Trip, part 4

Pin It Are we on day 5 now?

We started the day at Epcot.


The girls, especially Gabbi, really enjoyed the butterfly garden.


The only other thing we've done every trip is go to Teppan Edo. This time we went for lunch. The kids love the hibachi grill, and the Disney chefs just do a fabulous job. Ours was very entertaining; we loved him. (And oh my heavens ... I could have eaten the scallops he made for every meal for the rest of my life! And the ginger sauce? That could very easily replace sweet tea as my drink of choice! Okay, maybe not, but it was fabulous and I had to bring some home with me.)

From there, we went back to Hollywood Studios, and met our friends again. We arrived just in time for the Block Party Bash. It was fabulous! I already mentioned that I'm a big fan of parades. I think this one was my favorite, which is saying a lot because I love Spectromagic! Here are all of us except me getting ready for the Block Party Bash to begin. Jim is back there talking with Dan and Becky. The kids cracked me up - in deep conversation.


Then we were walking through to see the Prince Caspian show/movie/whatever it was ... I wouldn't know because I didn't get to see it. Why not? Because a certain little guy got a little distracted when we walked by a certain window. So, the little guy and I waited in line to see not one but TWO heroes while everyone else went to see Prince Caspian.


Here we have the missing picture. All 11 of us went on Tower of Terror. Yep, I put my 4 year old on Tower of Terror. I actually figured he would enjoy it more than the 8 year old would. (I was correct.) Anyway - there's a camera that takes a pic right as the ride starts to drop. This was THE most fabulous picture. Nine people are hanging on for dear life and two have their hands in the air with looks of glee on their faces. (Should be pretty easy to guess which two!) I cannot BELIEVE I did not buy that pic, or at least take a pic of it while it was on the wall.

When Hollywood Studios closed, we all headed back to Epcot. We had a great trip over there, taking a boat and kind of touring Disney's Boardwalk, which I hadn't seen before. We arrived at Epcot just in time to grab some food, and then RUN to Soarin' to get there before it closed. Seriously run. The guy said "IF YOU WALK, YOU WILL NOT GET THERE ON TIME!" We were excited to do Soarin' with no wait, since we figured everyone would be watching Illuminations. So we made it and got in a short line. Then we waited. And waited. The kids got bored and practiced their hanging from bars skills. Turns out the side we were on was having some issues, so they moved us to the other side. We rushed, had no line to speak of, and still waited about half an hour to ride. Ha. It was fabulous though - everybody REALLY loves this ride. (Although I have to admit, this one kicks my fear of heights into high gear. It's better to be in the back row and not so high in the air, although on the back row, you have to see the feet of the people in the top two rows which kind of grosses me out a little. I'm aware that I have issues.)

Trip, part 3

Pin It This is day 4, which we spent at Hollywood Studios.

I know I've commented before at how very sweet it is that my four year old has a best friend. They've been best friends since birth - before birth actually! - and Brendan REALLY missed his buddy on our trip. He talked about "Dean" a ton and told us that next time, Dean will be coming along with us. (I wonder if his mom will be up for that? ;) ) I told Brendan he could pick out a postcard and we'd put it in the mail to Dean that day. Brendan was SO excited!



(Hm, it appears that this whole day was about Brendan. There was a lot at Hollywood Studios that he couldn't do, so while we waited, he's the one who got lots of pics.) I thought this was just cute with his Toy Story Mickey ears.


Woohoo, Pizza Planet!


For some reason, Hollywood Studios was absolutely packed that day. Way more packed than any other park we had gone to, and I think even the cast members working there were surprised at the crowds that day. This ride, Toy Story Mania, had a 105 minute wait. Jim's exact quote was "I'd rather have my appendix removed without anesthesia than to wait in this line." Fast passes were all gone for the day, and with the huge toy story fan that we have, there is no way I was going to miss this ride. So we waited. Thankfully it was cool inside during the wait - cool in both meanings of the word - and the ride was AWESOME. I think it might be my favorite ride ever. Well ... it's a toss up between this one and Rock n Roller Coaster. (btw - Mad HATED that one. Absolutely hated it. She loved every other roller coaster, but that one was a bit much for her.) Anyway - here are Jim and Brendan on Toy Story Mania. Fabulous ride!


