California

Last weekend we went to California to visit Leisel & Daryl & the little cousins Mia & Bruce. Thank you to Leisel and Daryl for their spectacular hospitality and 5 star accomodations! The girls had a ball. Mia's room was trashed within the first 10 minutes of arrival. It looked like a Barbie convention blew up in there.

Leisel makes a mean Quesadilla. I had requests for them for the first few days after we got home.

We went to Disneyland with Leisel, Mia & Bruce for 2 days (thanks again K&J and Leisel & Daryl). That of course was a ball. Poor Leisel got stuck going on a lot of kiddie rides with Olivia and Bruce while Matt and I gorged ourselves on "big kid" rides with Riley, Sammy & Mia.

I have to say my all-time favorite rides for the trip were Space Mountain and California Screamin. It's hard to scream in a "wow-this-is-fun-and-not-at-all-scary" way so that you don't scare the kid you're sitting next to even more than they already are. For example.. on Space Mountain while Mia is squeezing my hand with all her might.. I'm trying to scream in a "woo-hoo.. how fun way, instead of the Holy S**t way that I'm actually feeling. I figure the last thing the poor kid needs is to hear her Aunt screaming like she's just seen the seven horses of the apocalypse waiting for us at the end of the ride, with Freddy Kreuger, Jason & Leather-face standing by as backup.

We spent another day just hanging out with Leisel & Daryl at their house. Pardon me, at thier spectacular home with all the most up to date computer, gaming and theater gadgets one could ever hope for, thanks to Daryl and his ninja-like wiring and electronics skills.

Then we went to Manhattan Beach pier and just let the kids play. The trip was over way too soon for me. I found myself wishing we had a couple more days just to hang with Leisel & Daryl, but I guess you can't play forever.

Pictures of the trip are on our frandsenfamily.com website.