Things we've been up to

Pete introduced me to Sliders. I had seen and heard of mini hamburgers but had no idea they were known as "Sliders". I have to say, I enjoy them more than your average hamburger. I also need to add Pete makes the best ones I've ever had ( besides a guacamole burger ). I'm not sure if they taste better because they're so cute or if it's because I feel like I'm eating less. No matter, I like them a lot.

We had our family dinner again but Bob, Kim and the younger boys were out of town so we had our nephew's over to represent the fam. T.J. needed to feed Kinsey so he took the girls with him to feed her. When he got back he said he was glad he had conference to listen to because the girls were dead silent the whole way! I was amazed they could be so quiet for that long! Anyway, he brought Kinsey back with him so she and Hershey could see each other again. (It has been since the 4th of July.) It was pretty funny to watch. Hershey wanted to play soo bad and Kinsey wanted no part of it. Hershey was tired after it all from attempting to play so it worked out well for us.





The kids also had their dentist appointment and all went well. No cavities thank goodness. We even left the dentists office without having to take any bouncy balls! Mallory's teeth have started coming in finally. I'll post when you can see them better.

We have also been enjoying beautiful weather lately. The days have been clear and warm and the gorgeous fall colors abound. One afternoon the girls and I decided to rake up the leaves in the front yard. We made our pile and then the girls played in it. I took a picture of my fall hydrangeas because I like their fall colors. It was a good afternoon.



We also took a picture of Hershey so we could see how much she has grown. She is 6 months old now! She is growing so fast. She is a really good dog. We lucked out big time.

Tomorrow's Thursday?

I honestly can't believe how fast time is flying by! I also feel like that's all I say anymore. Schedule has resumed in our home once again. I do much better by it and as long as I pay attention things can go smoothly.

Mallory has the hardest time in the morning of the bunch. I believe she gets it from me. Sorry Mal, it doesn't really get much easier. You just learn you have no choice. Well no choice until all of your kids are in school and instead of doing what you're supposed to be doing you get back into bed until a phone call wakes you at 9 am. (That was a nice day : )! )

This week I did slow down a bit. Monday I played hooky from aqua class and finished the sabbatical scrapbook (from 2 summer's ago), Tuesday is the day I slept in. Today I went to my aqua class like a good girl and did the things I needed to. I've been in charge of our school movie fundraiser so I go in every Wednesday and Friday to fill the ticket orders. I've also volunteered to get the after school activities organized, and up and running. They didn't have anyone in charge of it so there hasn't been any activities going on. Hopefully we can get things together pretty quickly.

All in all I do think the days are no longer 24 hours long. Some way some how the days have shortened and no one is telling us. I hope I can slow down and find the things I enjoy in life. Like the smell of fresh laundry, the sound of rain, and time with my family and friends. Here's to another week almost gone.

Catch up...

So we've been writing about our trip and in the meantime a month has passed us by! I thought it was time to write about the every day of getting back into the school flow of things.





We celebrated Courney's birthday again by making her a birthday cake and Nonna's birthday gift arrived too. She loves her dress and Papa, you can see we did need it that long. She's growing up so fast! She had already gotten a camera and a trip to the World so don't think she didn't get much.

The week after we got back from Florida, Pete had buisness travel from Tuesday to Friday. I worked on getting the kids ready for school on time and trying to dig my way out of laundry. (Love that work after a trip!) Tueday I took Connor to the music store and he chose a trumpet that he wanted to play. We had to wait because we choose one that was older and needed some t.l.c..Friday I went to Ikea with Kim2 and Lisa. We had breakfast (YUM) and had fun shopping. Unfortunatly I didn't see Kim2 all that much during the outing but scored when Luke said he wanted to come home with me. We didn't do much once we got home so I probably blew it for him. Sorry Luke! He did have fun with Hershey at least.

The weekend flew by and Pete had to leave again. This time it was Sunday evening to Friday night. For him it was a different experience. His brother Bob had the same schedule so they were able to see each other through the week. That hasn't really happened before. For me the week was LONG. I didn't really recover from the trip quickly and I have a rough time of it when Pete's gone so I was running on a low tank. Sorry kids. I did however find time to put up my cool Ikea finds and kept working on putting the house together. (I still have a ways to go.) The kids held up pretty good and were happy to be back in school. Kim2 gave us a break on Wednesday with a dip in the pool. We didn't know how long the weather was going to last. Friday I took Mallory to the doctor's to check her vision. That turned out to be just fine but she needed a shot. Surprise!! To make her feel better we went to Krispy Kreme's and got everyone a donut. That help the tears dry. The funny comment this week was provided by Connor. I was doing a haircut and we were talking about how we get when our hubbies are gone. Connor yelled down the hall, " yeah, you always have you're worst days when he's gone!" Too true son.

