Disneyland

Monday, January 20, 2025

On Saturday, December 28, we all went to Disneyland. Disneyland is truly amazing but it has become so expensive (over $200 per person of any age) and the lines are so long that it is hardly worth it. I would never go but when we go with Justin and Kira they are able to work the system because they have two special needs children. Also, this year the Disneyland tickets were Christmas gifts from Brandon and Alley.

The entire day was amazing, but it would be boring to just give a play by play, so I will just share some pictures and you will get the idea.

First of all, with such a large group it was next to impossible to stay all together so unfortunately I have no group pictures with everyone it in.

I think they told me that this guy is a andelorian. I don’t know just who that is, but the kids were excited to see him and the baby Yoda he was carrying around. Piper was thrilled to have him come right up to her.

Alley was thrilled to have all of her kids all with her.

Justin was able to capture most of us on the Thunder Mountain Railroad. It was my job to keep Evan from breaking his neck.

It was a bit rough for him, but his head is still connected to his body.

Cooper was able to spend the day with his dad. That was kind of cool.

Carousels are probably the lowest tech rides at the theme park, but I find them to be one of the coolest.

Cameron did much better today than he usually does. I think Kira did miss a few rides because of him though.

I think this might be my favorite Tiki.

Rosalie hitching a ride with her cousin.

The women were all excited about “It’s a Small World” and Cinderella’s castle.

I must admit that the lights made them look pretty spectacular.

Sydney, Hayley, Rosalie & Kira. I will let these pictures speak for themselves.

Downtown Disney

It was a very fun day.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Humpback whales will sometimes hide seals under their pectoral fins to protect them from sharks.

-----------------------------------------------

Fun with the (grand)kids

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

The next few days were a bit of a blur. We wanted to take Ally to the Midway but Kira & her family have been there often enough that they wanted to do something different. So the Leavitts headed off to the Midway and the Palmers went somewhere else. Not entirely sure where, but it involved water and food.

Sydney is about to launch an F-18

Boy does that kid love life

Justin and Evan eating on the beach

They have now opened the conning tower for visitors. Brandon decided to drive the boat.

Those beds are about the right size for McKenzie and Grayson. I don’t know how I would make it.

Hayley getting ready to take off

When we ran out of daylight, we met up at home and ate leftovers.

On Friday, Dec 27 we had two additions to the crowd. Flora and her husband Kyle were visiting his mother up in the LA area somewhere and they were able to drive down for the morning. Flora is my niece, Lesters second child. It was great visiting with them and catching up on their life in Wisconsin/Michigan. They live right on the border. He has a great Engineering job, and they have some pretty cool property.

The second addition was Charlotte, Ally’s youngest. Ally shares custody with Charlottes father and this was her year to spend Christmas with her father.

Ally and Brandon were able to bring her out today. Rather than have her fly alone, she travelled with Ronny, who is Coopers father. In this way the trip was more pleasant for Charlotte and Cooper was able to spend some time with his dad. It also gave Ronnie a nice break in beautiful San Diego.

We spent the morning catching up with Flora and Kyle and loving on Charlotte and then we bid goodbye to Flora and Kyle who returned to his mothers. We then headed off to the Point Loma lighthouse.

We tried to take a picture of everyone, but with so many people, it was impossible to keep everyone together. Here is a picture of some of us with the palmers. The other Leavitts were off exploring down the hill.

Left to right: Rosalie, Piper, Sydney, Landon, Mackenzie, Kira, Brandon, Grayson, Justin, Cameron, Lisa, Fred, Finn, Evan.

After Point Loma we headed to the Hotel Del. We went inside to check out the huge Christmas tree they have every year but then we spent the rest of the time at the beach.

Looking at Hotel Del from the Beach

The teenagers decided that they wanted to walk out into the water on this concrete wall.

Sydney on the wall

Landon on the wall

Hayley on the wall

Before we left, we sat on the front lawn and watched the light show they had in the trees. It ended with snow falling on us.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Scientists’ data on 709 islands across the Pacific and Indian Oceans showed that nearly 89 percent either had increased in area or hadn’t changed much in recent decades. Only 11 percent had contracted.

-----------------------------------------------

Christmas Day

Wednesday, January 9, 2025

Christmas morning was a great start to a great day. The kids slept in so we got a good sleep. We were also able to open the gifts one at a time so we can all enjoy what each of us received. That is tough to do when there are forty people opening gifts.

Mom had her nice egg breakfast ready so we also got to enjoy a good meal and everything went peacefully. I got a lot of cool gifts, I just hope I can remember them all. First and foremost, Brandon and Ally bought us tickets to Disneyland. Now days that is over $200 and we had a glorious day with Brandon and Kira’s families. More on that later. Let me try and make a list of my gifts.

