the newest disney world location - auburn hills

months ago the wu tang family along with jenn and rainah, all bought tickets to go see playhouse disney live at the palace. it was a live show with characters from some of the disney channel's shows like the little einsteins, handy manny, my friends tigger and pooh, and of course, mickey mouse clubhouse.
i had mentioned the event to hayden when i first bought the tickets and told him it was a little like the thomas live show that we went to see. as the date got closer i started talking about it again. then on sunday morning it was finally here.
jenn and rainah drove over to our place so we could all head out together. when she got here and started getting rainah out of the car hayden looked and me and asked "are jenn and rainah going to ride with us on the airplane?"
hayden was apparently remembering our trip to florida and disney world in november of 2006. it certainly could have ended up being the world's biggest disappointment...thinking he was going to florida only to be driven to the palace...but he seemed just fine with the explanation and was perfectly fine just going to see the characters here in michigan. although i'm sure he would have preferred the real thing....we all would after this 40 degree weather!
the kids all seemed to enjoy the show, even though the showtime was at noon. next time i will realize they put tickets on sale for the crappy time first and then later add better times. talan did end up falling asleep towards the end of the show though and rainah crashed on the car ride home.
hayden didn't even ask for one of the light up toys they were selling, and it's a good thing seeing as though they were TWENTY DOLLARS. i had expected $10...MAYBE $15, but $20?! i would walk around and see families and just count up how much money they just spent on toys and food. ridiculous.
the only thing hayden really wanted was some cotton candy. and who can blame him?! that stuff is delicious. so jenn, rainah and i went out before the crowds at intermission to buy ourselves a snack. well, the only cotton candy they were selling came with a hard hat from handy manny. which them meant that the cotton candy was $10. neither one of the boys would have cared at all about the hard hat and i was not about to spend $10 on cotton candy. so i went and got him a $3 pretzel.
he still wanted the cotton candy, but took the explanation rather well and only said "but i really want cotton candy" about 2 more times.
when the show was over we headed home to drop jenn and rainah off and then the wu tang family traveled to joe's produce (my new favorite market....along with hiller's in commerce) to buy our pumpkins. so there will be no pumpkin patch pictures this year seeing as though we more or less bought our pumpkins from a box. but we decided paying $25 for the size pumpkins we got just wasn't worth it simply for the pictures. and anyway...we got to go to joe's produce!
so it was a long day, and it would have been better if we had flown to florida, but we still all had a great time out as a family.

they all found the chairs to be one of the most exciting events of the day:
ready for show time:

sassafras:
the boys:
almost show time:

talan. taken by hayden:
and the show starts:

hayden said "rocket looks weird":


pretzel time:

getting sleepy:

out for the rest of the show:

rainah was still interested:

the grand finale:

road trip #2-kalamazoo

after not getting home until after midnight on saturday nite, i put the kids in the car at around 12:15pm to head out to wings stadium in kalamazoo to see jessica and justin yet again. i figured the boys would be out in no time and sleep for most of the ride. boy was i wrong.
it wasn't until the last little bit of the trip that talan finally stopped yelling and laughing and fell alseep, and hayden started closing his eyes when we were about 5 miles away.
we got to the stadium right when jessica and mom were getting ready to head over to meijer so we just let them hop in the car and we drove over with them. the name justin was mentioned and when we tried getting back into the car to head over to wings stadium, talan started crying and stiffened up so i couldn't get him in his carseat. he apparently thought justin was at meijer and that we were leaving him. i somehow managed to cram him in his seat and we took off to really find justin.
the boys were able to run around the stadium for awhile and then talan finally spotted justin. justin took both of the boys up on stage and them them bang on the drum set once or twice. shockingly neither had a fit when they had to come back down.
we hung out for a bit longer and then went to the grill upstairs to watch some people practice ice skating while we ate some dinner. there were no highchairs so mom got the awful job of trying to hold talan during the entire meal....thanks mom!
after dinner we headed down to our seats and got ready to watch the short set from fireflight. talan once again rocked out and was thrilled to get to see justin up on stage.
as soon as fireflight came on, hayden asked if he could take some pictures. so i took out the smaller camera and let him go nuts. he had some pretty decent ones in there so i'm going to post a blog on his own page with all of his pictures...so check them out there!
when they were done playing we headed out and ended up hanging outside while tina gave jessica and justin a haircut. one of the bands had their little boy with them and it was his birthday so hayden was able to play and run around with him for a bit which was nice. once he left dawn got sucked into the chasing hayden game.
it was then that hayden informed dawn that she was his girlfriend. her and ella. i'm not sure he's told ella this yet though.
when the haircuts were done and the band was getting ready to go back upstairs to sign autographs we all got into the car on a mission to find justin an iced carmel machiato. we managed to get to the first starbucks thanks to the gps but it was inside of a mall and closed. we then made tina get directions for a store worker who spoke very little english and didn't know street names and then we headed off to starbucks number 2. that one was in a grocery store and was also closed. we decided to try one more and had success. an hour later we got back to the stadium and said goodbye to jessica and mom so we could head back home.
hayden ended up sleeping in until just about 8:30 yesterday morning but he still managed to catch the bus, and more surprisingly, get a green light at school!
we've had a busy week with lots of driving and i think the kids are happy to not have to be in their car seats for more than 15 minutes at a time for a little while now!
it was great seeing jessica and justin (and the rest of the band, of course) again. but it was sad to leave knowing we probably won't see them until after thanksgiving now.
have a great rest of the tour, guys and we'll see you in a month or so. thanks for the road trip opportunities!

