Sorry I've been absent for so long! Having all the kids around all the time (and often having a friend or four of theirs galloping around the house, too) has been on the insane side. I'm getting more and more excited for school to start-- to get my own kids out of the house and all the neighborhood kids, too! It will be nice to have it just be me, Colton, and Camille for a few hours each day. That sounds so... peaceful! (Oh, man, if present me could visit past me when I was pregnant with Kendra and stressing about how difficult it must be having two kids! What a joke!)
Anyway, I feel like I'm very far behind on this blog, so for now, we'll just do a quick update on each person. And then I'll hit other stuff in a new post (hopefully soon? but maybe when school starts in a couple weeks...)...
Craig is enjoying his new job. He leaves early and comes home early, which thrills me-- last year, he kept trying to do that and, without fail, his evil boss would always corner him and talk to him from about 3:30 until 5:30 or 6. It drove me crazy because I could never figure out when to have dinner. And trying to cook with five hungry, whiny children under-foot is not easy or particularly fun. Craig came home one day and announced that in the meeting he'd been in, he'd said something and someone else had said, "Good idea!" and he realized it had been a year since he'd enjoyed such a pleasant meeting. (This both pleases me and makes me want to weep for everything he went through last year.) He's a little nervous for when school starts, all 2,000 students show up, and his job really kicks into high gear, but I have great confidence that this will be a great year for him!
Bentley continues to harass me to let him play more video games. We have found an uneasy compromise in the form of Pokemon Go. I love that it gets him outside and walking around! And he's got a friend a few streets away who goes Pokemon hunting with him, so that's great. We're letting him use Craig's old cell phone (which already has a small crack on the screen), so this works well, I think. He's loving comic books (like, the funny pages, not graphic novels) and I absolutely love talking about Calvin & Hobbes, Foxtrot, and Pearls Before Swine with him. He's a boy after my own heart. He's also pretty bored-- it will be really good for Bentley to be back in school and busy again.
Kendra has also been a bit bored, but in her case it's because all of her neighborhood friends have been off at various camps all summer! So she's missing her playmates. But she's very good at playing with her toys in her room. And we go to the library frequently to get books for her (and Bentley, and everyone else). She also gave us a scare by having our first food allergy-- we think it was a raspberry that caused it, but she had hives for three days, so I'm too scared to give her another to confirm our theory! I guess in the scheme of things raspberries are pretty easy to avoid, but this was still very new (scary) territory for me to wade through. We went through a LOT of benadryl that week...
Ryder has apparently turned feral this summer. Maybe I've been letting him watch too many violent cartoons? It's like all of a sudden he's absolutely crazy. I've vowed to be more careful with what he watches-- more "Chuggington" and less "Justice League"-- maybe that will help? And hopefully his kindergarten teacher will know how to calm him down? (Poor lady!) We've been having him practice writing his name before kindergarten starts, something he's very happy to do with candy as a bribe. As much as I worry about how crazy he is, I have to admit that it's pretty funny to watch him run in place (cartoon style) building up "speed" before he takes off! That kid can make me laugh like no other...
Colton has been following in Ryder's footsteps, I'm afraid, and is also crazy. I've always maintained that 3-year-olds are incredibly difficult*, and it's like this last month Colton's age finally caught up with him. Where I used to have to beg and plead with Ryder to get his shoes on, now it's Colton running around ignoring me (or actively fighting against me) while Camille sits patiently waiting for her shoes to be put on. I have high hopes that getting a little more attention from me once the kids start school will help calm him down a little. That and turning four next spring... Colton also managed to fall down the stairs this week (first time anyone's done that in this house-- let's hope it's the last time, too), so that was awful. Yes, there's a baby gate at the top of the stairs. He pulled the entire thing down and they tumbled down together. No serious injury, just a few bruises on his back, so I guess we were lucky. Also, I'm gearing myself up mentally for potty training. I'm thinking we'll start in September. I hate potty training more than just about anything in the world (except maybe house centipedes), but I think it's about time...
Camille has been progressing by leaps and bounds. Did I ever blog about the fact that she learned to walk? Well, she was walking at 14 months (which was VERY early, for our family-- Kendra, Ryder and Colton all walked at 16 months! Only Bentley walked earlier, at 13 months). She quickly moved on to running, and it still cracks me up to watch her try to balance with her shoulders and half-run, half-fall whichever direction she heads. These last few weeks she's been really working on talking. She can say binkie and bottle (bah-doh), yeah and no (usually while waving her hand away as if she's disgusted with whatever she's saying no to), nose and ear (said while either pointing to her own, or grabbing yours), "gah" for her giraffe... And she understands a LOT more, of course. It's very fun to see her learning so much. She likes to laugh along with whatever we're laughing at, and tries her hardest to copy Colton (heaven save us!). She loves Ryder's Big Bear and will run and flop down on him whenever she gets a chance. She loves to give kisses and hugs to everyone, usually by inclining her heads towards you and then making a kissing noise. Or, as Craig put it when she did this to me from across the room, "She's blowing you a hug!" As much as she is so sweet loving on everyone, she's also still incredibly opinionated-- she loves to beg me for things and then be mad at me when I give them to her. It's super fun, especially this last week when she had a cold and was very whiny. But I sure love my strong-will little baby!
And me... Well, I've been reading a lot. It's my happy thing. (I'm a little bit jealous of those people who enjoy doing projects or working out-- they must have so much more to show for their happy time than I do! But this is one of those things where I'm happier accepting who I am than trying to change myself. And while it would be nice to be incredibly fit or to have amazing projects I could show off, I still don't see "excessive reading" as a flaw in need of fixing!) I've also finally been writing in my journal-- which is probably part of the reason my blogging has dropped off. A woman in church quoted extensively from a graduation speech given by Sheryl Sandberg** and one of the parts that really struck me was when Sandberg said that she would "write down three moments of joy before I go to bed each night. This
simple practice has changed my life. Because no matter what happens each
day, I go to sleep thinking of something cheerful." I absolutely loved this idea, and vowed to do the same thing. Over the weeks, it's morphed into just writing down three things of significance from each day (if I ever find myself trying to cope with a major tragedy, I will definitely try to get back to writing specifically about joyful things), but it feels nice to finally be consistent about writing in my journal (not that I didn't view keeping up with this blog as a form of that, but a personal journal is good to keep, too). I guess the real question will be if I can manage both?! So, yes, mostly I've been reading and writing. And trying to keep up with the craziness that is my family!
Ironically, since I'm talking about Sheryl Sandberg, I've also been severely restricting my facebook time again. It seems I can't look at it without being subject to everyone's political opinions, and the whole election right now depresses me so much, I'd rather try to ignore it for a few more months. (I'm pretty sure Virginia is in Hilary's pocket anyway, with Tim Kaine as her running mate, so I don't think my vote-- whoever I decide to vote for-- will mean much.) It's kind of amazing how many more books I read when I don't look at facebook!
Anyway, there's a lot more I could say about all of these things, but this post is getting pretty long and I can always spout off on my opinion some other day!
More soon-- I promise!
*From Jim Gaffigan: I bet whoever coined the phrase "terrible twos" felt pretty stupid when their kid turned three.
**I can't even tell you how happy it made me that someone at church was quoting Sheryl Sandberg. I nearly squealed in delight!
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Sunday, July 17, 2016
The Art of Social Media
The other morning, I got up and found Bentley all wrapped up in a blanket with his favorite stuffed animals reading a book. He insisted that I take his picture, put it on my blog, and caption it, "This is what summer's all about!" So here am I following direct orders.
What's awesome about this story is the fact that as soon as the picture was taken, Bentley put the book down and proceeded to play on the iPad for an hour.
How does he already understand the art of social media so well???
In related news, my sister sent me the BEST birthday card. It reads, "May your year be even more fabulous than it looks on the internet."
Too true. And may I wish the same for all of you! ♥
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| This is what summer's all about, yo! |
What's awesome about this story is the fact that as soon as the picture was taken, Bentley put the book down and proceeded to play on the iPad for an hour.
How does he already understand the art of social media so well???
In related news, my sister sent me the BEST birthday card. It reads, "May your year be even more fabulous than it looks on the internet."
Too true. And may I wish the same for all of you! ♥
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Surprise!
So, Craig started at his new job on Friday!
Yeah, I guess I didn't mention that on ye olde blogge, did I?
That was mostly on purpose-- we weren't supposed to talk about it until it went public. And it didn't go public until we were at Disney World, and then I've been too busy since then to blog about it. But yes, Craig has a new job now: He is an Assistant Principals at Albemarle High School here in Charlottesville.
Here's the good in all this:
1) He no longer works with his evil evil boss. That's probably the biggest thing. She had such a nasty, soul-sucking way of running everything, I'm so relieved for him to be away from her and out from under her thumb. (She is now "consulting" for CATEC, which I think means that they'll let her go as soon as the new administrators realize just how incompetent and toxic she is? Come to think of it, I'm not sure how she's lasted beyond Day 1! Maybe the 4th of July holiday threw them off...)
2) Albemarle High School is a great school, kind of the pride of the school district. So this is a perfect opportunity for Craig to learn from what they're doing right here and be part of their success.
3) The superintendent over the county was named superintendent of the year for Virginia schools, so working for her will be a great opportunity for Craig.
