Day 2 - Islands of Adventure

On Friday morning, we had a quick breakfast at the hotel and then headed to Orlando for a day at Universal's Islands of Adventure.  It was fantastic!  As we entered, we headed straight over to Seuss Landing.  The girls were amazed.  This is such a fun place!  They were dressed in regular clothes at first, but after a few minutes here, we bought them "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" outfits; they were too cute to pass up!

 The Cat in the Hat ride was absolutely Lily's favorite ride.  She rode it four times!  Even now, after the trip, she says this was her favorite part of the vacation.

 Mia loved the Carraseusal!  She wanted to ride it again and again and again.

 Lily enjoyed this too, though not as much as Mia.

 We all rode One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and had fun on it.

 Mia and I rode together.  She laughed pretty hard when the water sprayed from one of the fish and got me pretty wet!

 We all enjoyed the train ride that went high in the air all around Seussland.

 Stylin' in these blue wigs.

 Fun statue posing after lunch at Mr. Mcgerkus' Circus' lunch.

We took a little playground break at If I Ran the Playground.  It had lots of cool features like a water park (though we didn't play in it), a playground with lots of hidden fun, tic tac toe on the belly of a suess character, a rocking chair-like worm...it was a fun break.

 

 Mia loves The Grinch.  She was excited to stand by this statue and hold the Max doll in one of the gift shops.

 There is a neat little area with the once-ler's (from the lorax) house.  The girls really loved getting to hear him talk through the rope line.

 Every hour they performed "Oh The Stories You Will Hear!" which was pretty cool.  We listened to the story of The Lorax.  There was a neat storyteller who did a great job, and then lots of characters came out...The Lorax, Thing 1 and Thing 2, The Grinch, Sam I Am and The Cat in the Hat.

 We got to meet the characters after the show too.  Here's the girls with The Grinch.  I think this could have been Mia's dream come true! 

 We actually saw him as we first walked into Suessland; I wish you could have seen her reaction.  Her hands came up to her mouth, and her eyes got wide.  For the first time I can remember, Mia was speechless!  When she talks about meeting him, she says "His heart had growed.  He was nice."

 

Liz also enjoyed meeting The Grinch.  He was a playful thing!

 Who doesn't love The Cat in the Hat?

 Thing 1 and Thing 2 with the real Thing 1 and Thing 2.

 Green Eggs and Ham friends.

 The girls love the Lorax.

 My favorite roller coaster in the entire world is here.  The Hulk is awesome!  We really appreciated Liz hanging out with the girls so we could ride it; they snap a picture as you're riding, so we got that to remember the ride.

 Ryan and I were very excited to walk through Harry Potter World.  We love the movies (and I promise I will read the books someday), and we had heard great things about it.  The castle was impressive to see.

 The Hogwarts Express welcomed us.

 We enjoyed seeing all the cool sites, and Liz let us ride the other awesome coaster here, Dragon Challenge.

 

After Harry Potter World, we headed over to the Lost Continent area.  The girls thought the dinosaur exhibit was really interesting.  They loved this wall where they could use a scanner to search for fossils.

 One of the curators took the time to tell us about four different dinosaurs, and the girls loved pressing the buttons to hear their screetchs.  They also enjoyed seeing a "dinosaur egg" hatch and seeing lots of bones.  It was an interesting place, that's for sure.

 

We tried walking through the Marvel Superhero area too because Mia loves superheros.  However, she was very tired since we skipped her nap and didn't really seem too interested.  We decided by this point it was time to head on out.  We couldn't help but stop at one of my favorite spots: Bubba Gumps!  Look at this shrimp...absolutely delicious!

We then found our way to the Orlando Residence Inn and settled in for the evening.  Lily couldn't wait to complete her homework assignment, so she completed that while Mia settled down.  Once everyone was calm, we turned in for the night.

Day 1 - Most Awesome Family Vacation!

Where to even start?  I guess we can go back to April, just after tax season.  Ryan and I started talking about how next April 6th (that's right, April of 2013) will be Liz's 60th birthday, and we wanted to do something really special and fun for her.  Pretty quickly it came to us that a trip to Disney was in order.  Unfortunately, Liz's birthday falls about a week before the end of tax season which means we can't do anything right then.  So we started talking about when we could go instead.  We originally thought we could surprise her with the trip on her birthday and go in May.  Then we realized that's the end of school which isn't a good time to miss out on activities.  So then we were looking at the summer time.  I do not like Disney in the summer...too many people and too hot.  So we started talking about backing it up a little bit.  Really, it couldn't be anytime between January and mid-April, so we started looking to the end of this year.  With the timing of lots of things, we realized that the beginning of November would be perfect.  So, just before Mother's Day, we gave Liz the news about her very early 60th birthday present!  To say she was excited is an understatement!  Then came the hard part...not telling the girls and waiting on the trip to arrive. 

