For three nights, Conway and his classmates went to Islandwood, a camp on Bainbridge Island that focuses on environmental education, and it was Conway's first sleepaway camp. Not surprisingly, it sounds like it was lots of fun, potentially some learning, and not a lot of sleep. What can be expected when you put a bunch of buddies in a room together and ask them to go to bed quietly?
On Mother's Day this year, we picked up sandwiches from the new Un Bien on Queen Anne and headed to Marina Beach Park in Edmonds, near where Parker had flag football that afternoon. It was my favorite kind of low-key day - beach, good food, sports, and my favorite people. And of course, they honored my one Mother's Day wish and did absolutely no arguing and no fighting with each other. Just kidding, but it was still a lovely day.
Monroe and his Seattle United team made it to the semi-finals of the top division in the Presidents Cup soccer tournament! They sadly lost in the semi-finals, but they played hard, and we had so much fun watching them play.
Well, we did it! We took the boys to Disneyland for the first time, survived, and dare I say had a pretty great time! We flew into Burbank and rented a car which was quick and easy. We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott Anaheim theme park entrance, which had a nice pool with water slides and only about a 5–10-minute walk to the park. On our park days, David mobile ordered breakfast sandwiches from Panera for breakfast, which we picked them up on the walk to the park. We left the hotel at about 7:00am each park day, got through ticketing, and were pretty close to being first in line at the ropes by 7:30am. The boys enjoyed their breakfast sandwiches while we waited in line for the rope to drop at 8:00am and we were off and running (sometimes literally).
We had Lightning Lane Multi Passes, which made it easy to get on most rides with very little line one time each day. We also discovered that some of the rides had a single rider lane, which goes much faster that the main line, and was great when we didn't mind not sitting next to each other on the ride. We were able to ride the Incredicoaster (our family favorite) 8 times on our last day by getting to the park early, and then using our Lightning Lane Pass, and eventually the single rider land. We definitely found that we were able to do the most rides in the first couple of hours before it got busier and the lines got too long for us. So, we optimized for that and then slowed down and got snacks as we wandered and explored the different lands/areas. We ate our way through Mickey shaped soft pretzels, delicious and refreshing Dole Whip, and SO many different types of churros. And here's a little breakdown of our days...
Day One: Travel can be rough, but recovery happens fast when you're rewarded with a water park at your hotel.
Day Two: Disneyland!
Favorite rides: Thunder Mountain Railroad, Space Mountain, Matterhorn, Tiana's Bayou.
