A last hurrah at Disneyland!

Yes!! With this post I am FINALLY finishing up our summer 2010 adventure!! And as the kids and I fly to the States on Wednesday for the 2011 summer of fun it's not a moment too soon! I have a nifty new app for my iPad that SHOULD allow me to chronicle this summer's adventure as it happens, but don't hold me to that... if I have to use HTML I'm OUT. No sprekenzie if you know what I mean...

We had to fly back to Korea from LA and I thought to myself... "Hmmm.... is there anything fun to do in that part of the world?". Being a Disney FREAK the answer of course was "HEAD TO DISNEYLAND!!" So I made sure we had a 3 night gap between fiddle camp and flying home. Didn't tell the kids. Just said we had to go to LA because that's where our home flight was. Got to the airport. Disney shuttle pulled up and they freaked out! It was such an awesome surprise. They didn't even know there was a Disney park on the west coast! We headed straight to frontier land to ride Big Thunder Mtn. This was their 3rd Disney Castle park so it was cool to watch them get all disoriented because Splash and Big Thunder are in different locations in WDW and Tokyo. In DL they're like way across the Rivers of America from each other so it was a whole new map to get used to.

Then over to Tomorrowland to ride the Astro Orbiter!

we did a bunch of rides and got some fastpasses and then headed to the Grand Californian to meet Alexa and Chris. They are friends/family from OR that now live in CA. It was great to see them and we had an awesome dinner. That hotel is gorgeous!

Then back to the park! 2 goofballs on Main Street:

We totally discovered the best kept secret at DL. When Fantasmic is showing, Splash Mtn gets completely cut off from the rest of the park! No one can get to it back in it's little corner and if you trap yourself back there during the show you can ride it as many times as you want with NO LINE! Here's us on like ride #4....

It's our Fav Disney ride EVER! Can you tell? C'mon, sing it with me: "pretty good sure as you're born...'

Next day we headed over to Disney's California Adventure. It's my lowest ranked park of all parks but they are adding some new things to make it better so I will re-rank it when those things are up and running. Of course Tower of Terror was high on our list. We all thought the WDW one was better...

Had a great lunch, scored some huge Mickey cookies and rode Grizzly River Run a few times. Now that's a ride in DL that's Waaaay better than it's WDW counterpart!

That night we picked up our pre-ordered picnic meals with automatic fastpasses for the newest show at DCA: World Of Color. Oh yeah baby... always have to have the inside edge cuz that's how we roll. We hit the rope drop like the Disney commandos we are, booked ahead of the crowd and scored a spot on the railing right in the middle for the show. It was AMAZING!

On Monday we just kind of decided to park hop. Started the day at DL, rode Dumbo,

Then headed over to Pixie Hollow to meet the Fairies!

First one we met was Terrance. Teddy ran right up and gave him the best bear hug EVER!

Then Tink got the same treatment from Sasha!

Vidia was there too. She was perfect! Looked JUST like her character and was just saucy and bossy and perfect. The kids loved this meet and greet!

Finished out our morning, went home for naps, and re-fueled with some ice cream on our way back to the parks!

Guess what we did during Fantasmic?

Then, just as the crowds left after the first showing, we snuck in on their tail end and got a spot right on the railing in the center for the 2nd Fantasmic show. It was great way to end our mini Disney trip and a perfect grace note to an awesome summer!

Climbing Mt Gajisan

 Before I left Korea for the summer Zoe, Cora and I wanted to summit Mt. Gajisan. This is the highest mountain in Ulsan. We hit the trail at about 9 am on a Sunday.

We had an amazing day for the hike! Gorgeous skies, perfect temperature and great company. We motored to the top in about 2 hours!

 Here's us pushing to the Korean flag perched on the summit. The top of the mountain was a bit of a scramble and it turns out that Cora is afraid of heights!

 So that's why she's kind of clutching that rock on the top of the mountain! The summit area was tiny and there were massive views in every direction.

 And a cool rock that all climbers seemed to want a picture of. Hey when in Rome....

 Incredible views in every direction!

 Zoe had been here before and knew the scoop. She took us to a little shack just down from the summit.

 This guy has set up shop here and cooks bowls of hot noodle soup for all the climbers. SCORE! My 2 climbing buddies:

 Love this dude and his dog. Just hanging out at the top of Mt. Gajisan cookin' noodles and being fabulous. Love the 'burns baby!

 His dog, not to be outdone, had eyebrows that were drawn on. I think possibly with a sharpie marker. Because his dog eyebrows were somehow lacking.....?

 we got settled and signed the walls.

 Then got a steamy hot noodle bowl. Yum!

 Then it was time to head down. We took in amazing views as we came down the other side of the mountain and got to see some new terrain.

