Spring Portraits

Claire's school always does their school pictures in the spring and Emily's does a "fun" picture. Here they are:

Pre-School Amtrak Trip

Claire's school has an annual train trip to San Juan Capistrano. Since we are such a large group (over 120 this year!) we get a car all to ourselves. Even though there was plenty of space, the kids had far more fun playing sardines in the seats:

We had a wonderful program at Zoomars where the kids got to try different things from the "olden days". Claire's grandmas were talked into being helpers at 2 of the stations. Grandma Wendy helped the kids grind grain into flour:
Grandma Holly had the next station where the flour had been made into dough and needed to be rolled flat then cut into biscuits:

Emily's favorite station was panning for gold:

Miss Lindsay made sure the kids didn't slack at the washtubs:

Zoomars is mostly known for its petting zoo. Claire and her friends loved holding and feeding the guinea pigs and rabbits:

It was a wonderful day making memories with our pre-school friends and families. We were all pretty tired on the way home but very happy.

Legoland

Since the girls were on Spring Break two different weeks this year, we couldn't really make plans to go out of town. So we compromised and went to Legoland on one of Claire's days off from school. It was a little rough getting into the park since we arrived at the same time as the hordes but once everyone scattered around the park, it was remarkably pleasant. The girls are big enough to go on rides without a grown up now:
We met the girls' friend, J and her mom at the park.

I love the Coastal Cruise ride and all its famous landmarks in Legos.

The funniest part of the day we naturally didn't take any pictures of. Claire and J got on the Skipper School ride alone. The ride requires actual boating skill as you navigate a short river in a little battery powered boat. As soon as they left the landing, J's mom and I agreed that letting the girls go alone on this ride was about the dumbest parenting move we had ever made. We watched in hysterics as every boat passed them then in horror as their boat turned the wrong direction and they were headed back to the starting point. Other boaters were kind enough to push their boat along and occasionally get them going the right direction again. After about 15 minutes (the ride should take 5 minutes or less) they were past the 2nd bend in the river (of about 8) and we were done watching the struggle. Fortunately they never got too frustrated and as they were pushed into the landing by the poor employee who had to don waders to save them, they were laughing and asking to go again!

American Girl Place

Emily's 348,969th and final birthday celebration was held at the American Girl Place - Los Angeles. She got the Samantha doll at a previous party and now needed to create a wardrobe for her. It was amazing to see all the options that were available. Emily could have easily spent her money three times over!
Once Samantha was properly wardrobed we were off to tea with the Grandmas. We each got to pick a doll to share our tea with.

Emily took excellent care of Samantha and made sure she had enough to eat and drink.

For dessert, Emily got a special cake. After it was cut, it was served with pink peppermint ice cream. Yummy!