Carnival

Firstly, I have to apologize for the ridiculousness of how seldom I've been updating the blog recently. I'd give lots of excuses about being busy, traveling, being sick, etc., but the bottom line is I'm just quite far behind but committed to catch up!

This past Friday was the carnival at Anna and Kate's school. Oh my did they have fun!

Seriously--is there anything better than a snow cone on a hot July day??

(BTW, Kate, you better count your lucky stars for being the second-born on days like this. At this age, Anna was still on a pure organic, pure healthy diet. I think giving her a snowcone would have made me pass out. Your getting to reap the rewards of a more laid-back Mommy...:-))

A snowcone AND spray-painted hair? One happy girl...

Getting to ride the "ferris wheel" with her best bud/future husband, Owen...

This may have been Anna and Owen's official "first real date". In a moment of potentially poor judgement, we loaded the two of them on the train and sent them on their way. Unchaperoned. I think between Owen drumming his fingers and the conspiring look on Anna's face, they weren't even waiting til we were out of view before they started planning some trouble...

Day 6 - Headed home

I think I've procrastinated posting this "last" set of pictures of our Disney trip because then I really have to admit that its over. Does it have to be??

But, I do have to say, that after an incredibly wonderful, fun-filled adventure, we were pretty ready to get home (and sleep!) by the time Tuesday rolled around. In my attempt to jam-pack our daily itineraries with as much fun as we could possibly tolerate, I somehow had planned for us to have breakfast with Mickey and Minnie, to go Animal Kingdom, and still be at the hotel with our bags packed and ready to leave by noon on that Tuesday. With all 10 of us. Ummm....no. Luckily, in a stupor of exhaustion, I allowed my mom and sister to talk me into ditching the entirety of our plans for that morning, and just letting the kiddos and dads swim in the pools and letting us moms pack at a reasonable pace. Whew! Good decision.

And, as a bonus to an already good morning, I think the swimming was the final straw in fully exhausting the girls, so they both slept during the entire plane flight home. Nice.

I just can't say enough about what an amazing time we had, and how many lifetime memories we made! Anna still regularly asks when this summer we're going back to Disney, and has only backed down on her persistence with the promise that I'm going to fill her room with collages of our Disney pictures (as she puts it "so I can feel like I'm still there"). THANK YOU again to Grammie and Bucko for taking us on this fantastic adventure!!

(And, don't think for a minute that this is REALLY the end of the Disney pictures...we're still awaiting the arrival of our photo pass, so there will be one more round!)

Day 5 - Back to the Magic Kingdom (Part 2 - afternoon)

Now to my second posting for our last day at the Magic Kingdom...

We decided since it was our last full day at the park and we wanted to both see as many things as possible, as well as give the girls a relaxing last evening swimming at the hotel pool (which often was as exciting to them as the actual parks were), we would just "push through" and not go back to the hotel for a rest this day. It actually worked like a charm!

I have no way to explain the picture above. I asked the three girls to smile for a picture, and somehow Anna interpretted that as "give me your best gangsta pose". She wasn't upset or anything about having her picture taken...that was just the stance she picked for the photo. Maybe we let her listen to a little too much Jay Z in the back seat as a baby??

Anna and I in front of the castle waiting for the afternoon parade to start. We had let the girls do a little shopping before the parade, and Grammie and Bucko had given them some money to shop with. Anna is proudly sporting the Sleeping Beauty charm necklace that she picked out...

Next we ventured to Mickey's PhilharMagic, which I thought would be marginally cool, but ended up being one of the biggest hits of the trip (at least for Anna)! She still talks about actually being sprayed with water, and about how Donald flew through the audience into the back of the theater at the end. It was a hit!

Kate and Daddy joined us for the afternoon--just in time for the rain! But, as with most of the rest of the trip, she was a trooper! A little time under the pancho and under shelter, and the rain passed and she was ready for the rest of the day's adventure!

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was hands-down the girls' favorite ride (we rode it every day--thank goodness for FastPass!), so we knew we had to take Kate on it before we left. She loved it too! We're a bit soggy in the pic above from our rain encounter, but happy nonetheless!

Kate's absolute favorite ride that we went on was Its a Small World. I kind of have to agree with her on that one. I'm not sure if she loved the little people from all of the different countries, or just getting to ride it with Grammie, more...

And, we just couldn't leave Disney World without getting a Mickey Mouse ice cream! As you can see, by this point we had some WORN OUT (but still smiling!) kids on our hands. I think that's the sign of a successful adventure...

One last shot before we left the Magic Kingdom for the last time--Grammie and Bucko with their girls. THANK YOU THANK YOU to Grammie and Bucko for such a phenomenal trip! An amazing adventure, and a lifetime of memories....

Day 5 - Back to the Magic Kingdom (Part 1 - morning)

Monday was our final day in the Magic Kingdom, and was such a fantastic day that there's just no way I can capture it in one blog posting! We started the morning by waking the girls up and getting them dressed in their Cinderella dresses (with no information as to where they were going), and then headed to Grammie's room for a little "primping". Grammie had put together little personalized makeup bags for each of the girls, and helped them put on a little blush and lip gloss. My, were they some fancy ladies!

We surprised the girls by arriving at the Magic Kingdom before it even opened (a treat in and of itself!), and going straight to Cinderella's castle for breakfast. Cinderella greeted them at the door, and they were just in awe. I knew the Shuttle launch would make me cry, but I didn't expect this to cause me to tear up. I was wrong. It was so magical to see Anna's face light up when she saw the REAL Cinderella!

The girls thought the "fancy" breakfast was just fantastic! We may need to work on their little princess politeness a bit though...they certainly couldn't be interrupted from their eating and drinking while waving their wands in the air with the rest of that morning's princesses!

Anna is literally IN LOVE with Sleeping Beauty. She always says that that's the princess that "she is", and was just dying to meet her. I think seeing the real Aurora literally took her breath away. She still talks about her multiple times a day, and even started crying in the car yesterday because she misses Aurora. Oh how much she loved getting to meet her!! The whole Princess breakfast was probably my favorite thing that we did at Disney...so special, and so wonderful to do it at this age while the princesses are still "real" to our little ones...

The girls didn't wait long to kick off those slippers and get serious about some rides! Anna loved that she got to drive her own car (with Mommy in tow, of course) at the Tomorrowland Speedway. These are little cars on a track that you can do some basic steering of, and control the speed. With Anna's "steering" back and forth along the track, I think we managed to take the absolute longest route between the start and finish line possible! Afterwards her comment was, "Mommy--that was really fun, but something sure made that ride bumpy!" Yes, dear, yes it did. :-) I think we're going to get our money's worth out of driver's ed for this little one...

After a busy morning with the Princesses and on the race track, the girls took a little break at the fireplace in Minnie Mouse's house. This little house couldn't have been cuter! The girls loved looking through Minnie's fridge, seeing her bedroom, and having "tea" on her porch...

Even though I'm not entirely sure that Anna knows who Alice in Wonderland is, she thought seeing her and the Rabbit was fantastic! She's a sucker for the characters...

And, the ultimate "characters" of course--Mickey and Minnie!! They had such a great setup where the kids could go into Mickey's Judge's Tent and meet with Mickey and Minnie alone (as opposed to fighting mobs of other preschoolers). It was such a neat experience for the girls! Again, I think Anna just loved it, and had her breath a bit taken away by the whole thing...

Day 4 - Epcot

Sunday's adventures took us to my favorite Disney park--Epcot. Even though the park is generally geared to older kids, the girls had a blast! Between accommodating Kate's nap schedule and just the general chaos of Disney, we didn't get a ton of family photos with all 4 of us in them. But, we were able to capture one in front of the "ball" at Epcot.

We weren't sure what Kate's reaction to Disney would be--whether she would be overwhelmed, just tolerate it, or think it was fun. She quickly demonstrated upon being in Epcot about 5 minutes that she mostly thought it was great. She thought Daisy Duck was nothing short of fabulous! As you can see above, she certainly can't be bothered with taking a picture with Daisy...she needs to get TO HER!

More joy (from all the girls!) when we stumbled upon Stitch. The characters were quite a hit throughout the whole trip! And, we have a book full of autographs to prove it...

The girls loved the Nemo ride, and thought posing with Nemo outside the ride was pretty cool too!

