Splash pad fun in Arizona

When Maisie and I landed in Arizona at 9 pm at the Sky Harbor Airport, we walked outside where we were welcomed by the all too familiar Arizona heat. It was 90 degrees and dark. I forgot what it's like to walk outside at night and not need a sweater. Maisie was a happy little girl when Katie picked us up. She was talking up a storm about how the airplane was "high, high, high sky". Her rant was completed with the whooshing sounds of the plane stopping on the runway. This little girl is an expert flyer. She loves it and when I start to freak out because there's more turbulence to my liking (which is any at all) I look at her excited face and I am no longer in panic attack mode. You would think I would be doing the comforting, but no, not when it comes to air travel. I act like I kid, but I'm serious when I tell people that when I have an impending flight, I come to terms with my life. "You did good Sammie". I tell myself because death looms near every time I set foot on a plane. Which has been too many times recently and that's a smidge much on one's psyche.

Anyway, we didn't have much on our agenda this trip. Mainly just to hang out by the pool and splash pad. I wanted some sun on my ever pale body and realizing that I haven't been tan in 3 years is depressing if you're a Lloyd. So that's what we did. We hung out with the family and got plenty of sunshine. Maisie even has tan lines from her new Saltwater sandals and it's one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

Lets get to pictures shall we?

Catching up

It's been over a month since my last post, but with good reason! Maisie and I took an 11 day vacation to the Arizona desert to visit my family (pictures coming soon!) AND we moved... again. We only moved 5 apartments over, but still, moving is moving and moving is no fun. BUT we have a bigger place and so far are loving it. After Goodwilling pretty much everything we no longer needed, for the most part everything is organized and is put in its place. We don't have anything on the walls yet, but we are still figuring out where we want our furniture and such. We are all happy and for the time being, semi-healthy. hah!

Maybe I will actually get around to posting pictures of our new place this time around, but no promises!

Vacation part V: Instagram edition

1) on the road 2) reading a book at BJ's 3) HB fountain 4) napping in the car

5) carousel at Disneyland 6) Dumbo 7) Mr. Toad 8) King Arthur's Carousel  

9) swallowed by Monstro 10) Jungle cruise 11) Tomorrowland 12) Storybook land lights

13) lily 14) Maisie sleeping on the shuttle back to our car 15) passed out diaper change 16) koi fish

17) seared tuna 18) In-N-Out at 1 am 19) Strips! 20) Mrs. Knotts chicken dinner

21) morning giggles 22) work of art 23) Maisie's corner at our hotel 24) blue eyes

25) Austin's American Vintage find 26) sun roof 27) beach baby 28) holding her milk while passed out.

Vacation part IV: HB

We woke up Monday morning, packed our bags, loaded up the car and took a short drive down PCH to make our final stop before heading home. A very special place that is very dear to the Lloyd family.

Shortly into dating I introduced Austin to our version of nachos called "strips". Austin was in love (with the strips, not me... yet) and it wasn't long before we were making them once a week after school. It became our special meal. Easy, fun and delicious (but not healthy). It was also a newlywed staple meal when we were beyond poor on our 2 1/2 month long honeymoon in Utah. We dreamed of the day where we could visit Huntington Beach and I could take him where strips were originated.

And then after almost 7 years of dating it happened. We were at the birth place of our favorite mid-day and midnight snack- Zack's. It has been 5 years since I had them so I was excited, but I was way more excited to have Austin experience the awesomeness that is Zack's strips.

It felt like we bumped off one of our bucket list items off that day. We finally did it after 7 years of talking, wishing and dreaming about it. I told Austin with my first bite still in my mouth that this is what my childhood tastes like. Complete with sun kissed shoulders, sand between my toes and surf blown hair. All I was missing was the smell of sunscreen and the occasional sea gull trying to mooch some of the goodness from us.

As we were eating our lunch we spotted the rental bikes and with the attitude of "we are here now and who knows when we will be back and that an hour ride around the beach would be a perfect way to stretch our legs before the long car ride home" we last minute rented the family cruiser . We sat Maisie in the kid basket and we peddled around the beach. Laughing with bouts of Austin and I blaming each other of who wasn't peddling hard enough (it was him by the way).

After our bike ride we headed back to our car and made our way back home. I was sad to leave, but we will be making our way back there some time soon.

strips and an order of chili cheese fries. (Austin couldn't resist)












Maisie would keep herself entertained in the car by putting her stuffed animals on her head.
This is her new Snoopy mentioned in the previous post.









We are sad that our vacation is over, but it only motivates us to plan another.

