Scarlet's Third Birthday

I seriously cannot believe I haven't blogged since March. That was nine miserable months ago! I have decided that I'm going to blog about the things that I meant to blog about these past nine months and just pretend that these posts happened throughout the year instead of en masse at the end of it. This first post will be dedicated to the family vacation Josh and I planned for Miss Scarlet's third birthday. Do you know you have to pay for children to enter Disneyland after they turn three years old? Did you know that if you take your child to Disneyland the week before she turns three, her entrance is free and you can still call it her third-birthday present? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Scarlet's third birthday:

This was her face the entire time.

We actually started our trip out at SeaWorld, where we took in all the shows and explored all the aquariums and rode a bunch of silly rides and ate all the jello. It was a fun day. James slept through the entire Shamu show, which showed poor taste on his part.

Scarlet at the Shamu show

Shamu show!

SeaWorld in February is a very sunny affair

James at the Shamu show

Lunch at SeaWorld

James during lunch at SeaWorld

Then we spent three days in Disneyland (well, one at California Adventure). Scarlet had so much fun at Disneyland! She loved the splash pad area, though cleaning her up was a bit of a task. She had to wear my jacket as a dress for a few hours while her clothes dried. She had so much fun though. I'd let her soak herself all over again if she wanted.

Josh gets a bit dizzy on certain rides, so he stayed back with James while we rode bumper cars. Mostly, Josh and I took turns to ride with Scarlet on things James wasn't big enough to ride on. And speaking of James, I wouldn't recommend taking a nursing baby to Disneyland if you can help it. It's fairly stressful and there's only one nursing station that fills up pretty quickly. Knowing me, I'll probably end up going back to Disneyland at some point with another nursing baby because that's just how it'll play out, but it was not my favorite part of the trip.

Tiki Room. She was CAPTIVATED

For Josh's sake, we wrapped up our vacation with the La Brea Tar Pits. They had an entire wall of dire wolf skulls (that's the actual name of the type of wolf--how cool is that?!). They're extinct now but a ton of them fell into the tar pits so there are like a bjillion skulls in that museum. Josh was fascinated. Long after the kids and I were waiting impatiently at the exit doors, Josh was lingering over the display cases and reading really boring descriptions.

Dire Wolves!

Then we went home and it was a wonderful week of wonderfulness. We seriously had a fantastic time. It was our first-ever nuclear family vacation with the four of us. A lot of exhausting days, a LOT of walking around, and some really wonderful experiences. I left utterly spent (and spent-out), but I'd go back in a heartbeat, which is some kind of Disney voodoo.