Girls only like guys with great skills

I just needed to share this video I took yesterday.

I'm pretty sure the girls are going to like Lincoln.

Merry Christmas 2011

Hey, Merry Christmas,

Since spring is pretty well upon us now I figured it was about time to write up a blog post about Christmas.
I'm wanting to write this but I'm just not feeling it so maybe I'll just post the pictures and videos.

Wake up!

The perceptive among you will have noticed that Grandpa was in that second video. Lincoln was quite happy to have Grandpa come share his Christmas celebrations this year.

We didn't take too many pictures this year so, that's all you get.

November Backlog

Right now my favorite thing about November was the fact that I didn't take very many pictures.

Since we don't really have any Thanksgiving decorations we went straight from Halloween to Christmas:

Lincoln hung the candy canes. He has some grouping skills to learn.

This is the gingerbread house for Inkom.

Our house.

We went down to St. George for Thanksgiving.

Lincoln got to sit at the kids table.

 

Angel put together these flower arrangements (one of her lesser known talents).

Then we spent the rest of the month reading Christmas stories.

October Backlog

Two months behind is pretty good. Although the only reason it isn't three is because I have nothing to write about September. I'm sure it was great but since I apparently didn't take any pictures I can't be sure the month actually occurred.

We took lots of pictures in October.

We had lots of apples on our tree. Lincoln likes to help pick them.

Lincoln went to the park a lot.

And made silly faces at his dad (getting a haircut in between).

The big event was the Long Beach/Disneyland trip.
We had so much fun at the Disneyland Halloween event last year that we thought we would go do it again (plus this was going to be the last chance we could go again while Lincoln was still free).
Angel and I decided to fly down a couple days before the rest of the group and stay aboard the historic Queen Mary. For those who don't know, the Queen Mary is an old luxury cruise liner that use to sail the Atlantic and also served as a troop transporter during WWII. It is now welded to the dock in Long Beach and was prominently featured in the final episode of Arrested Development.

Also, it's haunted... by this guy:

OK, this guy wasn't on the ship. He was actually in the back room of the awesome $1 bookstore we found and spent lots of time in in Long Beach (this is a great idea for anyone looking for a store to start somewhere near me).

The ship had lots of cool Art Deco style to it and we spent a lot of time just wandering around looking at stuff.
Our room was one of the original first-class cabins. The definition of first-class has changed a bit over the last 80 years. This one wouldn't quite pass these days. Although it is a ship so I suppose space is limited. It did have neat details though:

The toilet lever.

The, uh, sink with soap elevator.

The bathing choices (I tried to be salty but they only let me get fresh).

The radio, I mean... heater?

The blow hole (there were like five of these in the room).

Cool curved hallways and psychedelic carpet.

The swimming pool.

The cool mechanical map that showed where the ship was.

We went on a tour of the most haunted areas of the ship and this is the ghost picture I took:

The ghost answers to the name Jooj and is rumored to be the most beautiful passenger who ever boarded the ship.

We spent some time in Long Beach eating delicious food, looking at cheap books among other things and getting excited to go to Disneyland. The next morning we attached plastic bags full of books to the outside of our backpacks and, because we're urban adventurers, we gave public transportation $3.75 and two hours of our time to take us from Long Beach to Disneyland.

Angel and I went in early that morning before the rest of the crew arrived with Lincoln so we could do some rides. Like the teacups:

Going...

Going...

Gone.

The teacups are Angel's favorite.
Since Lincoln is a freakishly tall two year old he gets to ride on big kid rides.

In line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (he rode the 'fast train' at least four or five times).

Waiting for the new Star Tours to start.

In the waiting room for the emergency room ride.

He was tall enough for Space Mountain but we decided since they were projecting scary ghouls on the walls and stuff for Halloween maybe it wasn't such a good idea. He did do Haunted Mansion/Nightmare Before Christmas a couple times though. And his super cool black eye injury got him/us a front of the line pass to Buzz Lightyear.

For the Halloween event Lincoln dressed up like Stitch, Angel was Lilo and they got Wolverine to put on an Elvis suit and go with them.

You know, you'd think we would have taken a lot of pictures of this but, we really didn't.
Other random people took pictures of us...
And there was a pretty constant chorus of "Elvis" around us everywhere we went all day. Some people even figured out the connection between us.

Lincoln is super cute even when he isn't dressed as Stitch (which he wasn't for a little while because he was super sweaty and uncomfortable).

Lincoln showed off his hat and cape.

Goofy was impressed.

Mom still won't let him ride the real Dumbo ride, Doh!

Pass me the mint for the julep.

A good time was had by all and it truly was...

Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.

Since we didn't get many pictures at Disneyland we did a bit of a photo shoot later.

I'm sorry some of those are a little disturbing. None of them quite made the Christmas card.

That mostly tells the story of our Halloween except for the pumpkins I carved. In case anyone else hasn't figured this out, Dremel tools are awesome for carving pumpkins. Our little garden only grows little pumpkins so, I strung them together and made this:

We put them in Lincoln's window so that no neighborhood kids would set themselves on fire on our porch.

I also hooked up a speaker out on the porch to play scary music like Alice Cooper and Michael Jackson.

And since Halloween is the end of October I'll end this with the way we ended Halloween: