Disneyland - 2nd Half

The second day of our trip we went to Disney's California Adventure.  I had never been to this park before, but I really like it.  It has some of my favorite rides.  We spent most of the morning together as a big group, taking turns watching Lily and Claire while the rest of the group went on an adventurous ride.  I really liked being able to spend that time with my parents and Tristen and Sage.

Lily's favorite ride was King Triton's Carousel.  She loves carousels, so we all went on it with her.  Its important to note that my dad must have been concerned about safety because he wore the safety belt!

We all went together on the Golden Zephyr, which was a boring ride for adults, but made for some great pictures.

My favorite ride is the Tower of Terror.  Its reminiscent of the Twilight Zone and it freaks me out every single time I go on it, as seen below.

Lily's favorite place, besides the carousel, was "A Bug's Land".  It is so cute!  You feel like you are a little bug because everything around you is HUGE.  She cried when we left, partly because she was exhausted and partly because she really enjoyed it.  Its kind of weird though because she gets really scared whenever she sees a bug.

The last thing we did was watch the parade.  We got there a little late and had a hard time finding a good spot, so Lily sat on Grandpa Butler's shoulders because he's the tallest person around.  She could see great and probably really appreciated having a place to sit.

After that, our little family went back to the hotel for some R&R.

Meeting a Princess

Lily was very excited to meet the princesses at Disneyland.  Jeff was a champ and waited in line 1 1/2 hours while I fed Claire and took Lily on a train ride around the park.  It was definitely worth it and one of the reasons we went to Disneyland.  Lily is a HUGE princess fan.  When she first met Snow White, she was a little shy (I would be shy too if I were meeting someone I was a fan of, like ...Robert Pattinson from Twilight).

Snow White was so sweet to Lily.  And then Lily, Claire and I all got to be in a picture with her.  Claire could not take her eyes off Snow White...maybe another princess fan in the works!

Next, we met Sleeping Beauty.  Princess Aurora is one of my all-time favorites.  Lily and Aurora are so cute together!

Lastly, we met Princess Jasmine.  She was so friendly and happy.  Disney does a GREAT job casting!

When we left, Lily had stars in her eyes.  She was acting all dreamy.  It was so cute and you could tell it was a very special moment for her.

Disneyland - 1st Half

We had a lot of fun in Disneyland together as a family.  Overall a very positive experience.  A few items of note:
1) The Budget Inn that we stayed at was more like a nice hostel than an actual hotel.  Worth the ~$50/night we payed, but VERY bare bones....and the beds were as hard as a rock.
2) No Disney vacation with a 3 year old would be complete without its share of melt-downs, both child and mother
3) No matter how hard you try, you're going to spend a lot of time waiting in line

The first day, we planned on meeting the Princesses.  At Disneyland they have the Bibidy Bobbity Boutique where little girls can get overpriced makeovers to look like miniature princesses.  I recreated this experience at home, for very little $$ and it turned out pretty good!

Here are some pictures from the rides we enjoyed:

Claire on the Finding Nemo Submarine

Lily and Daddy riding Dumbo

Lily on the Carousel - probably her favorite ride

Lily and Me driving in Autopia

Grandma Maddux driving, right before Sage crashed into her

Lily and Andrea dancing in the parade.

What fun!  More to come.

Salt Lake Olympics 2002

We visited the Olympic Pavillion in Park City, UT with Jeff's mom when she came in town to visit.  They have a little museum and you can walk around outside and see the bobsled and luge track.  We took some fun pictures I wanted to share.

The Butler Bobsled Team.  I was surprised to find that bobsleds are NOT built for comfort.

Jeff carrying the torch.  You can almost see Olympic gold gleaming in his eyes.

 Me skiing in Park City.  Its pretty scary -- the skiing and my face!

My mother-in-law, Julie, very scared of her 90's hairdo.

I think Jeff is scared that the person behind him on the ski slope can smell his gas.  Ha!

Claire's First Haircut

Claire's hair was getting a little I mean a lot crazy.  Grandma came into town to help us move a couple of big suitcases for our summer internship and while she was in town, we took advantage of her sweet hair cutting skills.  Here's the "before" picture:

Here's some "during" pictures.  Claire is so photogenic -- maybe I'm biased.

Here's the after picture (almost done).  Much better, but every once in a while I lean over to Jeff and say, "What a sweet little boy!"

DDR MAX!

We had fun hanging out with our fellow MBA friends, the Lingenbrinks, before moving.  We got together and played the Wii.  The little girls love to play Dance Dance Revolution.  I put it on "workout" mode so that they can't fail and they jump all over the dance pad.

Workout (or no fail) mode really helped the boys out as well.  I'm sure they wouldn't have made it through the song otherwise.  

Hopefully we can have a reunion party when we each get back from our summer internships!

DON"T Let it Snow!

I am so sick of the snow.  I like having 4 seasons, but not when one of the seasons seems to last SIX MONTHS!  It has been regularly snowing in April and I am ready for Spring.  It snowed April fools day (Ha, Ha, good joke) and continued on until Easter (White Christmas or White Easter?).

It has snowed several times between now and then,with a few nice days sprinkled in.  At least Spring is putting up a fight.  But this morning when I woke up and saw snow on the ground again it was that last straw. Its almost MAY!!!!

Baby Blues

Claire has such pretty blue eyes!

And she can make some really funny faces!

School isn't all hard work!

Jeff asked me to help him with his strategy project (at about 10pm on Sunday night).  He then proceeded to dress in absurd costumes and act out customer testimonials.  I don't know what kind of "strategy" this is, but it sure is funny!

Easter

This was a nice Easter.  It was a nice change of pace to have just our family here for Easter this year.  We hid gross candy in the plastic eggs (so I wouldn't be tempted to eat it) for Lily to find.  And then we put a few little presents in Lily and Claire's Easter baskets.  This year they got matching Easter dresses and matching swimsuits. I also made Lily a Belle dress-up costume.

Dyeing Easter Eggs

We had a lot of fun dyeing Easter eggs together as a family.  It was Lily's first time.  Her favorites were the pink ones.  Of course we mad the traditional Butler "mud egg".  You make a mud egg by mixing all of the leftover dye together and let the last egg sit in it for a really long time.  Its different every year.  This year it was a little on the purple side!