The Four-Year-Olds Disney Photos

Photos by Jonas: May 29 & 30, 2009

Who is that lady in the photo above? No, not another celebrity sighting, just a stranger that Jonas needed to take a picture of with his very own camera. The photos that follow for the most part need no explanation except that Jonas took all of them...unless he's in the photo. I took those for him just to round out his variety of photos.

waiting in line...

...waiting in line...

...finally on a ride...

...back to waiting in line...

...waiting in line but at least watching a tv outside Disney Playhouse...

...finally inside Disney Playhouse but some weird lighting...

...waiting in line outside Turtle Talk with Crush from Finding Nemo (which was sooo awesome)...Jonas was very intrigued by the message on the doors he must have read it a couple dozen times while we were waiting then finally asked if he could take a picture of it...why yes, of course...

...good one...

...Goofy running away from us...

...waiting in line for Tigger...

...waiting in line for Eeyore...(are you getting the sense that the camera was a good distraction devise while we were waiting in line?)

...taking off on the Disney train...

...random...

...nice one...

and lastly, one of Jonas' favorite things about Disney and Calif. Adventure: checkin' the map.

The Great Outdoors 2009 Edition

Photos: June 18-20, 2009

After our successful camping experience last year, we decided to make this an annual thing with the Jonas family. We changed locations, though, and went to Prineville Reservoir this year. Excellent choice. Campsite A18 was good to us this year. We had more room, less dirt and a little more distance between us and the bathrooms this time. All good things. We are all ready to make reservations for A18 again next year.

The beautiful grassy area adjacent to A18. So nice.

2009 was the year for everyone to display their camping talents. Let's check them out.

First up is Jace, a joyful 2 year old who displayed such talents as multi-tasking and safety. The boy can play in the lake and eat his popcorn snack at the same time...well, that is until he dropped his snack in the lake. Eew, soggy.

Jace also excels at following Safety rules. It doesn't matter what activity is going on, he's going to be as safe as possible by wearing his helmet. And as a bonus he looks super fashionable.

Next up is McKenzie, age 3 11/12 years. McKenzie showed off her talents of raising the roof...
...and being super-silly.

Jonas, age 4 11/12 years, showed his talent for enjoying S'mores....


...and entertianing the other kids with a magic trick.

Tah-dah!!! So impressive.

All three kids showed their amazing talent of enduring freezing cold water for the sake of fun...

...and the ability to make a double stroller into a triple stroller through sheer imagination.

Now we have Michelle, who has too many talents to list but the top two are:
Making perfect Jiffy Pop on the campfire....

....and bringing enough kid-friendly food to keep the kids (mostly) happy.

Travis showed us his awesome talent of perfectly roasting marshmallows two at a time!! Sweet.

And both guys were talented in the build-a-great-fire-then-spend-the-rest-of-the-night-keeping-the-kids-away-from-it department. They seemed extremely good at this since no one got burned.
Tony's other talent displayed was cleanliness. He was the only one in the Cook family to take a shower all weekend and he excelled at keeping our tent free of dirt. It was so tidy.

This photo is not so much about talent as about weirdness...it begins with the weird look on Jonas' face and ends with the fact that he looks like he's having Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and Diet Dr. Pepper for breakfast. Hmmm....

Last, but not least, my talents are recording this event for generations to come through photo and witty comments (obviously.) But even better than that, I am supremely talented at coming up with S'mores 2.0 which I'm sure no one else has ever thought of before. And here it is: two perfectly roasted marshmallows on peanut butter slathered graham crackers. De-lightful. Try it. You won't be sorry. {unless you eat more that 3, then you'll be plenty sorry}

Celebrity Sighting & Other Things at Calif. Adventure

Photos and Video: May 30, 2009

Whilst at California Adventure for the day we got to see Guy Fieri. Yes, that's right, the STAR of Davin', Diving to Die (aka: Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) on the Food Network. Jonas loooooves that show. Seriously. He actually requests to watch it. So we thought Jonas would be incredibly excited to see Guy in really life, so close, just a flowerbed away. Oh. Wait. Jonas is extremely contrary so he wasn't excited at all. That didn't stop me from taking some pics and videos though. It seemed a crime not to.

While I wasn't stalking Guy Fieri, I was busy taking photos of Jonas....

....taking photos of me. He thought this was the funniest thing ever! I will be posting some of the photos that Jonas took soon.

Seems that everyone in this photo, including the male ladybug, Francis, is equally thrilled just to be alive and spending the day at Calif. Adventure.

Tuck and Roll's bumper cars was on the verge of being lame except that Jonas loved it so much. The cars were painfully slow.

cue song: I always feel like somebody's watchin' me....

Jonas enjoyed the Pixar Play Parade much more than the parade at Disney. I think it was just a matter of timing, really, and a higher tollerance for waiting around at that particular moment. Jonas ended up getting his groove on while waiting for the parade to start. He was really on a roll with his dance moves until, well, you'll see.

Oh, finally, the parade is starting. I took this photo of Roz from Monsters, Inc. for our friend Melissa. She loves Roz's voice, as do I.

Of course incredibly hairy Sully was in the parade...

...as well as Mike Wozowski, Mike Wozowski, Mike Wozowski !!!

We loved the GRR: Grizzly River Rapids. It was our first ride of the day and then, later, our last ride as well. Both times we got soaked and it was soooo worth it. Jonas thought it was awesome and said so after every giant waterfall we plunged down.

aaaahhhhhhhh.....

spuh-lash!!!!!

This photo was taken at the end of our second ride. It really doesn't show how wet we were...lets just say that the seats were soaked and so were the parts that were on the seats....and our shoes...and a lot of other things. Squish, squish.