Disneyland Trip 2015: Universal Studios

We decided to break up the Disneyland fun and do some Universal Studios in between. This was our first time with the kids, and my first time since I just graduated from high school. I couldn't believe how much it had changed! I had always loved it, but they have added so much, it's pretty awesome and was definitely worth checking out!

The first thing we did was the tram tour! I've always been fascinated by how movies are made, and it's so cool to see up close how they do things! They had some neat things on this tour that I remember from years ago, and some really cool new things as well! There was so much, but I just wanted to share some highlights!

I was so glad to see Jaws was still there!

 Skull Island from "King Kong" - much smaller than it seems in the movie! So crazy!

 Going through a Mexican Village, where one of our favorites "Nacho Libre" was filmed, among many others!

 Whoville from "The Grinch"

 This was my favorite, a scene from "War of the Worlds". They had a real Boeing plane that was all torn up. The scene was much bigger than this, but I don't want to give too much away for those who might go someday! 

After that we did a bunch more rides...most are the 3D/4D rides, but my kids' favorite was The Mummy ride which was a fast (but short) roller coaster. I think they would've loved the Jurassic Park one but it was closed for renovations sadly!

We took a little break and grabbed some Johnny Rockets in the downtown area...(we have one locally but had never tried it before, it's was okay but not one of our favorite meals!)

Back to the Universal Studios Fun!

Brayden practicing her pose on the red carpet!

I remember seeing the Water World show back when the movie first came out. I can't believe the show is still going strong! It was awesome too, we all loved it! 

Mike with one of the real jet skis they used in the movie!

The animal show was fun, I think almost exactly the same as the last time I went. Ashton was so excited to get to meet one of the movie star dogs. This one is from "Hotel for Dogs" and some other movies I can't remember!

 The kids wanted to make sure before we left the park to stop at the Simpson's Kwik-E-Mart for a couple of their giant Lard Lad Donuts! My family loves The Simpsons, and even though I'm the outcast and don't love it, I thought the Simpson's area was pretty cool, and they have a whole area they are still working on that's not open yet!

 We were excited to get back to the hotel to give the donuts a try. They seem like more of a novelty, but they were actually pretty good! And yes, we shared! One of these donuts is equal to like 4 regular donuts! Nuts!!

 Next up...more Disneyland!!!

Trendy Tuesday: Happy St. Patty's Day!

I've been kind of slacking on the Trendy Tuesday posts due to getting ready for our vacation, being on vacation, and recovering from vacation, ha ha! But I'm going to try to re-commit! 

My family loves to celebrate every single holiday, as I've mentioned before. As my kids get older though, I feel like it's getting harder to think of fun things they'd like. Past St. Patrick's Days always started with a green breakfast, but the past few times I've dyed our breakfast food green, the kids have gotten grossed out and won't eat it! It's funny to me since they don't ever pass up on eating fluorescent colored candy! I'm not so fond of dye either though, so I've come up with green food alternatives! One recipe I might do tonight is one we first tried last summer and got addicted to - a super easy, completely healthy and naturally green ice cream! I've had many kids taste this and they all love it, and would never know it's healthy!

Healthy Chocolate Chip Mint Ice Cream or Milkshake

Put in blender:

3/4 c. half and half

1/4 c. agave nectar or honey

2/3 c. nonfat dry milk or whey protein

2 c. spinach

1 tsp. pure peppermint extract

Very small handful of chocolate chips

2 1/2-3 c. ice cubes

Blend and enjoy!

(With the Blendtec we use the ice cream setting, with a regular blender it would probably be more of a milkshake or smoothie consistency, still yummy!)

We also always leave a little treat or surprise of some kind for the kids to find in the morning. I was trying to think of something new to do, when I came a across an idea to use Shrinky Dinks to make shamrock necklaces. I already had Shrinky Dink paper from a past project I did (I got mine from Amazon, but I think you can find it at office or craft stores), so I decided to give it a try. First I found a shamrock outline I liked on Google Images, saved it, then put in into word and sized it how I wanted it. They say you want to make the shape about 50% bigger than you want the end result. I printed the shamrocks straight onto the Shrinky Dink paper. If my printer wasn't having issues with color printing, I would've printed green shamrocks, but since it is, I just printed the black outline and colored with a light green permanent marker. I didn't love the lines it left, but I did my best, ha! Also, when they shrink, the color gets a bit darker, so you want to use lighter colors. Then I cut them out, punched a hole in the top, and put them into my toaster oven on 325 degrees on top of some parchment paper because they can stick. Here they are ready to go into the oven...

You leave it in the oven for only a minute or two. They will roll up, shrink, then flatten. Once they flatten they are ready to come out of the oven. They need to cool a little, and they become a hard plastic. You can use anything for the necklace part - ribbon, yarn, or the many different options at craft stores. I happened to have these ball chains from a past project. The holes in the shamrocks weren't big enough, so I used circle link extenders, then put the ball chain through that and it worked perfectly. I could've colored them better, but other than that I like how they turned out! I wanted these to be a surprise for my kids to find in the morning to wear to school, but it's also something fun to do with your kids as well. My kids love making Shrinky Dinks!