Again the weekend flew by but not before we had our family dinner on Sunday. I'm so glad we do get that in our schedules. Kim 1 had a surprise for the girls. She brought over beads and all the trimmings to make bracelets that could help the girls remember that Jesus loves them. They were really cute and the girls helped her make them. Thank you Kim.

Well onto the week. Pete was still home but was to be deemed gone until Thursday. Everyone had to come here for their meetings and so Pete was obligated to do all the after work dinners and such with them. Connor started band and we finally started to feel the begginings of a schedule. Before the end of the week however Connor wanted to know, "When is this going to stop?" He, the girls and I had had it with Pete's abcence. We all missed him. ALOT. His week was over Friday after lunch and now he's home. At least for a little while. I appreciate how hard he works but man I don't like him gone! What a month!

Day 7 - Blizzard Beach

Another down day at the waterpark and the family goes wild. The kids just love the waterparks, so we made time to hit them both while in the world. We had really been excited about and very happy with Typhoon Lagoon, but felt that Blizzard Beach deserved it's own day too. And now that the day is done, we're glad we did.

At first look, we were concerned that it just had too many thrill type rides (more for me, less for Julie and the kids). It turned out that the rides actually suited us better than the set over at Typhoon Lagoon. We were also a little worried that it would be much hotter than Typhoon because the theming wouldn't have as many trees (more trees in the south pacific than on an iceberg) and the white "ice" would act as huge reflectors. The worries turned out to be unfounded, but we were still willing to risk not getting there for rope drop to allow the kids a little more sleep. We had accumulated a few extra meal credits (because we have been so full), so Julie and I snuck over to the restaurant to grab waffles, pancakes and eggs for breakfast. It was a chore carrying it all back, but we survived.

Even with breakfast and a little more sleep, we still arrived before the park opened. Julie and I made our guesses to where we should head to get a good spot and when the park opened Julie, Connor and Mallory made their way to find a spot, Court and I headed for the park's headliner, Summit Plummet (the world's tallest and fastest free-fall body slide, 120ft tall). When a slide has a title like that, I can't pass it up and somehow, I talked Courtney into it. It was intimidating making the hike up, but once on the slide, it kind of all slinks away. From the top of the slide, we looked down at Animal Kingdom's Everest, Magic Kindom's Thunder and Splash Mountains, Epcot's giant golf ball and Hollywood Studios' Tower of Terror. So atleast the view was nice. The ride takes no time at all, but was fun.

Julie had found a great shady spot right next to the pre-teen area. So with that off our minds, we jumped on the ski lift up to the family raft ride. Teamboat springs was very cool, probably our favorite in the park. It's a super long ride (1400 ft, just looked it up) that we could all ride together and we didn't have to tote our raft. They load them up for you, nice. There are lots of turns and splashes without feeling like you are drowning, just enough to cool you down and be fun. We liked it so much, we went right back before the ski lift got too crowded.

We walked over to the tubes. The rides were fun, but you had to lug your own tube up the hill. Our second time up, I carried 3 tubes. That put an end to that set of rides. Next up was the racing area. The tube race was fun and it gave your times, but the line was too long. I got a little competitive on it and ended up flying off the tube at the end. I'm sure it was pretty funny to watch. The favorite race ride was the mat race. It was an eight lane slide, straight shot with three hills. Again, bringing out the competitive nature in me wasn't too hard and I showboated across the finish line.

After another filling lunch, Julie and I let the kids play in the ski patrol area (three tube rides, a T bar, a small obsticle course and pool. While the kids played, we enjoyed a nice nap. Can't tell you how much we enjoyed the nap. Great spot Julie, nicely done.

We jumped on the slalom rides, the other slides, the lazy river and the small wave pool after the nap. All in all, we actually liked Blizzard better than Typoon. Good thing we found time for both parks.

