Kayla Fuller

Easter

Green Mountain on Easter

We started from Inspiration Point just after noon. The ascent was pretty smooth until the snow! I was glad there was some still out there to give them some thrill. However, Reagan saw this as quite the obstacle for some reason. All the hikers out there were grabbing trees and making it across. They really missed out then when the whole trail was covered!

They were excited to get to the 4-way because that somehow signaled the beginning of the end of the climb. Plus, I had promised some amount of rock jumping/climbing and the stairs were what I was eluding to. But Kayla was done being in her backpack by this point. 0.2 miles of straight up climbing. Can this 2 year old make it? At least she has buddies to lead the way.

They sat down for a minute and butts were dirty. Then there was some kind of butt clean-off party. This is a SERIOUS adventure, guys. Geez.

That's how you work. Everyone would ask, "how old is she?" Two! Suck it.

Reunited at the top with Mom, who had the snacks.

Oh wait...going for the full summit. No wussie runner's summit!

I have a plan.

To your right...

We stayed up top for a bit. Busy place. Girls signed the log book, of course.

Thanks for getting out with me today, ladies! We had some challenges but we made it just fine. I hope you will go again in 6 months. Or maybe sooner.

We went 4.36 miles with an elevation gain of 1,554 feet in 03:26:49, which is an average pace of 47:23. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Spring Break 2012: Santa Monica - Day 7

Beach time! Let's see how much sand she can eat this time. Oh, good. She has a guide so I can relax.

Looks like she has her head in the sand.

I can make stuff too! With this makeshift bucket AKA Starbucks cup that Mommy gave me.

Guys! Guys! Guys!

Fine. I will play by myself.

Bury me too!

Live action!

So that's it for Spring Break 2012! I hope that they all had a great time. I enjoyed spending the week with them. Its good to get away and spend time together.

Spring Break 2012: Disneyland - Day 6

Cars? Not our thing but always a good photo op.

Well, the Ariel ride was the big hit this trip for Kayla. I lost track of how many times we rode it. Over and over. She made it worth it every time though. She had it all memorized and was very entertaining during the whole thing. I will miss taking her on that. But I am sure I will never get the song out of my head. Under the sea...

Well, you don't seem scary.

We made another pass through the Princess Fair for Kayla but the big girls didn't object to going since they missed the first trip through. It was the same ladies as last time which was a bit of a bummer for our autograph book goals but oh well. We focused on the meet instead. It worked a bit better since the big girls could play middle man for Kayla to the Princess.

We re-rode a few more of our favorites before Kayla turned and said "I go ni-night". She curled up into a ball in her stroller and covered up. Her Disney was done. And all was fine. We really enjoyed taking her on this trip. Such a fun age to experience everything. Its all still magic and characters are real as ever. Being that Kayla is the youngest, I feel a bit like part of our own innocence that we are reliving through her will be gone after this. But that's life. Things move on. But I am sure we will be back. Why? Well, the last ride of the day was a small roller coaster for kids over in Toontown. When we got off there was only one word coming out of her mouth..."again?". Have you heard of Space Mountain, Kayla?

Spring Break 2012: SeaWorld - Day 5

Today we drove down to San Diego to see some fish. Big fish! Something different than pretties for sure.

Kayla looked into this tank for a long time. Really cool!

Not sure what this is but overall I can't complain about this kid. Never really complained any day as long as we kept her fed.

Oh, that's better!

Ready to get wet? Time to watch some whales on my favorite person's lap.

That's a big fish!

That was fun! Can we see some more pretties tomorrow now?

Spring Break 2012: Disneyland - Day 4

Back to where the "pretties live" today. The big girls wanted to meet up with some friends who were also here so I set off with Kayla in search of more pretties and some rides. Just as we were walking through the castle we spotted this pretty over on a bridge to the side. We got in line quick but there was an issue. The evil Queen was there too. Why is Snow White hanging out with her? This made for an awkward photo for Kayla. Here she is in line with her book wondering if this is going to be safe or not.

When the time came, I shoved her in there and she rode it out and no harm came to her.

A few minutes later, we saw another favorite. Jasmine! This one wasn't scary at all but she was very shy. They talked with her very nicely and asked her questions but she just looked down mostly. Probably embarrassed at being in the company of royalty.

If people are scary, what about fairies? So we headed over and saw Tinker Bell. She was really nice and was talking about Kayla's dress and necklace a bit. Kayla liked this one a bit more. However, she kept her eye on the other fairy. Anyone dressed in darker clothes usually means that they are "mean and not nice".

We headed over to Critter County and ran into this band of friends. They were all pretty gentle except for Tigger who was bouncing around like he was high on life once again. Kayla rode the Winnie the Pooh ride nearby a few times in a row then so she was having fun pointing out that the guys in the ride where the same guys she just met. Can you believe it?

We ended the night back over in California Adventure to see the water show. But as soon as it was over, we jumped into her favorite Ariel ride three times to cap off the night. Then Kayla got back in her stroller and fell asleep for the ride home.

Spring Break 2012: Universal Studios - Day 3

We have these 5 day CityPass tickets for our trip so the next destination on the docket was Universal Studios. A different vibe than Disney for sure but Kayla likes a lot of the characters there so we thought that would be a big hit. Unfortunately, she has become afraid of anyone in a non-human costume. They all make her freeze up and become moderately scary. I blame the gorilla at Casa Bonita.

So the first big visit was her favorite guy...Curious George. But even though she knows he is a "nice ah ah", she wasn't interested in being close to him for too long. You never know what that monkey might do.

