A belated trip report

the flower gardens in Canada

playing native African instruments

It has taken a week for us (well, specifically Mommy!) to recover from "Girls Week" at Disney. We had a fantastic time but it completely wore us out! Our typical vacation plan when we visit Disney is to have 2-3 park days scattered in among 'rest days' at the resort. On this trip, we visited the parks FIVE DAYS in a row... and quickly came to the conclusion that that is not our favorite 'Disney Vacation Strategy'!! Next time we will go back to our more leisurely exploration of the parks...

Even though we have visited Disney many times, there are still many things that we (or the girls) have not experienced. Some of our 'firsts' on this trip included:

Staying in a 'value' resort (smaller rooms but just as 'magical' as a moderate or deluxe!)...

Learning to draw Goofy at the Animation Studio...

Having breakfast with Pooh & Friends at the Crystal Palace (the last time I ate here it was a cafeteria-- does anyone remember that??!)...

Getting faces painted (Tinkerbelle & a butterfly/flower fairy)...

Riding Astro Orbiter (the girls' first time)...

Participating in a 'Velcro game show' at Innoventions in Epcot (Abbie)...

'Driving' the boat on the Jungle Cruise (Emma)...

Driving an 'electric scooter' because of her hurt knee (grandma Anna!)...

We had also never visited the parks in January and went with the expectations of very low crowds and comfortable weather... which mostly happened. The beginning of the week was very pleasant (see previous post for swimming pictures!) but it got pretty chilly by Friday. The crowds started out extremely heavy at Hollywood Studios on Monday (not sure why except maybe leftover marathon crowds??), cleared out to nothing mid-week (we rode Buzz 5 times without a wait) but then picked up again on Friday (MLK holiday??). One advantage/disadvantage (depending on your point of view) of travelling in 'off season' is that sometimes rides are down for maintenance... can you guess which ride is NOT Abbie's favorite??

The girls chose two very different but special souvenirs of their trip. Abbie picked an oyster in Japan and had the enclosed pearl made into a necklace.

Emma chose to have a parasol custom painted in France.

All in all, it was a great trip. Michael managed well without us (although I think his buddy Jake the Labrador was sad to see us return as he was downgraded from 'house dog' to 'basement/outside dog'!!) We enjoyed visiting with our Florida family and having my mom along for part of the trip. Disney's "Homeschool Days" is a great option for travelling in off season and seems to be a pretty well-kept secret (the group at the special speaking event on Monday was fairly small-- only a few hundred people). We definitely plan to participate again... but will not be quite as ambitious in our touring schedule!!!

Live from Disney

Abbie here. One of mine and Emma's Christmas gifts was a trip to Disney. Anna (our grandma) and Mom, Emma and I, got to go. We are staying at Pop Century. Did I not say we are there now? I guess not. We got here on Sunday and are staying for a week. Yesterday we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios. Sunday we hung around and went swimming and went to Ohana for dinner. Today we are at Anna and Pacca's house and later going to the front part of Epcot.

The main reason we came was for Disney's Homeschool Days (which was at Disney's Hollywood Studios) .

Another fun thing we got to do was meet Prince Caspian from Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

One of my favorite rides is the new Toy Story Midway Mania. You get in the ride vechicle and then use your cannon to shoot different objects at different targets. There how was that for explaining? If I did it right you should be getting that picture in your head, right?

Less than 24 hours...

Homeschooling and Disney... how much better does it get??!!

Take your daughter(s) to work day(s)

Because of our big trip in 2008, Michael's vacation time account is pretty depleted... so he had to work the week between Christmas and New Year's this year. This a pretty quiet time around state government (or probably pretty much any business!) and so he decided to give each of the girls a chance to go to work with him for the day and check out daddy's new office!

Emma went first because her day had the earlier morning wake up time (5:30 am!!) She was so excited and had her outfit picked out and her to-do bag packed the night before.

Michael took her to breakfast in the cafeteria and showed her around the office... by 10:00 am, this was the photo of her that he emailed me:


I think she found the office a little bit less than thrilling! After her 'nap', he took her over to the state capitol building for a little tour and then they finished up the day with lunch at the Varsity. I know she had fun spending time with her daddy!



Abbie's day is today... They woke up a little bit later (6 am) and headed out into the cold, dark morning...



While I was in the middle of writing this blog entry, I received these photos... looks like she's having fun!




Not to mention making herself at home!

The girls are so blessed to have a daddy who loves them and wants to spend time with them!

Christmas 2008

So... here's is a bit of a belated recap of the big day...

We went to the 4:00 'Candlelight' service at church (good thing there are not any windows in the sanctuary for the daylight to ruin the effect of the candlelight!!) and then out to dinner with Michael's parents... followed by a Christmas eve ice cream at McDonald's (PawPaw's favorite place!!).

Once we got home, the girls performed their version of the nativity story... last year, they acted it out with themselves as the main characters... this year, they decided to do the 'Webkinz' version and all of the pets were called into service-- complete with costumes. They worked on it all week prior to Christmas and it was darling! Abbie read the story from the Bible and Emma placed the characters at the appropriate time. Take note of the cute 'shepards' and our 'angel fish'!!

Emma poured the milk for "Santa" all by herself this year!

Then the stockings were hung (placed) by the fireplace with care....

And the children were nestled, all snug in their beds (or on their mattress pulled in from their room into their sister's room!)....

And we waited on a visit from "Santa"...

Christmas morning was full of fun and lots of surprises. Big hits for Emma were her 'horse trailer', a new soccer ball and a desk for her room.

Abigail loved her new roller skates, a metronome and games for the DS.

They both were excited to receive a portable dvd player so they can resume movie watching on trips in the car again!

We also received quite a few dvd's for Christmas-- I think these will keep us busy WELL into the new year!

This was Daddy's favorite gift to the girls-- a special edition of t-shirt run just for them by one of the main videography guys in the RC Airplane industry:

One of their big surprises (revealed by a scavenger hunt around the house) was that they are going to Disney for a week in January to attend "Homeschool Days". They are pretty excited (but sad because Daddy won't be able to join us on this trip due to his work schedule).

We followed the gifts with our traditional Christmas brunch and afternoon of relaxing. We headed out in the late afternoon for another tradition-- a family movie. We saw the much anticipated "Marley & Me"-- we have all read at least one version of the book (there are 'kids version' of the book which are much preferable for the younger set-- although the original is a good read for adults). The movie was funny but sad (very true to the book)--but I think they could have wrapped it up a bit more 'cheerfully' (and left out a few of the very graphic 'dog being put to sleep' scenes) as they were billing it as such a good family movie-- I had one sobbing girl and all of us had very red eyes by the time we left the theater. In retrospect, I think we would have chosen something different had we known it was going to be SO VERY sad. Anyhoo...

We followed the movie with our final Christmas day tradition-- a visit to one of the fine dining institutions of the South (and the only place open on Christmas day besides TGI Fridays with their 3 hour wait)..... the WAFFLE HOUSE!!! Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a meal at the Waffle House :-)

We had a very blessed day!