Vacation | the paquettes

Archive for the 'Vacation' Category

Aug

California vacation day 2

Categories: Asher, Ella, James, Julie, Rilyn and Vacation

Monday we went to Disneyland! This is the day we made the girls go on Thunder Mountain! 🙂 We had a great day!! Vacations are definitely a lot more fun now that the kids are getting older. We spent 13 hours there, did 26 attractions (achievers like to count), and only had 3 meltdowns. (One for each kid.) Here is Ella’s meltdown (on Splash Mountain.) She was screaming and crying on the whole ride, even when we were going slow.

we told her she had to sit in the front because she was the smallest (this rule is not true, but I wanted her to experience the thrill!)

Rilyn had a meltdown at the end of the night because she couldn’t walk anymore, and so we doubled up one stroller (we only rented two.)

Asher’s meltdown was after he woke up from his nap. Not a happy boy. I had to hold him while he was thrashing about. No pictures, just lots of frustration for about 30 minutes.

I uploaded this next picture before I realized I hadn’t finished erasing all the people, so you see some headless people on our left. Sorry, I’m on vacation and I’m blogging, and that’s what you get!

Peter Pan

Dumbo!

Rilyn and grandpa!

my mom, Ella, Asher, and me on the tea cups!

I think Rilyn liked this ride!

Casey Jr. Train

Eeyore!

We made Rilyn go on the Indiana Jones ride. Only Rilyn was tall enough for this ride so Grandma sat out with Ella and Asher. This is a thrill ride and Rilyn decided she didn’t like it at the end. 🙂

Wow, this looks like it could be scary!

Daddy, hold my hand!

frightened!

A bumpy ride!

I don’t want to go on that again! (don’t worry she will one day.)

nap time!

Our goal was to meet characters that we didn’t meet in 2009. (Again, the achiever in me comes out.) My girls even told characters they had met before that they couldn’t sign their autograph book because they already got their signature before. Here was a good find! The Fairy Godmother from Cinderella!

Bippity Boppity Boo!

All Ella wanted was to meet Rapunzel, and she got her wish!

The girls were speechless when Rapunzel asked them questions!

Buzz Lightyear ride!

the new Ariel ride

California Adventure park

A Bug’s Life 3-D (this was too scary for the kids, they all were crying at the end)

bumper cars

World of Color show at California Adventure

Aug

California vacation day 1

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: Asher, Ella, James, Rilyn and Vacation

We flew into California on Sunday and spent the day relaxing with family! We are staying at my grandpa’s house in Huntington Beach. This is the same house I grew up spending holidays at with all my cousins. LOTS of memories!

I took this picture of my grandpa’s pool with an old picture of me in my grandpa’s pool (with my cousin) when I was about Rilyn’s age. Bringing the past into the present!

my grandpa’s pool

I jumped off this board sooooo many times!

This is the girls with my cousin Shannon on the pier at Huntington Beach. She is getting married tomorrow and that is why we took this vacation! The girls will be flower girls and Asher the ring bearer!

Shannon, Rilyn, Ella

look at the ocean

Family picture on the pier. It was getting chilly. (I know you Texans are jealous!) 😉

Jun

Marry Me

By James Paquette 1 Comment

Categories: James, Julie, us two, Vacation and Video

took a little while but here is a short video our trip to Kauai celebrating ten years…I’d ask her every day if I had to! I love you Julie

Apr

some favorite pictures

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: Family Fun, Family Pics and Vacation

I love photography. Maybe one day, I’ll find time to buy a really nice camera and lenses and take some classes. Until then, here is some of my favorite shots of our trip with my little old Sony camera.

From California Vacation April 2009

James took this on The Jungle Cruise

Ella on the Casey Jr. Train

Rilyn on the teacups

Those are Asher’s great grandparents in the backgroundI love the generational ‘gap’ that this picture displays

Not very picturesque, but too funny not to share. Ella tried to spell her name inspaghetti noodles at one of the restaurants

Ella exhausted on the plane ride home

Needless to say, the girls did not want to go home from our Disneyland vacation. Rilyn told me, “There is no magic in Texas! There is only magic at Disneyland!” Ella wanted to live at our hotel forever. A great time was had by all and we want to thank my mom and dad from the bottom of our hearts for a ‘magical’ vacation!

