Saturday, June 29, 2013

The Past Week

Oops....we must've been having so much fun we forgot to post on the blog! I saved my notes so here are some highlights: We enjoyed a couple of more days at Disney this past week. Dayne had to go to the Indiana Jones show at Hollywood Studios because this is where his trauma began last time we were here. He was 5 and terrified last time he saw this show. We threatened him with everything, including making him leave Disney and he was fine with any consequence! He DID NOT want to see that show! As we watched it at age 14, I realized I might have been a little too harsh on him back then! It was very loud and it really was a bit action packed for a sensitive 5 yr old! We went back to ride the Dinosaur ride at Epcot because the kids enjoyed it so much! The first time we rode it with Turner it was pretty intense and scary. There was a part on the ride that we stopped for about 30-45 seconds and it built up the tension to create more of a scare for us all! I thought surely it was supposed to do that, but after riding two more times, we discovered it WASN'T supposed to stop! Cole was really freaked out! Kids make life so much more exciting! We watched the LIon King show and the kids enjoyed it so much, they played Disney Pandora stations the entire way home! We have covered most of Disney that we want to see, but we are going back tomorrow and Monday to finish our last two days. We love being at the parks and just seeing the details they put into everything makes Disney new every time we go! Tuesday was a great day to relax...after getting Chris from the airport, we relaxed, swam, ate dinner at a local steak house, and hit Downtown Disney. We spent the night in a cabin so we had a little break from the RV and enjoyed more movie time! Monsters University came out so what other movie would we go see? After all, we are in Orlando, FL! Wednesday mom cooked a delicious roast and we headed out to church. I always love visiting churches out of town because we get to see how God is moving all over His kingdom! We enjoyed a service about living a blessed life! Cocoa Beach was next on our agenda. We took a little road trip to get there, but it was amazing! Chris taught the boys how to actually use the boogie board they bring to the beach every year! Cole caught the first wave and fell in love! Dayne learned later in the day. I stepped on an eel. Yes, you read that right. Ok, ok. I don't KNOW that it was an eel (probably not), but it FELT like an eel. It was creepy and I had to get over the creepy factor to stay in the water! I can't wait to go back to the beach! The kids walked over and begged for Hibachi...we found the perfect place right by the beach but they didn't want to wait so I followed the GPS to a little Sushi Hibachi place back in orlando, but you had to watch the guy through a glass and sit at regular tables because this was the "Express" version. Oh well! We are looking forward to a great week ahead and wrapping up our time! I think Dayne is getting a bit homesick. He asked if we could go home early! We will see. We will see!

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Lazy Saturday

Laundry is finished and we are rested up to hit Disney tomorrow!  E enjoyed swimming, playing in our devices, and I got some great video of silly birds!




It wasn't an eventful day, but God showed up!  Dayne and Cole made new friends. Cole played chess with his friend.

 

Jesus calling had a great first line today, "Thank Me for the very things that are troubling you". As much fun as we are having, I have loved ones truly struggling. The devotional was just what I needed to press in to Him and thank Him for the trials. Seeing them as an opportunity to grow closer to Him changes me!  Thank you God!  

Friday, June 21, 2013

A Day of Rest

Today we practiced the ancient art of sleeping in! Turner packed to go home and we headed for the pool where we played Turner and Cole's famous sharks and minnows game. It forces you to burn a calorie or two so I guess I can't complain. We all loaded up the car and mom followed us in the truck to have a late lunch at IHOP courtesy of the Prewitt's!  

Everyone said their goodbyes to Turner and he and I headed to the airport. God put all of the right people with us in the airport and also with Turner on the plane. I was so glad when his mom texted they were heading home safely!  Seriously we were so sad to see him go. I almost cried and drove home a little on the down side. He is part of our family!


RIP to the mosquito that died of heat exhaustion. I would be sad if I wasn't so sure he's the one that bit me three times on my leg last night. I found him like this when we got in the car today. Hopefully you can see it in this picture. Either way he is laying on his back unharmed, just overheated. Ha!

Lots of interesting things about Florida...they seem to love fractions. We saw the  Fifth Third bank today. It had a 5/3 on the sign which would have led me to pronounce it Five Thirds but I guess things are different here in the sunshine state. What leads us to believe they love fractions is that the speed limit when entering the campgrounds is 9 3/4.  It's just cute!  

We are ending the night with a Redbox!  Love family movie nights!!!



Heroes and Villains

Yesterday we parked in the Villains lot at the Magic Kingdom. I knew the kids weren't paying attention and so I just drove on in without a thought. However, the tram driver was sure to notify the kids where we parked!  So today I made sure we were the heroes!  We even got a fantastic spot right in front!  Well, that was only because I thought the park opened an hour earlier than it actually did. Oops!

This went perfect with the theme of our day. The boys spent lots of time defending Disney as they played the interactive game throughout the park. They were the heroes destroying villains as they moved from clue to clue in the different areas of magic kingdom. Turner and Cole LOVED this but guess what?!?! So did Dayne!  They really got into this game!  A-hem. Did somebody say magic?