4) This job feels like a real career track position. When Craig was informed that he would no longer be at CATEC next year, we were really scared that the superintendents might place him in some dead-end job for a year and then let him go (which is what they're doing to his boss, I think). That would have been terrifying. But this job doesn't feel like that at all-- it's exactly where he would want to go next. In fact...
5) This seems to be the next step after CATEC. One of CATEC's previous directors worked as director for 7 years and then became AP at Monticello High School (which is right next to us, but not quite as good of a school), so Craig sort of jump-started that next step by only being at CATEC for a year...
6) For you nosy types (because I'm one, I assume most everyone else is, too), salary and benefits all stayed the same. Phew-- We won't have to go looking for a smaller house to squeeze into!
The bad about all this (because nothing is ever perfect) would be:
1) Craig really wanted to stay at CATEC (provided his evil boss was gone) and see what he could do with the place. He was disappointed to not get to follow through with the many plans he had for the school.
1a) We're a little worried that Craig being at CATEC for only one year will not look great on his resume. But hopefully things will go well at his new school and that one blip on his resume can fade into the background.
2) Until we realized that his evil boss was also being replaced, we had a feeling that she had "won" and we had "lost." Now that we know she's (most likely) on the way out, we're less concerned with that. The feeling we're getting is that the superintendents were tired of everyone complaining about the boss and decided to teach everyone a lesson by letting both Craig and his boss go, showing the staff that they couldn't tell the superintendents what to do. Or something? So Craig was sort of caught up in all that even though none of it was really his fault.
3) The commute is a few minutes longer, but not much.
4) As an AP at a regular school with sports teams and all that stuff, Craig will have much busier evenings than he's had. He'll be required to attend all home football games, for example. I'm hoping that I can manage to bring the kids and meet up with him for a bit, but we'll see how that goes. This will certainly be something we have to figure out as we go. And I may have to start to pretend to like football again... (Although who am I kidding-- if I'm trying to keep five kids happy, there's no way I'll see any of the game anyway!)
So I think that's it for now! Wish Craig well on his new job! Friday morning (his first day) he sent me a text that he'd had a meeting that only lasted for an hour and was quite thrilled about that, so I think we're off to a good start!
Yeah, I guess I didn't mention that on ye olde blogge, did I?
That was mostly on purpose-- we weren't supposed to talk about it until it went public. And it didn't go public until we were at Disney World, and then I've been too busy since then to blog about it. But yes, Craig has a new job now: He is an Assistant Principals at Albemarle High School here in Charlottesville.
Here's the good in all this:
1) He no longer works with his evil evil boss. That's probably the biggest thing. She had such a nasty, soul-sucking way of running everything, I'm so relieved for him to be away from her and out from under her thumb. (She is now "consulting" for CATEC, which I think means that they'll let her go as soon as the new administrators realize just how incompetent and toxic she is? Come to think of it, I'm not sure how she's lasted beyond Day 1! Maybe the 4th of July holiday threw them off...)
2) Albemarle High School is a great school, kind of the pride of the school district. So this is a perfect opportunity for Craig to learn from what they're doing right here and be part of their success.
3) The superintendent over the county was named superintendent of the year for Virginia schools, so working for her will be a great opportunity for Craig.
4) This job feels like a real career track position. When Craig was informed that he would no longer be at CATEC next year, we were really scared that the superintendents might place him in some dead-end job for a year and then let him go (which is what they're doing to his boss, I think). That would have been terrifying. But this job doesn't feel like that at all-- it's exactly where he would want to go next. In fact...
5) This seems to be the next step after CATEC. One of CATEC's previous directors worked as director for 7 years and then became AP at Monticello High School (which is right next to us, but not quite as good of a school), so Craig sort of jump-started that next step by only being at CATEC for a year...
6) For you nosy types (because I'm one, I assume most everyone else is, too), salary and benefits all stayed the same. Phew-- We won't have to go looking for a smaller house to squeeze into!
The bad about all this (because nothing is ever perfect) would be:
1) Craig really wanted to stay at CATEC (provided his evil boss was gone) and see what he could do with the place. He was disappointed to not get to follow through with the many plans he had for the school.
1a) We're a little worried that Craig being at CATEC for only one year will not look great on his resume. But hopefully things will go well at his new school and that one blip on his resume can fade into the background.
2) Until we realized that his evil boss was also being replaced, we had a feeling that she had "won" and we had "lost." Now that we know she's (most likely) on the way out, we're less concerned with that. The feeling we're getting is that the superintendents were tired of everyone complaining about the boss and decided to teach everyone a lesson by letting both Craig and his boss go, showing the staff that they couldn't tell the superintendents what to do. Or something? So Craig was sort of caught up in all that even though none of it was really his fault.
3) The commute is a few minutes longer, but not much.
4) As an AP at a regular school with sports teams and all that stuff, Craig will have much busier evenings than he's had. He'll be required to attend all home football games, for example. I'm hoping that I can manage to bring the kids and meet up with him for a bit, but we'll see how that goes. This will certainly be something we have to figure out as we go. And I may have to start to pretend to like football again... (Although who am I kidding-- if I'm trying to keep five kids happy, there's no way I'll see any of the game anyway!)
So I think that's it for now! Wish Craig well on his new job! Friday morning (his first day) he sent me a text that he'd had a meeting that only lasted for an hour and was quite thrilled about that, so I think we're off to a good start!
Monday, June 27, 2016
One More Story from Disney World
The evening that I had to take Tracy to the airport, Craig and the kids all got dinner without me. So once I was back at the hotel, I got myself a hamburger and sat out on the balcony eating devouring it (water parks make you hungry!) while Craig got the kids ready for bed. I was watching a thunder storm roll in and enjoying relaxing for a bit when suddenly a bolt of lightning flashed right across the sky in front of me and a huge boom of thunder shook everything.
I froze, contemplated the metal around me (wedding ring? cell phone? the chair I was sitting in?) and quickly decided I was being pretty stupid sitting out there and it was best to move back inside. I had barely stood up when Bentley was at the sliding glass door, frantically motioning for me to come inside, and then he was fluttering around me, helping me gather up my food and hurriedly ushering me in.
It's silly, but as much as Bentley can drive me crazy sometimes, it was a truly sweet moment to see his concern for me.
That might have been my favorite part of the entire trip.
I froze, contemplated the metal around me (wedding ring? cell phone? the chair I was sitting in?) and quickly decided I was being pretty stupid sitting out there and it was best to move back inside. I had barely stood up when Bentley was at the sliding glass door, frantically motioning for me to come inside, and then he was fluttering around me, helping me gather up my food and hurriedly ushering me in.
It's silly, but as much as Bentley can drive me crazy sometimes, it was a truly sweet moment to see his concern for me.
That might have been my favorite part of the entire trip.
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Disney Discoveries
We just got home last night from spending ten days at Disney World, a trip we've been planning since Christmas! We are exhausted, but we had a great time. Much as I would love to write down all the minutiae of each day here, I'm pretty sure that would be really boring for you... So instead, I'm going to present a list of things we discovered (mostly about ourselves) from this trip...
1) Be married to a Disney freak. It's just one of many reasons Craig and I are perfect for each other. Disney makes us both happy. I don't think we could have managed something as marathon-like as this trip if we weren't both 100% all in.
2) I totally rock at packing. Not only did I pack for six people (Craig was on his own there), I also packed a TON of food for the trip (Disney is one of the few amusement parks that allows you to bring your own food in, so we took advantage of that in a big way), I packed food for the drive there, AND I loaded the entire car while Craig was at work. My in-laws were super kind, and offered to let us borrow their Suburban for the trip and I FILLED that trunk: 5 suitcases, 1 duffel bag (packed with everything we needed for the one night hotel stay on the drive down, so we could leave the rest in the car), 1 cooler, 1 huge Costco diaper box full of food, 1 double stroller, 1 umbrella stroller, and a pack-n-play. Plus diaper bags, backpacks for everyone etc. I even remembered to bring a couple laundry detergent packs so it would be easy to do laundry at the hotel! The only thing I almost forgot was socks for myself, but I remembered those as we were buckling the kids into the car!
3) While I'm bragging about myself, I rock at UNpacking, too. We got in at 6:20 last night, and by 11pm, I had unloaded the car, unpacked everything, done four loads of laundry, and gotten milk and stuff from the grocery store. BOO. YA. (Craig was hard at work bathing children and helping. This wasn't just me.)
4) My kids are a bunch of thrill seekers. If they were tall enough for a ride, they were on it. Ryder did the Tower of Terror at least three times and says it's his favorite ride. Bentley and Kendra absolutely loved the Rock'n'Roller Coaster. Colton was only tall enough for Goofy's Barnstormer ride, but as soon as he stepped off it, he declared that it was "Scary awesome!" I don't think I was that brave when I was their age...
5) Camille is a big pain. I love my baby to death, but my goodness she made this trip challenging! She hardly EVER slept in her stroller (Craig and I think that she maybe napped for a total of 20 minutes the entire time we were in the parks-- FOR TEN DAYS). Every time someone smiled at her, she would grin back at them and then chuck her binkie at them. We spent a lot of time picking binkies up off the ground. (She meant it to be friendly, but try explaining that to a stranger!) She wanted to get out of her stroller and walk, but then would insist on walking whatever direction she wanted to go-- herding her in the right direction was impossible, and would lead to her screaming in protest. So we finally just left her in her stroller almost constantly. Ugh. We should have left her at home!
