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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Boyz II Men!

I heard about a Boyz II Men concert coming to San Diego several months before it actually happened. It was the weekend after my birthday, so I thought maybe Josh and I would go together. The USMC had other plans, and sent him to Yuma for a month, which left Gray and I to do something fun all on our own. Luckily he is too little to have any opinions so I got to plan a super fun birth-week celebration which included a 3 day trip back to Disney and a Boys II Men concert in Oceanside! 

A friend wanted to go with us to the concert, so we got in line and accidentally found he house from Top Gun!! It's all fenced up so you can't go in, but it was still pretty neat to see. I did a little google research to see if it was the actual house and found out that the other houses on the street had been torn down or moved, but this one was saved due to its 15 minutes of fame. There are plans to move it to another location, but it hasn't been moved yet. 

On to the concert! It was in an open air concert venue, right next to the water. The Oceanside pier doesn't give good concert views, but I'm sure it still sounded nice to those lucky people who were on the pier that night. They sang for close to two hours, and they sounded amazing in concert. I was also impressed that after 20+ years, they still have all those fancy choreographed dance moves! 





Passing out roses. The 40-50 year olds were loving it! 
Gray on stage after the concert ended.
The venue has stadium seats, so we sat down with Gray instead of fighting the crowd for a closer view. Gray danced, ran, drank lots of water, and whined because it was hot, but I think he did a pretty well at the concert. We did go stand close to the stage (within a few feet of the Boyz) a few times, but Gray was more interested in dancing than watching the concert. Not a bad first concert experience for the Monkey.


Monday, September 10, 2012

Disney (Part 1)

Josh was spending about a month in Yuma, so we decided to take Gray to CarsLand as a little family day away before he left. We took Gray to Disneyland in March (after Josh's deployment) but CarsLand didn't open until the summer. Gray was freaking out about the commercials every time he saw them, so we wanted to take him to see Mater and McQueen. 

Of course we hit the high points and saw lots of characters in our one day visit. We rode Midway Madness (Toy Story ride), which is maybe our favorite ride. Gray met Goofy, Donald, Buzz, Woody, and McQueen, Mater, Red, and DJ from Cars. We had to hop over from California Adventure to Disneyland to ride a few things, but we spent a large portion of our time in CarsLand. 



Next in line for Midway Madness! 
Midway Madness is a 4D arcade game. It's excellent! 
Buzz! 
We did a few random rides before heading to CarsLand because we weren't sure Gray would ever be ready to leave. We took him in the main entrance (there are several ways in) and I'm pretty sure we blew his mind. He stopped in the middle of the street and just stared, then started pointed and yelling "CARSLAND!!!"

If you have ever been to Disney, then you know that they do everything (literally everything) in the theme! The bathrooms had little cars on them to tell you boy's vs girl's restrooms. Flo's was a diner with a huge rear view mirror on one wall. The flowers made from reflectors from the movie were scattered around town. Sarge's had a flag and mail box outside. It was like walking into the movie. There is a little glass case with the three piston cups that Doc won, hidden Mickeys, lots of fun Mexican stuff in Ramone's. They really did a great job making Radiator Springs real for fans of the movies. 

However, there are only 3 rides and Gray was too short to ride on the super cool McQueen (racing through Radiator Springs) ride by about 1.5"-2". We LOVED CarsLand, but I felt that it fell short in that regard. It looks amazing, but I wanted more. More rides (at least 4, but 5 would have been great) and maybe a museum like in the last movie. It was awesome, don't get me wrong. The other major problem with CarsLand is the sheer number of people. The other parts of the park would be fairly dead, but the lines at CarsLand were crazy. There were people everywhere! 



Frozen in disbelief. 
Sarge's Surplus
Mater at the Cozy Cone. 
Inside Flo's V8 Cafe!
Waiting on lunch at Flo's.
View from Flo's.
Ramone's. 
Luigi's.

Luigi's Tire Ride. 

McQueen and Mater drive down main street to the Cozy Cone and switch out for pictures. 

Stanley. 
DJs Dance Party! 
Mater's ride. 
And maybe his favorite part of the day...
Meeting his two favorite Disney characters!  



Friday, September 7, 2012

First day of Preschool!

The military housing we live in has a fabulous Tiny Tots program for 3-5 year olds. I was lucky enough to hear about if from a friend who sent her kids to the program, and for $50/month I couldn't be happier! Preschool in San Diego is OUTRAGEOUS, even on base it is considerably more expensive than the Tiny Tots here. The other really great thing is that its about 4 houses down from us, so we walk to school every day! 

Gray was very excited to start "school" today as you can see with these cheesy smiles! He had fun playing with his new friends, making crafts, snack time, and stories in circle time! I am in shock that he is even old enough to be in school, even if it is just preschool. Lord help me when he actually starts kindergarten or high school! 


Figured we needed a traditional front door pic!
He was jumping around because he was SO ready to go!