Disney 2013

I love Disney World.  I think it’s that it seemed so magical when I was there as a kid.  I’ve looked forward to returning for a long time, and that “wish” came true this past January, when Marc and I took the kids there.  In some ways we were probably a little crazy for taking a 2 and 4 year old, and in other ways, it made it oh so fun.  I think it was that look of excitement on the kids’ faces and in their voices at the sight of any dressed up character or the “thrill” of riding Dumbo or Winnie the Pooh that made it worth it.  My 3 pieces of advice for anyone traveling with younger kids (we don’t do a lot of traveling so unfortunately I’m further down on the learning curve for this) are:

1)    Bring an infinite amount of snacks for the plane.  Well not infinite, but you know what I mean!

2)   If you choose a flight that has a connection, make sure that connection is longer than 45 minutes! I’ve never been so out of breath in my life and caused such a spectacle as our family did running sprinting through the airport – me carrying all of the carry-ons and Marc pushing the stroller.  It’s one of those things we can laugh about now, but it was not funny then!

3)    Allow for an unwind day/transition day if you’re going to someplace like Disney.  We arrived late Tuesday and went to Magic Kingdom on Wednesday.  We still had a great time, it just would have been nice to relax a little bit first. 

And an extra piece of advice that could be for anyone – don’t rely on your smart phone to get you where you need to go.  Our iPhones took us in the back way to Disney and were driving around for an hour trying to find the entrance.  Ha!  Just drive on the main roads and follow the road signs, friends!

Here’s a recap of our trip:

Day 1: Travel Day - O’Hare to Orlando

Airport fun!

More airport fun!

Listening to Music on the plane

Day 2: Magic Kingdom – Lydia had a bout of food poisoning/stomach bug and threw up right after we got to the parking lot.  What?!   Poor girl.  We offered to go back to the hotel, but she was determined to go to Disney(and with all the money spent on airfare, lodging, etc, we were too!).  So we went(please don’t judge!).  We enjoyed many of the kiddie rides first (Dumbo, Teapots, Little Mermaid, Carousel,),  ate lunch, went to Gaston's Tavern, and then went to the parade, where Lydia threw up again.  Time to go back to the condo.  Lydia took a nap, and we rested a little.  Lydia felt much better after waking up so we returned for the fireworks.   Thankfully the sick stomach was just a one day thing, and none of the rest of us got it!

Enjoying a ymmy apple cider/marshmallow drink in Gaston's Tavern!

Posing outside the Dumbo ride

It's a Small World

Waiting in line for Peter Pan

On our way to the fireworks......This is the first in a sequence of pictures we have that show Lydia's  very goofy side.  We could not get her to flash a normal smile.  The good news was she was feeling better.  :)

Day 3: Epcot – This was by far MY favorite day of our trip(Marc actually preferred Magic Kingdom, the kids liked it all!)  I don’t know if it was because we now knew where we were going, that Lydia wasn’t throwing up, or that Epcot was just little less crazy than Magic Kingdom.  I also appreciated Epcot much more as an adult.  The way they are so detailed with each country is sooo cool.  Also, the kids loved the rides at Epcot.  It helped that there were really no lines to wait in.   And we got to meet Daisy, Donald, Belle and Snow White!  With the exception of Snow White, the lines to meet the characters were not bad at all.

Living with the Land

Living with the Land - Lydia said this was her favorite ride!  LOL

Getting ready to go inside to ride the Nemo ride

At lunch

Snow White - We waited at LEAST 45 minutes to see her.  In hindsight we could skipped this, though they were excited when it was our turn to meet her.

We met Donald Duck in Mexico. :)

 Day 4: Magic Kingdom part 2 – This was a long fun day.  We rode Dumbo some more, did Enchanged Tales with Belle (Had to wait over an hour for that, but it was pretty cool), Tom Sawyer Island, Jungle Cruise, and bunch more.  Lydia also wanted to ride Big Thunder Mountain.  We did and it was fun, though it was a bit too exciting for Lydia. 

Riding Dumbo some more our 2nd day at MK

Riding the train.

Classic Marc, on Jungle Cruise.  This ride was fun, and our guide was hilarious!  

So fun to meet Tigger and Pooh.

Exploring on Tom Sawyer Island

More exploring.

Still more exploring, we loved Tom Sawyer Island!

Meeting Rapunzel...

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)

And Cinderella of course (sorry so blurry!)

Vegging out before bed, watching Curious George.

Day 5: Travel Day – We had a layover (I believe it was in Charlotte, NC).  Our first leg of the flight was delayed, so we expected to possibly miss the 2^nd flight.  But like I mentioned earlier, we HAULED it across the airport.  I think Marc liked the thrill, but it did me in.

We had to leave the Mickey Balloons behind, so had to get some final pictures!

C-ya real soon!

All in all it was a great trip.  I only wish it were longer! J

New year, new house, new goals

Okay, so the new goals have nothing to do with the new house, but I thought the title would be catchy. :)

Looking at the date of my last post, it was right before we found out we would be moving.  October, November, and December, though exciting, were a bit of whirlwind.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE the holidays, but this year, I was relieved to turn the page on the calendar and start afresh. 2012 was a great year for us, but very busy (and a little stressful).  We moved the beginning of December and are enjoying our new place.  It's a little sad it's so cold outside and that we've only met a few neighbors, but we are getting settled.  It won't be long before spring is here and I will be plunging into learning how to garden with my VERY green thumb.  I'm a little nervous about that, but excited too.

