Before school started this week, we took our kids on an end of summer trip to the happiest place on Earth! 
Not too long ago, I wrote this post about the amazing Fuel Rods at Disneyland. Today I want to tell you about another awesome thing Disneyland added that improved my experience at Disneyland last week drastically! 
We are Disney obsessed! We have had annual passes for several years and go pretty often. Last week we were there and tried something new that ended up being totally worth it. It is the Disneyland MaxPass. 
You can read all the official Disneyland MaxPass info here, but here's the basic run down from me.
It costs $10/person/day and makes it possible to get fast passes on your phone through the Disneyland app. You also get all your photo pass photos through MaxPass. (all you have to do is put in your picture code from rides that take pictures or photographers around DL can add photos they take to your max pass). 
Honestly, if you want to really utilize your time at Disneyland to the best of your ability, fast passes are the PRO TIP to make that happen, and Max Pass makes that easy to do. (Plus-pictures guys!)
(The price does seem a bit steep-for my family it is an extra $70/day-but it was SOOO worth it to for us based only on the fast pass experience. The fact we got all those awesome pictures as well was icing on the cake! I really wish it was a free service, but I guess it never will be if people like me are willing to pay...and I am willing to pay for this!)

I explained in this post about how we did Christmas adventures instead of tons of presents last year. Here's my post about what our adventures (which we experienced in 2016) were.  Before I tell you about them, I want to mention that it was so much fun to have adventures to look forward to during the first part of 2016 from the Christmas presents. We loved that a lot. AND I want to note that the major way this saved us money was in the fact that instead of buying lots of stuff to mess up my house on Christmas, I bought far less stuff, and spent the money on adventures we would have through the year...adventures we were planning on anyway! By planning ahead and presenting them as Christmas Adventures, we paid once for twice the excitement! It was glorious! For Christmas 2016, we did 4 adventures. Here's the 411 on each of them.
Adventure 1
This adventure was based on a wish of our middle child. He is both #TomBradysBiggestFan and #StephanCurrysBiggestFan. His wish was to see Tom Brady and/or Stephen Curry play live. I looked into it and found that Stephen Curry (and the rest of the Golden State Warriors) would be playing in Portland (a short 2-3 hour drive for us) on Jan 8, 2016. So, that became our first adventure. Tickets for the whole family to that game on January 8. Here are some pictures of that adventure:





Adventure 2 This one was based on my oldest child's wish to see the Broadway tour of Wicked. Sadly, we had just missed Wicked coming near us so we had to settle for another (family friendly) Broadway tour. I found that Newsies was going to be coming to both Seattle and Portland (both near us) and that the Portland one was on a weekend when my husband was off. So, adventure 2 was tickets for the whole family to go see Newsies in Portland on April 23. One hitch with that one. After buying the tickets we learned that kids under 6 were not allowed to go, and our youngest had JUST turned 5. So, he got to spend the day at his BFF's house and we took BFFs oldest sister with us to the show with us. Here are some pictures of that adventure:





Adventure 3 Our second child wanted to ski this year (as did his dad). Wes (my husband) and the kids had a long weekend off in February, after which Wes would start working in Yakima on his weeks off from his job in Aberdeen at the time (he officially started in Yakima full time in April, the kids and I followed him here when they got out of school in June). Adventure 3 became a ski trip to Leavenworth  where the kids got to take lessons and learn to ski after which we stopped for a day in Yakima for the kids to see where we would be moving. It was quite an adventure. All the kids loved it except our oldest. Skiing is not much her thing apparently (which I get). Here is picture overload from that adventure:



















Adventure 4  All 5 of our kids had heard that Harry Potter land was opening at Universal Studios in California in April 2016. They all wanted to go so badly. Adventure 4 simply stated that at some point during 2016 we would be going to Universal Studios and Harry Potter land, but the exact dates would be a surprise. That was a FUN adventure for us! We did not tell the kids when we were going. Remember how I said Wes moved to Yakima in April, and we were still in Aberdeen? Wes tried to come home on weekends, but it was about a 4 hour drive and got daunting, so sometimes we tried to go there. On this particular weekend in May, I told the kids we were meeting dad in Seattle (about 2 hours drive for each of us) to celebrate our 4th child's birthday. When we got to the hotel, we gave this cake to our daughter: If you can't read it, it says "Happy Birthday Kindle, we're going to Disneyland" and, we added also to Harry Potter land for our final adventure. It was so fun to surprise them all over again! We splurged on or Harry Potter day and did the VIP pass at Universal Studios. It was AWESOME, but I won't go into detail as I posted about it here.  We loved our adventures so much we decided to do it again this year! Stay tuned to see what we planned for 2017!

