Scott and Emily Go to Florida

In October Scott and I celebrated our 10th anniversary.  For the past couple of years Scott and I thought we would like to go on a trip for our 10th anniversary, just the two of us.  We weren't sure we would be able to do it this year with Scott switching jobs, but his job has been great and very flexible about him taking a week long trip.  And getting time off from MY job, was another thing. :)  Up until this past summer I have never been away from any of the kids even overnight.  I went on a few house hunting trips this summer, taking just Emma with me and leaving the bigger four, but before that, never.  We thought we'd wait a few months after our anniversary for Emma to be a little bit older before we left her.  The few months made a difference 'cause she stopped nursing in that time and started sleeping a lot better at night.  Now she is 15 months old.  So we made plans to go on a trip.  My parents watched the kids for us for a week and shuttled the kids around to their various activities, helped with homework and held everything together.  I was nervous to leave them, but it all worked out.  So here are Scott and I on our trip.  We went to Orlando.  Scott and I met in Florida and visited Walt Disney World frequently while we lived there, so its a special place for us.

Day 1: Traveling and Disney Springs.  We flew from Salt Lake to Orlando on the day of the big snow storm on the east coast.  Luckily none of our flights were impacted. Phew.  We got our rental car and went to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney).  It was cold that day for Orlando (storm effect) - maybe in the high 30s.  But we didn't care.  Vacation!!  I bought a small purse just for the trip.  I didn't bring my gigantic mom purse.

We took a lot of selfies on this trip.

Me and a Lego Friend at Disney Springs.  We went to a favorite sandwich place there and had a sundae at Ghirardelli  (will be going to Ghirardelli San Francisco and Monterey locations after we move...HOORAY!!)  Then we headed to our hotel on the Disney property.

Day 2: Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom

Hollywood Studios has my two favorite sick maker rides - Tower of Terror and Star Tours.  I get motion sickness on those two, but we still went on them a bunch of times.  No vomiting.  Hooray!  And we went on just about everything else in the park plus some fun meals (Brown Derby is great and Dine In Sci Fi is another favorite).

Ready to go on Midway Mania

Scott got a super high score.

We went on everything a bunch of times by late afternoon and decided to head to Magic Kingdom since it was open late.

Main Street!  We're there!

We got stuck on the People Mover right before the exit.  It was harrowing. Almost died at Disney!

Dole Whips are a must at Disney and you can tell we've matured since our earlier visits 'cause we didn't eat them for breakfast.  Adulting!

We stayed late and were able to go on a ton of rides that day.  Almost everything.

Day 3: EPCOT

One of my favorite rides, Soarin', was closed.  :(  A whole ride that's an homage to California.  I heard they are re-doing it to be not just about California.  Double :(  It was hard to decide where to eat.  So many good options.

We ate lunch in Morocco.  And dinner in Japan.  And visited all our favorite things in EPCOT.

Day 4: Universal (both parks)

We had a fun time at Universal.  They have a Harry Potter land in both of their parks now (Diagon Alley in one and Hogsmeade + Hogwarts in the other).  And the Hogwarts express connecting them.  Scott and I are big Harry Potter fans, so we loved it.  It was kind of neat seeing so many people there of different nationalities excited to see the Harry Potter lands and talking about it animatedly in their native languages.

Inside universal.  My friend from back home just put up some pictures of her and her kids by the actual Hollywood sign.  So here we are by a picture of it.  :)

We enjoyed the Simpsons Land there too.

Scott and I are also big Simpsons fans.  It was one of the first things we bonded over.  Don't judge us.

And here we are at the entrance to Diagon Alley.

At the Leaky Cauldron with some butter beer (non-alcoholic)

Gringotts in the background

In front of Gringott's (the wizard bank and new Harry Potter ride).  That ride was amazing and another sick maker.  We went on it a bunch.

 Getting ready to ride to Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express.

We went on everything in Universal and they have a lot of 3-D and "4-D" rides now (think Star Tours but way more movement).  The rides were cool and I didn't throw up.  So success.  After a full day of that I was ready to be done for the day.  So we could rest up and do it again tomorrow.

Day 5: Universal (both parks)

One of my favorite things was the new Hogwarts Express ride - the train that takes Harry Potter and the other students from London to school.  It was cool and when you are going from King's Cross Station to Hogwarts you get to walk through the wall to platform 9 3/4.  Just like in the book.  So cool!!  Here I am disappearing into the barrier between 9 and 10.  Best do it at a bit of a run.  :)  Have I mentioned we are Harry Potter fans?

Hedwig

Inside Hogwarts

And outside Hogwarts.  On our second day at Universal it rained.  We were ready for it and had ponchos with us.  The rain cleared the park out a bit too.

I almost died...again  But still no vomiting.

Scott started reading Jurassic Park again after our trip.  :)

Day 6: Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom (the Disneyland Park of Walt Disney World) has the most to do and is usually the busiest.  We were there right when the park opened and got to be one of the first ones on the Seven Dwarves Mine Train.  We had already been on it the night we went after Hollywood Studios and we got to go on it several times later.  So it was great!

Here we are getting ready to eat at the Be Our Guest restaurant - Beauty and the Beast themed.

It's always snowing in there.

It was wet that day.  We were at the park from open until close and went on everything.   We got pretty wet from the knees down, but it wasn't too bad.  Our shoes dried eventually.

Possibly Jungle Cruise

Incidentally, THE BEST rides to go on in the rain are Big Thunder Mountain and the Seven Dwarves Mine Train.  They are both outside and we were getting pummeled by rain.  We couldn't stop laughing.

We got another Dole Whip (also not for breakfast) and got to see parades and fireworks and go on lots of rides.  This is a good time of year to go.   Which is part of why we chose this time.

Day 7: Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom doesn't take that long to get through, especially since one of the rides we like was closed.  So we spent about a half day there then went to Disney Springs and watched a movie.

Tough to Be a Bug show

Animals on safari

Hippos

Giraffes

Rhinos

Day 8: Traveling back to Utah

There was new snow to greet us in Utah and we were happy to get back to the kids.

Phew!  It was fun to have a vacation (my first day off parenting in nearly nine years).  It was so nice of my parents to watch our crew and make it all possible!  Hopefully it won't be another ten years until our next vacation together.  :)

Wintry Mix

or some of our wintertime adventures.

We've gotten a bit of snow so far in the new year.  The kids play a lot in the snow, even though we don't have a lot of snow gear here.  We don't have any snow pants or boots here and I don't want to buy more because a) we have some in storage and b) we're moving to California.  So their shoes, socks and pants are always soaking wet after the snow play.  John and I built this little snow man.  John wanted to break the snow man up soon after this (Grant style).

Grant stole the late snowman's carrot nose.

He loves carrots.

 Our little sled run went through various stages of snowiness.

The kids still had a lot of fun with it.

 John was upset that I pushed him down the ramp before he was ready (I thought he was ready!)  He never quite recovered from this perceived slight.

He was upset after that...and cold.  So he came inside.

Hot chocolate is the cure-all for any winter related sadness.

The more marshmallows the better

 

And guess who is a new sunbeam?  John!!

On his first day of class he cried a lot.  He cried when I dropped him off but his teachers helped him feel better.  When he went to sharing time (when all the primary classes meet together) I tried to peek in to see if he was doing better.  But he saw me.  Then the tears started again.  :(  I was debating whether I should go in because I could hear him crying, "I want mommy!" But Matthew went right over and sat by him (with the other sunbeams) and put his arm around him.  And John felt better.  Matthew sat with him for the whole last hour.  Big brothers rule.  Thanks Matthew!

And new year...new after school activities.

Anna started a new dance class.  She loves it so far and has been having a lot of fun.

Matthew started basketball.  He's enjoying it and learning a lot I think. Anna also wanted to play basketball, but the league for her grade happened in the fall when her arm was still broken.  :(

Here he is showing off some moves at basketball practice.  Matthew and Anna have also both joined the choir at their school and are excited about that.  And they are both taking a chemistry class that goes for a couple months plus a computer (coding) class.  Matthew is still doing cub scouts too.  So we've got activities galore right now.  I hope I can keep up.

John's latest obsession is the car shopping carts at one of the local stores.  Any time we go shopping he wants to know if he can ride in it.  While we were at Target the other day he asked me repeatedly, for the entire trip, if we would be going to the store with the car shopping carts next.  He wouldn't take no for an answer. 

One night after dinner I took all the kids to that store to get ice cream.  John abandoned his cone pretty early.  Matthew took it over for him.  Another big brother save!

The kids took turns in the beloved car shopping cart.

John was happy to share it.

Grant on the way to school!  He loves conquering that snow mountain in the front yard.

Grant earns many treats at his preschool class.  The other day he came home with two bags of Skittles he had won.  He wanted to make Skittle cookies with them.  I'd never heard of such a thing, but we tried it.  The Skittle part started to melt and made the cookies really hard and crunchy after they cooled.  They tasted good though.

Grant is Mr. Mischief these days.  Lately he's always trying to jump on my back when I'm least expecting it and then he'll just laugh and order me around while he hangs on for dear life.  He'll try to trick me into sitting down so its easier for him to jump on ("Mom, come sit by me!" or "Mom, I want to show you something.").  Sometimes I humor him and carry him around for a while after he tricks me.  He thinks its hilarious.  Here he is taking a selfie while catching a ride on the mom train.

Oh, Grant!!

And Emma is growing so much.  She enjoys looking at books and taking care of her baby dolls.  She's getting more of a sense of humor and likes to play peek-a-boo type games a lot.  She wants to do what the bigger kids are doing.

And she's walking pretty well now.  So grown up.

More winter adventures to come.

Picture a Day 2015

Here is our Picture-a-Day Video for 2015.  What a year it's been!
This video has one picture from each day of the year, plus some videos, so its a little long.
Making this video was a huge pain this year and took many days.  I use iMovie but the latest version of it caused me so much trouble this year I may use something else next year.  Some of my pictures were showing up as just a green screen when I exported the movie so I had to watch through the entire thing many many times to make sure each photo was showing up correctly.  I got so sick of the music that I kept changing it and now it probably seems kind of random.  Anyway, here is the finished video, finally.  If you see a messed up photo tell me.  :)
Some notable events of our year - Matthew got baptized in February.  Scott had his last active duty day in the Air Force in April (and started his new job in CA shortly thereafter).  We moved away from Illinois in May.  We searched for a house several times over the summer and took a trip to Oregon in July.  Anna broke her arm in September - she grimaces every time she sees that photo and wants me to take it out of the video - but I've left it in.  Poor Anna.  And Emma started walking in December.   Please enjoy this review of our year!!

And if you can't bear the thought of watching 9 whole minute of video of us, here is an edited, fast, version (only 3:20 minutes) as a special bonus.
And the music selection on this second one is for my kids.  They can not get enough of this song.