For my birthday all I wanted was to take my family to Oogie Boogie Bash, and we had the BEST time.

Our tickets got us into California Adventure at 3 PM so we showed up a little early so we could enjoy some rides.

At 6 PM the party actually started so we changed into our costumes for the evening.

We loved Cars Land but the kids liked the Trick or Treating best!

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There were cute shows, lots of treat trails and an amazing parade.

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Also they have a Villains Grove that was really cool to walk through.

It was SO much fun and I am so so glad we got tickets!

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Have you ever been to a Disney after hours party? Cory and I went to the Mickey Halloween Party back in 2015

On our third morning we decided to drive down to the beach.

It was nice to put our toes in the ocean since we hadn’t visited since 2018 (tears).

Cannon’s favorite was jumping the waves.

Emmy loved making sand castles. We didn’t have any sand toys with us but McDonalds orange juice cups worked.

We drove up the coast for lunch.

We stopped at the Shake Shack of Crystal Cove and shared fish and chips and shakes.

The kids didn’t want to leave, I think the beach visit was their favorite part of the trip.

We spent our second day in the parks at California Adventure.

We started in Cars Land, which is adorable for Halloween.

We road Radiator Springs, Emmy loved it but Cannon thought it was too fast.

We loved many of the rides. Emmy even went on Mission Breakout, I thought that would be WAY too scary for her, she did say she liked it but she didn’t want to do it again LOL.

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We liked DCA but definitely like Disneyland better.

We woke up early on Sunday and drove to our hotel. We stayed close enough to walk to the parks so we piled the kids in the stroller and walked to Disneyland.

This was the best way I could think to spend my birthday!

We had the best day enjoying rides and Halloween treats.

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We had the best day and walked back to the hotel ready to fall into bed.

We started driving right around 8 am after dropping Humphry off at my parents’ house.

Driving west through the Rocky Mountains and through the Utah desert is beautiful.

We stop a lot for playgrounds and for coffee.

We stop many times to move our bodies.

We stopped for the night at the edge of the Mojave Desert so that we would have a very short drive into Anaheim in the morning.

We are all very excited to get our time in Disneyland started!

After a lot of debating, we decided to ditch our flights and drive to Disneyland. While I love that this will limit our exposure, the drive time is 15 hours so I may not think this is the best idea at the end of the drive.

Cannon was a little sad to not get to fly on the plane but was excited to go regardless.

Do you like road trips?

We are scrambling to get ready for our trip so here are some short stories from our day:

I slammed my fingers in the washer door and they turned black and hurt so bad, then looked fine by the end of the day.

Cannon had school and was excited to hang with his new friends.

We are slowly putting Halloween decorations up.

I LOVE this book and I am a proponent of education (obviously, I am a teacher) but having young children in the education system makes me thing that Scandinavians have it right.

We started our day early with a walk around a local lake with friends. It was lovely, cool and nice to see our friends.

Then we played at one of our favorite parks.

I feel like since it’s officially fall I can break out all of our spooky things.

Cannon asked me to snap a picture of his lunch.

Emmy asked me to take a picture of her smile, so this is her smile now, LOL.

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I tried to get a picture of the kids on our way out to school but this is what I could get.

Emmy and I made cupcakes, then Cannon had soccer practice in the evening. We are finally settling into our new routine and enjoying the change of seasons.

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Have you settled into school/fall routine?

It was lovely and cool today, officially sweater weather.

Emmy is looking (and acting) more and more like a teenager.

While Cannon was at school I finished up the kids “Disney Baskets”. We are going to Disneyland next week and wanted to give them a few things to get them excited about our trip. Also this is to help not have to buy the a million things in the parks. All the things we bought them were 1/2 to a 1/3 the cost of buying them at Disneyland.

We are all getting really excited!

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The last time we visited was February 2019 and the kids don’t remember the trip at all.

Today is officially the last day of summer so it seemed very fitting that we woke up to fresh snow on the mountain tops.

We were still camping Monday morning but we had to pack up quickly to get Cory home to work (he took a half day) and Cannon to school.

We came home to mountains of laundry and lots of cleaning to do. We have a quick turn around for our trip to Disneyland so it’s going to be a busy week.

Which season does it feel like where you are?