April Happenings

When we were planning our Disney World Trip, we had planned on only staying till Friday, but then much to my surprise, the Saturday flights home went on sale and were so cheap that we could save enough money flying home later to pay for the extra hotel night. (Southwest is amazing!)Then on top of that Disney started running a buy 4 days get 1 free promotion and so we got an extra day and all we really paid for was food. That was really exciting although it did mean I had to do my Easter shopping ahead of time because we got home the day before. That is a very small price to pay ;)

For some reason, after Church King and Netta decided that they both needed facial hair and gave themselves these lovely looks.

Getting home so late did mean that we actually didn't dye our eggs till after we got our baskets. Oops.

That evening we went to our have dinner at the Reeve's house with some other friends from church. It was so nice to have some "family" to be with for the holiday and it was an amazing dinner. We all brought eggs so the kids could have an egg hunt outside. Not sure why their is no picture of Netta from that, but I promise she was there.

 EZ is a goofball and every time I ask him for a big smile, this is what I get.

The kids have become really obsessed with Pokemon as of late and they even found this website that lets you make your own cards. These are the cards they made for John and I. Poor John is not a mean dad, but based on the cards I would think the kids are more scared of him then me. HaHa

 We finally made it to story time with King and Conrad at our library, now that the school year is almost over, and I am glad we did because the craft afterwards was making a treasure box and inside each kid got a token to ride the carousal! We will take a free carousel ride anytime. We love the hats and masks they have for you to wear. I just try to pretend that germs aren't a thing.

Mid-month it was finally warm enough to have our first "beach day." Meaning, we could take off our jackets and play in the sand without freezing to death. For some reason, King really wanted me to get a picture of him on the bridge and he had to be squatting with his arms out.

I had no idea that throwing sand into the water was so much fun, but I could not get these 2 to stop.

Conrad is crazy and insisted on taking his slightly wet pants off and he even started wading in the water. It was freaking freezing, but he didn't seem to mind.

One Saturday, the cooking school at Martin's grocery store had a daddy daughter event called "Papas, Princesses and Pancakes." I wish they had a daddy daughter dance somewhere here, but this is probably the next best thing. Netta got to meet the local "Blossomtime" princesses and make an amazing breakfast with John. She also got an apron and crown and John got this lovely chef's hat. I love seeing him be such a good dad.

Disney World Part 2: Magic Kingdom, Epcot and Magic Kingdom Again

Day 4 we headed off to Magic Kingdom. I had to get some pics of us on the shuttle, since we spent a lot of time there. We were staying in Port Orleans Riverside, one of the Disney Resorts and it still felt like the shuttle took forever some days. I can't imagine what it would be like if you stayed off property. Cheaper for sure, but endless shuttle rides.

Magic Kingdom gave my kids their first real taste of lines. To the parks credit, the lines were always moving, which makes them feel shorter. And to my kids discredit, they were so spoiled by the fast passes that even though we usually didn't wait more then half an hour in line, they could not stop complaining.

There is a Tom Sawyer Island that you can visit and I was amazed at how much my kids loved it. We had to basically drag them out of the fort. This gun area was especially popular. I think we could have left them there all day and when we came back they would have been in the same spot.

My favorite ride was the Seven Dwarfs Mind Train, because all of the kids had so much fun and it was the one coaster that King was willing to ride again. It was also the only ride picture that we decided to buy. I love that we are all just so happy in it.

My least favorite part about Magic Kingdom was when we got stuck in the middle of It's a Small World. Now, I love that song and that ride but being in their for too long can drive anyone insane.

Our 5th day was spent at Epcot. This may have been my favorite day, based entirely on how good the food was. Holy crap it was amazing. John got amazing Japanese food and I just about died sampling all the French pastries. I would love to go back with just John and I and spend days there eating everything. 

When we went to Animal Kingdom everyone wore their swim suits because of the water ride and no one got that wet, but we didn't realize our kids were going to absolutely soak themselves at Epcot. Of course King and Netta got the most wet because they dove right into to the sprinklers. EZ was true to form and hung out on the fringe of the splash.

The kids also loved the great over-priced candy. I may never got over the sticker shock. It just seems like it should be illegal to charge what they do. I passed on the candy, because the space simulator ride made me pretty much sick for the rest of the day. It was so fun when I was in it, but man I was hurting after. I am getting old.

 I think the highlight for the kids was the Phineas and Ferb Scavenger hunts. They gave you a cell phone that gave you all these different clues around each of the different countries and the phone would trigger hidden characters to pop out in the most random places. It was a little tiring for the adults because it had you zig zagging all over the place, but the kids thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Our final day took us back to Magic Kingdom. There is no way you could do that park in one day. It was truly magical because King and Netta were not trying to kill each other the entire time. It was worth the money just for that.

It was really hot that day and we loved the play area inside the Dumbo ride. I couldn't believe this was part of the line. When you got into the tent they gave you a pager and they would page you when it was your turn to get on the ride. Genius and it was actually really fun. We could have stayed there all day.

They had a parade with a bunch of the characters and since we are on a Phineas and Ferb kick, we were so excited that they were part of the parade and that you could dance with them. King desperately wanted a picture of them but their handlers keep moving them along and we could never get close enough. So instead we just have a pic of the kids dancing.

