My First Summer as a Stay-at-Home-Mom
I just want to start by saying how is it only 4 months until 2020? CRAZY. In all realness, this has been the fastest year ever. I used to think the years were going by so quickly because now I’m a mama, but then again I have some friends who aren’t parents yet saying the same things.
Realizing how much time is left in the year makes me realize how much I’ve missed out on sharing with you all. But that is exactly why I decided to start a blog in the first place, to “diary” my thoughts and our adventures in more than the organized chaos that is my iPhone’s photo library. (Anyone else have 20,000+ photos in their library?)
With that said, I know summer isn’t officially over yet, and I’ll admit we have a few more summer-type adventures left for the year, but with Zay back in school, our summer has ended.
Earlier this year I became a stay-at-home-mom, so with knowing how much time we would have for enjoying the summer together, we went a little crazy with planning trips and things-to-do. Not going to lie, it was TOO much.
In order, here all the trips we went on:
- Disneyland for Star War’s Galaxy’s Edge Opening Weekend (a.k.a our Parent’s Getaway! More on the importance of these types of trips later)
- Las Vegas
- Lake Tahoe
- VidCon 2019/Disneyland
- then Disney again, but only Disney’s California Adventure
You’re probably thinking, “Well that’s a lot of Disney!” We’re long-time annualpass holders, what do you expect? Saying we’re Disney-Obsessed wouldn’t even begin to describe how much we love Disneyland and all things Disney.
Anyway, while we did overload on the trips, these are the type of memories we want our girls to remember about their summers: countless adventures with their parents exploring near and far.
Would I overload us again like this next summer? Probably not. But then again, summer vacation is only so long so if you can, why not overload on adventures?
To look back on our summer, here are a few of my favorite photos that didn’t make it over to my IG account (@zherranne). You can say these are exclusives to the blog 🙂
Parent’s Getaway Weekend
This entire weekend was a whirlwind of fun. Not only was it opening weekend for Star War’s Galaxy’s Edge, but it was our first Disney trip with two of our best friends. It was a complete weekend of many firsts:
First time dining at Napa Rose. 
Seeing the Millenium Falcon for the first time. 
Capped off our weekend with one last meal at Lamplight Lounge before heading to the airport.
- Our first time staying at Disney’s Grand Californian hotel plus our first time dining at Napa Rose.
- Our first time visiting the land of Batuu a.k.a Galaxy’s Edge.
- Our first time sitting in the main dining room of Lamplight Lounge.
Comes to show you that no matter how many trips to Disney you take, there will always be so much you may still miss. Just one of the many reasons we love Disneyland, there’s always something new to experience!
Las Vegas, Nevada + Zion National Park
This trip to Las Vegas was actually the first time Jonathan and I have been to Vegas together AND as adults who are over 21+. You can say it definitely was not the typical first experience for Vegas. We were able to sneak away one night for a parents only dinner, but even then I just wanted to get home to my babies.
Zay was in a mood the entire visit to the Bellagio, but Leah was ready to explore. 
Note: Sand storms are a real thing. 
Eyes are closed because of the sand storms! 
This was the first time we took both girls hiking. 
Rare sight to have a photo of just us two. 
The girls’ expressions = priceless.
Planning this trip was a little difficult to wrap my head around, but after some research I found there is more to do in Vegas with kids than you would think. Would I recommend taking kids to Vegas now that I’ve done it? Yes, but it’s definitely not a repeat destination for our family. Next time we go there, our girls will definitely be much older.
Lake Tahoe
Now this trip was special because Zay had requested to go on a family trip with everyone (a.k.a our family + my extended family). We have an complete family photo from a trip to Disneyland in 2013 sitting on a shelf in our house, and Zay was confused why she wasn’t in it. When I explained to her she wasn’t born yet, she asked if we could go on a trip with everyone. And just like that our 4th of July Family trip to Lake Tahoe was born.
My favorite photo from the trip. 
Another photo of the girls being their true selves. 
She’s our water baby.
The weekend was perfect. We stayed at an amazing house, the weather was hot but not too hot, and the time spent with my family was needed. I know many other Filipino kids can relate and say your cousins are basically your siblings. No matter how old we’re getting, being together with all my siblings means lots of belly-aching laughs ❤
VidCon 2019/Disneyland
I don’t even remember the last time we took a trip to Disneyland in the middle of the summer. But thanks to the opening of the new Star Wars land, it was surprisingly slow for the middle of July. While we enjoyed our time at Disney to bring my brother to Batuu for his first time, what this trip really was for was to finally go to VidCon.
All she wanted was a photo with a Stormtrooper. 
Zay requested I wear this mermaid skirt so I got them mermaid skirts too. 
The Cinnamon Toast Crunch Booth at VidCon. 
Met some cool IG Famous folks like funny guy @adamw. 
Our little copycat. She nailed it!!! 
Zay’s first time watching the entire showing of World of Color.
For those unfamiliar with VidCon, it is a convention for all things YouTube. It is a convention for literally everyone from those who simply watch YouTube to those we are trying to start out on YouTube to those who are doing BIG things on YouTube. We started our channel (LivNGwiththeNGs) back in 2017, but we’ve been religiously been YouTube watchers since way before that so we felt that our first trip to VidCon was long overdue. I’d say to learn more about our experience, you should definitely pop on over to our channel 🙂
Disney’s California Adventure
And last but not least we made one last trip to our happy place before Zay started school. One thing we love about being annualpass holders is really being able to take our time enjoying the parks. While we still wake up early to get there for the park opening and rope drop, we feel less pressure to do so much because we know we’ll just be coming back again soon. During this trip we especially took our sweet time enjoying the park because we were blocked out of Disneyland and could only visit California Adventure.
As AP holders, we like to literally stop and smell the flowers. 
One loves characters… 
…one hates them. 
with the Laras 
@ Pop-Up Disney
This allowed us to do other things within the Disneyland Resort that we always say we want to do but never actually have done. For this trip, that meant finally visiting the Pop-Up Disney exhibit and eating at restaurants at the Disney hotels.
During this trip we also finally met up with one of our favorite fellow-Disney obsessed families, the Lara’s! We have been YouTube and social media friends for about two years now and have always talked about visiting the parks together, and we finally did it! There’s nothing better than Disney magic to bring two families together.
Zherr-Anne, the Fil-Am Mama 