gerins

Christmas Train and Hanukkah Party

Our Christmas season kicked off with our annual visit to Irvine Park Railroad to ride the Christmas train with cousins Noah and Hailey.

Waiting not so patiently to board the train.

All aboard.

Meredith asked the twins if they could pretend to be reindeer pulling her sleigh.

The girls had already written a letter to Santa, and after much deliberation and browsing the Lakeshore Learning catalog, they decided they wanted “puppy purses” (stuffed animal dogs inside a plush purse– 19.99 for 3 at Lakeshore, so DONE). Meredith also asked for candy, and Samantha and Amelia asked for new play doh and new shoes.. nevermind that they already have plenty of pairs each. They are both in love with the glittery Sketchers Twinkle Toes kind that are colorful and light up, but I don’t buy them because the light ups aren’t allowed at school and I like to buy neutral shoes that can go with any outfit. Nevertheless, they are total girls and love getting new clothes and shoes, so they decided to put that on their Santa list this year in the hopes that Santa would bypass mom’s preferences for shoe buying.

Christmas Train in years past:

Storytime with Mrs. Clause.

Meredith ran up to meet Mrs. Clause, but then had second thoughts.

We let the kids use their tickets to choose a few activities. Their favorite is always “ice fishing” and “winning” the cheap stuffed animal prizes.

Getting so tall.

Amelia and Samantha raced each other in the jeeps while Meredith went crazy in the bounce house.

Our other adventure with the cousins was hanging out at Auntie Lynn’s Hanukkah Party! It was a good thing Auntie Lynn made approximately 12,000 latkes, because the girls gobbled half of them up. Latkes with applesauce, yum! They were equally excited about the delicious blintzes, cute Hanukkah cookies and playing dreidel/winning gilt (we didn’t tell Meredith that they were chocolate, and it surprisingly took a while for her to figure that out).

Zack gave my biceps a rest from holding Eleanor.

Eleanor loves Great Grandpa!

Lots of love,

Legoland with the Gerins and Bubblemania at Moonlight Beach

Every October, we try to make it down to San Diego as much as possible, because many theme parks and activities are free for kids in San Diego the entire month! This Legoland trip, our cousins joined us for an action-packed day of rides and pure exhaustion.

Poor Hailey– not much for her to do except watch!

Meredith was tall enough to go on several of the kiddie rides– she was obsessed with this helicopter.

Hi cousin!

Legoland is definitely no where near as crowded as Disneyland, but waiting in line for more than two minutes with Meredith is basically torture.

Safari ride.

Hit the spot!

The line for this jousting ride was one of the longest– no idea why, but it was the girls’ favorite ride of the day.

Samantha is a total thrill-seeker and went on Legoland’s version of Splash Mountain twice with Jake and Zack.

Drying off.

Meredith followed this princess around asking for a pic.

Lunch break.

The struggle is real.

Too bad Meredith was napping; she would have loved the Duplo playground.

One of the highlights of the day was feeding the ducks. Should have just stayed home!

Meredith woke up right as Jake and the twins passed by on the storybook ride. Needless to say, she was NOT happy about being left out.

An exciting cousins adventure!

We stayed nearby at the Omni La Costa and enjoyed some ice cream and s’mores by the fire pit to end our exhausting day.

Before heading home the next day, we spent the morning at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas. It had a nice park right next door and super clean bathrooms, checking off two must-have items on my list. We were there early enough in the morning that the beach was uncrowded and it was a perfectly warm/clear day to boot.

Anytime sand is involved, the girls’ favorite pastime is to attempt to dig a hole to China, hoping to avoid lava on the way there.

Meredith needed a little time to warm up to the idea of getting wet. She kept wanting to wipe the sand off of her feet and legs with baby wipes!

Almost to China!

NOT happy about being stuck in a hole.

A bonus was this random old guy making giant bubbles with homemade bubble solution for all the kids on the beach to frolic around. He even does bubble birthday parties and gave us his card.