Gabe's 9th birthday, Easter, and more

The past month has flown by! The highlights were Gabe's birthday and Easter.

When we got back from Florida on March 10th, we had told Gabe, "Your birthday is coming up in two weeks, but we just got back from Disney World so we aren't join to do a huge birthday party this year." So we let him choose two friends from his class (he chose Caden and Carter) and we took them (and Caleb) to iJump in Idaho Falls on the Saturday before his birthday. It's this giant indoor trampoline gym. So Josh went in there with the four boys while Avery and I went to Kohl's for the hour. ;) Then after that we all went out to lunch at Lucy's Pizzeria. It was a very low-stress party. I didn't have to plan anything or clean anything up.

Then somehow I got roped into helping out with the Miss Rexburg pageant. A lady I know just a little bit who is in charge of the whole thing asked me to help. So that's the random picture of the girl I was in charge of like, "hostessing" (helping get dressed, help with hair, etc.) and coincidentally she won! lol It was all because of me I'm sure...

This past week we celebrated Easter. It just so happened to fall on General Conference weekend, so we had a nice, relaxing, stay-at-home four day weekend. The kids only had Friday off for their "Spring Break" so we didn't leave town or anything. On Saturday, we did our little neighborhood Easter egg hunt at the elementary school. The Boyter's went down to Utah for conference, so they weren't there. So it ended up that my two boys were the oldest ones. I hid special football and basketball shaped eggs for them to find (and we hid them a lot harder around the playground than the ones for all the toddler girls!) The other kids that were there were Avery, Kendalin (Milner), Harper (Hemsley - but her mom was in the hospital recovering from having her her baby sister the day before! So it was Ryan and his mom that brought Harper and I hid her eggs) and then also Evan (Buis) and I think that was it! Shalee was going to come with her girls, but then they got sick so she didn't bring them. It was perfect though I thought. The little girls had fun each finding their 20 eggs and the boys were seriously challenged finding all their 20 eggs! haha Way more fun than the cry Easter egg hunts that are over in 30 seconds.

Then on Sunday morning the Easter Bunny came and hid the boys' baskets in the playhouse and Avery's behind the living room curtains. They east got a book in their basket, the boys each got a small nerd gun, Avery got chalk and bubbles, and then some candy, goldfish, and treats. Caleb had his gone the fastest. ;) (as usual) I think Gabe still has some of his left.

Other little things that happened were that we went to the new Cal Ranch store (they moved into the old Kmart) and they had all their baby chicks and baby bunnies. So that was fun for the kids to see. Also, Avery ended with her toddler preschool on April 2. She was so sad. She loved it! I had gotten her on the waiting list for Spring session about a month ago, but they told me she wouldn't have a very good chance of getting in again since she had already done it. But then they called me just yesterday and said they had someone cancel so she could come again in the Spring! yay! It's basically this preschool they do at the college where the college girls who are studying to be teachers have to plan all the lessons and activities for the kids. But they are so young and gung-ho that they always do such a good job! And Avery loves playing with the kids and at the little playground they have so I am so happy she can go again May-July. It's just twice a week, for about an hour each time, but it's so fun for her.

That's all the updates for now!

Here are a few pictures! (Me and caleb swapped clothes one day - that's the first picture.. scary that we almost have the same size waist… hahaha)
Oh and I am also redoing Avery's bedroom - we painted her Oak furniture white and we are going have a mural painted on her wall! The tree picture and some sort of castle… I am hiring an art student from the college to do it so we'll hopefully have pictures of that to show next time! Here are the befores!

Disney World!

I have to write all about our Disney trip while it is still fresh in my mind! We got back from our big trip yesterday afternoon. Our flight landed in SLC at about 9am (but 11am Florida time) and then we drove up to Rexburg. We have been buried in laundry ever since. ;)

So here is my summary!

Friday, February 27
As soon as the boys got home from school, we had the car all loaded up and ready to go! We drove to Utah and had dinner at Culvers with Stacey and Kamrie. Then we stayed at Kamrie's aunt's house overnight.

