Day 4 - burning up the night time

Today we went to a really cool beach at a park called Calidesi Island. We had to drive an hour and a half to get there and then take a ferry boat over to the island. They limit the time you can spend there to 4 hours, but that was just the right amount of time because by that time we were perfectly sunburned. Note to self, *reapply, *reapply, and *reapply!! We saw a big turtle just walking right in front of the concession stand and also gathered a lot of cool sea shells. Another important note is that you should always wear sandals when walking on boardwalks!! We had to run down the walkway and Sydney was screaming in pain because the wood was so hot. It was not a pretty sight. My feet still hurt hours after that event. Yikes!! The beach was beautiful and the water was so warm, it was a dream day.

After our long car ride home (and a good nap for the kids on the way) we went to Downtown Disney for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. That place is always busy, and I think Saturday night would qualify for the busiest night of the week. By the time we got there at 7:30, it was a 2 hour wait! But I still took the reservation time and we decided after a little bit to go to Planet Hollywood instead. We waited 45 minutes to get in there, by walking around the shops, and then when we got seated, the restaurant was way too loud and we left. Perhaps that is a sign we are getting old or something, but it was definately not the place we wanted to be. So we waited an hour longer and finally got our seat at the Rainforest Cafe. Despite the late dinner time (9:40!) the kids did really good.... until the end when Zack realized there was another "storm" coming on at the restaurant and he started to cry. We quickly exited the restaurant right as it was starting to rumble.

Day 3 - How I got that bad sunburn...

It was a lazy day today, due to the late night yesterday. We decided to go shopping, play golf and then Alan would be meeting up with his friends for dinner.
Let me just start by saying, despite how fun and adventurous the mini golf course promises to be, it will still be about 800 degrees in the sun. HOT HOT HOT It was so darn hot it was almost unbearable. Having said that, we decided that the Adventure Golf was for us, and we started playing at 1pm. Playing is really a loose term as the kids just rolled the balls along and I just tried to make it through the course without having heat stroke. We all had sunburns in the shape of our tank tops when we left.
When we went shopping, Zack decided to spend his Disney Dollars (he had earned $10) on a Car's canteen, that had a water ring toss game in it. Fun! Sydney got a Princess beach towel.
It was bath night and Alan went out to dinner with some friends that live in the area. He went to a Cuban restaurant in Celebration, and the kids watched Toy Story at the house.

Day 2 - Disney World!!

Since it was a weekday, we decided at the last minute to go to the Magic Kingdom in Disney. We got to the gates around 9:30 and it was even hot at that time of the morning. The first ride we went on the was the parking lot tram, then the boat, and finally made it to the park! Once in the park we headed to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, spinning cups. Next it was the Winnie the Pooh ride, and Sydney started to cry about the Wuzzles and Heffalumps being scarey! She said "I never want to go on that ride again". Seconds later we were surprised in the gift shop by Disney employees telling us that we had all won Dream Fast Passes! They were pretty cool - we could go to the Fast Past rides at any time we wanted to (just once). Too bad a lot of the rides were for big kids, but still, it was a great prize. During that day, Sydney spent much time begging to go shopping and spend her "Disney Dollars" (she had $12) and Zack just wanted to go on the race cars!
We tried to go into an attraction called Mickey's Philharmagic, and found out that it was a very dark, loudy and scarey ride! In fact we left after just about a minute of it. I don't blame them, it was pretty darn intense. So we would be well rested, we went back to our house for lunch and rest, and then by 3pm we were back at the park. It was not crowded at all, and a picture session with Pooh was about the longest time we waited (20 mins). The kids loved the race cars, and Buzz Lightyear laser ride. Zack was a much braver kid than Sydney and his absolute favorite ride was Goofy's Barnstormer roller coaster! He also enjoyed the Dumbo ride and the People Mover. We did have a problem on the People Mover- it broke down in the dark area as you enter into Space Mountain. That would have been a total disaster had it not been for Alan's pocket flashlight, which kept the kids from being afraid. It seemed like we were stuck forever, but it was probably about 20 minutes.
When it started getting dark we headed to see the light parade. However, so did about a million other people and it was so crowded we couldn't see it. The fireworks went off right over our head, and they were pretty. We stayed until the park closed, at 11pm. What a busy day, we were all exhausted, but had a lot of fun!

Day 1 - Florida Trip... we have to get up how early??

We started our trip to Florida at 4:20 am. yep, that early. We haven't been up that early since the kids were still drinking bottles. Anyhow, we decided to just dress the kids in their outfits when they went to bed last night, so we just picked them up out of bed at 5am and stuck them in the car. I figured that with the lack of sleep they would just be sleeping the whole plane ride. Well much to our surprise, the kids were up and raring to go and never slept once. Oops, I didn't even bring any entertaining toys or books for the plane because I thought we didn't need them. Even so the kids did a great job on the plane ride and never cried once even when we put them in the car at 5am.
Since we had such an early flight we arrived in Florida at 11am, but our house wouldn't be ready until 4pm. So we took a trip over to Downtown Disney. It was hot hot hot! But the kids had fun going to Lego Land and racing cars. After hanging out and shopping for a little while, we went to our house. It was a really nice house, with a big - no *huge* - TV. And a home theatre system, with 250 DVD changer. Now if we could just figure out how to turn it on!
We had dinner at TGI Friday's and went grocery shopping, then called it a night. The kids slept great together in the same room, other than Zack always wanting to talk, and Sydney wanting to sleep!

Happy 5th Birthday Sydney!!

Well it's been 5 years now since the day you first arrived in this world with a fearsome cry. You've grown into a mischievous, beautiful little girl. You have a deep vein of competition running through you, at least when it has anything to do with competing against your brother. Book reading, hand washing, riding bikes - you name it, you'll compete against Zack for it! I hope that is a good trait - it tends to be a little tiresome on a continuous basis right now. However you are also a very kind and thoughtful girl who is smart and caring. You just started gymnastics, so perhaps there is hope for you not always being so klutzy after all. You also love to cook, or at least eat the dough and chocolate chips. Puzzles and games are also a favorite, along with your Ponies and stuffed animals. We count our blessings each time we think of how lucky we are to have such a super special girl like you in our family!!

Easy Bake Oven fun

The bakers are geared up

We bought an Easy Bake Oven from a garage sale recently. What a bargain - only $5 and it had several new mixes with it. So after many days of looking at it sitting in the corner of our dining room, we finally decided to make some treats. First of all, who would have thought it takes 15 mins to warm up the oven! Then, the mix made a teeny tiny amount of dough- appropriately small to go in this tiny oven. It was a lot of fun making the cutout cookies though, and they really did taste yummy.

Cutting out the cookies...

Are they done yet??

Don't kill me Jesus!!!

Last night we were putting together a Prince "costume" for Zack, and I decided we could make him some sort of vest with an old t-shirt. So I took an old black t-shirt and cut the bottom off of it, since it was too long, and used that as a belt around his waist. Sydney took one look at him and said "he looks like Jesus!!". Then Zack picked up his Prince sword, and poked Sydney with it - to which Sydney loudly replied (outside) "Don't kill me Jesus!!!". Sydney was also very upset to find out that the "jewels" that we attached to Zack's crown (Burger King!) were actually from her school project that she had brought home. oops!

Gymnastics!!

Sydney started Gymnastics last week at the local YMCA. What fun! Her class has 6 other girls in it and for their first night they got to try out all of the equipment - balance beam, rings, bars, and even a trampoline. She was so excited about it, she said she wanted to go back the next night. Zack was a little less thrilled about it all since he only got to watch and couldn't try out any of the equipment - well, until Mommy let him bounce once on the trampoline (which was actually against the rules, but it kept him from whining!)

the Magic show

we went to see a magic show at the library tonight. When I asked Zack what he liked best about the magic show, he told me "cake" which they had after the show! The show was put on by our good friend Andrew Martin. It was a good show. And the cake was good too!

Are you....

going to go outside? Are you going to go in the garage? Are you going to go in the basement? Are you going to work?? What are you going to do right now? But what are you going to do right now?? I love you. Go make some money. Good night.... Good bye. I love you. Go make some money!
Sydney says this every night when we turn off the light at kiss her goodnight. Apparently that one (or maybe two..) times we went outside after she went to bed really freaked her out. Especially when she woke up and couldn't find us anywhere in the house. oops.

My new friend

Today we heard about Zack's new friend - Ian! This is the first school friend that we've heard about Zack playing with. Perhaps it could be a long time friend... like co-worker Chloe!

Zenobia Shrine Circus

The circus was in town this weekend so we took the kids. It was quite a treat for everyone - lions, monkeys, dogs, elephants, hula-hoop girls and much more!! The kids especially liked the light up necklaces that they got... and the cotton candy.

Mommy...

"I want to stay with you forever" (whispered to Mommy by Zack as I carried him to bed)

the Jellybean Tree

I finished up a mural in the kid's play loft today. It's our own Jellybean tree!

Ski day 3 - Keystone

For our last day of skiing we decided to stay right at our own resort. Once again it was a beautiful sunny day - we had to eventually take off part of our coats and put them in lockers because we were getting so overheating on the slopes! That's because we were doing some trick moves at the A51 terrain park. Or maybe not - perhaps we were really just falling off the box that we were trying for the first time - but we weren't afraid of the jumps and had a great time playing around.


Alan "rocking the box" at the terrain park...


For dinner we had some brews and a pizza at Fatty's Pizzeria in Breckenridge.




It was a quick trip, but a much needed break.

Ski day 2 - Loveland

Loveland is an awesome local ski resort that sits on top the Eisenhower tunnel. It's right on the continental divide. We went skiing there on our 2nd day. We go there almost every time we are in Colorado, but I think this was one of the very few times that it was actually warm instead of frigid. With the altitude so high, above the tree line, it can get pretty nasty up there when the temperature is cold and the wind is blowing. We had a great day of skiing, and had some fun wipe outs too!

After skiing we went to the Dam Brewery. Yummy!

Ski trip to Colorado!!

Sure, this is supposed to be a kids blog, but we like to put in notes and stories about other things too. We took a quick ski trip out to Colorado this year and stayed at the River Run condo in Keystone. http://www.vrbo.com/21218 What a great place to stay. This was our 2nd time at this particular condo. You can always get good deals at the last minute if you search for them.

On our first day of skiing, we went to Breckenridge. They got a new gondola since the last time we were there. Speaking of which, lift ticket prices are soooooooo expensive now. We had to pay $172 for only 2 tickets, when almost 3 years ago we only paid $43 a ticket. Ouch!

Breckenridge had great snow, and it was sunny. We even skied the Devils Crotch! (a double black diamond run) After skiing we headed to our favorite restaurant, Downstairs at Erics in Breckenridge. Remember Alan taking that fall on the stairs???

Woopy Woop

The kids take the bungie cords that are in the truck and have them hanging between the car seat and the back of the front row seats. Then they hang the other bungies on them. They now serve as phones, devices to steer the train, and Zack especially likes them when the look like "woopy woops"!

Too many!!

We went to the Toledo Zoo to see to see a performance that the Toledo Ballet was putting on. It was excerps from the Nutcracker show that they put on every year. Well, during the dance of the sugar plum fairies, all of the dancers came out on stage and had the same outfits on. When Zack saw them all, he loudly proclaimed "there's too many!!!" He said it so loud he almosted seemed distressed by their appearance! He got that from a book called "Too many frogs", but I think he really meant to say that there's "alot" of dancers :)

Alpine Valley ski trip

Zack takes his first cruise down the hill at Alpine Valley. He made it all the way down without falling, skiing right next to Mommy. He had a good time and went down the hill 4 times, until he started getting a little grumpy, then he was easily convinced to go enjoy some hot chocolate in the lodge. He said the best part of skiing was going up the hill on the Magic Carpet and he wouldn't stop telling us that he wants to go on the chairlift next time!



Sydney was doing a really good job skiing - especially since it was only the second time she's been skiing! Here she is going down the hill all by herself. She is becoming a pro at going down the hill - very fast - in a straight line. Oh well, there's always next year to learn "pizzas and french fries"
Hopefully we'll get a few more days of snow around here so we can go again - and get Zack up on that chairlift!!