Wild & Wonderful World of Whitesides

Josh DID IT!!! He graduated with his Bachelor's Degree from Weber State University on April 20, 2012!! I am SO proud of my man! He changed his mind once a few times along the way, but it will be worth it in the end! He started out as a Business Major but ended up graduating with a Major in Spanish and an Dual Minor in Chemistry and Business. He has worked especially hard the past two years and it has meant some long days apart from each other, but hey.. I waited for him for TWO years so we are no strangers to patience! 

The actual ceremony was in the Browning Theater on campus. Since he graduated from the Performing Arts School, it was quite an entertaining ceremony. It actually went on for so long that we snuck out! (Josh too!) It made me laugh really hard because it was full of very... expressive students who like to be the center of attention. That is NOT Josh at all, but it sure was entertaining! 

After the ceremony we had to get pictures with the family. Dave also came but left before pictures. That's true love.. a brother willing to sit through a graduation ceremony with you! Jona and Gloria tried to make it, but just missed it! But we still LOVE that they tried!

For Josh's graduation party he wanted to do something fun that even the kids would enjoy. So we rented out Weber State's bowling alley for an hour and it was SO much fun! We had pizza and fresh fruit, along with some graduation themed desserts that I had made. (Thank you Pinterest!)

 It meant so much to us that the family came out to support and celebrate with us on Josh's big day! Taylor also graduated so as soon as we were done at out party we went out to Taylor's parent's house for his party! It was a busy day, but so worth it! CONGRATULATIONS TAYLOR!

 One thing to note, it's NOT fun walking all over campus in your third trimester of pregnancy. It was HOT, but SO worth it to be there with my man. Cannon had a BLAST bowling, it's one of his favorite activities and to be there with his cousins made it even better!

These are the invites I made for the Graduation Ceremony and the Party. I am weird and really like to design things on the computer so I had a lot of fun doing it! 

We didn't stay very long at the Whitesides, Grandpa Ed happened to be in town so we headed out to go see him at Tim and Chey's. 

Elaine was sweet enough to get Cannon a little water bottle and bucket too! Cannon loved his water bottle and had so much fun playing with Grandpa Ed! 

**Family Update** One week ago Victor and Catherine announced that they are engaged!!! They are planning on getting married this August in the Salt Lake City Temple! We are SO excited!

Then to finish the day off we had green pancakes and green eggs and ham. It was a FUN green day! Cannon had so much fun showing all of his cousins the green milk and green pee every time one of his cousins came over.  

So for this last Christmas in the Whitesides family a decision was made. Jay and Peggy would not be giving the couples presents, but instead would pay for lodging for a family vacation. Well after MUCH deliberation it was decided that southern California was the place to be! So this trip will be broken up into two segments: the trip as a whole and then DisneyLand. (I told Josh that there was NO way I was going to be that close to DisneyLand and NOT take Cannon.  So that's what our trip was centered on.) Jay and Peggy rented out a beach house in Sunset Beach and it was just perfect for our family. Every one who decided to go included: Me, Josh, Cannon, Jay, Peggy, Nick, Ben, Ness, Jayben, Lincoln, Jona, Gloria, Zoe, Desi, Kia, Helaman, Ammon, Cass, Tay and Scarlett. Everybody arrived in California the same day but we all left at different times for what worked best with all our different schedules. So I will just be describing mostly what mine and Josh's little family did. 

Day 1: Arrive in California!

When arranging the trip Josh and I were the first ones to actually book our flight. Janessa had found an awesome deal on Jet Blue that we couldn't pass up. It was $49 one way from SLC to Longbeach Airport! So we flew separate from everybody else, and our flight was a couple of hours earlier. Cannon was SO excited to fly on an airplane and I was super nervous and prepared for a temper tantrum but he did AMAZINGLY well! As you can see we bought him a donut for breakfast and he was happy! The best thing about flying Jet Blue is that every seat has a TV so he just watched Cartoons the whole flight! (You can also notice my pregnant belly. Feeling well in my second trimester!)

Since we arrived earlier than everybody else we couldn't check into the hotel (we spent the first night in a hotel) so we met up with Vic, Catherine and Shelley. Yes.. Shelley was able to arrange a business trip around our vacation so she could come and spend a couple of days with us! So we had to wait for Vic to pick up Shelley at the LA Airport before we could meet up with them. So in the mean time, after renting our car, we drove around Seal Beach and went to a farmer's market. We then met up with Shelley, Vic and Catherine at Catherine's apartment and ate lunch. After eating some yummy tacos Vic and Catherine took us to Laguna Beach. It was actually pretty warm and we had a blast! Cannon was able to see a hermit crab and some star fish! At first he was a little scared of the waves but then after holding Josh's hand he thought it was fun. Side-note: Aren't Vic and Catherine such a cute couple! I REALLY like her... hint hint Vic! ;) 

After hanging out with them we went and met up with the Whitesides clan and checked into our hotel. Shelley stayed with us the next two nights and we (Me, Josh, Cannon and Shelley) had a room to ourselves. Then for dinner Vic and Catherine took us all to a yummy BBQ restaurant and Aunt Deb was able to meet up with us too! So much fun to be with family!!

