Fun February!

Happy March!

February was short, but this post won't be because it was loads of fun and I really must share a whole pile of highlights.

Real snow in Lewiston, and gobs of it. (This is not normal!)

And, more snow at home of course :)

Another fantastic build weekend - This time helping Luke with his hot rod truck.

A wedding! Snuggles, fellow car club member, celebrated his marriage with all of us.

And, then I ran away.

Got up in the wee hours of the morning to meet up with Dave & Marie at the Spokane airport and fly to another climate where our favorite Bethers and her husband Rick live!  We found them and the sunshine and had a nice relaxing day waiting for the rest of the group to arrive.  You see, our oldest nephew turned 18 and it was time to take him on his birthday adventure to his location of choice....Disneyland!

Well...we'll get to that.  First, we spent a day at Universal Studios...

...where we braved the dinosaurs...

...met some rather flat famous folks...

...boycotted the escalators for no logical reason...

...and spoiled our oh-so-grown-up niece and nephew.

Then, we spent a day on the beach where Mackenzie not only saw, but also swam in, an ocean for the first time...

...and we battled the incoming tide by setting up human barricades and a sand levee that needed endlessly rebuilt all in the name of finishing our poorly-sited castle before it all washed away...

...we adorned it beautifully with funky seaweed...

...and then mourned the lost battle.

We tried our best to coordinate balancing poses as the tide sucked the sand out from under us...

...then, moved to drier land and built a pyramid on the sand, which Bethers might have tried to topple.

We jumped for joy,...

...chased and ran away from the surf, and watched these little birds to the same.

Next, we raced along the shore...

..and raced some more...

...completely buried Mackenzie in the sand, and then he buried his own feet to really get the feeling of the earth moving out from under you...

We took silly selfies with "that guy" helping us out.

Then, "that guy" built a memorial monument for our long lost castle just out of reach. of the waves..

We watched the sun sink into the waves, and then walked away.

But wait!  There's more.

We actually did go to Disneyland!  A first for most of us. We met Mickey Mouse...

...and Lightning McQueen...

Squeezed into kids' rides...

Danced in the plaza...

Raced down the highway of Carsland...

Trusted Dave to command the Indiana Jones jeep (Not a great idea. He almost got us squished by a gigantic boulder):

 and, we had lunch in the very cool setting of Radiator Springs

By this point, Mackenzie had realized that he loved the thrill of the big rides, and wanted to go to all the scary rides.  To make sure we all had our own kind of fun, we decided to spend the afternoon in two groups: the Bold and the Scaredy Cats.

Anyhow, you can guess which group I was in.
We rode in very stable capsules to the "top of the world"...

...waved to our crazy friends in line for the swinging capsules...

Experienced life as bugs, with every sense... 

And, watched a parade!

 Then, we reunited with our other group to close the park down and watch the color and light show.  It was a fun medley of lots of favorite Disney songs with scenes from the movies projected right on the dancing fountains of water!  And, right when you thought you might shiver to pieces from the misting water, the fireballs started going off and warmed you right back up!  

Did birthday boy have fun? 
Well...he is clicking his heels as we leave the "happiest place on earth"!

And, now the story is nearly done.  

Most everyone had to leave early the next morning, but Marie, Dave, and I had a later flight so got to hang out with Bethers on her day off!  We were looking for a quiet, relaxing sort of setting to spend our day given all the over-stimulated environments we'd just experienced.  So, we looked up the green-with-plants kind of parks near Rick & Beth that they hadn't discovered or tried yet, and we found a lovely little VA Japanese garden, run by volunteers (it's very near the VA hospital).  We had a little picnic and then explored the grounds.  It was the perfect recharge before flying home.