6) It's nice to have other grown-ups around. My parents were there the whole time, which was great because they got us in the military hotel, Shades of Green. Sometimes they came to the parks with us and sometimes they did their own thing, but any time we could have an extra set of hands pushing strollers, and helping get kids on and off the bus was nice. My sister Tracy came for a couple days over the weekend, too, and her help was most appreciated! It was only because she was with us that we braved the water park, Blizzard Beach. (And even then, splashing in the wave pool nearly did me in, I spent so much time counting heads!)
Also-- added bonus-- Tracy stayed at the hotel with the kids one night so Craig and I could have dinner at Chefs de France and enjoy the fireworks at Epcot. It was nice to not push strollers around for a bit and not worry about losing anyone!
7) Jedi Training for the kids is SO all about grown-ups getting to take pictures of their kids. I think I was more excited about the pictures we got than the kids were about what they were doing. Totally worth it.
8) Ten days is a really long time. We were exhausted after just the first day!
9) Ten days is not nearly long enough. There was still so much stuff I would have liked to have done!
10) Walking 8+ miles a day and being so hot that you'd rather drink ice water than eat food is a great way to lose weight. I think I lost 5 pounds. And after the first couple days, my shin splints went away and I was fine with all the walking, so that rocked!
11) Florida is so much more humid than Virginia. Coming from Seattle (and Utah) I always figured that east coast humidity was a universal thing. Not so. Next time we go to Disney World, we're going in February.
12) Hamilton is the best road trip music EVER. 24 hours of driving and we still aren't bored by it.
13) Two adjoining rooms worked perfectly for our family. The first night, though, when the hotel accidentally gave our room away to someone else: Not so good. After that glitch was cleared up (and got us a free night-- woo!), we happily discovered that two rooms feels TWICE AS ROOMY AS ONE! Go figure. (It also helped that Shades of Green has fairly large rooms for a Disney resort-- thanks again, Mom and Dad for making that possible for us!)
14) The new Soarin' Across the World ride was fabulous. (It replaced Soarin' Over California, which was already one of our favorite rides.) It opened our last day there, and we figured there was no way we'd be able to handle waiting in line for it. Until my Mom pointed out that our stroller switch passes were good for a month, so the ones we got earlier in the week could be used on opening day! That was the sole reason we hit Epcot on our last day!
15) Shopping will never be a priority for us. Not even at Disney World. We'd decided we were going to buy t-shirts for the whole family, and didn't get around to doing it until our last day.
16) For the kids, we made a rule that they could buy one toy (with their own money), but only after they'd been to all four parks. We didn't want any buyer's remorse going on. Within the first hour at Magic Kingdom, Ryder was desperate for an Emperor Zurg toy (from Toy Story). Surprise, surprise, he stuck to that the entire time! And he's very happy with it (although he was disappointed that it didn't actually shoot stuff). The other kids all got stuffed animals at Animal Kingdom. Done.
17) Bentley and Kendra were both super helpful the entire time. I was seriously impressed by their willingness to push strollers and carry backpacks for me, and they never got cranky or complained. Ryder and Colton both had their break-down moments, which I expected. But not Bentley or Kendra. They were both absolutely delightful the entire time. This may have been the best discovery from the entire trip, actually!
18) For being such a goofball, Ryder is strangely charismatic. He got featured on the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor. And then, when we had dinner at the Hoop-de-Doo Revue, which serves family-style BBQ, Ryder announced that he was eating cheese pizza. He burst into tears when our server brought out ribs and fried chicken. Within two minutes, she had a plate full of cheese pizza just for him. He was happy. We were happy. And we left her a very generous tip.
19) Character dining is great-- you get food and your kids get to see
some of the characters (as opposed to waiting in line for the same
thing). It's also crazy expensive, so we only did two meals this way--
breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and friends and lunch with Mickey, Pluto
and Chip'n'Dale. That lunch was kind of late-- 2pm-- and that turned
out to work in our favor: because the restaurant wasn't very busy, all
the characters came around a BUNCH of times to see us. Camille was
absolutely in love with the chipmunks, so they would come and give her
big long hugs. Does it get much cuter than that?
We also did "Enchanted Tales with Belle" and I have to admit-- it was a lot of standing around for not much. Do the ones with food!
20) The Lion King Festival at Animal Kingdom is probably my favorite show-- such high energy, great music and dancing and harmonizing and acrobatics. It's wonderful. We saw it twice in one day, we liked it so much! After that, my next favorite is probably Finding Nemo (also at Animal Kingdom)-- the music is pretty forgettable, but the puppets and the staging are so great! Also, I never get bored of watching fireworks (but make sure you pick up your baby when you notice that the booming has terrified her so much that she's trying to "hide" in her stroller out of fear. Oops). Also, Fantasmik is a lot of fun, even if it doesn't really make any sense. Any time you can watch water catch fire, you know you're in for a treat! (That show got delayed quite a bit because of the weather, so when it finally started a half hour late, it was even more past bedtime than usual. Ryder got mad and lectured us, "You can't keep me up this late!!! I'M TIRED!!!!!")