When we started telling people we were moving to Scottsdale, AZ, lots of people laughed and asked how a deals blogger would live in Scottsdale. Apparently Scottsdale is generally a well off area. It is more "Tiffany and Co" than "Walmart" kind of people (in general). Honestly, the Walmart is pretty far from where I live as is the Target. BUT in just 2 short weeks living here, I have started to find the deals.

The first thing Wes and I googled and tried to find in Scottsdale was FREE, fun family activities. I should mention that Scottsdale is a suburb of Phoenix in the North East part of the valley. Phoenix is a huge sprawling metropolitan area and there is a lot of Phoenix information for me to wade through still, but Scottsdale itself, and nearby areas (like Fountain Hill) are somewhat lacking in Free family fun. At least at first glance. We have had to look for activities one at a time.

The first thing I wanted to find was a cheap or free way to cool off. Most homes here have pools int he back yard. The one we are renting does not. We have friends and neighbors here already that have offered us use of their pools, but I have as yet not taken anyone up on that offer (it's hard to take 5 kids to someones house to swim when you hardly know the people and the kids only kind of swim...) I found water parks and pools (looks like I need to figure out how to get discounts on some of those) and they were fairly pricey, so I began my search for Splash parks!

Right off I found one not too far from my house in Fountain Hill: Fountain Park, 12925 N. Saguaro Blvd. (Pictured above) We have been there like 5 times already. The kids love it, and the bonus for us is that there is also a Disc Golf course there around the lake (long time readers and friends will know that my husband, Wes LOVES to disc golf!). We played disc golf on the 4th of July. Had a blast, but lost 2 discs in the lake...might need a course further from water for future games... The splash pad there is really fun with lots of different water features. I recommend it as a great free, fun, wet, cooling family activity in Scottsdale.

There is only one other splash pad we have been to, and that one was at a shopping center: Scottsdale Quarter, 15279 N. Scottsdale Road. The kids loved that one because we went in the evening after Wes got home and after we ate dinner. It was Friday night and as it starts to get dark they have colorful lights that go on in the water area. The kids adored it. From my viewpoint, at first I was taken a back a little because Scottsdale Quarter is a little ritzy. And the splash area is basically right by the valet parking. So all the fancy dressed date night couples go to the valet to drop off their car, then they have to pass the water pad to get to the restaurant or club of their choice. At first I was a little antsy there (felt pretty under dressed), but then I just sat back and started to enjoy the pure people watching entertainment! WOW! I think I may need a bedazzler to fit in here! BUT, I Loved it!! People watching is awesome...Also a great FREE activity (Free if you can resist all the shops and restaurants).

And, I just found a great list of other splash pads in Scottsdale on azcentral.com (which is think is maybe the news?). I guess I have a few more places to check out now...

Omaha's Railroad Days are coming up this weekend!!!

Railroad Days is an annual Omaha event that is a lot of fun! And for a family (especially one my size), it is a great deal!! On Railroad days, you can buy a $15 family pass (good for 2 adults and the kiddos) that allows admission to and transportation between six of the area’s best attractions for families. (A $5 pass is also available for one additional adult with the purchase of a family pass.) The 6 attractions are Lauritzen Garden, The Durham Museum, Union Pacific's Railroad Museum, Joslyn Art Museum, RailsWest Museum, and the Historic General Dodge house. All are really fun places and they have special activities and fun for the family going on during Railroad days.

This is a GREAT way for a family to explore some of the great sites in Omaha for a low price! As mentioned, Railroad days is the weekend, July 14-15, 2012. Check out this website for more info! I hope a lot of your readers are able to take advantage of this fun, cheap family event! Wish I was there to enjoy it with you!!!

So, I promised you that I would share my spooky Halloween dinner. I did not yet. Whoops. I will tell you though it was awesome.

We ate Monster meatloaf, Ghost mashed potatoes, Jello Worms, and Goblin toes (fried pickles). It was a delightful meal if I do say so myself! Here are a few pictures taken by my handsome husband:



And of course Wes (my handsome husband) could not help but take the parts of his meal and make a creepy monster man out of them:

It was a fun and yummy meal! I L.O.V.E making theme holiday meals! Yumm-O!
If you would like to know how I made any or all parts of this meal, comment or shoot me ane email. If there is enough interest I will post it on here-otherwise I will just respond to individual requests. I just don't want to spend the time to type it all out unless it is something you WANT (since it is a deals blog after all not a recipe one).