Pinetop

Every year we take a trip to the snow. We stay at a timeshare in Pinetop. It is really our only getaway by ourselves as a family. We set our goals for the upcoming year and spend quality time together. We ski and go sledding. Here are some pictures of our sledding time.

Puppet Show

Growing up in LaCrescenta, we had a tradition in our ward that at Christmas we had a marionnette show. As luck would have it, the show was going on while we were in California. It was so fun to share this tradition with Anna and Megan as well as Dixie and Emma. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

American Girl

When Anna turned 8 she got an American girl doll. There is a store is Hollywood right next to CBS studios. We took the girls there and Anna had her dolls' hair done at the salon while we browsed through the 2 story store.

Christmas with the Princesses

As an early Christmas gift, we gave Anna and Megan tickets to go to Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California to see a special screening of The Princess and the Frog. Since it's just 15 minutes from where I grew up, we got to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Webber. We took Dixie and Emma Marshall with us on our adventure. The day was cold and rainy, but when you are doing something with Disney it doesn't matter.

This is the first time they have ever opened the studio to the public for a screening and a tour. It was amazing. We started off by following the frog prints to pick up our tickets and get our popcorn and drinks. They had props from movies out as well as a visit from Mickey.

Then it was off to the theater to see the movie. We passed the famous water tower that you can see from the freeway. The theater was very plush and they used to screen movies here years ago. There was a man in front playing the organ. He was amazing. He played songs from every Disney movie you can think of and never once looked at a piece of music.

After watching the movie, which we loved, they took us to Studio 1 to continue our experience. The girls got to meet all of the princesses.

There was more memorabilia from different movies. The pictures are not great since most of the stuff was behind glass.

Once we met all the princesses, there were other activites to participate in. They had an animator teaching the kids to draw different characters. I didn't get a picture of him. They had a couple of backgrounds set up that we could have our picture taken on. They had a cupcake shop and a bayou adventure land where they could play some games.

Then we got to take the tour. We started in the animation building. The pictures are terrible as many are of original drawings behind glass with terrible lighting.

Then we went outside to see all this stuff.

Finally we were taken into the Frank G. Wells building. Here is where they house the original cameral that was used to make their first feature length film, Snow White. It was almost two stories high. Again, with the horrible pictures, but there was more memorabilia as well as cases full of famous hats from different movies. Very interesting.

This was truly a once in a lifetime experience. We said goodbye to our tour guide, and as if on cue, as squirrely came to wish us farewell. You gotta love Disney!