Up! and Cars.



And, I finally got to see Fantasmic. This was my fourth trip to Disney World and we have missed Fantasmic every time until now! I was a little worried we were going to miss it again. First of all, we got there an hour early and barely had a seat. We'd been warned that if it rained, Fantasmic wouldn't happen. Minutes before it started, it started drizzling, which caused it to be delayed. Finally it did go ahead and start, and we all loved it! (Even with Dan taking the magic away by pointing out that it's all really a 5'2" Korean lady dressed as Mickey waving her arms around. ROFL!! It's okay, I still believe in the magic!) ;)

Trip, part 2

Pin It Days 2 and 3

We spent both of these days at the Magic Kingdom, mostly in the rain!

First, if you know my dear son at all, you'll know that the very highlight of the trip for him was meeting Buzz Lightyear! When we first got to the Magic Kingdom, we went straight for the Space Ranger Spin. We grabbed fast passes for it, and then decided to wait in line too. While we were waiting in line, Buzz came out. It was a tough choice, but we continued waiting, then waited in line to meet Buzz, then it was time to use our fast passes!



We also got to meet some dear friends! Meeting Buzz may have been the highlight of Brendan's trip, but hanging out with Becky and Dan and their precious family was the highlight of mine! :) It rained pretty much the entire rest of the day ... BUT ... totally worth it to hang out with friends in the rain! Rain comes out, lines disappear. We walked on to a bunch of rides that normally have long waits. Brendan splashed in EVERY. SINGLE. PUDDLE. and we just had a fabulous time! I really do wish I had taken more pics of them, and the kids all having fun together.


Then it was Monday. One thing we have done every Disney trip is the Breakfast O'hana at the Polynesian. It's a Lilo and Stitch character breakfast, and we love it. Here are all of us hanging out at the Polynesian getting ready to check in for breakfast. Oh - and note the hoodies. It was cold! Who would ever have imagined that we'd need hoodies in Orlando in April!


The required kids with Mickey pic.


See the pink blur with hands in the air? Next to her is her sweet sister, with dad and Brendan in front. This is pretty much how Gabbi approached every ride.


Brendan, bless his little heart, was such a trooper to ride some rides that scared him a little. He was thrilled when we walked by the Dumbo ride and thoroughly enjoyed riding it with his sisters.


Then the parade! I love Disney parades! It started raining pretty heavily during this parade, so after it was over, we joined the tons of people heading out. We planned to go back to the cabin and then let the kids swim for a while, but it was cold and yucky out. We finally loaded up and came back to the Magic Kingdom, but this was the last of my pics for the day.

The Trip, part 1

Pin It I'm finally getting a chance to start blogging about our trip! I'm going to put it in several parts, probably not day by day though. We had a lot of rain the first part of the week, and guess who doesn't come out to play in the rain? Mr. Camera, that's who. So, there are a couple of day when there are very few pics. I never thought I would actually say this, but it was kind of nice to just enjoy ourselves without feeling like I had to take a pic of every single moment. Craziness, right?

Anyway ... we are such creatures of habit. Every time we've gone to Disney World, we go to Epcot first. I have no idea why that is. Maybe it's because if we go to the Magic Kingdom first, we'd never leave. We left here at dawn on Friday, spent the night in Tallahassee, then arrived at our cabin at Fort Wilderness resort at about 2:00. Check-in was the easiest ever. Short line, and quick! We got to the cabin, decided that we really really liked it (Brendan called it our wood house), unpacked, and headed to Epcot.

(borrowed pic of the cabin)



The kids, of course, loved everything to do with water.




Oh look, the mama DID come on the trip! We were waiting to see "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience."


I did some research and figured out how to take pics of fireworks. Go me, right? Unfortunately, the only time I had the camera actually out during a fireworks show was the first night, and we were behind a bunch of people. This is the best I got. Oh well.


And thus endeth the first day ... to be continued ...