Element Socks                                Santa

Windup Fred Flintstone                  Santa

A bar of fancy soap                         Mom

Shaving Kit                                     Mom

Worm Hotel                                    Mom

Nuts in shell                                    Mom

Solar Battery Charger                     Mom

Sweat Pants                                     Mom

Fleece Jacket                                   Mom

Nice Jacket                                      Mom

Star Trek Ship                                 Mom

History of Engineering                   Mom

Rubber Duck Spock                       Kira & Justin

Engineering T Shirt                        Kira & Justin

Church Socks                                  Brandon & Ally

Spock Buddah (very cool)              Brandon & Ally

Nice Fluffy Blanket                        Alycia & Trevor

Coming next week                          Sarah & Sam

Glass Swan Tree Ornament            Charlotte

Replacement window Screen          Andrews

Electric Salt & Pepper Grinder       Andrews

After we got the Turkey in the oven we then headed up to Black Mountain Park and shot off rockets. I finally got tired of the rocket controller being so finicky that I made my own controller. It worked flawlessly.

The weather was perfect so we all spent a lot of time outside enjoying my new yard and the deck.

After a wonderful Christmas dinner, we headed to Torrey Pines to enjoy a short hike.

And a beautiful sunset

About this time Kira and her family arrived so we rushed home and spent the evening together.

I love how Kira always dresses up for the season.

At some point we started playing games which went far too late. What fun.

It turns out that Sydney and Rosalie struggle with Tellustrations. The point of the game is that you are given a word, and you need to draw a picture so the next guy beside you can guess the word. If these girls aren’t sure of what the picture represents, they answer with a sentence even though they know the answer is one maybe two words. On the other hand, if they are given a word, their art skills leave a lot to be desired. Let me give you an example of probably the best artwork of the entire Christmas vacation, maybe the best ever.

Sydney was given the word “snot”. She tried to draw a picture of a nose with snot coming out of the nose. This is the picture she drew. 

Justin sat next to her, can you guess what word Justin guessed?

--------------------trivia--------------------

2 U.S carrier battle groups have equal firepower to the rest of the worlds blue water navies combined. And we have 12 of these with 3 more on the way.

----------------------------------------------

The Texas Leavitts

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Monday, Dec 23, we walked Christmas card lane. It was very crowded. 

It was going great until we decided to pose as a group for a picture and we noticed that Grayson wasn’t there. That led to a very panicked half hour. Mom had a picture of him which she shared with people and we saw the Blankenbillers and recruited them to help with the search. Finally we called 911 figuring that if anyone saw a distraught boy lost on the steet they would probably call 911.

While the police were on their way, one of the Blankenbiller boys called in to report that Grayson had found his way to where we had parked the van.

That answered a lot of fervent prayers. We were all quite amazed at the calm manner and logical thought process Grayson used in a situation that would have caused most kids his age to panic. You may notice that Grayson isn’t in the picture. The lady you may not know is Lorie Roberts who joined us that day.

On Christmas Eve Mom finished up her Christmas baking which had been delayed by stockings and I made pie. We were now ready for Christmas.

For our POP dinner (Pig Out Palooza) we made food runs to In N Out, Taco Bell, Chick fil A, Raising Canes, Cotija’s, Starbucks, Panda Express and Jersey Mikes.

As far as I can remember, for our traditional Christmas Eve talent show we had the following:

Finn                 Gymnastics

Grayson

MacKenzie     Piano

Rosalie           Splits

Hayley           A weird knee walk

Sydney          Sang a song

Cooper          Kidnapping

Griffin          A Narcoleptic Event

Brandon       Smoked Ribs

Ally              Piano

Mom            Stockings

Me                My latest patent 

We then read the Christmas Story from Luke 2 and then watched moms favorite Nativity video and then sent the kids to bed. We then stuffed the stockings and we went to bed.

--------------------trivia--------------------

During an average persons life time their hair will grow 590 miles

-----------------------------------------------

Happy New Year

Wednesday, January 7, 2025

What an exciting Christmas Holiday we just had. I have a lot to catch up on. I guess the best I can do is just take it one day at a time.

This year was our off year so we weren’t expecting anyone to come and spend Christmas with us but Brandon and Ally didn’t come last year because it was their first year with their new merged family and they thought it was best to do that at home. I think it was probably the best choice. They decided to come this year. 

They left Texas on Saturday, December 21, spent the night in Las Cruces and arrived on Sunday. That is one long an boring drive with little to see or do on the way, but the desert can be beautiful at times. The kids get a lot of sleep on the trip.

Meanwhile we were working furiously to get everything done for Christmas and they’re arrival. That wouldn’t normally be a problem but Lisa decided to make six new stockings for Brandons kids. 

She had made stockings for Brandons family when him and Serene were together but when he married Ally, she made new stockings for Ally and her kids. We finally decided that we were giving the 

 wrong message though, because Ally’s family had one stocking pattern but Brandons family had a different pattern and we wanted them to be one family. That meant six new stockings which I believe Lisa finished the day they arrived. Now they were one family. One BIG family.

--------------------trivia--------------------

In 2022 Canada and Denmark created the first land border between the America's and Europe when they agreed to share a tiny, barren and uninhabited outcrop in the Arctic.

-----------------------------------------------