When we got back, we changed and headed over to downtown disney. We found our souvenier set of christmas ornaments at the Christmas shop, at dinner ate Wolfgang Puck's and saw the cool stores and clubs in Downtown Disney and Pleasure Island. The Lego Store and soon to be opened TRex Restaurant were big hits. We made our way back to Disney Quest to have another go. This time it was much less crowded andit made all the difference, that and knowing where to go. Virtual Pirates was very cool. We manned our own boat. Julie captained us and the kids and Ishot down the other pirate ships for booty. It was very fun. That was followed by virtual jungle cruise where you have to paddle your own raft, the Aladdin ride where you fly around on magic carpets and everyone turns into monkeys, Buzz Lightyear bumper cars where you shoot rubber balls at your opponents along with crashing into them, human pinball, Star Wars podracer, and an assortment of video games. Julie doesn't normally like video games, but even she had a good time. Could be because she killed me at everything we did, but I think she'd have had a good time either way. We had to drag the kids out. We had another busy day planned.

Day 6 - Magic Kingdom

Happy Birthday Court! When we started planning this trip, we initially were looking at a week later on in September. But, it would have cost us another chunk of money because the Riverside wasn't available. So that pushed us into this week and into Courtney's birthday. We let Court choose which park she wanted to go on her birthday and she chose the Magic Kingdom. We were a little concerned that the park would be crowded on Labor Day, but the tour books all said that since schools in the south mostly start in August, Labor Day wouldn't be bad. And.....they were right.

We arrived at our normal 45 minutes before opening and rushed the park at rope drop. It seems a little less important here than at Disneyland because the rope drop is just after the gates rather than on mainstreet. We headed to Fantasyland and hit Winnie the Pooh, Indy Speedway (Autopia's Eastern cousin), Snow White (much better in WDW than in CA), Small World (much better in CA, seemed really scrunched together because of the inside queue), the tea cups, Goofy's Barnstormer,Peter Pan and Mickey's Philharmagic (something new for us and one of the family favorites). The lines were all pretty short, so when Julie saw that the line to see Ariel was short too, we jumped in that line too. Courtney was very excited to get a birthday greeting from one of her favorite characters.

We were able to squeeze in the Haunted Mansion, Aladdin's Magic Carpets (Dumbo-like ride) and the Jungle Cruise before our lunch reservation. The jungle cruise was a little different at WDW, a few more animals/sites and the cruise operator actually let Mallory drive the boat through the big tunnel. She cruised by the cobras and tiger like a pro.

We ran over to the Crystal Palace for lunch. Winnie, Tiger, Eeyore and Piglet each took turns wishing Court a happy birthday and even left her a signed birthday card before we left. We stuffed ourselves pretty good and wobbled over to the castle. As I grabbed some more fastpasses, Julie and the kids walked through the mosaics of Cinderella's story. We met at a small quiet spot next to the castle for Belle's story time. Court wanted to sit up front for the story, but unfortunately, Connor and Mallory were both selected to take part in the story. Connor as Gaston and Mallory as Cogsworth. Julie's favorite part was watching the wife of the guy picked to play the beast, she was cracking up. After the show, Belle was able to wish Court a happy birthday in person. We were successful in seeing both of Court's favorites, one happy little girl.

We went over to Tomorrowland and cruised through the full selection: Space Mountain, Monsters Laugh Floor (big hit), Buzz Lightyear and we introduced the kids to the people movers (called the TTA in WDW). You can see from the picture that they weren't impressed. We didn't subject ourselves to Stitches Escape this time through. We'll just say we weren't big fans. But at least is wasn't as bad as the horrible contraption that they made the Tiki Room into. It was atrocious. But back to the positive. We headed back over to Adventureland and Frontierland to hit Pirates, Splash Mountain (twice), Thunder Mountain (twice), the magic carpets again, root beer floats during the parade and the Country Bear Jamboree. The kids had no idea what to expect with the country bears, so we had to use Papa and Grandpa's names to convince them that it was going to be okay. Well, it was a bit rundown, but Big Al and the gang still delivered. It could use a little updating, but it was still fun.

After seeing a show at the castle, we grabbed dinner at Pecos Bill's. It is the best counter service restaurant outside of Epcot in our opinion. Court was named Sheriff for the day at Pecos Bill's to close out her birthday. On the way to the bus we found another gem, funnel cakes in Liberty Square. Yum. Back at the hotel was Courtney's last surprise, a signed picture of Ariel. Another night of swimming finished the family off. Good night.

