Halloween 2014!

 Cat In The Hat with Thing 1 and Thing 2!

Our Trip to Disney!

We left right after school on Oct. 23 (Our 10th Wedding Anniversary) and drove to Milwaukee for Ava, Ryan and Grace's first flight!  (They got certificates to make it official!)  They did FANTASTIC!  Grace got a little antsy but eventually fell asleep!  Ava and Ryan were troopers as we didn't get into our hotel room until after  1am!  We were all extremely excited to see the hotel and get some sleep!  The next morning we got to explore the hotel and we were amazed!  We stayed at All Star-Movies Resort and in the "Toy Story" wing.  They had HUGE statues right outside our room of Woody and Buzz!  We also had an awesome housekeeper who "hid" our Mickey and Minnie's around the room each day, so we could "find" them in new and exciting places!  We LOVED our pool and swam daily. One night Ava, Ryan and I went to the Movie Under the Stars by the pool.  They showed Oliver and Company... and the kids thought the whole experience was so fun!  (It was an amazing and fun trip for all!  I loved seeing their excitement for everything and Kyle did such a fantastic job planning that everything went perfectly!)  Lots of memories made for sure!!

 

Beach Day-Trip to the Ocean!

We couldn't have asked for a more perfect "beach day"!  We drove from Orlando to Cocoa Beach. The kids got to see the ocean for the first time!  Although Grace didn't love the water, she ended up LOVING the sand.  Ava and Ryan had fun jumping and diving in the waves.  Ava accidently stepped on jelly fish that was already dead on the beach.  We thought that was going to be a fun story to tell until.... Ava, Ryan and Kyle were wading out into the water when they spotted a LIVE jellyfish!  Needless to say they all ran back to Grace and I and didn't go back into the water too much after that!  For lunch we stopped at this tiny, hard to find deli and it ended up being one of the highlights of the trip.  It was run by this ex ironworker who looked pretty tough, but was super nice.  He ended up giving us a great deal on lunch, gave us free onion rings (just because he had extra) and gave the kids (and Kyle) free popsicles for desert.  On the way home we stopped at a grocery store to pick up supplies for breakfast and snacks for the week.  This was a smart move and ended up saving us a lot of money on our food budget! 

 

A Magical Day at Magic Kingdom

This was best day ever!  We got to the park before it opened for our breakfast reservation at Cinderella's castle. Not only did this allow us to get AMAZING pictures of the park without very many people around, but it helped us get an awesome table for breakfast and visits with all the big princesses about every 5 minutes!  Ava (and mom) was in heaven!  Both Ava and Grace were given princess wands, Ryan was given a sword and all three were given "Wishing Stars".  Each princess spent a couple of minutes talking and taking pictures with us!  We almost forgot to eat... there was so much to look at!  As soon as we finished eating we left the castle just as the park was opening for the rest of the world.  We walked to our first ride, Buzz Light-year and found that we could just walk on... no wait.  Ryan loved it!  Then we went to Monsters Inc. Laugh Factory, the Teacups, It's A Small World, Peter Pan, Enchanted Tales with Belle (where Ava and Ryan were picked to be in the show!!) and the new roller coaster Seven Dwarfs Mine Train(Ryan and Ava's first REAL roller coaster--at the most exciting--Ryan was tall enough to ride!)  All of these things were with little or no wait thanks to early morning hours and Fast Passes!  For lunch we just packed a small picnic lunch that we ate at a small picnic area that looked to be from the movie Tangled. (We met the Monica's here and caught up about our trips so far!) We then went back to the hotel for swimming and pizza before returning later at night for more rides (Winnie The Pooh, Dumbo, Little Mermaid, Splash Mountain(for Ava and Kyle).  We stayed for the electrical parade but Ryan and Grace both fell asleep before it started, so we "watched" the fireworks as we walked to catch a bus back to our hotel.  It was a full and exhausting day, but it couldn't have gone any better!