Florida

Life just gets busier. I remember my Dad telling me that I will never have as much time in my life as I do now. So even though it's been busy since we got back from Florida with baby showers, baby-sitting, playing musical numbers in church, making quilt blocks, practicing to accompany students for Solo and Ensemble Festival, teaching, and sick kids, I'm still trying to catch up on posts. I figured I'd start with the most recent trip first, and then try to post some pics from Christmas. At the rate I'm going, I may have them up just before Easter! :)

Our flights to Orlando went well. I was very glad to have Eric with me this time (I flew with the kid by myself to and from Utah), and the kids did really well. They were very happy to finally be off the plane, finally get our rental car (after waiting for an hour and Mierae crying when we were trying to put her in because she said she wanted HER car), finally eat dinner (at Chipotle!), and finally get to see their cousins! Mierae was so excited to sleep with her cousins in their beds. What a great slumber party it was for four days!


The resort we stayed at, Regal Palms, is where my sister and her family have stayed the past few years each time they go to Florida. We were in a 4-bedroom condo with a full kitchen, 3 1/2 baths, and a TV/DVD in every room. But the pool is the highlight of it all. We had beautiful sunny weather for two days, and then cold sunny weather for two more. :) We tried to get in as much sun at the pool as we could, and on the day it was cold, we were warmer inside the heated pool than we would have been outside! But we would take the 60-degree weather over the single digits in Columbus anytime! The kids loved playing together in the water. It was Jolie's first time wearing Mierae's old floating vest, and she did great swimming around! We took lots of trips down the slide, dozens of rounds in the lazy river, and splashed even more in the big heated pool before relaxing in the hot tub.









(This next pic shows a tower in the background which is the waterslide.)




And of course they all had to take their bath together after swimming!



It was my brother-in-law Derek's birthday on Monday, so Sunday night we celebrated. The girls particularly enjoyed eating the chocolate birthday cake!



Mierae had worn herself out that day, though. When we were getting the cake ready, we wondered where Mierae was. Thinking that she was probably in trouble, we went looking for her. Eric found her upstairs and came down to tell me to come see her. This is what we found:


We just wished that she would put herself to bed like that every night! It was a little earlier than bedtime, though, so Julia got her up so she wouldn't miss birthday cake, and then Mierae wouldn't go back to bed until about midnight, of course. :)

Monday was the day we had been waiting for: Disney World's Magic Kingdom!!! Because it was a holiday, it was packed! But with my Disney World veteran brother-in-law Derek, we fast-passed all the busiest rides, and had a very successful day! The longest lines we waited in were the Dumbo ride right when we got to the park, and then the line for the tram to the parking lot after the park closed. :) Here are all the kids in their new Disney shirts.


And here are some highlights from our day of fun!


After riding the Snow White ride we waited in our first line for Dumbo



(Mierae loved being with her Aunt Rosie!)




Teacups (My sister Melodie and I specifically chose to stand this one out!)


Jungle River Cruise


Magic Carpet



It's A Small World (probably the girls' favorite)


Eric and I just after Splash Mountain


Buzz Lightyear


Winnie the Pooh



On Tom Sawyer Island




The Carousel!




Mierae pulling the sword from the stone!


We wanted Mierae to be able to ride the little roller coaster before we were done for the day, so after securing a spot for the light parade, a few of us ran back to Goofy's Barnstorm Roller Coaster.



I thought Mierae might have been scared when it went faster than I thought it would, so when we got off, I asked Mierae if it was fun. She punched her first in the air and yelled, "YES!" And from that "high," Mierae went onto my shoulders to see Mickey, Minnie, Cinderella, and lots of other special characters in the light parade.


Eric and I finished off the day with Space Mountain, right before it closed. We were both so glad we went to Magic Kingdom with my sister's family. They watched the girls while we went on the "bigger rides" (inc. Big Thunder Mountain) so that we could get in on our own fun too. Thanks so much for everything, Rosie and Derek and Mellie!!


The day after Disney World we took a trip to Downtown Disney and got to shop at the big toy stores and see some awesome stuff!! There is a new restaurant and store there called T-Rex.


The kids had an area just to themselves to dig for dinosaur bones!



After that we were on to other big things like the dragon made entirely of Legos!


Eric and I were impressed by this famous building made of Legos.


Mierae was in heaven when we arrived just outside the first toy store and she saw two life-size princesses!



Inside, Mierae headed straight to the Cinderella corner where she tried on every single size of glass slippers! Then a magic "fairy" came over to sprinkle Mierae in "pixie dust." What a fun store!


The next store had a build-your-own-Potato-Head section, along with tons of other toys, games, movies, books, etc. The girls both got to go up to the counter to buy their own Mr. Potato Head accessories: Jolie chose the princess and Mierae chose the doctor. We had given them each a $5 bill, and they had $1 left, so we hit the candy store on the way out and they each got a chocolate Mickey sucker to finish off our Disney shopping.


From Downtown Disney we said good-bye to my brother-in-law's parents who were going back to their home in Jacksonville. Here's all of us, except Melodie who took the picture.


It was hard to say good-bye to our cousins. Mierae cried most of Wednesday morning, saying how she wanted to go to Utah with her "friends." It was SUCH a fun time to be together with cousins. Ethan and Jolie especially got in some good bonding time.





Wednesday we had the day to ourselves since everyone else had gone and our flight didn't leave until the evening. We decided to drive to the coast and spend a little time on the beach. The closest place was Cocoa Beach, so we headed there.







It was so windy and cold, though, that after about five minutes on the sand, Mierae was crying to go back to the car and get warm.

We drove past Cape Canaveral and up to the Kennedy Space Center, but the girls fell asleep in the car and we wouldn't have had enough time to make the tour worth the money anyway, so all we got were these pictures:



We decided to just drive back to Orlando after that and find something to do while we waited a few more hours to go to the airport. There was a McDonald's playland just down the street from the car rental place, so we ended up playing there for about 2 hours!! And, of course, the kids couldn't have been more happy! Tunnels, slides, screaming, and ice cream sundaes: it was the best part of their day. :)

The flight home went as well as the flight there. The girls played well in the airports and enjoyed being on the plane, for the most part. During our layover in Atlanta, a nice man came up to me in the food area and asked if I could use his food voucher; he didn't need it. It was so nice! We fed our whole family Chinese food from his voucher, and we were very grateful. We headed to our gate just before boarding time only to find out the gate had been changed! We had to go to a different terminal. I was panicking, but we got there quickly and then found out there was a delay. The kids were very tired by now. We got them on the plane and Mierae fell asleep before we even took off. Jolie on the other hand did what she did on my flight to Utah: she stayed awake the whole flight and then fell asleep just before we landed! But we were very happy when the girls transfered from the plane, to the stroller, to the car, to their beds without waking up!

We're still trying to recover from our trips, but it's nice to be home and sleeping in our own beds. Now we just need to find Jolie a better place to sleep than the closet.