 The summit is the peak all the way to the left. Doesn't look like much in this pic!

 When we came down we bushwacked down to the temple complex in the middle so we could check it out without backtracking. The summit is just above the tree to the right of the temple in the middle of the picture. It looks like a long way off but we were up there just a few hours before I took this picture!

 Here's one of the temples being re-done that has not been painted yet. I actually like them all natural looking like this:

 When they are painted they look amazing though!

 Here's a close-up of the incredible detail that goes into painting them:

And we were back down by 2pm! We had a great day and celebrated with a tri-family BBQ.  Perfect Sunday!

Valley of the Moon Fiddle Camp!

 So continuing our tales from summer 2010... one of the last things we did before heading back to Korea was head to VOM. Now.... fiddle camp really can't be expressed in photos, so here's a MONTAGE VIDEO!
But here are some highlights anyway. Teddy sang Korean songs at the Ceildh in front of about 200 people. He was great!

Sasha lost her top front tooth! This was the 3rd lost tooth at camp this year BTW. I thought that warranted a jig written about teeth but that's just me...

Ted picked out his very own costume for the grand banquet. It was part Indiana Jones, part Crocodile Hunter.

The kids band played a contra dance for the entire camp and Sasha got her own mike!

Hard at work:

And at the end of camp, Sasha played in the final concert for the first time. Last year she attended camp but just watched the concert. I was so proud of her!

Here's all of us getting sound checked for the big show. I love it when Alasdair talks into his fiddle to get our attention!

This is the last year for the old dining hall, it's being torn down and a new log lodge is being built to replace it. The new building is gorgeous, much bigger, and will be a much better fit for everyone at camp.

There are a lot of nostalgic feelings for the old building however and on the final morning we found that some of the instructors who have been coming to VOM since they were like 9 years old had decided to sleep in the dining hall. Breakfast just went right on around them!

So it was another wonderful, wacky, and super fun year at VOM. We'll be going again this summer and we can't wait!

2 Birthdays!

 Can you believe it's that time of year AGAIN??!! I have a 5 and a 7 year old! Where does the time go? So last year we had separate parties which meant that this was supposed to be combo party year to give Mom a break. We've done that on all our turning odd number years. But this year they just couldn't compromise. Teddy wanted Race Cars, Sasha wanted fairies, and on and on. So I said they could have their own but it had to be small and mellow. No erutping volcano cakes, no millions of people, just mello. Sasha opted for a sleepover. It was awesome. Easiest party we've ever done! She had 6 little friends over for the evening and they made designer cupcakes by adding mix-ins and then opened presents while they were waiting for them to bake.
 I love this age. They are so sweet and girly and all of them just ooohed and aaahed over each little thing. So nice.

Then we had Birthday dinner. Sasha wanted Spaghetti and meat sauce. Easiest dinner EVER right? That's a "can-do!" She was celebrating her birthday but I was celebrating the fact that we have finally gotten to the stage where the kid can eat spaghetti and not have it all over her dress by the end. Well... most of the time anyway.

 Then we decorated our cupcakes!

 Nice work Sash!

 Even Teddy got in on the action but he and Jeff had to work at a kids table we set up in the living room because there wasn't room for one more person in my tiny, tiny kitchen!

 Cupcake artisans!

 Of course then it was time to sing...

 Later that evening we all got situated and watched a movie. Sasha chose "The Little Mermaid" because she said she hadn't seen it in a long time. Classic.

 And they actually slept! They were pretty much out by 10:30 and got us up at 6:30 so it wasn't even an Epic night. What a groggy crew!

 Jeff made everyone a big pancake breakfast and we all felt like Sasha had celebrated being 7 to the fullest.

 Then just a little while later it was Teddy's turn! They didn't have a race car cake and he wanted cupcakes so I made him the cupcakes and bought the round cake at Costco and just decorated it. Kind of lame but he thought it was excellent.

 Each guest had to bring a race car and Jeff built a ramp. The kids took turns in a double elimination bracket to find out who brought the fastest race car. They loved it! Jeff and Perro did too!

 Ready for another race...

 Then after eating some pizza and what-not Teddy dug into his gifts. This is the first time we've let him actually open his presents at his party so he was stoked and felt like a very big kid.

 Having a blast!

 Then it was cake time! That's one happy Ted there in the middle. Cheese balls and cake all on the same day...heaven!

 He got tons of cars! It was insane. Too many actually. He is picking out some to give to the local orphanage so the boys there can have some cars too.

So that's what we've been up to in the last few weeks. The kids and I are heading home for the summer April 27. We'll be in the US until Sept 6th!! So I guess my next mission is packing....