Day 2: Shopping

Day two started out with eating breakfast at the hotel, continental of course. Then we were able to drop our luggage off at the beach house while we headed out to explore.

 Cannon obviously slept well in the hotel bed. I'm not sure I can say the same thing for Josh, who shared a bed with him. 

We ate lunch at a burger grill place, we were able to eat outside and enjoy the warmer weather! 

After eating lunch we followed Jona and Gloria's idea of going to the LA Fashion District for some good shopping deals. They are cheap markets and we had a lot of fun shopping. Peggy found a shop that had darling baby girl dresses for a really good deal. So... I bought 4 and Shelley bought 1 for my little Hazyl. (Oh yeah that's the name we have decided on, by-the-way.) We ended up shopping the day away and then hit traffic on our way home. Cannon was all tuckered out. ..

Once arriving back in the Sunset Beach area Shell, Josh, Cannon and I ate dinner at an Italian restaurant. It was SO small and we were the only customers but it was SUPER yummy!

Days 3-5 we spent at DisneyLand so I will post about those separately, otherwise this would be the world's longest blog post!

Day 5: Last Half of the Day

The third day we only spent half of it at DisneyLand and then we headed back to the Beach House. I thought it was too cold to head to the beach but Cannon and Josh wanted to go, so we went. (And yes I was right... it was too cold. At least for me.) We still had fun and ate some hot dogs on the beach and Cannon dug in the sand and found sea shells. 

The last night we were there Ben and Ness had left and so had Jona and Gloria, so we were able to spread out a little more and each couple had our own room. Cannon and Josh shared a bed that night. They sleep the exact same! I was trying to capture it with the next pictures. Oh how I love my boys. 

Josh and I left the following morning, March 16th. We made it just in time for our flight.. walked right onto the plane. Again Cannon did amazing on the flight and Dave was nice enough to pick us up from the airport. It was an exhausting but FUN trip! 

Like I said I had to do DisneyLand of our trip as a separate post. We had SO much fun! We were also able to get a three day Hopper pass (a pass to both DisneyLand Park and California Adventure) for a record cheap price! Jay is retired military so we got them for $99 a person! They are usually $110 per person... PER DAY! So it really was a killer deal! It was so nice to have a three day pass so we didn't feel like we had to cram everything into one day. We could chill and take our time. 

Day 3 of trip (Day 1 of DisneyLand):

We didn't get there as early as I would have wanted, but that's ok. Shelley and Nick hung out with us that first day. It was really busy and crowded (Spring Break crowd) and Cannon had never been to any type of theme park so he was a little less than enthused. 

I don't think Cannon really knew what to think about it all. 

We decided to start out at a classic... Dumbo! Fantasy Land was SO busy so we just went on a couple of rides there before heading over to ToonTown.

Cannon LOVED ToonTown and came out of his shell a little better there. He thought it was so cool that we were in Donald and Goofy's houses!

First roller coaster ride ever! He is tall for his age so he was able to go on a lot of rides. 

After ToonTown we headed to Critter Country for some grub. My favorite place is right next to Splash Mountain and compared to other places in the park, it's not too ridiculously priced. Cannon fell asleep on the way over there so we ate and while he slept Nick and Shelley went on the Haunted Mansion ride. We then got fast passes for Splash Mountain! (My FAVORITE ride!)

We took this picture with our camera. So it's a picture of a picture (sorry DisneyLand not paying $25 for one picture), but that is why the quality is not the best. I love the look on Cannon's face. Not scared, not happy. . . kind of unimpressed. 

After Splash Mountain we headed over to California Adventure. Nick told us about Toy Story Mania, a Toy Story ride so we had to go take Cannon. The line was SOO long, but it was a fun ride!

We grabbed some snacks for dinner. Josh got the BIGGEST turkey leg I have ever seen! It filled both me and him up, then Ben ate some and Victor finished it off. Vic wasn't able to spend a day with us because it was a really busy week for him for work, but he came in the evening and took Shell home with him so she could catch her flight the next morning. 

Again Cannon doesn't look very impressed.

Other highlights of the day:

*Pirates of the Caribbean

*Tarzan Treehouse

* World of Color water/light show- AMAZING!

*Seeing Captian Hook - Cannon saw him first thing in the morning and was looking for him the rest of the day.