Saturday, February 28
We woke up and Stacey and I went shopping in the morning. Around noon we all went out to lunch at Noodles and Company, then headed towards the airport. We got checked in about 3:30 and our flight left at 5pm to go straight into Orlando. Funny coincidence, we ran into an old friend from Apex sales days named Paul Haynie. He was on a layover, heading home to New Zealand!
The flight was just under four hours long and Avery was kind of hard to keep entertained. But we had movies, coloring books, toys, and snacks and somehow we made it! The boys were happy with their iPads and iPods. All three kids stayed awake the whole flight! We landed in Orlando at about 11 pm (9pm Idaho time), got our rental car (but got a free upgrade to a small SUV because all the full-size ones were gone), and drove to our rental home. The Dials had gotten there already by 4:30 pm (they were already at the home before we even took off in SLC) and were asleep when we arrived.

Sunday, March 1
We had planned on doing Cocoa Beach this day, but it was cloudy and the weather looked better for the beach on Wednesday, so we decided to go to Epcot instead! It kind of was a spur of the moment decision so this day was kind of crazy. Charm and I were trying to switch our fast passes around and get things figured out. We got to the park around 10am and we spent the whole day just in the front of the park! I couldn't believe we didn't even crack the surface of going around to all the countries! But we did Soarin', Test Track, Finding Nemo, some stuff in Innoventions, Spaceship Earth, Mission Space, and a few other things and we were busy the whole time. We ate lunch in Mexico but that was the only country we even set foot in! Then we actually went home around 6 for dinner and came back for the fireworks. The boys LOVED Test Track, which I swear they have made cooled since the last time I was there. Now you can design your own virtual car and the ride itself is more in the dark and like a roller coaster. I loved Soarin' the best. It makes you feel like you are actually hang gliding over some beautiful scenery, which you see on a huge IMAX screen.

Somewhere around 3:00 am…. Avery barfed in bed all over me and Josh. Then continued to throw up numerous times throughout the night and into the morning. Josh and I didn't get much sleep.

Monday, March 2
Josh decided to stay home with Avery while I went with the boys and the Dials to Hollywood Studios. We got there right as the park opened and went right to Rock N Rollercoaster. Everyone LOVED it. Right after that I did Tower of Terror with the boys (I had fast passes but the Dials didn't) and then we went and did the Great Movie Ride. Right after that we played in the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" playground, which the boys loved. Then we all met up and ate lunch and headed over to see the cars stunt show. I had never seen that before and though it was pretty cool. The little boys loved it too. After that ended, I took the boys home while the Dials used their Tower fast passes for 2pm, and I stayed home with Avery while Josh went back with the boys. She did throw up just once at about 3pm, but then slept a lot and seemed better by Monday night. She didn't get to go to Hollywood Studios at all, poor girl. I had wanted her to see the Disney Junior stage show and the Little Mermaid one, but oh well. She's seen them on You Tube! ;) But they would've been so fun in person. Josh got to do the Toy Story Mania, Star Tours, Indiana Jones show, and a few other things with the boys in the evening. The Toy Story ride was the only thing I didn't get to do that I had never done before. Oh well, maybe next time! We still got quite a lot done with having a sick child!