Last year I did a scavenger hunt for the kids, and started it by bringing them their first clue during lunch at school...

and they continued the hunt when they got home. I can't remember what the prize was at the end though, maybe a trip to an arcade or something I'm guessing! 

 After the hunt I had everything ready for them to make racing leprechauns! This was maybe a little young for them, but they still had fun with it. 

What you need:

Leprechaun coloring page

a straw

strong tape

balloon

string or yarn

I found a couple of different coloring pages of leprechauns online and had the kids each color their own and cut it out. Then we attached a straw with tape (we used strong packaging tape for extra security) horizontally on the top of the back of the leprechaun. (We had boba/smoothie straws which worked amazingly!) Then I had a rainbow picture I stuck to a dining chair which is what the leprechauns were racing to, and we tied two long pieces of yarn (the length of our great room) to it and strung the yarn through each of the straws attached to the leprechauns. Then we blew up the balloons and holding onto the balloons without letting the air out, we taped the straws and leprechauns to the each of the horizontal balloons. The kids held onto the other end of the string and let go to race. Re-blowing up the balloons and keeping everything attached was kind of a pain, but the kids thought it was fun!

No matter what you end up doing, I hope you have a super fun St. Patrick's Day, and don't forget to wear your green!!!

Disneyland Trip 2015: Days 1 & 2

I have so much left to catch up on on here, but I decided I'm starting with the most recent and will just have to archive the past stuff! Our most recent adventure was a trip to Disneyland! This is our third time going with the kids - we average a trip every three years which when we spend the max amount of time there each time we go, we get our fill to last for awhile! This time we threw Universal Studios Hollywood in the mix, which was a first for our kids, and made up our 7 whole days of amusement parks! We had a blast, even though our feet may not have been loving us for it! Ha!

First thing, I'm warning you that I will probably be mentioning food a lot. We went to some fun places to eat, and discovered some fun treats on our trip and I like to share for anyone who wants recommendations! It all just added to the fun! It started on our way to Cali at our stop for lunch in St. George. We had discovered this place called El Coyote Charro during a past St. George trip, a yummy little Mexican place with awesome street tacos and the best horchata I have ever had!

When we got to our hotel in Anaheim, we grabbed some dinner at the hotel's Pizza Hut, then despite the cool weather, we let the kids swim. After that, the kids watched the Disneyland fireworks out of our hotel room window (they had just finished when I snapped this pic, darn!), then we got a good night's rest for our first day of Disneyland fun! 

Day 1

Walking into the park didn't have quite the same effect that it usually does walking down Main Street when you first see the castle. It was covered up for refurbishing. It was covered with this cool drawing though, which I found out later was a giant version of the original drawing presented when plans were first being made for it years ago. That made it a little cooler and made me appreciate it for what it was.

Small World was also covered for renovations (I missed the cuckoo clock!), but you could still ride the ride. Which I found out my kids think is pretty creepy. (They'll do a zombie haunted house no problem, but little kids singing freaks them out, go figure!) Needless to say, we only rode it once this trip!

After spending the first half of the day at Disneyland, we went to lunch at Fuddruckers, which we used to have here in Utah but it sadly closed, so that was fun (best shakes ever!), then we rested a bit and then headed to California Adventure to spend the rest of the night. The boys love this Toy Story ride since it's like a giant video game...

 Then the rain started, and it wasn't stopping anytime soon, so as bad as we wanted to suck it up and stay out in it, it was really too miserable, so we had to call it a day. The only thing I had worried about for the trip was the weather. After seeing the forecast, I had bought us all rain jackets the day before we left. And we needed them. Anyway, we still had a fun night - dinner at Rubios, Yogurtland, and card games in our hotel room!

Day 2

We decided on our second day to pick up where we left off the night before at California Adventure. Unfortunately, right as I was taking this picture, the rain started to pick up where it left off too! But luckily it didn't last long, we did Tower of Terror and by the time we were done the rain had stopped and the sun came out! And lasted for the rest of our week! Yay!

Then we took a quick trip down to Moab...just kidding! This was our first time seeing the new Cars ride and we couldn't believe how much they made it look like southern Utah! Due to EXTREMELY long lines we weren't expecting, we didn't ride that ride for another couple of days!

For lunch we got corn dogs, and our hot dog hater got corn!

We did a few more rides then decided to go back to the hotel to rest and freshen up before heading to dinner. We have never done a package vacation deal in the past, but this time we went through Costco which had some perks, including free character dining. We had reservations for Goofy's Kitchen that night and it did not disappoint! The buffet was amazing, with every kind of food kids - even picky ones - could ever love! They even had one of my favorite desserts, creme brulee, among a kajillion other options! And all of the characters walking around visiting tables was definitely what made it! My kids have never been that interested in meeting or taking pictures with the characters, but when they came right up to them, I know they loved it!

Then we finished off the night at Disneyland! Next post...our first day at Universal Studios!