Day 5 - Disney Studios

We keep on rolling. While at DisneyQuest last night, we were able to jump online and check out the weather forecast for the rest of the week. Looks like there is the possibility of having a few small thunderstorm in the upcoming days, but nothing like yesterday. I believe it was just the outskirts of the tropical storm that is hitting Louisiana. Good news. We checked outside in the morning and it was another sunny, humid day. Get ready for 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity. Hello Florida.

Today is the last of the firsts (first times hitting the parks, not counting the waterparks). This was also one of the last changes we made to our schedule. Originally, we were going to hit Disney Studios earlier in the vacation, but due to some crowd analysis, we decided to go today. We're also very excited for today because this park holds the newest of the new rides....Toy Story Mania. But with new rides come large crowds, as we learned from the submarine openings last year.

Although the crowds weren't huge, I think it has been the most crowded park we've seen. And guess where they were all headed, yup, Toy Story. When we hit Disneyland last year, the queue really played to our advantage. I was able to "walk quickly" to get in line first after the rope drop on Main Street and then follow the twisting queues around (allowing Julie and the kids time to walk up and meet me) and then roll into the first submarine. We've noticed that many of the queues in Florida are inside due to the heat and thunderstorms. So our strategy was to get a fastpass. Well, they handled the rope drop differently and made us follow cast members the entire way for the ride. I'm guessing half of the crowd made a huge bubble around the Toy Story cast members. Far uglier than the subs. As we approached the ride they split us into two mobs, one to ride the ride immediately and the other to abuse the fast pass machines. I made a mistake by taking our passes out of my pocket while walking through the ropes (yes, they had to set up a rope queue to get fast passes. It was that bad.). The cards hit one of the metal posts and went flying. I dove to the ground to collect them as quickly as I could to avoid being trampled by the ensuing fast pass mob. The good news was that my hand speed was working at an all time high (only slipped a couple slots in line and didn't have to wait for a machine), but the bad news was that my knees took the brunt of the dive and I had to deal with bloody knees for the rest of the day. ( See my Knee?) As I made my way out of the area I looked back to assess the situation. Brutal, I'd say it was more croweded than the subs. More on this to come.....

I headed over to Star Tours to meet Julie and the kids. Again, the queuing of the area is much better than the Land. There was a big Imperial Walker, a speeder and a few other things for the kids to take pictures with. The rest of the morning was trolling through some of the other ride and show offerings. Some were, um, bad. The sounds dangerous ride, the great movie ride and Journey into Narnia need to be replaced. Just brutal. We also tried to catch the first shows so that any afternoon storms wouldn't impact them. The Indiana Jones show struggled. We really enjoy the franchise, but the stunt show was average at best. We did like the car stunt show though, just seemed a little more real. The broadway type shows were good too. Beauty and the Beast was nice and Connor was able to open the Little Mermaid Show (how was he picked instead of the girls? No idea. Unfortunately he didn't take my advice and open the show by adding to the end of his line "Now, let's go see Ariel, she's hot!").

Back to the rides, we attacked their other big hitters - Tower of Terror and Rocking Roller Coaster. Court and I couldn't convince Connor or Mallory to go on Tower of Terror with us, so we did that one alone while the others saved a spot for Beauty and the Beast. We liked the California version better. The Florida ride didn't seem to have as many big drops. The entire family rode Rockin RollerCoaster. I think I liked it the best of anyone. It takes off in a hurry. I thought it was fun, but I think the quick start may have startled the kids and they never caught up. California Screaming appeals more to the family, but I may like Rockin Roller Coaster more. One note, the fast pass wasn't a huge benefit here, I think it was our longest wait of the day even with fast passes (20 minutes).

Back to Toy Story Mania. Our first fastpass allowed us to get the next pass about 40 minutes after I got the first ones. Seeing all of the excitement around the new ride, I thought that I would get a second straight pass to Toy Story. When I ran over to get the next set of passes the line to get fast passes was ~20mins long. 20 mins to get fast passes...no. I ended up grabbing the set for Rockin RollerCoaster. When the next set came available around 11am, I went over to Toy Story again. The good news was that the line was no longer there to get the passes, the bad news was that we grabbed some of the last ones for the night (7:40PM). They were out of fastpasses by 11:15. Yeah, it is a big hit and probably the family favorite for the week.