Apr

how to ride like Ella

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Ella and Vacation

I believe the perfect age to take a child to Disneyland is around 5 years old. They can ride all the rides and they understand pretend vs. real. They can wait in a line better and their legs don’t get as tired from all the walking. Rilyn did pretty well at Disneyland. We took her on Splash Mountain and she freaked out on the big drop and said she will never ride it again. She wanted to go on the Haunted Mansion and again was scared, but just held us tight. Ella proved to us she couldn’t handle rides that required ‘going in a hole’ as she put it. (Indoor rides such as most of the Fantasyland rides.) We tried a couple rides and she just cried and cried. Here she is on Pirates of the Carribean (yes, big brother told me ‘No flash photography!’ after I took this.)

From California Vacation April 2009

So then we tried more outdoor friendly rides such as The Jungle Cruise. She would love all the animals, right?
Here she is mesmerized at all the friendly animals.

From California Vacation April 2009

Uh oh, here comes a hippo!

From California Vacation April 2009

Apparently, Ella does not care for hippos. So, for the rest of the ride she rode like this…

From California Vacation April 2009

Apr

can I get your autograph??

By Julie P. 4 Comments

Categories: Disneyland and Vacation

When you get to Disneyland, the new rage is to have as many characters as possible sign your autograph book. (yes, we left their books in a rented stroller over night but Disneyland found them and we quietly retrieved them the next morning without the girls ever knowing!) Ella didn’t really get it, but loved it all the same because Rilyn was into all the characters signing her book. And so began our hunt for as many characters possible…it helped that we had four character meals (paying enormously too much for food so characters will stop by your table, chat with you kiddos, take a picture, and of course, sign your book.) So, here is the evidence of everyone we met! (Note: check out Ella’s hand in all of these-she seems to have a hand ‘spot’. Not sure if this is natural for her or she just wanted to feel ‘closer’ to them in some way. Watch out, sometimes her hand lands on inappropriate places…(sorry Mickey and Jasmine!)

Snow White (Ella starts her hand thing)

Goofy

Baloo and ‘the hand’

Minnie and ‘the hand’

Mickey and ‘the hand’

Jasmine and ‘the hand’

Ariel and ‘the hand’

Mulan and ‘the hand’

Cruella DeVille and ‘the hand’

Cinderella and ‘the hand’

Belle and ‘the hand’ (trying to hide but I still see it!)

Sleeping Beauty

Chip and ‘the hand’

apparently Tinker Bell knew how to control ‘the hand’

Alice and the Mad Hatter

Aladdin and ‘the hand’

Apr

a day at the beach

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Vacation
Tags: California

I have finally gone through all my pictures from our southern California vacation and have narrowed them down to 188. I think that is pretty good! So, here are the pictures from the kids first visit to the beach last Sunday afternoon (Bolsa Chica beach). The water was freezing so no one got in. They enjoyed playing in the sand, that is, until Ella saw ladybugs in the sand and then she started to melt down. (She doesn’t like bugs crawling around her.) Then, Asher started eating sand and getting it in his eyes…well, you get the picture…the beach is a fun place in theory…but with 3 small kids, it is a little bit of a nightmare!

From California Vacation April 2009

This was the only way we could keep track of Asher. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize how much sandwould end up in his diaper after unburying him!

From California Vacation April 2009

Apr

and they called it puppy love…

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: Asher, Disneyland and Vacation

I think Asher won’t mind when his sisters want to pop in the movie Beauty and the Beast…

From 2009-04-18 disneyland

Apr

ummm…yuck.

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Silliness and Vacation

We had a pretty good flight to Orange County from DFW. (For those of you who don’t know, we are on a Disneyland vacation for the next week!) We gave Asher a 7.5 on a scale of 1-10. The flight was during his morning nap and so he had some fussy moments where you know he just wanted to sleep, but there was too much going on around him (we were seated right next to the airplane bathroom-oh joy.) So, finally, after several attempts at rocking him, we decided to use the germ-infested airplane blanket to cover him while he laid across me and my mom’s lap. It worked!
So, of course, the ever-so-predictable beverage cart rolls down the aisle and the stewardess asks me about my mom “is she nursing?” I was like what?!? Gross!!! Okay, so I really told her, “um, no, that is my mom and her grandson is sleeping under there!” She said, “Honey, I’ve seen it all on airplanes. I’ve seen my share of 4 year-olds being nursed on planes so I’m not surprised that I thought she was nursing.” Again-gross.

my mom ‘nursing’ From 2009-04-18 disneyland

**yes, my mother gave me permission to post this. In fact, the first thing she said after the incident was, “You want to put this on your blog, don’t you?” 😉