Mickey's Halloween Trick or Treating

The big event that our Disneyland trip revolved around was Mickey's Halloween Treat. They close the California Land park on a few special nights and have an exclusive four hour Halloween trick or treat party for people who buy the special tickets. We purchased our tickets back in June, which was good because the event was sold out. We thought it was fun. Everyone can dress up and there are trick or treat stations around the park. They are very generous with the candy, and it is good quality stuff. They also mix in bags of apple slices, baby carrots, fruit leather and raisins. My children do not need to trick or treat again (but I am sure they will), and we didn't even hit all the stations. There are also many characters around the park to get pictures with, spots where you can dance and watch shows, a special parade (which we missed because we were in line to see the princesses) and arts and crafts tables. They have Halloween music and decorations. But the best part of all is the very short lines on the rides. We decided that if we ever do it again (and the kids are already begging to do it again) we will go ride rides at the beginning and then trick or treat and see characters the second half when the lines are short and people take their little kids home. Besides, they just want to get rid of the candy at the end, and they were scooping handfuls into the kids' bags. We have so much left that I am going to use it to pass out on Halloween. Is that terrible?

As you can see, my girls dressed as princesses and my son was a cute Pooh bear. I dressed as Cinderella (but I was not anywhere near as cute as the kids) and Alan dressed as everyone's prince. He wasn't happy about dressing up until he saw other adults dressed up as we were driving over. Then he put on his costume and enjoyed the night. The other adults in my famly didn't dress up, but I enjoyed it. I always did love dress up. I can see in the pictures that it wasn't my best look, but I sure felt like a princess in my sparkly dress...and my husband claims that he thought I looked beautiful. I just need to alter the dress a bit to cover garments so I can lose the t-shirt underneath.

A Pirate's Life For Me

As fans of the Pirates of the Carribean ride and the resulting Pirates movies, we made sure to show our true colors the day we went to the new Pirate Island at Disneyland. They have changed Tom Sawyer's Island to a pirate theme (justifying it by pointing out that Huck and Tom played pirates), and you can hunt for treasure and meet Captain Jack Sparrow. We met Captain Jack, and he was just as he was in the movies. He didn't like Alan's shirt, stole Benjamin's hat, tried to fix the girls' hair like his own, tried to add Estela's ring to his treasure trove and played around with everyone's words. Adults cannot dress up at Disneyland (but note the pirate t-shirts), but my sister Kim and I made outfits for the girls (I already had one for Benjamin that I found in my Ebay stuff). Kim was very creative and made her own patterns for the kids out of newspaper. I just did what she told me to help and then made the head pieces. Emilyanne had already begged a pirate dress from Grandma, so of course the other girls had to have something pirate too. They were so cute! We also went on the new and improved Pirates of the Carribean ride while they were dressed up. They have added Davy Jones, Barbosa and Captain Jack Sparrow to the ride, but it is mostly still the same. All in all it was jolly good day. The only weird thing was that they had a skeleton dressed as Santa claus at the Haunted Mansion (Jack Skellington from the movie "Nightmare Before Christmas"), and everytime Benjamin saw it he said, "pirate." I don't know if he thought it was a pirate because it was a skeleton or if he thinks Santa Claus looks like a pirate. I guess we'll have to wait for Christmas and see what he says then.

A Magical World for Benji

Everytime our family goes to Disneyland, invariably someone has to tell me that my youngest child is too young to go. Now I admit that Benjamin was probably too young the last time we went (he was three months),
but we didn't go for him...we went for his sisters. This time, however, Benjamin had a magical time right along with the rest of them. He loved the rides, he loved the fireworks and parades, and he loved the characters. He won't remember it, but the pictures are priceless and we are a sum total of all our experiences.

2007 Walker Family Highlights

Grandpa's Funeral

My grandpa's funeral was on Thursday. (My kids' great-grandpa and my dad's dad) It was a nice service. My brother Chris gave a nice talk and the great-grandkids all sang "I Am a Child of God." My Uncle Rod and my Aunt Sharee also spoke. He was buried in the Roseburg National Cemetary because he is a World War II veteran. It is so full that you have to be cremated to be buried there now. My mom was afraid the kids would have a hard time with cremation, so they put his urn inside a coffin for the funeral. Since we were going to the burial in Roseburg, I explained to my kids about how Great-grandpa was cremated. They didn't have a problem with it at all. In fact, they wanted to know why they didn't get to watch! Morbid children. They did a nice military ceremony at the graveyard and then my dad dedicated the grave. Each of us got a turn shoveling earth into the grave and then Leilani got to carry the flag to the car. It was a nice day. We will miss him, but we are glad he is out of pain and in a better place.

Taking Home the Trophy

We had another gymnastics meet for Leilani this weekend - The Lighthouse Classic in Coos Bay. She did a great job and improved her scores again. She beat her personal best on both vault and beam! As you can see by the scores above, she got three scores in the nines, so she got her first 35. She messed up on bars and fell backwards when she was putting her leg over the bar, but the rest of her routine was good. She ended up taking 3rd on vault, 6th on bars, 2nd on beam and 2nd on floor. She also took 2nd in the All Around. So, she got to stand on the podium 4 times (1st, 2nd and 3rd get to stand on the podium) and she got her first trophy (for the all around). Unfortunately, I did not have a camera at the meet...just the video camera I borrowed from my dad. Her team took first place. It was her turn to take the trophy home, so that is the BIG trophy she is posing with in the first picture. She has to return it to the gym on Tuesday. We are very proud of her!