Epcot brought our first day of less-than-great weather--a decent amount of rain. Somehow between the rain and just general busyness of the day, we managed to not get a single picture of us at the World Showcase at Epcot! But, we did have a great time there, and enjoyed a beautiful fireworks show from the balcony of one of the buildings in Japan--a great view!

Day 3 - The Magic Kingdom

Saturday was our first full day in one of the parks, so we of course decided to start with the Magic Kingdom. Here we are with all of our gear waiting for the bus to pick us up from the hotel. We do not travel light (and we don't even have Kate with us yet!).

All of the books said that "Dumbo" was sort of a silly carnival ride...and that all kids LOVE it. And, they were right. Likely not worth the 20 minute wait in line for us adults, but the girls thought it was fabulous! And that, of course, made us think it was fabulous too. It was our first stop that morning...

One of my favorite memories of Disney as a child was riding the teacups, so that was a "must" as well. Bucko and I took one for the team and rode in the teacup with the girls--who had predeclared that they wanted to go "FAST!". And, we did. After Bucko and I stumbled off the ride, Anna's comment was "Whew--good thing we did this before Kate got here. I think this would have made her spit up and make tea!"

Later in the morning we ventured to Fairytale Garden for Storytime with Belle. Oh, the girls loved it! Sydney even got to be in the story (as the clock). Anna and Natalie loved watching her in the production, and thought getting to meet Belle afterwards was just fantastic.

One of my favorite things about Disney World was all of the live entertainment. For whatever reason, it just made the whole experience that much more "magical". The girls loved the show in front on the castle about Dreams--Anna still talks about it every day! Throughout the trip, we adults spent an inordinate amount of time in this position shown above so the girls could see the "action". I think we're all about 3 inches shorter than we were pre-Disney, and may all require some therapy/surgery for compressed discs. But, the girls had a great view, so again, we're happy!

We wrapped up our morning/early afternoon at Magic Kingdom (before returning to the hotel for a rest) with some of the yummiest pineapple frozen yogurt I've ever had! As you can see, Anna enjoyed it too...

Welcome Kate and Daddy!! After a 3 hour delay in Houston because of bad weather, we were THRILLED to have Daddy and Kate join us in FL! They met us at the hotel during our afternoon break, and then ventured back into the park with us that evening. While most of us adults found it rather underwhelming (and a little creepy), Kate loved her first Disney show--Country Bear Jamboree. Little does she know what more fun adventures lay ahead in the next few days...

The Launch - Day 2

We took our adventure to a whole new level on Friday by renting a minivan and driving to Kennedy Space Center to see the STS-132 Shuttle launch...the last flight of Atlantis. We lucked out at the last minute and got a causeway pass (well, actually two, but that's a whole other story), so we were able to see the launch from about as "up close" as we could without being VIPs. Above, the girls watched the Shuttle on the pad (and dolphins in the river in front of us) in eager anticipation.

All three girls were such troopers through the whole event. We got to the causeway about 4 hours before launch just to ensure that we'd get a good location (these launches are getting more and more crowded since there are only two left before Shuttle retirement). They mostly entertained themselves during the whole wait--we were impressed and thankful!

I felt compelled to use my new Mother's Day crafting tool (thanks Clint!) to make matching shirts for the "mamas" and the little girls. Thankfully for them, I spared Bucko and Roger having to wear matching shirts. We quickly realized once we were on the causeway that we could have at least paid for the minivan rental and gas if we had set up a little table selling these shirts! :-)

Grammie and Bucko waiting for the launch. As the "original space geeks" of our family (worked at NASA in the Apollo era), I was so thrilled that they got to see a launch before the Shuttle retires.

Bucko and his girls...

An absolutely beautiful launch on a gorgeous day. We couldn't have asked for anything more...

The girls loved having a minivan so that they could all ride together in the "way back" (thank you, Swagger Wagon). They spent the ride from KSC back to Orlando catching up on sleep from a late night of watching fireworks and a long day of waiting for the Shuttle launch. While Syd and Anna mostly rested peacefully, poor Natalie (far right) seem to suffer the most from my sudden stops in traffic. Sorry sweetie! Hope the whiplash has passed...