We really lucked out that last day, because whoever was in charge of taking the "you have a baby passes" from you when you got on Space Mountain, wasn't doing their job and we actually got to ride it 4 times. Like I said, my kids were seriously spoiled. The last time I was riding with the older 2, John took King and Conrad back to the Buzz Lightyear ride. I actually thought it was really lame compared to the one at Hollywood Studios, but King begged John to take him back and poor John got stuck in the longest line of the entire trip. The plus was that during their 45 minutes of bonding, someone took this great picture of the 3 of them.

 

This was hands down the most exhausting vacation I have ever been on, but it was totally worth it. As soon as we got home I was trying to figure out cheap ways to go back again. That may not happen for a couple of years, but I can't wait till it does!

Disney World Part 1: Legoland, Universal Studios, and Animal Kingdom

This year we decided to finally do a big Disney World vacation during spring break. It was no easy decision since it is so stinking expensive but we knew the kids would love it. We like to call it the "Phil Brown Disney Trip" since we kind of earmarked some of the money we got when John's dad died for something like this. Of course we had to make a detour for Legoland and we decided to make that our first stop. I feel bad because in an effort to save some money we got a rental car from a location that was supposed to be convenient to get to from the resort, but it was not and poor John got stuck in crazy shuttle lines and it took him forever to return it. Oops lesson learned. 

Legoland was amazing and I am glad we went now before EZ gets much older because it was the perfect park for all of our kids but I could see it not being as fun once you are a teenager. Of course all of the Lego sculptures were a big hit. I thought King would love to be in this picture with the characters from the Lego movie, but unfortunately he fell multiple times before we even got into the park, so he got off to a rocky start. The poor kid is just our little klutz. He warmed up though once he got to buy his Mixel lego toy.

I have mixed feelings about Lego Friends and how overly girly they are, but Netta loves them so we had to get a pic with one of the girls. The only actual human characters in the whole park.

No special story about this pic except that I love that it looks like Netta is taking a dump.

One of the big highlights of the day was the Driver's Ed program where you got a driver's license after you finished the ride. EZ was very attached to that little piece of paper.

My favorite part of the park was the "play here while your parents wait in line" pens. Those people are geniuses. It's a lot easier to deal with the crowds when your kids are entertained with Legos.

Towards the end of the day, Conrad and I got to have some bonding time in the little kid area while the older ones rode some of the bigger rides with John. It's silly but I was so impressed with the nursing room they had there that I had to take a picture. This place really knows how to take care of families.

Our second day was spent at Hollywood Studios. Here we learned the benefits of having a "baby" with us who couldn't ride a lot of the rides and of selecting our fast passes weeks ago. Because we chose early we were able to get fast passes to all the big rides, so John would go on with the 3 older kids and I would wait with Conrad. We never had to wait long and then he would come back with an "I have a baby pass" for me which would allow me to get in the fast pass line with 3 other people, so all 3 kids could ride again if they wanted. They got really spoiled on this trip because people were waiting up to 2 hours sometimes for those rides. Unfortunately, today was also the day we learned that just because King is tall enough to ride the ride, doesn't mean he should. I think he almost had a heart attack on the Tower of Terror. That one actually even had EZ shaking in the line when we went back to ride it again. Netta however was unfazed. She will ride anything.

John has been talking up the turkey legs for quite some time and EZ was SO exited to get to try one. His first initiation into manhood.

EZ was also a big fan of Hollywood Studios because of the Star Wars ride and the chance to make his own light saber. Of course he had to make a double one which is 6 feet long. I am amazed that he hasn't broken anything at our house yet. 

Our third day was spent at Animal Kingdom. I have a love hate relationship with his park. It has probably my two favorite rides, but also was frickin impossible to navigate and it took forever to get around. The Yeti roller coaster was my favorite coaster of all the parks and for some reason the Lion King show brought me to tears and I don't even really like that movie. They had a petting zoo, which was ok, but it got a lot hotter that day and it started to get to us.

After the petting zoo you could go instead and do a scavenger hunt around the animal center. King wanted nothing to do with that. Luckily, we brought plenty of electronics on the trip for these very moments. 

 We learned another trick about the fast passes that day. If there was a big ride that King didn't want to go on, we would use his fast pass and mine to go on something else and then John would take the older 2 on the big ride and I would again use the baby pass so I could go on and take the kids again. Then King and I would use our extra fast passes for a different big, but not too big ride and we would come out and have a baby pass for John, EZ and Netta. Basically, it let us have 4 fast pass rides instead of the allotted 3 a day. I was so proud of myself for figuring this out, but then we used our 4th fast pass on this dinosaur ride that absolutely terrified King and EZ. Maybe even more than Tower of Terror. Oops. 

Oh and our final lesson learned was never eat at the Rain Forest Cafe. The food is insanely expensive and not that great. We were just so hungry at the end of the day that we couldn't handle the thought of riding the shuttle home and then fighting the crowds for dinner at our resort. We really loved the trip but pretty much every meal was a headache except for Epcot, but that is for another post.