21) Don't bother trying to look nice. It's too hot and too sweaty and no one cares. The one day I actually did my hair, it poured rain on us. I never bothered again after that (and the pictures we have proves that!). But short hair sure rocks at Disney! I'd see women with long thick hair and wonder how they were even surviving!!!!!!! I wondered the same thing when I saw men with beards...
22) Other Disney guests are the best. People were always so friendly, whether they were giving me a seat on the bus (since I was holding a squirming Camille or a sleeping Ryder), handing me binkies that had been thrown at them, offering food when Ryder was crying (he would say he was hungry, but based on the fact that he'd just eaten, what he really meant was that he was exhausted), or pulling faces at Colton and making him laugh... They were great. Unless. If there was a huge crowd waiting for something, and then all bets are off. But I kind of turn into a monster in those situations, too, so I'm don't mean that as a complaint.
23) True to his normally chill self, Colton was very easy-going about all the rides he wasn't allowed to go on. Some kids would have been in hysterics over that, so I'm thankful he didn't seem to mind. I can't wait to take him on all the stuff he's missed out on, though!
Here are some of the things he DID get to do, though:
24) It is SO HARD to leave the parks once you're there. We had some idea that each day we'd leave around noon and go back to the hotel for naps and pool time/cooling off from the heat time, but we only managed to do that a few times, and even then, we wouldn't leave until 4 or 5. There's just always one more thing you want to do before you leave! And once it got to be evening, it would be cooling off and the lines would get shorter and there was even less motivation to leave! My Dad thought we were nuts for staying so late each day, but it's more like we were too lazy to go catch a bus back to the hotel. We'd say, "We should get going. But wait-- Pirates of the Caribbean only has a 20 minute wait! LET'S GO!!!!"
25) The safari ride and the bird show at Animal Kingdom are also pretty awesome. I never got tired of them...
26) Take your kids while they're still young enough to be amazed by how magical Disney World is. As much as you could argue that we should have waited until Camille was older and better behaved to come (that will happen some day, right???) I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on Bentley hugging Chip'n'Dale and being willing to ride the merry-go-round.
26) And here are some more pictures that don't fit into my list, but that I want to share anyway!
I can't believe our big Disney vacation is already over and done! I can hardly wait to go back again!!!
1) Be married to a Disney freak. It's just one of many reasons Craig and I are perfect for each other. Disney makes us both happy. I don't think we could have managed something as marathon-like as this trip if we weren't both 100% all in.
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| Last day at Magic Kingdom |
2) I totally rock at packing. Not only did I pack for six people (Craig was on his own there), I also packed a TON of food for the trip (Disney is one of the few amusement parks that allows you to bring your own food in, so we took advantage of that in a big way), I packed food for the drive there, AND I loaded the entire car while Craig was at work. My in-laws were super kind, and offered to let us borrow their Suburban for the trip and I FILLED that trunk: 5 suitcases, 1 duffel bag (packed with everything we needed for the one night hotel stay on the drive down, so we could leave the rest in the car), 1 cooler, 1 huge Costco diaper box full of food, 1 double stroller, 1 umbrella stroller, and a pack-n-play. Plus diaper bags, backpacks for everyone etc. I even remembered to bring a couple laundry detergent packs so it would be easy to do laundry at the hotel! The only thing I almost forgot was socks for myself, but I remembered those as we were buckling the kids into the car!
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| This stroller takes up SO MUCH SPACE |
4) My kids are a bunch of thrill seekers. If they were tall enough for a ride, they were on it. Ryder did the Tower of Terror at least three times and says it's his favorite ride. Bentley and Kendra absolutely loved the Rock'n'Roller Coaster. Colton was only tall enough for Goofy's Barnstormer ride, but as soon as he stepped off it, he declared that it was "Scary awesome!" I don't think I was that brave when I was their age...
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| Bentley looking afraid of Splash Mountain. Don't be fooled-- this was when it was all over! |
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| Goofballs |
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| I realize Thunder Mountain is not the scariest ride out there. But still-- look at those grins! |
5) Camille is a big pain. I love my baby to death, but my goodness she made this trip challenging! She hardly EVER slept in her stroller (Craig and I think that she maybe napped for a total of 20 minutes the entire time we were in the parks-- FOR TEN DAYS). Every time someone smiled at her, she would grin back at them and then chuck her binkie at them. We spent a lot of time picking binkies up off the ground. (She meant it to be friendly, but try explaining that to a stranger!) She wanted to get out of her stroller and walk, but then would insist on walking whatever direction she wanted to go-- herding her in the right direction was impossible, and would lead to her screaming in protest. So we finally just left her in her stroller almost constantly. Ugh. We should have left her at home!