But Curious George had a new attraction there which she really enjoyed. It had a water playground but the thing that really grabbed all our kid's attention was this indoor ball room place. Kind of hard to describe. It was this indoor 2 story building that had thousands of foam balls scattered. There were buckets all over the place you could grab. And there were tubes and guns and vacuums and more that were all air-powered. You could fill your bucket, then use it to fill up a gun, then shoot balls around the venue. It captured Kayla's attention for hours as we visited it multiple times during the day.

Although we never got to see Dora, we did run into her cousin, Diego! She wasn't too scared of him. Vaguely resembles a human so he is tolerable.

We called it a night a little earlier. There is much more to do in the morning!

Spring Break 2012: Disney California Adventure - Day 2

For our 2nd day, we ventured over to Disney California Adventure. The main entrance of the park is under construction as they are opening a new "Cars Land" this coming summer. Kind of kills a lot of the real estate right now. Should be fun for boys but these girls didn't care at all. So we made our way around the park. The big girls took turns riding things that required you not be a tiny person while Kayla was on the lookout for more "guys" to spot. Hey, there is Woody!

Kayla, Reagan and I watched a Disney Junior show where lots of the Disney animated characters came to life on stage before us. Kayla enjoyed that a lot. We saw folks she watches like Jake from the Neverland Pirates. And he was also outside right after the show!

And Handy Manny as well!

We got to see a pretty cool Aladdin theater performance as well. We finally ended the night back over in Disneyland which didn't close until midnight. Kayla hadn't napped all day and made it until about 11 PM. One last ride on the Merry-Go-Round and it was lights out in the stroller for the rest of the night and the walk home.

I need to mention that Kayla's ride of the year was Ariel's Undersea Adventure. You sit in a clamshell and go through a story presentation of The Little Mermaid movie. Kayla loved it! We rode it over and over. The first time was complete shock and awe. But by the 2nd time, she was the new tour guide. She would point out everything that would happen before it happened. She totally enjoyed that ride.

Spring Break 2012: Disneyland - Day 1

After becoming infatuated with princesses, the big day arrived! We made it to Disneyland. We kept telling Kayla for weeks about all the people she would see. But when she repeated the list back to us, it grew to include Dora, SpongeBob, Mario, Yoshi, and anybody else she had ever seen in a cartoon. I didn't want to explain licensing restrictions to her just yet and kill her buzz.

The weather for today was the worst of the week and we got a later start on the day. But the park was pretty empty. We took Kayla to the first ride we passed which was Alice in Wonderland. She sat up front with Reagan. We were all excited to see what she thought of Alice. She knows Alice and reads a little book about her from time to time. So, how was it? "SCARY!", she says. Oops. This might be a long day.

The big girls wanted to go and ride some "must be taller than 40 inches" stuff so I let Kim take them and we headed off for some quality time. With our autograph book nearby, we headed over to the goat petting zoo. Its a weird little off-shoot and nobody was back there. Kayla wasn't too sure about these goats that were as tall as she was. Just as we exited the pen, Jessie from Toy Story comes running up to us. There was no one around! She was doing her meet-n-greet time and she made us the first customers. She grabbed Kayla by the hand and walked her along the goat pen showing her things. They did all kinds of stuff. It was kind of one of those moments that you should record on video but I decided to enjoy the moment myself instead with them.

Next, we went off and got the girls some FastPasses while they were on yet another ride. Then we got in the line to see Rapunzel of Tangled fame. Apparently, she is new there and takes hours on some days. We jetted through the line in about 20 minutes. Just as we were ready to step into her chambers, the whole family shows up and goes in too! Cheaters.

I then took Kayla over to the Princess Faire area but she was asleep. The line moved slow and Kayla got a good nap in. Just as it was our turn to step in side to meet the "pretties" (as Kayla calls them), I woke her up. Coming out of a daze and then seeing your most bestest favorite princess, Ariel, in the flesh was quite a shock. Almost seemed like she was too out of it to know if it was real or a dream. Interestingly, it was the same Ariel from the last time we came here years go.

Then it was on to Belle. Kayla perked up a bit but was cold. I had taken off her jacket to get the better photo op.

Lastly, was Tianna from the Princess and the Frog movie. Kayla watches that one too so she asked where Frog was.

At this point, it was pouring rain outside. Puddles were forming so big that you couldn't keep your shoes dry. People were exiting the park and things were closing down due to weather. But we were close to Toontown and I wondered if the Big Cheese was hanging out back there despite the rain. So we ran back there and jumped into Mickey's house. Pretty much nobody was there. Had it to ourselves until we rounded a corner and Pluto was there laying in a chair resting. He jumped up and greeted us like any good dog would!

Then Goofy was around the corner. Another quick photo-op. We are moving right through this autograph book page by page now.

2 minutes later we were there with the head of the place, Mickey Mouse. Drenched and wet but trying to smile and be happy I guess.

Minnie was at home next door. Surprising they have separate houses next to each other. Marital issues? Are they married? I just don't know.

With rides closing due to rain, there were limited options. We were soaked and the indoor rides didn't seem so fun in wet clothes with air conditioning blowing at you. So we opted to leave the park and head back to the hotel. Its only a few blocks but we grabbed a cab just to get out of the rain a bit. Back at the hotel, everyone dried off and we put our shoes on top of the heater to get them dried out. We have more to see tomorrow!

Know Your Princesses

We have been having some speech difficulty with Kayla recently. But when there is something that she cares about, she learns the names pretty quickly. So she recently fell in love with Disney Princesses. All about them all the time. So let's see who she knows!