Vacation part III: Pool time, Horst family & Mrs Knott's chicken dinner

It was technically our third day of our vacation (if you count the first day of driving)  and we still hadn't gone swimming. We knew Maisie would be so happy floating around, so we suited up and made our way down to the 89 degree outdoor pool on the third story floor. It was super windy so as long as you were submerged it was fine, but if the air hit your wet skin... burr. We all ended up in the hot tub about 20 minutes in because it had a step Maisie could hang out on that shielded her from the wind so she could stay plenty warm with just her legs submerged.

Austin was throwing me Maisie's plug while I took this picture, so that's why he looks so serious.

 But look at Maisie she looks so ethereal.

Our dear friends the Horsts were our neighbors we ment in our first apartment in Hillsboro. We were acquaintances during my pregnancy, but it wasn't until after Maisie was born (like a week after) that we all became super close. We always bragged about how we had the best neighbors in the world. I mean who has living room picnics with their neighbors? Well, we did and often too. Who goes to their neighbors to borrow something and then ends up staying for 4 hours just chatting up a storm. That's right we did. I remember when it would be nap time and both Maisie and Livvie would be sleeping so Meg and I would just talk on the phone for hours even though we were only a flight of stairs away. We knew we had a good thing going and it was heartbreaking when we moved away from them. I look back and remember those times and it's so warm and cozy. Not only just because we had a small little baby, but we were never lonely. We had people that could completely relate to us and if we ever needed anything, we knew who to turn to. Shoot, Meg is the one who taught me the best swaddle tricks ever. But the best part of our friendship was that we could completely be ourselves. We would have super serious talks late at night, make fun of each other, have full conversations in fake German accents, contemplate life together and talk about how much Lord of the Rings changed our life. 

Anyway, long story short, they moved into the heart of Portland when we moved into our house in Beaverton and then we moved to California 7 months later and a few months after us they moved to California as well, but down south. I can't tell you how happy I am to have them a mere 5 hours away opposed to 12. We always talk about how we are destined to be neighbors again, just because they set the bar high. I hate referring to them as neighbors though because the truth is they are so much more than that. They are life long friends. When we have exciting news Meg is one of the first people I call and Derek for Austin. We have even been talking to each other over the phone while our husbands are talking to each other on their phones in another room. When Meg or I need to vent about stay at home mommy troubles, you best believe we have each others back. We miss them so much and that's why when we decided to head down we made a big point to see them. I could have lived without Disneyland, but not getting my Horst fix? No way.

So they made their way down to Newport while we freshened up after the pool and while Maisie took a cat nap. Then we met them outside our hotel and made plans to follow them to the beach. Like I mentioned before it was super windy, so we stood on Newport's cliff and yelled into the wind, probably looking like freaks (maybe not freaks, but definitely not upper class Newport folk). 

We ended up in Fashion Island allowing the girls to play outside but be sheltered from the gusto wind. So we found a great patch of grass outside the Bloomingdales and Neiman Marcus and let our girls go crazy. Yes, thats how we roll, playing infront of fancy department stores. It was so much fun. There was even a 16 month old boy named Luca out there, sporting a leather jacket and boy, was he a chick magnet. I think Maisie was in love, but maybe with his toys and not so much him. Either way, it was good to see all of them play. Ella in my mind will always be 6 months old, so seeing her running around and with a mouth full of teeth, is just crazy. And Livvie? She is like a real person now. Not just a little girl, but a full on person. When I was crossing the street she yelled from the other side "Come on Sammie! You can do it!" haha! It was so good to see them. We laughed a lot and we kept saying how good it was to be together again. And it was so good.

After our rendezvous with the Horst family we made our way to dinner where I have eaten so many times when I was little. We used to wait in long lines just to get a table and let me tell you it's so worth it. Outside Knott's Berry Farm there's a restaurant that serves the best fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy ever. And their creamy chicken noodle soup? The best. Their boysenberry ice cream and pie? Amazing. I knew Austin had to go, so I made a big deal about going to dinner there. Austin was not disappointed and Maisie had two full bowls full of the soup, so I am pretty sure she liked it too.

Clever name huh? No false advertisements here.

You can see the roller coaster in the background. 