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| This sums up our trip: everyone is happy except Camille |
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| Craig entertains her during the ridiculously long and boring line for the Jungle Cruise |
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| A rare moment of sleep |
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| And another |
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| Fighting with Daddy as he tries to hold her. Look at that face! (Actually, both of them are pulling pretty funny faces!) |
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| One of the times I let her out of the stroller to walk, she just sat down and glared at me instead... |
6) It's nice to have other grown-ups around. My parents were there the whole time, which was great because they got us in the military hotel, Shades of Green. Sometimes they came to the parks with us and sometimes they did their own thing, but any time we could have an extra set of hands pushing strollers, and helping get kids on and off the bus was nice. My sister Tracy came for a couple days over the weekend, too, and her help was most appreciated! It was only because she was with us that we braved the water park, Blizzard Beach. (And even then, splashing in the wave pool nearly did me in, I spent so much time counting heads!)
Also-- added bonus-- Tracy stayed at the hotel with the kids one night so Craig and I could have dinner at Chefs de France and enjoy the fireworks at Epcot. It was nice to not push strollers around for a bit and not worry about losing anyone!
7) Jedi Training for the kids is SO all about grown-ups getting to take pictures of their kids. I think I was more excited about the pictures we got than the kids were about what they were doing. Totally worth it.
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| Ryder is aiming his lightsaber like it's a gun (?) |
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| Using the force |
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| Each kid took a turn battling either Darth Vader or, for my kids, the Seventh Sister |
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| Kendra was FIERCE out there! I was so proud of her!!! |
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| Ryder finished his fight and then skipped up the steps to take on Darth Vader before anyone could stop him |
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| Bentley rocked his turn, too |
8) Ten days is a really long time. We were exhausted after just the first day!
9) Ten days is not nearly long enough. There was still so much stuff I would have liked to have done!
10) Walking 8+ miles a day and being so hot that you'd rather drink ice water than eat food is a great way to lose weight. I think I lost 5 pounds. And after the first couple days, my shin splints went away and I was fine with all the walking, so that rocked!
11) Florida is so much more humid than Virginia. Coming from Seattle (and Utah) I always figured that east coast humidity was a universal thing. Not so. Next time we go to Disney World, we're going in February.
12) Hamilton is the best road trip music EVER. 24 hours of driving and we still aren't bored by it.
13) Two adjoining rooms worked perfectly for our family. The first night, though, when the hotel accidentally gave our room away to someone else: Not so good. After that glitch was cleared up (and got us a free night-- woo!), we happily discovered that two rooms feels TWICE AS ROOMY AS ONE! Go figure. (It also helped that Shades of Green has fairly large rooms for a Disney resort-- thanks again, Mom and Dad for making that possible for us!)
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| Zonked kids |
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| This looks kinda sketchy. It's probably a good thing they don't normally share beds... |
14) The new Soarin' Across the World ride was fabulous. (It replaced Soarin' Over California, which was already one of our favorite rides.) It opened our last day there, and we figured there was no way we'd be able to handle waiting in line for it. Until my Mom pointed out that our stroller switch passes were good for a month, so the ones we got earlier in the week could be used on opening day! That was the sole reason we hit Epcot on our last day!
15) Shopping will never be a priority for us. Not even at Disney World. We'd decided we were going to buy t-shirts for the whole family, and didn't get around to doing it until our last day.
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| At Epcot-- on our last day-- riding Soarin' and shopping for matching t-shirts! |
16) For the kids, we made a rule that they could buy one toy (with their own money), but only after they'd been to all four parks. We didn't want any buyer's remorse going on. Within the first hour at Magic Kingdom, Ryder was desperate for an Emperor Zurg toy (from Toy Story). Surprise, surprise, he stuck to that the entire time! And he's very happy with it (although he was disappointed that it didn't actually shoot stuff). The other kids all got stuffed animals at Animal Kingdom. Done.
17) Bentley and Kendra were both super helpful the entire time. I was seriously impressed by their willingness to push strollers and carry backpacks for me, and they never got cranky or complained. Ryder and Colton both had their break-down moments, which I expected. But not Bentley or Kendra. They were both absolutely delightful the entire time. This may have been the best discovery from the entire trip, actually!
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| Keeping Camille happy on the Jungle Cruise |
18) For being such a goofball, Ryder is strangely charismatic. He got featured on the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor. And then, when we had dinner at the Hoop-de-Doo Revue, which serves family-style BBQ, Ryder announced that he was eating cheese pizza. He burst into tears when our server brought out ribs and fried chicken. Within two minutes, she had a plate full of cheese pizza just for him. He was happy. We were happy. And we left her a very generous tip.