i didn't get any good shots of the boys on stage because my camera did not like the lighting...but these are what i did get:




looking for justin:




hayden taking pictures of himself:



rock and roll times back stage where they flew in their personal hair stylist for an after show trim:

talan and jessica:
in order for dawn to take a break she had to make up the "who can stand like a statue the longest" game:
the statue game only lasted so long:

ghost train

on saturday, october 18th, we headed to fenton to have dinner with melanie, chadd, ashton and lorelei howard and then we all drove to crossroads village in flint for some early trick-or-treating and a ride on the ghost train.
we were hoping to make the 6:40pm train but things went so slowly at the restaurant that we showed up right when the train was pulling out. it turns out we wouldn't have been able to get on it anyway. apparently the trains sell out rather quickly and when we showed up the only train ride left was the 10pm train. the howard's didn't think their kids would be able to stay up that late and went back and forth on what to do. we decided we were going to go for it because we knew our kids would stay up and we would have a riot on our hands if we left without the train ride.
because there was only a $3 price difference between entry to the park and a train ride the howards bought their train tickets and figured they would see what would happen.
we got the kids changed into their costumes in the car and talan was SO excited to have his shark costume on. the only time he was upset was when we made him sit in the stroller since he'd just keep running away from us. good news for halloween nite. i believe talan's costume received the most compliments out of anyone in the whole park. even kids were coming up saying how cute his costume was. talan, of course, realized this and played it up. although, there were times that he looked like he was dressed up as a hardboiled egg.
we were only able to call hayden "spiderman" and ashton "dragon." and hayden had a GREAT time posing for pictures in which he would put on his serious face and show his muscles. when i'd ask if he would simply just smile he would tell me "i can't, i'm spiderman." i don't know much about spiderman, but i certainly didn't realize spiderman can't smile.
the trick-or-treating was great. they had 20 areas with flashing pumpkins where you would stop for the candy. and everyone in the group was able to get it...not just the kids. i guess it was so the parents didn't steal all of the kids candy. which i think dave will be doing anyway with a few of the candy bars.
the stops were all decorated and had certain themes that were pretty cute. the only one that made no sense was the area that was decorated as willy wonka's chocolate factory yet they were handing out apples. APPLES?! at willy wonka's chocolate factory?! come on.
the kids also had a blast running around the hay maze for awhile. talan was especially happy to be able to be let free for a bit. dave let him run around a little bit after that where he fell into a big pile of dirt leaves and had dirt covering his face and costume.
the last stop was the cafeteria where they gave everyone cider and donuts and we were able to sit and wait awhile longer to board our train. all of the kids did great and were able to make it on to the train.
the train was quite the relaxing ride and lorelei was the first to fall asleep. i believe talan followed shortly after and then ashton. at the very end of the ride hayden's eyes would become very heavy but as soon as they would close he would quickly open them up again.
everybody had a great time and we were so glad to be able to make the trip with the howard's.

sharks are fast, ya know:



much happier than the first time he had to wear this thing:
zeroing in on his prey:
which apparently was flowers:
spidey under his web:
practicing for the 31st:
lorelei giraffe, spiderman hayden and ashton dragon:
the whole gang but things started falling apart:
chadd and lorelei. and the evening just started:



ashton (who was breathing fire), hayden and lorelei:

trying to stop the paparazzi:

this shark has milk dripping from his mouth rather than blood:


still with the muscle thing:
talan just wanted OUT:
bear vs. shark...who will win?!:
in the hay maze and up to no good:
cider and donut time:
the donut is kind of covering it, but this was a priceless smile:


little red caboose:
the skiver/howard clan ready for a spooky train ride:


lorelei. the first one out:
2 down:
3 down:
the last one to fall asleep...although he really didn't allow himself to have his eyes closed more than 3 seconds:

dave caught a shark: