The Petterson Posse: september 2011 {california}.

At the beginning of September we were able to go visit Connel's Mother, Sister and Relatives in California! It was so nice to be able to see them and for Hannah to finally meet everyone! I was a little nervous that Hannah would be shy, and shew was...for the first 5 minutes...then she was all about making friends with everyone! Here she is, playing stickers with Grandma Pat.

We planned to go the beach one day, but it ended up being a little too windy and cold for swimming suits, so we just played in the water and sand and took a few pictures. Hannah loves the beach, beach, beach!!! (and so do we!)

Hannah was trying to "write" in the sand.

Discovering a hermit crab.

Sandy toes and salty kisses...

Aunt Carly and Grandma Cathy!

We were able to go to John and Debra's house for a little family reunion! We ate burgers and played in the pool, and just generally enjoyed talking and catching up. Here we are...

Top R-L: Robyn, Rolfe, Cathy, Kenny, Debra, John; Middle R-L: Grandma Pat, Carly, Grandpa Don; Bottom R-L: Honni (Hanna-Lorie), Hannah Mae, Connel Ray, Laura, Elizabeth

Kenny and Connel chillin'.

Grandpa Don enjoying the sunshine.

Hannah swimming (check out her hands--she is paddling!)

Grandma Pat enjoying the sunshine.

These koi are in the pond at their house...they are sooooo huge! (compare to size of our feet--foot in flip flop is a size 6)

This little guy brought back some childhood memories!!!

Exploring the yard at the house.

Picking Grandpa's apples with Daddy!

Of course when we were all dressed up we had to take some pictures...We had some luck but we were getting really hot!

The good one...

The crazy one.

While we were there, Connel turned the big 30! He is officially old. I think he's sexier as an older man.

Hannah wanted to eat it, but we had to wait, she was really mad about that!

If you can't tell this is an upside down 30 from candles!

Hannah was not quite sure what everyone was singing about!

Top R-L: Kenny, Gr. Don, Cathy, Laura, Hannah; Bottom R-L: Carly, Gr. Pat, Connel Ray

We were so excited that we got to take a little trip to Disneyland! It was my first time, and of course it was also Hannah's first time! In fact, it was really the first time she had been introduced to any of the Mickey or Princess themed stuff! I really enjoyed the vintage-ness about the "Fantasyland" part of it, the older Disney animated films are some of my favorites (Snow White, Peter Pan, Dumbo, etc.)! It was neat to hear things about Walt Disney and imagine what it must have been like the first time the park opened. I was a little sad that we didn't get to "meet" a princess, but we met Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto and saw the rest of the characters in the parade at the end. It was sure a fun, exciting and tiring day! Truly it was a cool experience... and Hannah has not stopped talking about Mickey Mouse since.

No, we actually didn't ride in the teacups...we are PARTY POOPERS, but we were trying to avoid throwing up!

Checking out the Finding Nemo ride.

Hannah was barely big enough to ride Autotopia with us, but I don't think she had that much fun on it anyway! But I did!

Hannah really enjoyed this rolling water ball thing.

"Trashin' the Camp" at the Tarzan section.

Riding on Tom Sawyer River boat. Hannah and I boarded this, they took off from the shore... at which point they told us that there were no restrooms on board the boat. About five minutes later, Hannah had a HUGE blowout and had to sit in it until the boat reached the shore again! Fun times.

Mickey Mouse Pretzel.

I don't know, but the parade was the funnest part of the whole thing. Maybe it was the music and the dancing, but it was the most "magical" part of the whole day!

In front of the Matterhorn (the only thing I could think of when I saw this was an old apple computer game we used to have where you would have to control a skiing Goofy and get him to the bottom of the Matterhorn.)

Tuckered out from a VERY long and fun day!

My prince charming!

This picture is a little our of order but it is space mountain (I think).

We spent part of a day getting some boxes of Connel's mission pictures out of a storage shed and we saw this praying mantis while we were there...it moved so weird-like!