Tuesday, March 3
Magic Kingdom Day! I was the most excited to take the kids here, so I was glad Avery was feeling better! We got there right as the park was opening at 9am and immediately headed into Adventureland. We did the Swiss Family treehouse, Jungle Cruise, Magic Carpets of Aladdin, Pirates of the Caribbean,  Splash Mountain, and Big Thunder Railroad. We kind of split from Devin and Charm after Splash Mountain because our fast passes were a little different. They did the Tom Sawyer island, which I don't think my boys ever got a chance to do! They would've loved it too. I wish I could go back and change that hour or two because we ended up walking over into Fantasyland to see if we could get into lunch at the restaurant "Be Our Guest", only to find out that they were now a strict RESERVATIONS ONLY restaurant. :( So then we went all the way back to Adventureland and ate at Pecos Bill's. It was good, but we wasted a lot of time throughout that process.
Then after lunch we went over into Tomorrowland and did Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, the Stitch ride, the People Mover (well, not everyone did that, but me and Avery and Brinley did! ;) and they did the race cars too. Somewhere in there, I took Avery over to meet Cinderella and Rapunzel. It actually worked out really well the whole time because I would reserve fast passes for the big rides for just Josh and the boys, and then I would make my fast passes to meet princesses at the same time. Then if I wanted to ride the big ride, they would give me a rider switch pass to skip the lines and quick ride it again with the boys. It worked out really well. I really hadn't planned on meeting a lot of characters, but we ended up meeting TONS! Avery really lit up every time we met characters, so I ended up making it more of a priority than I had planned on. She ended up meeting the following:
Cinderella
Rapunzel
Ariel
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White
Belle
Tinker-bell
Anna
Elsa
Chip and Dale
Mickey Mouse
So yeah…. about 10 more than I had planned on meeting! haha
The very first one that she met was Cinderella, and it was probably the most "magical moment" of all. I had to walk quite a ways with Avery in her stroller to get to where were going to meet Cinderella and Rapunzel at "Fairytale hall". I was going to fast that I didn't even look down and see that she had fallen asleep until we got there. I had to park the stroller before I could go in, so I lifted her out and she stayed asleep on my shoulder the whole time I stood in line. We had fast passes, so we only had to wait about 10 minutes, but I decided to let her sleep as long as possible. My plan was to wake her up right before it was her turn to meet Cinderella. Pretty soon she was next in line, so I tried to set her down and wake her up. She just did NOT want to keep her eyes open. Next thing I knew, Cinderella steps up to us and is like, "Well hello! Who do we have here?" And Avery is still totally asleep on my shoulder. I'm like, "I'm sorry, she fell asleep. I can't get her to even wake up!" Cinderella says, "Can I hold her?" so I hand her off into Cinderella's arms. Cinderella takes Avery in her arms and kneels down in the floor, her big poofy dress all around, and starts to stroke Avery's hair saying, "Wake up, Princess…" It was absolutely adorable. Avery kind of slowly cracked one eye open and saw Cinderella holding her. She looked at her and was kind of just like, "Wow, Cinderella is holding me…." and put her head back down on her chest. It was soooo cute. We snapped some sleepy pictures of the whole thing, then I went and got her back from Cinderella and walked over to meet Rapunzel (right on the other side of the room.) So in those pictures she is awake and sitting on Rapunzel's lap, but she's still looking pretty serious. That whole Cinderella moment though was my favorite thing. Aside from meeting princesses, Avery's other favorite thing was riding the "horsey's" (the carousel).

The boys loved Splash Mountain, Space Mountain and the Seven Dwarves Mine Train. We didn't spend a lot of time in Fantasyland on Tuesday, so when my family went back on Saturday we spent a little time there. But we never did do some of the smaller rides, like Carousel of Progress, Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan. We did do the Haunted Mansion, It's a Small World, Dumbo, the Barnstormer, the train, the new Little Mermaid ride, and a few more. On Tuesday, we left Magic Kingdom around 7pm because everyone was exhausted. Josh also was starting to feel sick…. and had me pull over on the way home. He barfed in the bushes near the stoplight. It was magical. ;) We came home and he went right to bed and slept all night long.

(she wasn't so sure about riding the Magic Carpets at first…)

Wednesday, March 4
Beach Day! Luckily Josh only threw up that one time in the bushes. Wednesday he said he was tired, but he still was ok. It wasn't too hard of a day that we had planned, which was good. We slept in and then woke up, ate breakfast, and drove to Cocoa Beach. The weather was great - it could have even been a little bit warmer even. It was about 82 and sunny, so it was still good. The kids all swam in the ocean and Avery spent most of her time building sand castles. The water was pretty cold. She didn't want to really go in at all. I was starting to feel like my stomach was kind of weird, so I didn't even eat anything for breakfast or lunch. I was okay at the beach, but just not feeling too great. Then on the way home I really started to feel sick. I went into our room and fell asleep (didn't eat dinner; they all ordered pizza) and then it was my turn to throw up that night at about 9:30. I threw up two or three times, but then was asleep by midnight and slept the whole night.