We went first in the early afternoon with the first passes and loved it. Good thing we got the second passes (the standby line was consistently at about 90 minutes and it is a quick loading line too, unlike the subs). Julie was worried that she wouldn't like it because she thought it would be like Buzz Lightyear. No worries there. You go through a bunch of 3D carnival games trying to rack up points by shooting eggs, rings and a variety of other things at targets, chickens, aliens, etc. The mechanism was really different than Buzz too. It's a bit hard to explain, but we'll just say, don't miss it. It is great for the whole family.

Well, we had to wait around for the second passes, so we went to the cartoon acadamy. There was a really funny intro that pitted Mushu against a cast member acting as a cartoonist before releasing us into the games/drawing activity area. Big thumbs up for the intro. After messing around on the games, we decided to go to the drawing course. The group decided to draw Stitch (Court's or Mallory's suggestion). We had varied levels of success. Julie's was the best. We closed out the day with a little shopping and the final ride on Toy Story.

It was another full day that ended with swimming back at the pool before getting to bed. The overall feel is that it was fun, but probably our least favorite park. They need to replace a few things and it has real potential. Court's birthday in the Magic Kingdom is on tap.....

Day 4 - Animal Kingdom

We got home a little later than expected last night, so it was a little tough getting up this morning. But, Julie and the kids are all troopers, and maybe a little scared of me. I'm not driving them really hard, but the lack of a car makes it hard to head to the hotel for a mid-afternoon break like we grew to enjoy at Disneyland. Live and learn. Something else that we have discovered over the first few days is that the free dining plan is giving us much more food than we expected and therefore our box of breakfast food is going to have to find it's way back into our luggage for the ride home. Woohoo, pop tarts on a plane.

Back to the day at hand, we hit the Animal Kingdom today. Connor was especially excited because they have an entire part of the park dedicated to dinosaurs and you can't beat dinosaurs. After grabbing some fast passes for Expedition Everest, I met the family over in Dino land. The kids liked the Primeval Whirl which is the combination of Mulholland Madness and the tea cups. Needless to say, it wasn't high on Julie's list. The Dinosaur ride was themed fun and the kids loved it. Which we found interesting since it is the cousin to Indiana Jones and we can't drag Connor or Mallory onto Indy. Theming really does make a difference.

Next we made the trek to Asia and discovered Julie's favorite ride in all of Disney World or Land. It is a great ride; smooth, plenty of twists and turns and again cool theming. Next on the ride mix was the Kali River Rapids. Note to future me, don't go on Kali River Rapids again. Unlike the river rapids ride in California Adventure, it is virtually guaranteed that you will get soaked. The ride delivered, we all got soaked. It didn't seem to last as long as the California river ride either. We tried our best to dry off by exploring some of the animal exhibits. That was one of the cool things there were all of the animal exhibits. The tigers were a bit hit.

Unfortunately, we didn't get a sunny day, like those we had been enjoying, and the restaurants were still cranking the AC. We had lunch at the Yak and Yeti and it was our favorite restaurant so far. The ribs were awesome.

After lunch, the weather made a turn for the worse. By the time we got over to Expedition Everest, the heavens had opened. Roller coaster + heavy rain = a completely different experience. Luckily the rain wasn't hard enough that it hurt, but the eyes were closed. Also on this time through, the kids started talking with the kids in front of us. They were from Jersey, but the little boy said that he wanted to go to the University of Oregon. Connor thought that was cool and Court ended up going on the ride with one of the little girls. Nice that the kids can make fast friends.

The rain didn't let up. We had to don the ponchos. The rain limited the rest of the day. It cut the bird show short (too bad, it had great promise), impacted the number of animals out and about on the safari ride and discouraged more time looking at the animal exhibits. It didn't impact the Nemo play. It was very cool. Everyone enjoyed it.

We decided to skip the wet parade and head home early. We finished the night by checking out DisneyQuest. It was a little crowded (and confusing to find things) so after doing the design your own roller coaster ride (pretty cool, but tamer than advertised), we spent most of the night just getting our bearings for a return trip. The rains had finally let up, so we rode the boat down the river back to the resort and grabbed dinner there before going to bed. Another fun day. Good night.