.

Derek got to ride the school bus! Hip hip hooray! No joking, in my household, this is INCREDIBLE my friends. School bus trips are not to be messed with. Derek was sick (shh don't tell) but he was NOT going to miss the chance to ride the bus. No way! Not my little guy. He toughened up so he could go. I don't think it even would matter to my kids where they went on the bus. As long as they got to go on a bus ride they'd be happy. Maybe I should buy a bus and sell rides on it to little kids after school. Oh, I guess that's what public transportation is for, dang it.
Anyway, Derek's class went to the pumpkin patch. Doug packed me a yummy lunch. You are all jealous now huh? Well, you should be. Ha ha. That was the highlight for me. Apart from the bus ride Derek's favorite was holding baby chicks. This is my kid who is normally very afraid to touch animals. He held a chick all by himself. Be proud. I was. He was too. Derek made sure I texted a pic of it to Daddy right away. He would've alerted the press if he could've.