The Trip Report

Pin It It's coming soon, I promise. We had a fabulous time until about ten miles from home, in which we had an unfortunate meet-up with some cows. Unfortunate for our van, more unfortunate for the cows. I have about a million pics to go through. I'll post a few on here, but most will be on facebook. I'm pretty sore though, so it's taking a while to get through them.

Disney was fabulous as always, and we left planning our next trip, as always. I can't wait to share our trip with you!

Soon, I promise!

Homecoming

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The Upsy Downsy Topsy Turvy Roller Coaster Week

Pin It And nope, we weren't at Disney. That's next week.

It was a wild week at our house.

Here's the whole story, and I'll try to make it concise. Last week, we took Madelyn to the doctor because she's had a lot of headaches and nausea lately. We really figured it was allergies and that it was time to treat her for them. Dr. said that's probably exactly right, but we should do a CT scan to be on the safe side. So we did.

On Monday, Jim left Afghanistan. For good. Woohoo!

On Tuesday they called and said the CT scan showed something and we needed to do an MRI. Within about an hour, she was in the MRI machine. Mommy was panicking.

On Wednesday they called and said everything looked okay. Mommy was rejoicing. Then mommy sat down and wondered if they said the BLOODWORK from the previous week was fine, or if the MRI was fine. Ugh. Finally decided to call, and it was the bloodwork. (Which is good, but it was the MRI that I was worried about.)

On Thursday, Mad spent most of the day in bed really hurting. On Thursday, I spent the day in a panic. I called the doctor and they didn't have any results yet. On Thursday, Jim left Kuwait and was back in the United States.

On Friday, Mad felt fine and we spent the whole day out of the house. It was a good day, and I decided to just wait until Monday rather than stalking the doctor's office. Then I impulsively picked up the phone and called and they still didn't have the results. Okay. Then she called back a few minutes later.

It's calcium. That's it. No big deal. It might just be something that happens, it might be something *minor* causing it. No big deal. Amazing, huh?

Oh, and Friday, we found out that Jim will probably be home on Monday. On Friday, all of the kids got to enjoy time with their friends. Mommy got to enjoy a good night's sleep.

What a crazy week. It was nice to go to bed last night and just sleep and be relaxed. Very very nice. I'd like to do that again, please.

Just a Day at the Park

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The Project Post

Pin It I've been busy lately! I just wanted to share some projects I've done around the house.

First ... about six or so months ago, I won a gift certificate from Back40Life. I'm embarrassed to admit that I forgot about it. Well, I looked right when I won but couldn't decide what I wanted it, then managed to forget. When I remembered, I saw these and had to have them.


This one is on my kitchen wall. It was a booger to get up there because the vinyl seems to hate the texture on my wall, but once it got there, it looks fabulous! I really really love it!


Then for curtains. I copied this totally from Micah, who I believe got the idea from The Nester. We desperately needed a change in the living room. A certain eight pound cat took great delight in swinging from the curtains when she was a little bit younger, and they just needed to be replaced. I found this fabric and thought it would be perfect. It was. Unfortunately ... or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, while I was there, I saw THE perfect fabric for my bedroom. I just recently bought curtains for my bedroom though. Well, after putting up the fabric in the living room, I realized that it really needed some sheers to filter out the direct sunlight we have in the afternoon. HM ... perhaps the curtains from my bedroom would be simply PERFECT for that. And they were.


But then there were no curtains in my bedroom. What to do, what to do ... hm ... So, another trip to JoAnn's was in order. And here's an awful pic of the final result in there. I really really like the curtains in the living room, but I LOVE this in my bedroom!


And now I think I'm done with projects for a little while. I'm not even going to look at the old boring curtains in the family room. Maybe I shouldn't even go into the family room for a while. I could totally work this ... the LAUNDRY room is off the family room ... yep, definitely I need to be banned from the family room for a long long time.

A simply fabulous post.

Pin It I was trying to come up with something profound to post today. I love Easter. I love to just sit back and think about what it really means. It's hard to put it into words, so once again, I'm going to use someone else's words. I love this. He posted it a few weeks ago, and reposted today, and while it's not the traditional Easter story, I just love this perspective I had never noticed on this verse. I love this view of God.

Thinking you’re naked.

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