 

Finally, just after we returned from the beach in October, we told the girls the good news.  They were super excited too!  The best part was they had no idea what was in store.  They expected to go to the Magic Kingdom and have fun; they had no idea all the cool things we had planned.  To build on the excitement, we made this countdown calendar (which I couldn't get turned here).  Each day, we took off a Mickey and the girls received a little surprise such as a Pez dispenser, finger puppets or coloring book.



Halloween came and went, and on November 1, we started the drive in the early afternoon.  Lily thought it was cool that she got to leave school a couple of hours early.  We made it to Gainesville, FL that Thursday evening.  We made a quick stop at a Subway for dinner and then headed over to the Residence Inn.  The girls thought this was such a cool hotel; they loved that there was a little living room and kitchenette in the room.  While I gave the girls a bath, Ryan and Liz headed out to tour the UF campus which is where Liz graduated from.  I think she had a lot of fun bringing back lots of great memories.  Here's a picture of Liz in front of the ADPi sorority house.

 They also made a stop at The Swamp, Florida's football stadium.  Liz was a cheerleader at UF so she knows this stadium well.

They came back and we all headed to bed.  Our vacation was officially on!

Happy Halloween!

Lily's school celebrated Reformation Day today, so all the kids came dressed in 16th Century costumes.  I am so not a creative person, and I've had a million things to do, so Lily's costume was a little bit of a stretch; she went as a peasant because the grey dress seemed to work.  When I explained what a peasant was, she exclaimed "Yea I don't have much money!"  As she got ready this morning, she grabbed her treasure box, put two coins in it and asked if she could take it to school to show that she doesn't have much money.  This picture was taken as her class performed in chapel this morning.  They recited Psalm 23 and sang The Continent Song together.  It's always fun to see little events like this.

 The girls couldn't wait for Halloween trick or treating!  Even though Mia went as Captain America to her school party yesterday, she was Captain Hook tonight.

 Lily was excited to dress up as mermaid Ariel.

 Lily begged to go trick or treating at houses this year since that is something we haven't done before for various reasons.  So, we went over to Doug and Julia's house to trick or treat around their neighborhood with them which was fun.  Vivian dressed up as Pocahontas, Claudia was Rapunzel (who enjoyed wearing peacock wings) while little Evelyn was a peacock.  Our friend Debbie also joined us, so we had a good time together.  The girls collected tons of candy!

Fun Times

ACCA's kindergarten classes went to Smyrna Fire Station 1 last week.  I wasn't able to make it, but I heard it was lots of fun.  Here's Lily and McClendon on the front of one of the trucks.

 We have loved the Smyrna Food Truck evenings.  Picnics with lots of yummy food (like the paninis below), but of course the best part was the King of Pop's popsicles each week!

 Soccer wrapped up last week.  I think the girls enjoyed the season for the most part; I'm glad we did it, and we'll see about coming back in the spring.  After Lily's game, her team had a little pizza party and then presented each player with these cute little trophies.  Unfortunately, Mia's coach forgot to order trophies.  That's okay though because the trophy shop is pretty close to our house; Mia's trophy showed up on Tuesday.

 The girls and I had so much fun making Shrinky Dink bracelets one afternoon!

 I love seeing these reports from Mia's class, especially the last comments.  Such a sweetheart!

Handsome and Gretel

We had our annual family pictures made earlier in the week.  As we were about to leave, Lily looked at Ryan and said "Daddy, you look so handsome."  Mia quickly agreed and said "And Mommy looks so Gretel."  Ryan and I got a good laugh about that one!

Hooks Fun Fall Day

Saturday was just what I needed.  I wanted just a nice, fun, family day enjoying the beautiful Fall weather.  We had planned on going to an apple orchard, but had learned on Friday that the excessive rain a few weeks ago had made for an early harvest and there were no good trees for picking available.  On to Plan B.

 

We slept in a little and then headed to Chick-fil-a for breakfast.  That is always a fun treat, but it's even better when you see the cow dressed up as pirate!  From here we stopped by First Methodist's pumpkin patch.  It's nothing fancy, but the girls really enjoyed it.  We let each of them pick their own small pumpkin.  Lily wanted one with "just a small stem."

 Mia loved this one.

 Debating on which one will make the perfect family pumpkin.

 Stopping for a picture with a little scarecrow.

 I'm such a sucker for these kinds of pictures!  They were looking right into the sun, so it was difficult to get a great picture, but I think it's pretty cute.

 After the pumpkin patch, we went over to Parkway Point where we all enjoyed the Hotel Transylvania movie.  I have to say, I normally don't like Halloween things, and I certainly didn't want anything scary for the kids; this movie was perfect!  It was actually really cute and had a great daddy-daughter storyline to it.  After the movie, we grabbed a quick drive-through lunch and then stopped by Michael's to get some pumpkin carving tools.