Maisie loves Snoopy and all of the old Charlie Brown movies. It all started around Halloween when we started watching "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and then we added the Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines and summer camp movies to our collection as well and she loves them all.  Some mornings she will ask "Snoopy?" and I have to tell you it doesn't bother me one bit that we watch holiday movies no where near holiday time. I think the pumpkin one is her favorite. Snoopy imagining he's hunting down the Red Baron? It's just great. Anyway, Knott's berry farm's mascot just happens to be Snoopy so across from the restaurant they had a whole store full of Charlie Brown and Snoopy memorabilia. We of course had to go in because Maisie had spotted it on our way into the restaurant. And of course we ended up getting Maisie a Snoopy stuffed animal (you should have seen how happy Maisie was in that store. It was like Maisie crack. She was going crazy kissing all of the different snoopy stuffed animals)  because we are suckers. We also purchased the whole Holiday collection on Blu-ray because Austin is a DVD snob. I will admit it looks and sounds so much better, but I won't turn down a DVD just because the quality isn't the best there is. That's another issue though.

After the Snoopy store we stood in the parking lot where the famous wooden roller coaster "Ghost rider" goes through. Maisie would yell for more after it roared passed and when we asked her if she wanted to ride go on it she would excitedly yell "yeah yeah!!" I think we have a little thrill seeker on our hands and I like that about her. She's brave and I think when she's a bit taller we are going to have a blast taking her on her first thrill rides.

We made our way back to the hotel where we all passed out before 11 o'clock and we had a long day of driving ahead of us so getting some sleep was a good idea. But there was one more thing we had to do before we could leave. Something Austin had been waiting to do since we were dating, but I will do a separate post about that because this post is already the length of a novel.

Vacation part II: Disneyland

Even as we were driving down to our vacation we were still undecided if Disneyland was something we wanted to do this trip or not. We were going back and forth because we didn't know if we would get our bang for our buck with Maisie and the weather predicted rain (it rains in southern California?). We set our alarms early for Saturday morning and decided we would see how the weather was in the morning and go from there. We woke up, opened the curtains and sure enough rain. Not pouring, but misty and very wet. We were still debating the idea until Austin said "lets just do it". We were Oregonians after all and if anything this would be in our favor because the locals wouldn't dare brave the rain (IE shorter lines). We made a stop at target so I could pick up some rain boots because I only had my fryes with me (note to self: I need some real *all weather* shoes). It was still drizzling by the time we got to Disneyland and just as we thought, there were barely any lines. I think the longest we had to wait for a ride was 15 minutes (dang Peter Pan and Nemo) but other than that, we pretty much walked right on. Around 3 o'clock it completely stopped raining and didn't start raining again until 11:30 pm as we were leaving the park. 

Maisie was so happy. I knew she would be excited, but I thought she would eventually get bored or over stimulated, but nope, never once did she melt down, cry or even complain. She was in heaven (after all it is called the happiest place on earth right?). I was also surprised how many rides she could go on at her age. More than 30 and seeing how she's still free until 3 it was awesome! Her first ride? The jungle cruise. She was in awe (see picture below). Her second ride? Pirates of the Caribbean and again she had a blast. During the dark parts she would nuzzle in close, but when asked if she wanted to ride it again it was a big yes. 

Other rides:

Peter Pan, Pinochio, Dumbo, King Arthur's Carousel, Autopia, The many adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the Haunted Mansion, Mr Toad, Buzz Lightgear's astro blaster, Nemo, Story book land, Small World and so many more!

Maisie's favorites?

Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh, Small World and the Jungle cruise, but she liked all the others too.

Towards the end of the night they did a projection show on the face of the "It's a Small World" building. All the lights, colors, clips and music put Maisie into a trance. It was beautiful and while "When you wish upon a star" played I was flooded by memories of this very thing as a kid, standing in awe and trying to take in everything, the sight, smell and sound in the best I could. As I was remembering those moments, I was hit with a feeling with how this will always be such a happy memory for us. Now, Maisie might not fully remember this trip, but I will forever. I will always remember how her face lit up and how happy she was just to be there and how happy we all were being there together. In that moment I felt so proud of us. 

I didn't take as many pictures as I had planned, but between dodging the rain and bouncing from one ride to the next it was quite difficult.

But alas, here are some pictures of our trip to Disneyland:

Jungle cruise *the picture mentioned above

We had so much fun that we are starting to plan the next time we can go down again. This time maybe meet up with my parents and sister that way Maisie can run around while me and Austin ride the "big kid" rides. It will have to be in the summer too because we don't want to wear panchos again.

Also, if you have a toddler and are thinking about planning a trip to Disneyland, do it! Even though Austin and I didn't get to go on the bigger rides, it was well worth the sacrifice. It was definitely worth the money too seeing how there was so much a toddler can do there. I mean the place was made for kids right?