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| Can you tell that's him? |
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| I love here grin here as she leans in for her hug! |
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| Pure joy |
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| Craig is always excited to see Pluto, his favorite Disney character |
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| That's an excited smile, in case you couldn't tell... |
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| The whole family with Tigger (one of my personal favorites) |
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| Kendra got to play the role of "footrest/dog" |
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| And Bentley was a plate! |
20) The Lion King Festival at Animal Kingdom is probably my favorite show-- such high energy, great music and dancing and harmonizing and acrobatics. It's wonderful. We saw it twice in one day, we liked it so much! After that, my next favorite is probably Finding Nemo (also at Animal Kingdom)-- the music is pretty forgettable, but the puppets and the staging are so great! Also, I never get bored of watching fireworks (but make sure you pick up your baby when you notice that the booming has terrified her so much that she's trying to "hide" in her stroller out of fear. Oops). Also, Fantasmik is a lot of fun, even if it doesn't really make any sense. Any time you can watch water catch fire, you know you're in for a treat! (That show got delayed quite a bit because of the weather, so when it finally started a half hour late, it was even more past bedtime than usual. Ryder got mad and lectured us, "You can't keep me up this late!!! I'M TIRED!!!!!")
21) Don't bother trying to look nice. It's too hot and too sweaty and no one cares. The one day I actually did my hair, it poured rain on us. I never bothered again after that (and the pictures we have proves that!). But short hair sure rocks at Disney! I'd see women with long thick hair and wonder how they were even surviving!!!!!!! I wondered the same thing when I saw men with beards...
22) Other Disney guests are the best. People were always so friendly, whether they were giving me a seat on the bus (since I was holding a squirming Camille or a sleeping Ryder), handing me binkies that had been thrown at them, offering food when Ryder was crying (he would say he was hungry, but based on the fact that he'd just eaten, what he really meant was that he was exhausted), or pulling faces at Colton and making him laugh... They were great. Unless. If there was a huge crowd waiting for something, and then all bets are off. But I kind of turn into a monster in those situations, too, so I'm don't mean that as a complaint.
23) True to his normally chill self, Colton was very easy-going about all the rides he wasn't allowed to go on. Some kids would have been in hysterics over that, so I'm thankful he didn't seem to mind. I can't wait to take him on all the stuff he's missed out on, though!
Here are some of the things he DID get to do, though:
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| Close encounter with a hippo! |
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| And a sea turtle! |
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| He loved this tiger and decided to name him "Cheetah." Naturally. |
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| I did bring him to meet Olaf while the other kids were on Star Tours. He presented Olaf with this water bottle and Olaf acted appropriately thrilled with it (and then sneakily handed it off to me so it wouldn't be in the photo. What a pro!) |
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| Colton also practiced using the force while the kids did Jedi Training |
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| Hard to get much cooler than this little guy! |
24) It is SO HARD to leave the parks once you're there. We had some idea that each day we'd leave around noon and go back to the hotel for naps and pool time/cooling off from the heat time, but we only managed to do that a few times, and even then, we wouldn't leave until 4 or 5. There's just always one more thing you want to do before you leave! And once it got to be evening, it would be cooling off and the lines would get shorter and there was even less motivation to leave! My Dad thought we were nuts for staying so late each day, but it's more like we were too lazy to go catch a bus back to the hotel. We'd say, "We should get going. But wait-- Pirates of the Caribbean only has a 20 minute wait! LET'S GO!!!!"
25) The safari ride and the bird show at Animal Kingdom are also pretty awesome. I never got tired of them...
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| Kendra, who is very into nature and the environment right now, loved going on safari! |
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| I don't know why wildebeest are so cool, but they are. |
26) Take your kids while they're still young enough to be amazed by how magical Disney World is. As much as you could argue that we should have waited until Camille was older and better behaved to come (that will happen some day, right???) I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on Bentley hugging Chip'n'Dale and being willing to ride the merry-go-round.
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| So cute!!! |
26) And here are some more pictures that don't fit into my list, but that I want to share anyway!
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| Waiting to eat dinner at the Shades of Green buffet. Craig is helping Bentley smile... |
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| Taking the bus back to the park after a nap |
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| Glamor shot while we wait in line. Colton and Ryder are down there somewhere... |
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| It was Kendra who pointed out to me that the tower we were seeing was Rapunzel's tower. Of course! |
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| I just like this picture |
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| Kendra lost a tooth while we were in FantasyLand! |
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| Kendra desperately wanted cotton candy |
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| Bentley's ice cream melted fast in the Florida heat |
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| Tired Ryder |
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| This is what a lot of the drive there and back looked like: kids sleeping, Camille screaming. Fun! |
I can't believe our big Disney vacation is already over and done! I can hardly wait to go back again!!!
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| Animal Kingdom with Everest behind us |
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