*Shell texting me while stuck on the Haunted Mansion with Nick saying he was hitting on her. (It was a joke.)

*Seeing Ben and Ness use a leash for Lincoln. (Hilarious!)

*Kia using a "double wide" wheelchair

* Ammon having an accident before we even got on the shuttle to take us to the park.

*BEING WITH MY BOYS AT DISNEYLAND!

Day 4 of trip: (Day 2 of DisneyLand)

Josh and I wanted to get an earlier start the second day, so we left earlier than the rest of the group. We decided to start the day off at California Adventure. It was perfect timing. NOBODY was there! We took Cannon to A Bug's Life Land and was able to WALK onto ALL the rides. We did all of them within a half an hour! 

After we had gone on the the Bug's Life rides Nick met up with us and Josh and Nick went on Tower of Terror and then Screamin' California. They are both more thrill rides so Cannon and I hung out.

 We were able to catch up with Pluto for a picture!

Ate a snack while waiting. I thought they were taking an extra long time on the rides. But I didn't realize that cell phone service was horrible and Josh had tried calling me multiple times and had been looking for us for over a half an hour! We finally met up with each other and the boys were super hungry!

After spending the morning in California Adventure we headed back over to DisneyLand for the Soundsational Parade. Cannon LOVED it!! He was able to see all of the Disney characters that he loves! Everybody from Mickey, Rapunzel, Lion King, Captain Hook and Mary Poppins! It really was soo cute to see his excitement and was a super fun parade!

Other activities of Day 2:

* Bugs Life 3D Show - Cannon didn't get scared. A few of the kids did.

*Junior Disney Live Show - Cannon LOVED it! Perfect for toddlers

*Monster's Inc Street Show

*Incredibles Street Show

*Tower of Terror - Yes I went while 6 months pregnant! 

*After eating lunch Nick commenting how nice it was that we had "fellies bull" HAHA

*Nick and Josh went on Indiana Jones- in record timing

*Jungle ride

*Tarzan's Treehouse

*Ate dinner at the Golden Horseshoe- Live show!

*Josh and Nick went on Star Tours

*Buzz Lightyear ride

*Cannon getting so excited at the Parade when he saw Captain Hook that he grabbed Josh's face and made him look! 

Day 5 of trip: (Day 3 of DisneyLand)

We started out the last day perfectly. Right when we walked into the park we saw Mary Poppins and Bert! Cannon was super excited then got really shy once it was our turn. He talked about it a lot afterwards though.

We had tried to take Cannon on the Pirate Ship the day before but it stops taking trips around 4pm. So we made sure to get it in earlier in the day. They set off a cannon part of the way through and "the big Cannon" gun we still hear about!

We stopped at our favorite place for lunch, but we packed out lunches this time. (Soo much cheaper!) Cannon finally shows his enthusiasm to the camera! 

We finished off our DisneyLand experience at ToonTown. Where Cannon could truly run around and just have fun. 

He had a blast exploring everything!

This was Goofy's backyard playground. He was timid around the other kids but eventually warmed up.

Other events of Day 3:

*Pirates of the Caribbean - again (Such a classic!)

* Winnie the Pooh ride- Cannon's favorite

*Roger Rabit ride in ToonTown

We only stayed half the day on the last day, but overall it was a MAGICAL experience! I have always LOVED DisneyLand and tried on numerous occasions to convince Josh to go with me, even before we had kids. But after this trip he has grown to love it as well. I can't wait for future trips to create even MORE memories!

One of Cannon's favorite past times is going to an arcade called Fat Cats. Daddy frequently takes him there while Mommy is at work. It's a fun Daddy-Son activity that they do together. Cannon really doesn't even need to spend money to have fun. He just loves to run around and "play" the games. 

Happy 27th Birthday Joshy! It finally snowed enough to make a snowman! Cannon was so excited to go outside and play in the snow! Heleman said he wanted to always make a snowman and NEVER had before. So, of course, he had to go help as well! 

Now for the sad news. Lucky has not been doing well. The past week he keeps pacing all day and all night long. Just wandering around as if he doesn't know where he is! We took him to the vet and they think it's either a tumor in his brain that is causing him to forget things, or Alzheimer's. The vet gave us some Valium to give him to help him relax enough to sleep and an anti-inflammatory to help with any swelling that might be happening on his brain. It's soo sad to see him wander into a corner and get lost and not know how to get out. I have been pretty emotional lately because the vet said there is nothing we can to to help cure him. The weird thing is that he was actually acting more like himself today out in the snow! (That's why we took the pictures.) We haven't had to give him a Valium and he seems to be acting more like himself! I don't want to get my hopes up too much but maybe he will get better.