t9 is wrong. disneyland is not disneylame.

nice brother rob let me tag along with his family to disneyland last month!

i was just there in august but who would turn down going again?

not this girl.

i had never been during halloween time either! so it was really exciting.

disneyland looooooves pumpkins this time of year

and all the time of every year lyla looooves the merry-go-round.

in the summer rob would pay the little kids a dollar to go on it with her at lagoon because he

couldn't stomach it anymore and that is all she wanted to ride the entire day haha

the incredibles loved rob's shirt

and i love niece izzy!

and they loved watermelon cotton candy

i liked walking up to this little moment with steph and my dad. just hanging out on the ground with sleeping babies. nbd.

i think my mom captured the joy on my face pretty well!

world of color was just as magical the second time as it was the first.

i probably took like 30 photos of it but i will spare you and just post this one.

gaaaaah i want to watch this every night!

welcome to day 2.  little lauren is the cutest!

just being the family photographer as usual

going on the teacups was really exciting because for some reason i hadn't done it since i was like 14

see? so much excitement. and gross chin.

i feel like my mom is going to ask the question  "megan why is this photo blurry?"

so i will just answer now and say that it isn't blurry - just out of focus - and i did it on purpose!

haha.

love us some small world

and popcorn! i'm pretty sure we had popcorn between every meal.

happiest baby award goes to....lauren!

aren't my parents cute?

splash mountain is papa tom's favorite ride if you didn't already know

and i guess the haunted mansion is mine right now!

okay to be honest i kind of didn't understand all the hype about halloween disneyland fest until i saw/experienced the haunted mansion. it was everything i heard it would be and more.

we love tim burton and lanyards right now!

as we passed the balcony of club 33 (right there behind that tree) i felt happy i was just there in august but sad that i'll probably never be allowed in there ever again. worst feeling ever haha

this day the babies were tired so everyone went home except for my dad, myself, and izzy.

i wanted to explore all the things there was never time to do and they were good sports to accompany me. first stop was sitting and staring at all the giant screens in that off the set or on the set? place for a good thirty minutes. i don't really ever know what it is called but i love it there always.

then showing them how great the toy story zoetrope (and to spare ryan from commenting, yes i googled it to see what it was called) and then we found out what character we were most like! at first i was that girl from a bug's life and i hated that so i did it again and fancy that i was cinderella!

then we went to the animation academy and learned how to draw goofy! if i lived by disneyland i would go there everyday probably. i really need to work on my drawing skills.
*and i guess i have to mention that the drawing of goofy in the foreground of the second picture with my name next to it really was drawn by me and not some random person. ryan didn't believe me!

after fulfilling all my dreams we went to go look at all the new things that will be happening and watched this nice video about walt and how great he is. they even had little clips of people saying things like "i grew up loving everything about disney, i always wanted to be a part of the disney team, and i'm an imagineer". what?  sound familiar? "i'm a mormon" campaign anyone?

hey day 3!

here is a small sequence of bug's life land fest:

i love how happy lyla is and i love how happy this man was recording his wife on his ipad

...i like that land but really don't have anything to say about it

lyla found another merry-go-round!

this is how i felt after going on it over and over and over again..i guess i'm getting old.

so eventually i couldn't do it anymore and instead gave my mom some digital slr lessons

she is a natural!

somehow like ten minutes after that photo was taken the sun decided to come out!

which was really happy.

this bbq pizza was also happy and i definitely went there by myself this day because i wanted it so bad

rob is such a sucker/nice dad and is pretty muched wrapped around lyla's finger.

i feel that the photos above prove this.

hey we are in a balloon!

still lovin the pumpkins

who needs those photos the workers take when you can just ask a random stranger?

oh! and that reminds me!

i saw the black man who took our pictures last time and i was really excited.

i like this.

we got a free pin and since i learned all about pin trading from a worker last time i was there while i was lost for a minute we traded our dumb free pin for cooler ones! that sentence is awful but i don't feel like fixing it.

my babies!

a little more halloween decor

aaaaand bye disneyland.

you were so great to us! thanks to parents, rob, and fam for such a fun trip!

and thank you jetblue for making us feel awesome once again.

one week california trip = success

i like hikes: a cecret failure. and a reunion, which is completely unrelated.

i don't know if i'm quite ready to tackle what will be the longest disneyland post ever right now, so instead i will blog about halloween day and do that tomorrow.

ryan doesn't have class until 1 on mondays and since the weather was so nice we decided to go on a little halloween hike! we knew hiking to cecret lake wouldn't take long so we decided to go there.



when we got there the road to get to the trailhead was gated so we parked outside of it and just started walking. as you can see from this picture it was so bright we had no idea what was really in front of us.

after the sun decided to calm down we came across this little stream!

we loved the moss and water running under the ice. for some reason any time i see mossy rocks like this i feel like i'm in lotr or narnia or some other magical film. and i like that.

looking up to see this was a real treat.

and i love ryan's face to my reaction.

it was like "what? why would me laying on this rock, in this way, be weird?" haha

once we remembered we were there to go on a hike and not just play at this stream we continued on. after looking at the map on ryan's phone we realized we were going in the opposite direction so we turned around and got on the right path and then realized because we couldn't drive to the trailhead we were still a mile away from it. so our little hike turned into four miles which we definitely didn't have time for which was so sad! but we tried to make the most of it.

snow! and snow maker! which i had a hard time believing was really a snow maker.

 which i guess makes the fact that i'm not a skiier or snowboarder very obvious.

baby christmas trees!

it would have been nicer if a lake was behind us! but this will do.

ryan was so happy to see the snow. he can hardly wait for ski season to begin

aaaand let's all give him a round of applause because he is going to be a park city ski instructor this year!

i was just happy it was still pretty

because as you can see all the leaves are gone!

i was not expecting that and was so sad.

i guess naked quakies are still nice looking though

to make our walk back down to the car festive, ryan turned on some halloween pandora

and then we had an impromptu dance party

(i really turned around and this was happening)

which we loved.

and then sang along to the new coldplay album as we drove back down the canyon with the sunroof open because the weather was still so nice.  

(ps ryan really was singing - just not at this particular moment and hey there permanent retainer!)

it wasn't exactly the morning we had planned but we had a great time together anyway

aaaand i was so happy we did it because 24 hours later snow was falling!

afterwards i went with rachel to meet up with kelly and lauren for lunch.

i'm so glad we missed the 4th south exit and got off the 6th north exit instead just so we could witness this happening! halloween right before our very eyes!

i was sad to see this though. what the heck happened to snelgrove ice cream? and why is it fine for jimmy to just paint the ice cream cone black?

anyway. we saw ashley's husband at zupa's so he called her and she joined too!

it was a delightful reunion and i was really happy that it worked out. i don't think we have all been together at the same time since lauren and kelly came to sleep over at our apartment freshman year!

i've never been one to take the initiative and make get togethers happen but i did this halloween afternoon and i was so pleased with the results! making the effort to see old friends is nice.

annnnd i got to finally meet baby olivia!

this is going to seem super creepy but one day i had a dream about her as told about here:

and i have been obsessed with her and that hair ever since!

and let me say that lauren was right, holding the real olivia was quite a treat and she is just as cute as lauren portrays her to be on her blog! and so itty-bitty! yes. itty-bitty.

after lunch i went grocery shopping with rachel to help with her two little guys (who are just as cute as baby olivia) and that was a treat as well. by the time evening hit it felt like halloween had already been happening for the last thirty days and was so successful that i didn't feel like doing anything that night and so i didn't. and i felt great about it.  ..and that is when you know you are getting older haha.

if you are looking for a good time you should hit up the LA temple visitors center for surrre

saturday night we went to the LA temple!

i felt this sign was very fitting.

we were really excited to attend the temple but apparently they close at 7? it was 7:30.
 sooooo we went to the visitors center instead.

and might i say it did not disappoint.

 i loved this little section and being able to meet some of the sisters that also do mormon.org chat!

i also loved pretending to be sister missionaries with b.

and every single video clip in the Jerusalem room

see? pure joy.

anyang!

we chatted with the sister missionaries and found this little gem sister brinkerhoff!

turns out she was on young ambassadors for two years so we have lots of mutual friends and she even met ryan when he went on a mini tour there earlier this year! she returns in february (the same time i came home!) which is a rough time to come back so we are going to be her friend.

LA visitor center,

you are the best! and we love you.

well.

here ends the posts of friendship brynne time. i think i felt the need to blog about it forever so as to trick myself into thinking we see each other all the time. but with going to the venice canals, the venice boardwalk, the tim burton exhibit, malibu, the LA temple, and doing all the other things we did, i feel really good about those short few days we got to see each other! 

california: zuma zuma zuuuuuma

i just wanted to blog about something around the time it actually happened so i skipped ahead for some halloween posts but i am back to blogging about brynne time!

saturday afternoon decided to mix things up and go to a different beach so we got on the pch and made our way to malibu.

originally, we were going to go to the getty villa in malibu but only brynne and i wanted to go it just didn't work out so i guess we will have go next time!

we didn't really know where we were going but decided on zuma beach.

might i say it was delightful! the drive was great, the beach wasn't too crowded, and it got sunny just as we got there so we didn't freeze!

brynne didn't want to get wet but when you keep getting as close as you can to the water and the tide comes in it is bound to happen. we both actually got way more wet than intended because the waves were crazy! therefore the tide was crazy. i've never seen such huge waves and even though it was stressful at first we were obsessed with them. tanner was so much that he played a little too far out in them and the lifeguard told him he needed to come back in to the shore. sometimes fun is dangerous.

 all the birds had no shame and loved being all up in our things.

maybe this guy saved tanner's life. who knows.

too bad we can't say the same about his wedding ring.

look how nice the beach is behind us!
and how good at putting our hands on our hips we are!

happy

family

annnnd that is the end of zuma beach and malibu time.