Universal Studios!

We had a great time at Universal Studios!! My mom picked us up at the airport the night before and we went to Tony and Alissa's for dinner, which was really fun! Then we stayed at the Hilton Hotel right next to the park.   I read that you should get there early, so we walked over from our Hotel at 8:30am, and they let us in the park a little before 9.  We headed straight to the Harry Potter world, and went on those rides first.  We were so lucky that our first ride, Flight of the Hippogriff, didn't have a line! We even got to stay on it and go twice! That was a great kick off to the day, and helped me feel more relaxed about the potential for super long lines!! It was a fun day and fun to have my mom join us! 

I bought a wand for the kids to share so they could do spell around Hogwarts! It was pretty cool! Below are Annie and Will doing the spells! 

As you can see from the pictures, Harry Potter was the main focus of the day:), but all the other parts of the park were really cool as well!! I want to add some more pictures later, but this is what I have so far:)! 

I ran into my friend, Shelly, when we were about to leave! It was so fun to see her! And it turned out that she was also heading to Palm Springs for the rest of the week, so we were able to connect there as well! 

Leaving our hotel to head to Palm Springs! It was so beautiful out! 

 

More Basketball Tournaments

We had a very busy stretch of three back-to-back-to-back:) tournaments the end of February and beginning of March.  We kicked it off with Seaside where we got to stay with Bobby and Carrie at their beach house.  It was a total of 12 games for the weekend and it was really fun to watch the games, especially the first couple of games in Astoria and Will's last game in Seaside!  But also challenging because it was hard to get to all of them!! Grace and Will's teams won their divisions of the tournament, which was fun! And Kate's team did really well, too! I don't have a lot of pics from the weekend, probably because it was kind of a blur:). But below are a couple pics from friends.

Then off to Redmond for Grace's state tournament, where we stayed at Eagle Crest.  I was so grateful because we were able to use Bill and Maureen's timeshare points! It was a great weekend! It was fun to drive over with the whole crew and listen to To Kill a Mockingbird, though I realized why kids read it in High School.  It's meant for a little older audience:).  It's such a great book, though!  

One of the highlights was getting to play volleyball with the parents and kids at the resort in between games!

The girls won 2nd in State, which was amazing! 

Then off to Bend for Will's tournament! Bend was truly a mini vacation! We got to stay at Aunt Jackie and Uncle Clain's house, right on the water.  Such a beautiful spot and great location as it was only 5 minutes to each of the gyms he played in! It was so fun to have nothing to do but hang out and watch basketball games! Kate and I had fun walking around downtown Bend, and Grace and I walked to one of Will's games at Bend High School.  It was a great weekend!! 

One of the moms ordered shirts for us to wear! 

And that's a wrap of our 2022 basketball season! I feel so grateful that the kids were able to participate and have a lot of fun on their teams! I think it was especially great coming off the pause in play last year!