 

After nap time, we headed out to the deck to start the fun.  The girls decorated their small pumpkins with the stickers from the patch.

 Lily showing off her multi-faced creation.

 Mia trying to make a face like her middle face on the pumpkin.

 Upon looking inside the pumpkin, both girls exclaimed "EWWWW!"

 Ryan concentrating.

 The final creation.  A little kitten on top of a jack-o-lantern.  Isn't it cute?!

We rounded out the day with some football and grilled hot dogs for dinner.  What a perfect day!

Gulf Shores Vacation

On the day after the wedding, our family drove the extra 30 minutes over to Gulf Shores.  We hit the outlet mall on the way in and then enjoyed lunch at Lulu's.  From there, we headed to Mom and Dad's condo and met up with our friends, the Hendersons.  We have taken this trip with them for several years now, and we have a blast each year.  How can you not with good friends and weather like this?

 We couldn't wait to hit the beach!  The four kiddos are too adorable.  It's so much fun to watch them play together.

 Pretty much all of our time was spent in the ocean or in the sand.  Jill took the kids to the playground a couple of times which the girls enjoyed too.

 Ready to build.

 Lily was so proud of her starfish sand.

 Mia had fun jumping waves.

 The first sand castle.

 I would love to know what Lily was thinking about as she watched the ocean for awhile.

Mia preferred to be right on the edge.

 I was amazed at how much Lily loved being in the ocean.  She couldn't get enough!

 Both girls jumping; look at the height on Lily's jump!

 Love the looks on their faces here!

 Crawling around in the sand.

 Parker and Brian could be found playing baseball a lot too.  Parker is getting really good!

 Love this.

 The fun didn't stop when the sun went down.  While we ate in a couple of nights, our last night took us to The Hangout which is always a fun experience.  The kids love the huge sandlot...look, more sand!

Our trip wasn't quite as long this year since we had to get back for school.  Lily had been on Fall Break the whole week before, and we kept her out for three extra days so we could take this trip.  It's just too fun to pass up!

Kendall and John's Wedding

On the Thursday of Fall Break, we headed down to Fairhope, AL.  We couldn't wait for Kendall and John's wedding!  After a bite to eat that evening with Liz, we settled in for the night.  The girls were thrilled to get "goodie bags" from Kendall filled with toys, snacks and candy.  On Friday, I headed to the bridesmaid's luncheon at The Fairhope Inn and Restaurant.  Everything was just lovely.  It was the perfect choice for a luncheon in this adorable town.  Liz had selected some amazingly delicious options for lunch.  I went with the crab cake salad, and it was wonderful.  John's aunt picked up a butter cake for dessert too which was yummy.  We rested up for a little bit afterwards, and soon it was time to head to the rehearsal.  Here's a picture of the girls before we headed out.

 Everything went well at the rehearsal, and soon it was time to head over to the dinner on the USS Alabama.  This was a neat place to hold a rehearsal dinner.  It was great to catch up with some family and friends that we don't get to see nearly enough.  Liz's brother, Larry, and his wife, Regina, drove down from Ohio; we hadn't seen them since our wedding, so it was great to visit with them.  Tons of other friends had driven down from Birmingham which was great.  The girls could have stayed next to Amy or Jimmy all night and been happy as clams!  Unfortunately, with two young ones, we weren't able to stay the whole evening; they were fading quickly and we wanted them well rested for Saturday.  I heard the rest of the evening was wonderful though!

Saturday arrived and promised to be another beautiful day.  The girls and I headed over after nap time to start getting them ready.  When we arrived, they were making the final cleaning touches on the dock.  The arch that one of Liz's friends made was truly stunning.  This picture was taken from the balcony where most of the guest watched the ceremony though the seats below were for family.

 Thankfully, Amy was available to fix the girls' hair.  She put braids on both sides of their heads and then pulled it back with a bow.  It looked great!

 Mia wasn't really sure what to think.

 Two beautiful flower girls ready to go!

 The girls with the gorgeous bride!

 The ceremony was wonderful, and thankfully, no one fell into the river (my fear!).  It brought tears to my eyes as Ryan walked Kendall down the aisle and gave her away.  I know it will be my girls walking with him all too soon. 

After the wedding, we snapped a quick family shot before walking upstairs to the reception.  It was a perfectly beautiful evening.

 I don't think I have ever seen Kendall happier; it was so great to watch.  She and John are such a perfect match for one another, and we wish them all the best.

Everyone had a lot of fun at the reception.  The place looked gorgeous, and the food was wonderful.  There was lots of seating to watch the beautiful sunset and enjoy the band.  We were able to continue catching up with family and friends which we loved.  This was a truly memorable evening.

Of course, these are just a few of the pictures we snapped with our phones.  I can't wait to see the photographer's photos when they come out soon!