Disneyland 2015!

For Elsa's 5th birthday this summer, my mom took our whole family on a wonderful trip to Disneyland!  We had a wonderful 4 day holiday. On Thursday morning we flew down to Southern California and then took the bus to the Disneyland resort.  

For our first afternoon we just hung out at the Disneyland Hotel pool and room, enjoying the cool water and watersides.

I love lollipops!

That evening we headed into Downtown Disney for a look at the shops and dinner.

Bright and early Friday morning, we headed into California Adventure - all of our first visit to this park.  The first thing we did was meet Elsa and Anna!

Then we headed to Cars Land and Bugs Land for fun rides, like the bumper cars.

After the rides, we headed to the Frozen sing-a-long.  It was a lot of fun to sing the songs with a crowd full of people.

Our next stop was lunch - lunch with the princesses!  They all came by our table to say hi to Elsa and Liam.

After this we were tired, so we walked back to the hotel and while Arne, Mom and Liam took a nap, Elsa and I played more in the pool. Then it was back to the park for more rides and a parade.

We rested again and then after dinner it was back into the park for a sound and light show.

Both kids were asleep before we made it back to the hotel.

Saturday morning we entered Main Street of Disneyland and had a wonderful time trying out a number of fun rides and then going to Toon Town and meeting Mickey Mouse!

After Toon Town we went to Splash Mountain, my favorite ride - it was a little scary for Elsa.

After Splash Mountain and lunch, we headed back to the hotel for some more pool and rest time. In the afternoon we enjoyed the Disney Parade and then rode It's a Small World and saw a Mickey show.  We then went to New Orleans for the Tree House, a Jungle Ride and Pirates of the Caribbean.

We stayed out late and watched the evening show - Fantasmic.  Once again the kids were asleep before we made it back to the room.

Sunday morning, we took the Monorail into the park and rode the rest of the rides in Fantasyland, before meeting with more princesses.

Then it was off on a boat ride to the island to explore the caves!  This was one of my favorite places as a little kid.  

We watched a show at the Royal Theater before saying goodbye to Disneyland and taking the Monorail back to our hotel for a swim before heading home on the plane.

What an amazing trip!   

Easter 2015

 This year for Easter we headed over to Berkeley for a celebration and egg hunt with the Stokstads.

 Elsa and Liam really enjoyed looking for eggs.

 The eggs were in the house due to the rainy weather.

 The big treat for Elsa was hunting with her cousin Erika!

It was a lovely day.

Europe in March

Erik moved to Cambridge England in December and since Karna had a work trip to the UK/Poland/Moscow, we joined her for the first part of the trip and visited Erik. He came down from Cambridge to meet us at Heathrow, where we said goodbye to Karna as she headed off to her work site in Bracknell.  Once in Cambridge, we had a short walk around just before dusk.

More pictures from our first day in Cambridge

Monday we went to a playground and then to the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.

More pictures from our second day in Cambridge

Tuesday we were up early to catch the train to London and then to Paris. We stayed with Jean & Martine, friends of my parents since 1978. We arrived around noon and then took the bus to Luxembourg Gardens. Liam loved the playground and Elsa napped in the stroller. We walked back to Martine's and had a wonderful dinner with her, Jean and their son David. There was wine from Babio, the winery of Martine's daughter Cecile. Babio is in the south near Narbonne. Hopefully we can make it to Babio in a future visit. Wednesday morning we to the spectacular Natural History Museum (no flash photography was allowed, but I had a f1.4 35 mm lens that worked wonderfully). We took an early afternoon train home. Karna returned from a one night stay in Edinburgh and joined us in Cambridge.

More pictures from Paris

On Thursday Karna went to her company's site in Cambridge and we took a beautiful walk around the backs in Cambridge and then climbed to stairs to enjoy the view from the top of Great St. Mary's Church.

More pictures from our Third Day in Cambridge

Friday we took the train to London and saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We found a playground nearby and Karna met a friend for lunch. We walked to Trafalgar Square and then met Erin and the girls at the Science museum. Elsa enjoyed playing with them. We had a lovely dinner nearby.

More pictures from London

On Saturday we flew back to San Francisco and Karna flew to Warsaw. We had a wonderful family trip.

Weekend fun in the Rain

Arne loves his new camera and had great fun taking pictures of the kids having fun this weekend.

Liam got to play in the sandbox during a break from the rain.

Arne got to play with his prime f1.2 lens.

And then play with sepia settings.

It was raining a lot, so we headed out in raincoats, boots, and pajamas. Each kid carried their own roll of Ritz crackers. 

We went to the Hiller Aviation Museum and the kids had great fun exploring all the exhibits while Arne took lots and lots of pictures with his new camera and lenses.

The rainbow was very flat and low in the sky.  

Climbed the stairs in the 747.  

The kids had lots of fun puddle jumping.

Arne set the shutter speed to 1/2000 to capture the water droplets in the air. 

Tahoe 2015

We went to Tahoe Super Bowl weekend as we've done for the last few years (2014, 2013), even though we knew there would be no snow. We took our family picture in the middle of the sledding hill, but most of the pictures are like the next ones. 

Arne brought his new camera and captured many wonderful pictures of the kids enjoying Tahoe.   

Elsa loved sledding - she said it was very fast.  She carried her saucer up the hill and would go down holding my hand or by herself.  It was a lot of fun.

  

We stopped in Truckee on our way back. It has a great old downtown. A train went by and Arne pulled out his camera and captured many great shots and the kids cheered on the train. This picture of the train came out super sharp. In the full size picture it's easy to read the little decals on the front of the train. Arne loves his new camera and I love all the pictures!  

When we stopped in Berkeley to pick up Summer dog, Elsa climbed the apple tree.

If you open up this picture full size you can see a wonderful expression of joy on her face. 

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We had a wonderful trip and hope next year there will be more snow!