Turner magically turned Irish. I guess I've been keeping crazy hours for the kids and we started having some fun with speaking in accents.  We left the park for a break and when we returned I told the family to decide where we were from sober could all use the same accent. Turner chose Irish so he began yelling "I'm from Ireland". Repeatedly. I mean, repeatedly. I really intended for everyone to speak in an accent and go on living normally. He chose this method instead. It. Was. Hilarious. Omgoodness!  


Did you know the ponchos at Disney are magic too?  The rain came and everywhere I looked, people were wearing a Disney poncho. Finally I decided these must be reasonably priced and I inquired about them. The woman I asked said all of the stores had them for only $17.00. 

EACH!  

I thought for sure she meant PER FAMILY!  Sigh. Magically everyone thought they had to have one!

Sweet magic between Dayne and Mandy...note each have in a headphone. BFF!


We saw downtown Disney tonight and Turner enjoyed building a few Lego guys! We had an adventure by choosing the public transit system vs driving our own car. It rained most of the evening so we decided it would be better not to run to the car since we would rather eat for the next week instead of buying ponchos!  I heard the sweetest conversation on the bus. One little girl asked another how old she was. The little girl replied 5 and said that she would be going into Kindergarten next year and said she want in a grade.   The first little girl who was a little older said ,"You can just say kindergarten. You don't have to say I'm not in a grade".  It made the entire bus ride worth it!

Well, we've changed Dayne's name to Crush. If you know Dayne and the movie Finding Nemo. If you don't, I'll be delighted to explain!










Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Day 2 of Disney

Another fabulous day in the most magical place on earth! The family got up bright and early and we were ready to leave by 7AM! 

We hit Animal Kingdom first, specifically, the Safari! It was amazing to see all of the animals as we rode through their habitat! I took lots of pictures of animals since we were right next to them! The kids heard lots of "educational" information about them. A-hem, not their favorite part!

Granny and Grandpappy took a great photo with us and enjoyed shows and the monorail for the rest of their stay while we ran from ride to ride. 



Surprisingly the favorite was the Dinosaur ride! Truly it scared us all. The magic of Disney brought to life prehistoric creatures we knew weren't going to attack us, but the build up of the story line combined with the anticipation of what was next truly captured the kids attention!

Have I mentioned that Disney truly is the most magical place on earth? Any place that causes two brothers two re-inact the titanic romance scene-now the BROMANCE scene, is magical. 

One more magic moment. Turner has decided he is an expert at spotting people that "need" hugs. Specifically, the Disney employees. Finally I snapped a picture of him meeting this need. As we walked off, he said that was his "bro-ski"! Only Turner!


A few more highlights...Mandy believes God truly had his hand in some strangers giving us their fast passes to get on space mountain at 8. Ours were at 11PM so the kids decided this was a hug worthy moment and chased down the strangers to give hugs. 
I'm seeing a pattern! 

Lastly, while experiencing the comedy of one of our favorite characters Mike Wazowski, "That Guy" became famous. Different audience members were incorporated in the show and one became known as "That Guy". We lucked out and were on the very next ride with him so the kids HAD to he their picture with "That Guy"! We know it made his day! He became famous at Disney!

I couldn't ask for a more loving and joyous family to be with right now. Sharing these experiences with this group makes me feel like the richest person in the world. My love bank is overflowing as I hear the laughter, see the smiles, and feel the hugs myself. Thank you God for another great day!



Tuesday, June 18, 2013

First Day at Disneyworld!



The most magical place on earth is Disney. No, seriously!  Turner ad Cole got to go to Jedi training and Dayne and I auditioned for American Idol!  We didn't go to Hollywood, but Alice critiqued us beautifully!  We felt like they just preferred a different styles but we still think we're great singers!  Ha!


We spent the day at Hollywood Studios and Epcot. The kids enjoyed their packed lunch and dinner!  I may be cheap, but these kids appreciated the $3.50 cookie they had tonight!  It's the little things in life!

The kids were overwhelmed with all of the amazing Disney techniques. The magic is truly that you get to experience things in a simulation format thY you may never do in your lifetime. 


For instance, we will probably never blast off into space. I do believe the kids feel like they have come pretty close!

Leaving the campgrounds, a hot air balloon was landing right in front of us. I thanked God in all the excitement that He was going to show us things we never thought we would see. We met a family tonight in line. They loved The Lord. Not only did we get to enjoy their company, we felt like we made lifelong friends. We built a connection with them for an hour of our lives. God knew who we needed to meet and when. Normally I would think He would put needy people we could help or give us some sort of service opportunity, but today was different. We met exactly who we needed to an when it was time. 


Thank you again, God, for the wonders of your great love. You are showing me so many things on this trip I need to see!  





Monday, June 17, 2013

Summer kinda Monday

Who says Mondays are no bueno?  Today we had lots of adventures and explored the campground. Swimming, packing food for Disney, and preparing for tomorrow's adventure by studying Disney online made for a quite productive day. We went down to the lake and found some boats for Friday to see if there are really alligators in the Florida waters. That gives us something to look forward to after we finish three days at Disneyworld. 