We had a December full of celebrations, mostly Christmas related.  Marc and I also celebrated 7 years (what?!) of marriage.  We did not do anything major this year, but did enjoy a very nice dinner at Stoney River.  I really cannot believe 7 years has gone by.  Thankfully I can say it's been a good 7 years, and that I am confident the next 7 years should only get better.    I also can not believe our kids are going on 3 and 5 (another "what?!").

Here are some pics:

 This is from our last night at 603 Barberry.  Lydia was in charge of the class squirrel "Nutsy" that week too.  Nutsy got to stay with us during a very exciting time.  Here are Lydia and Nutsy sitting in an empty box in our old living room.

Christmas Eve breakfast shots

And the kids were getting a little goofy New Years Eve (ummm.... sugar high maybe?)

 Realizing how fast time is going by , I set some more strenuous goals this year - nothing in itself crazy, just the amount.  I am sure I won't reach them all, but I'm hoping that by reaching for the stars, I'll at least get the moon. :)  I didn't go into 2012 with any goals and I want 2013 to be different.  I desire to go deeper in my walk with the Lord, with my friends and family, be healthier, and more productive with my time(nothing crazy!).  We'll see how it goes!

Fall Fun!

Fall is officially upon us.  I LOVE fall.  The cooler temps, changing colors of the leaves, and apple and pumpkin everything!  When my mom came down to visit a few weeks ago, we headed out to Royal Oaks, a great apple orchard in Chicagoland (even though it's really closer to WI!).  It was a drizzly day, but we ventured out anyway.  There weren't many people there, and we didn't get to pick apples(we chose not to due to the rain), but we still had a great time.  They have a great cafe, gift shop, petting zoo, carousel, and outdoor area.  They even had a fire going in one of their outdoor areas.  Since it was actually pretty chilly, it was nice to warm up near the fire.  Lydia and I also danced to some folk/(country?) music.  It was right up my alley, seriously!

 Here are the kids warming up under the blanket by the fire.

 

 

Joe sitting in a big wooden rocking chair near the fire.

Lydia found a white squash.

Joe was in awe of the honeybees. There were thousands of LIVE bees in there! It creeped me out a little. 

Then, just this past weekend, we went camping with our small group.  We went to Rock Cut State Park, near Rockford.  It's the same place we took the kids in July.  It was a little chilly but we still had a good time.  Layers is the key!  The rest of our group went canoeing on Saturday, but since Marc had a lot of reading to do for the ADT class he is teaching at church, we stayed back.  It was also in the 40's when everyone left for camping, so I wasn't heartbroken over it. :)  We enjoyed our day of hanging back at the campsite, sitting out around the fire, reading our books (I brought my own book to read).  We even got a short hike in.  Here's a pic from that. 
  

 

 

And this week, here at home, I decided to look up some fall activities to do with the kids.  Joe has pretty much dropped his pm nap, and I realized with more awake time, there needs to more things to do!  I found this really cool blog here, where I got the idea to do a sound scavenger hunt (this could really be an any time of the year thing, but 'leaves' make it fallish). 

I could have added a couple of other sounds that would have been appropriate for our neighborhood right now, for example 'Construction workers' and 'people speaking in a language other than English'. We had fun completing this Scavenger Hunt on our walk to the library this morning!

 

 

I also got this idea from the same blog I linked to above.  It's Autumn Rainbow Rice. 



 

It was, suprisingly, very easy to dye the rice different colors.  And then I added some Autumn trinkets I got pretty cheap at Hobby Lobby.  If you're interested in learning how to do this one, click here.  Lydia has really enjoyed this one.  I have yet to let Joe play with it, since it will require close supervision!  Maybe outside? 

 

That's some of what we've been up to!  Now I'm off to make apple crisp for Small Group tonight!

 

First day of pre-school

Today was a big day for Lydia (and me!). It was her first day of school. I think I was more nervous than her! Today I went with her and it was just an hour of getting to know everyone. She liked it a lot! Her teacher seems wonderful and we look forward to a great year ahead!

WIsconsin Camping 2012

This past weekend (Thursday night through Sunday) we went camping at Kohler-Andrae State Park in Wisconsin.  We went with my cousin Jenny, and her family.  This was our 2^nd year going with Jenny and we already have next summer’s trip booked, so it’s becoming a tradition!  We had a great time, and the great weather helped with that!  It was cold at night (got as low as 51 one night), but we were prepared with blankets and sleeping bags.  The first morning we are all up at the crack of dawn (in fact every morning we were...), and we took a walk down to the beach.  We found a bench to sit on….

Later on that day we went to one of Lydia’s FAVORITE places, Bay Beach Amusement Park in Green Bay. It was about an hour drive, but after going there last summer, Lydia talked about it ALL year, and we wanted to take advantage of being so close. Also the park is mainly for younger kids, so they will eventually outgrow it. Lydia enjoyed her first Tilt-a-Whirl experience(which she calls the clown ride) with Marc. The kids went on many other little kid rides, like the boats, the cars, the lady bugs, and the coolest looking ride, the Granny Bugs

Lydia was also tall enough for the junior Swings, which she enjoyed thoroughly. And her daddy went down the big slides together.

All in all, we had a fun time at Bay Beach.

We spent the rest of our time eating yummy food, jumping in the tent (sometimes very early in the morning!)

hanging out around the campfire and campsite

riding Tryston’s truck down the “hill”

and going to the beach to play in the sand

Next year, we will remember to eat a lot of garlic, or light some Citronella candles (the kids and Marc got bit a lot!)

Besides that, Wisconsin Camping trip 2012 was a success!