January trip to Tucson theme park "Old Tucson"

James and I ventured out to "Old Tucson".  It's a theme park on the outskirts of town that has had countless t.v. shows and movies filmed there.  Unfortunately most of Old Tucson and it's famous movie sets burned down in 1995, so all the sets now are "Part II's".  One of the most recognizable is the Mission set below, where the "3 Amigos" was filmed.  Parts of the movie "Tombstone" were filmed here, too.  The park has a train ride, a covered wagon ride, stunt shows, saloon shows, a haunted mine trail, shops, and a museum with old costumes from various movies and t.v. shows. 

3 Amigos Mission Set

James going into "The Reno" (see below)

January

I have greatly neglected the blog over the last 2 months!  Here are some very belated pictures of our California Christmas.  We spent a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas morning in the L.A. Villalpando's home with Dan, Danielle, Ben, Luke, Erin, and Mom & Dad Villalpando.  Christmas afternoon we drove to back to Carpinteria and spent some quality time with the Santa Barbara and Lompoc Villalpandos.  We also had a nice skyping session with the Washington Villalpandos.  It was soooo nice to be back in California and to have time with family we haven't seen for so long. 

California Christmas

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  It is taking me several days to finish blogging about our busy December!  This month's blog takes up a couple pages!  I still need to write about our wonderful visits in L.A. and Santa Barbara.  For now I am going to finish with our Disneyland pictures below.  Our Disneyland experience was a ton of fun!  Sadly we were missing 3 family members because of work (Dad, Teri, & Joe).  We stayed at the Disneyland hotel for 3 nights, and spent two days "hopping" back and forth between Disneyland and Disney California.  On top of that, we had a "Character Breakfast" where the girls got to meet several princesses, and Tricia & Michael had a romantic dinner at "Blue Bayou", which is the restaurant inside Pirates of the Caribbean.  Check out pictures below!  And I will try to finish "December" later this week.  :) 

Disneyland

Amazing Disneyland Hotel headboard-when the lights are off the fireworks and music come on.  See picture below of headboard fireworks.

This is the view from our Disneyland hotel room-we could see all of Downtown Disney.  At night we had a great view of the Disneyland fireworks.

 

Tricia & Michael Get Married!

Tricia & Michael's wedding was one to remember!  It was touching, beautiful, and had a fun assortment of little and not so little glitches.  Beautiful Moment #1) Mom, Teri, Tricia, Amber, Abby, & myself spent a fun day relaxing, eating, listening to music, & getting primped at the Arizona Inn, where the ceremony and reception were held.  Glitch #1) Tracy's hair + hairstylist do not mix!  Luckily there was enough time for a "redo".  Beautiful Moment #2) Tricia & Michael had an outdoor ceremony planned, and we all woke up to a sunshiney day. Glitch #2) It rains! Then it stops! Then it rains again! Then it stops!  It rained off and on to the last minute, and then decided to stop right on time for the ceremony, and began pouring 20 minutes after the ceremony ended.  Luckily the reception was indoors. Beautiful Moment #3) The photographer was the same photographer from Tracy & James's wedding, and he is amazing!  He got lots of great outdoor shots between rain showers.  Then the flowers arrived, which leads us to...Glitch #3)  A look of big disappointment registered on Tricia's face when she saw all the bouquets.  None of them looked the way she ordered them.  So Sarah and I went to the reception area to see how that was coming along, where we found a grumpy florist who was setting up the room with the wrong color flowers & had misspelled names on the place cards.  Sarah & I helped take away all the wrong color flowers, but grumpy florist stormed off and left the hotel.  Beautiful Moment #4)  The look on Tricia's face was one of complete happiness and love during the ceremony, as was Michael's.  Tricia was stunningly beautiful.  The Minister asked them to kiss, and pronounced them man & wife.  Glitch #4)  Oops!!!  The Minister forgot the whole part about exchanging rings!!!  We had to remind him, so the ceremony had a "Part II".  

The rest of the night, luckily, had no more glitches.  The night was topped off with all the guests going outside and making a sparkler tunnel which the happy couple ran through.