The boys built a tower of power.  I used to be on the bottom but that ended about two summers ago when Dayne grew up!


This is the coolest find of the day. Looks like the boys found a tree frog on the vending machine. He peed, we snapped a photo, and he jumped on Dayne's shirt. Quite the exciting moment


Walmart really does it up for Disney. This is made from cokes, diet cokes, and coke zero!


Thanking God for His provision, His Holy  Spirit, and His great love. The woman at the check out stand was the slowest line. I noticed this immediately. I decided to wait it out. I'm glad I did. For some reason she decided to tell me she is walking the "walk of shame". She's moved to Florida with her 10 year old daughter only to be out of work for 5 months and have her car repossessed.  She was so saddened by her circumstances, but had a humble spirit that I believe will allow God in her life. I encouraged her in The Lord to trust Him and I committed to pray for her. I felt so much empathy for her and her daughter and it made me thank Him yet again for how blessed I am. She has no family and here we are staying with my mom, step dad, and niece. We have family all over we can love and be loved by. Hug your family tonight and thank God they are here on earth sharing this life with you. 




Sunday, June 16, 2013

Second travel day!

We arrived safely at thousand trails campground in Orlando!  Now THIS is a vacation!  Wow!  No, our luggage was not delivered magically to our resort room, but we get the pleasure of having a pool, tennis courts, and a place to go run every morning in the great outdoors!

The boys enjoyed swimming first thing this morning at the hotel before we ate our continental breakfast. This was on purpose. We generally eat very little at the hotel and I have to feed the kids two hours later, but today was different!  Swimming gave the boys an appetite affording them an opportunity to get our money's worth at the hotel!  



We took our time driving. We had lots of pizza leftover from last night because they gave us an extra for free so we found someone in the park that wanted it!  We heard there were homeless there but decide not to go last night at 10:30 just to be on the safe side.

Not long after we got on the highway, we saw an amazing battleship so we toured the park and saw the Alabama Korean War memorial along with the Vietnam memorial. I had just changed my Facebook picture to my dad in his military uniform so I was a little moved by this on Father's Day!



The distraction of finding homeless people to feed caused us to miss the 9:30 church service online so we attempted to attend the 11:00. Somehow during my search, we all missed the Florida visitor center as we crossed the state line. I took the next exit and turned around. It was a great plan since we had missed Alabama yesterday so we were able to go there first. The part I don't realize was that you would have to travel another 20 minutes the wrong way to turn back around. We eventually made it back to Florida and it was worth every minute. They had the best free OJ I've ever had!





The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We plate a license plate game and attended another church service at 4 (our 11:00 had issues with the Internet) and we got a little lost at the end. Overall, we had a great time making memories, chatting, worshipping, and of course playing Minecraft!


Saturday, June 15, 2013

Sweet Home Alabama

Ending our day in Alabama!!!  We are staying in the historic downtown Mobile!  The kids were fantastic to ride with and our day flew by!  We were so excited to cross state the state lines into Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.  Somehow we missed the small sign for Alabama so no pics but we jammed out to Sweet Home Alabama!  The boys hung their limbs (SAFELY) out of the window screaming the lyrics.  True sign of the times...while driving down the highway, I heard a child say, "we haven't had wi-if for hours"!  We also enjoyed seeing the grocery store Winn Dixie.  Cole immediately remembered the book and movie Because of Winn Dixie.  He recorded it on video with a little bit of narration.  He still has that sweet child voice!

It was a very adventurous day.  W are heading to bed and as I listen to the kids, they are asking Siri where the nearest Quick Trip is located.  Siri didn't respond.  I'm so grateful for this time with the boys.  Thank you God!  More pics later...heading to bed!

On the road again...

Well we're off to a great start to Disney World!  After rearranging the trunk, filling the tank, hitting two breakfast joints, and oversleeping, the kids pulled away from minecraft long enough to play tic tac toe! Daynes already snoozing and I'm hitting the worship on pandora. The first song that played was You Said.  It's based on ask and you shall receive. This week I'm  going to ask for everything that is good for His kingdom. He delights in more than we'll ever know. He's the perfect father!

Friday, June 14, 2013

DISNEY 2013

We are heading to bed now!  We are waking up to the vacation of a lifetime. Just last week our pastor preached about how Disney is a trip, NOT a vacation.  I beg to differ. That's not even in the Bible. Ha!  We are doing things a little different. We won't arrive at a hotel within the park only to have our luggage brought in by the hotel concierge...we are driving across the country road trippin' style to see America. We will land in a comfy RV with Mom and Larry where we will leisurely choose 7 days to explore the Disney parks-these will not be consecutive either. Camping style...an opportunity to blend vacation with a trip!  I'm so excited I can't sleep. Stay tuned to  hear all about our experiences and lets NOT FORGET who blessed us with this opportunity!  Our Savior Jesus Christ who deserves an accolade!  We won't be quiet about Him!  Thank you Lord for family, friends, and for this incredible journey!  May it bring You glory!