Thursday, March 5
Animal Kingdom! I woke up at about 7:00 and felt like I could still sleep another five hours. I decided to try and just tough it out and go to Animal Kingdom with everyone. We got there at about 9 and they did the Dinosaur ride first. I tried not to pass out as I followed Avery around in the Boneyard and rode "Triceratops Spin" (basically like the Dumbo the flying elephant ride but with dinosaurs… not very wise for a person who is already having the stomach flu…) Then we all did the safari, which is basically one of the coolest things at Animal Kingdom. After that it was about noon and I felt like I could barely go on, so I had Josh take me home. I didn't need to throw up, I just felt soooo weak and exhausted. So then he went back with the kids and met up with the Dials again while I slept the rest of the afternoon. They did everything else that we had fast passes for (Expedition Everest, Kali River Rapids) and a few other things I think. Animal Kingdom closes at 5pm so they were home by 4:30 and that night we barbecued. It really wasn't worth it for us to rent the BBQ since we only used it that one time, but that one meal sure was good! Charm basically made it all (and Devin grilled) since Josh and I were the two sickies. We had grilled chicken, potatoes, salad, and fruit. It was the best meal I had the whole time, with the exception of dinner at Be Our Guest. Yes! We did finally get in! It was crazy. I real hadn't expected to get dinner reservations because I had researched it online and everyone said it was next to impossible, but I was looking at it the night or two before and I saw one open up for five people at 6:25 on Friday so I quick grabbed it with my phone ap! More on that below….

Friday, March 6
So this day was me and Avery's special breakfast with the princesses! Honestly, I really hadn't thought we would meet so many princesses in the parks and that was why I had scheduled this breakfast originally, but in retrospect, I probably could have cancelled this. The food was good and everything, but not worth the crazy price. Luckily I only had to pay for myself because kids under three are free. (Though I did get weird looks every time I said Avery was only 2 - she does NOT look 2. But I swear she is! Don't let the 39 inches tall and the hair almost halfway down her back deceive you! lol) But just for me, it was still $44! So an even $50 with the tip included! Pretty pricey for some scrambled eggs, cheesy hash browns, bacon, fruit and yogurt. It was fun to see the princesses. They all came around one at a time and took a picture with Avery at our table. We had met Belle as we were going in, the Cinderella, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White came around the room. But by this day we had already met Cinderella, Ariel, and Belle, so it was really just Sleeping Beauty and Snow White that we didn't have pictures with! So I hope you all appreciate these two pictures. They cost me $25 each. ;) (Can you tell I am so cheap and that kills me to think about?! haha)

Here are a few more cute ones from breakfast. (There was a different Belle, Ariel, and Cinderella there from the ones we had seen at Magic kingdom, though I did think the Ariel's looks really alike!)

After the breakfast, we met up with the rest of our group. The Dials were using this day as their last park day and they wanted to walk around to the countries, which we hadn't gotten to on Sunday, so we did a quick walk around the world, My favorite stop was in France at the bakery. ;) I got this mocha mousse thing that Avery stole from me and polished off. (She knows good desserts) Then by about 1pm my family left Epcot and went home to eat lunch, swim, take a little break before our big dinner at the Beast's castle. Devin's sister, Annalee, drove down with her family this day and got there by about 4pm. So then the Dials were going to hang out with them in the evening and for the rest of the weekend.

Our dinner reservation for "Be Our Guest"was at 6:25, so we left for the Magic Kingdom at about 5:00. I put Avery into her special Belle dress, hoping to get the perfect picture of her with the Beast. You can see how that turned out here:

Yes, I am unfortunately in the picture - ruining the theme. Avery had been more that happy to be in pictures with princesses, but would she stand alone next to an eight foot tall beast? Nope. No chance. So there I am as her protector, lol.
Dinner at Be Our Guest was probably my second favorite magical moment, after the sleepy Cinderella encounter. The whole beast's castle is new to the Magic Kingdom. And to be honest, you don't actually go into a life-sized castle. It's more like, you see the castle in the distance before you go in (they have it situated up on a mountainside and the perspective of it makes you think it's actually a real castle from far away, but it's probably only a few feet tall if you were actually able to get right up best to it.) But what you are actually going into is the big iron gates, then this like, boulder looking cave with the stain-glass doors. Then once you go in, they have it decorated to look just like it did in the movie - huge ballroom with chandeliers, etc. They even have a room called the "West wing" that has the rose in the glass thing and a picture on the wall that changes to the beast/prince when "lightning strikes". It's pretty cool.

(Cinderella's castle - actually a castle you can walk through….)

(Beast's Castle - a trickery of perspective in the distance, not actually able to get to it… probably a few feet tall…)

Tried "the gray stuff"… it was delicious….

Yes, I also took a picture of all the other desserts. I'm cool like that.

After our dinner, the boys went to ride Splash Mountain again and I was miraculously able to get a fast pass to meet Anna and Elsa. I totally had LEAST expected to meet these two, because I heard people saying they waited in line for hours to meet them. I waited about 5 minutes with my fast passes. Nice. We even had time to ride Avery's favorite ride again - the carousel. Then we met the boys up at the front flagpole to watch the Electric Parade (which I also fast passed to get a  good viewing spot - yes they even set aside a fast pass space for viewing parades). Friday night is was soooo chilly! We had on sweatshirts and were still cold. I think it was like 57 degrees. That was the only time we were cold on our trip. Every other day was pretty warm - like 70s or 80s. As soon as the parade ended, we hurried out and beat the crowds!

Saturday, March 7
Am I still working on this one blog entry?! Yes. I am. I feel like I am getting more detailed as I am going on too…
I need to sum this up!
So we decided to go back to the Magic Kingdom one last time on Saturday. We had to check out of our rental home with the Dials by 11am, so we got everything packed up and cleaned up and said good-bye to them at like 10:45am. Then they drove off with their cousins and went and did their own thing for the last two two days of their trip. We ate lunch, and then headed over to Magic Kingdom and were just there from about 1pm - 4pm. I really wanted to do the new Little Mermaid ride because it was new since I had been there last and all week it had been closed for refurbishment and had just opened on Saturday! So we did that first, then the boys did Splash Mountain again (they really loved that!) and Avery met TinkerBell, and we all met Mickey Mouse. We caught the tail end of a parade and then we were outta there. I was officially all Magic Kingdom'ed out. My only regret was that we didn't get to play on Tom Sawyer's Island. That would have been fun. But it was Saturday and the crowds were huge and we were just ready to drive to the beach.

Here is the ride where Josh broke his sunglasses… don't be fooled by the overjoyed expression, it didn't last unfortunately…. he was sad when he saw his broken sunglasses in the backpack...

Last Disney moment for a long time….

We arrived at our hotel in Madeira Beach around 8pm and got checked in. The hotel itself was pretty small - maybe 20 rooms total - but it was right on the sand and so that was perfect! The room was clean and it was fine, but seemed small after being a house all week.

Sunday, March 8
Gulf Beach Day - Looking back, I wish we would've spent the morning on the beach too, but we were afraid the kids would get burnt out on it and be sick of it by the time my dad got there. So we took them to this place called John's Pass where we walked around at some gift shops and walked out on the pier. The highlight was this saltwater taffy shop. We left the boys each get a little bag full. I wish we would've bought more, it was so good. Then we went back to the hotel, ate some sandwiches for lunch, and my dad came at about 1:30. We spent the afternoon playing the water and collecting sea shells. It was 5:00 before I knew it. Avery loved the water this day and kept walking out deeper and deeper. She was up to her chin and I made her come back in and she screamed at me. She is a total water baby. I think the water here was a little warmer than it had been at Cocoa Beach. There were also tons more shells. Gabe collected a bunch to take back and share with his class. Then we went out to dinner with my dad and he had to head back after that. It was a really fun beach day.

Monday, March 9
We checked out of the Schooner Hotel around 10:30am and then drove north up the coast to Clearwater Beach. They had a playground there that we played at for a while and then we just kind of walked around a little bit. Then we said goodbye to the beach and continued on our way back to Orlando. We ate a late lunch at Red Lobster and got to our hotel then at about 4pm. I had booked us a hotel near the airport for our very last night in Florida because we had to take off at 6am on Tuesday. The hotel actually turned out to be a pleasant surprise because I think I paid about $50 for it and it was pretty nice! We went and swam in the pool for a while then went out and got Jimmy John's for dinner and stopped at a grocery store to buy some snacks for the plane. Then we were in bed by 9:00! It was a little tight with five people and only 2 full-sized beds, but we had to wake up at 3am to head to the airport anyways! The airplane ride home went really well - Avery slept the whole time, and Caleb slept most of it, but his ears were bothering him the last couple of days and on the plane he really freaked out during take off. Once we got home we took him to the doctor and found out her has a pretty good ear infection! (oops… bad parenting…) But if we would've taken him to the doctor in FL it would've cost an arm and a leg! Glad he is on the mend now and we have made it home safe and sound!!

I now need to go work on some Etsy stuff and get to bed! Phew! I am glad I got this all recorded! It will probably be a long time before we do Disney World again. I am thinking maybe a Disney Cruise will be our next big adventure….