First Weekend In November

This weekend begins our craziness that will last through the holidays. Friday night I had a dress rehearsal for our fall production of A Night On Broadway. We did a several covers of popular Broadway songs. After dress we had a cast dinner at El Nopal. From dinner, I picked Bob and the girls up and we went to Shelby's Halloween party at the Shell Farm. It was her band friends. She had a great turn out and the weather was just right. 

Maddie loved snuggling with Aunt Sue

I cannot believe how grown up she is

Someone gave Maddie purple cupcakes :)

Saturday was showtime. The performance went really well and the kids did great. Ellie and a few other kids had a minor role. Ellie was excited about getting her make-up done. 

Today Ellie and I met up with a few of her friends from dance and their moms to go to Floyd Central to see their production of Les Miserables. While this was a great production, I was a little disappoint at how many adults/non student cast members there was in the show. The two main characters were played by professional actors. I guess I was just expecting a high school cast with maybe a few minor roles filled with adults. But it was a good show nonetheless. Ellie did enjoy it, but thankful she did not really understand it yet. One of the reasons were went was because her dance studio did the choreography for the production.

October 2013

October seemed like it flew by. When two weeks off for Fall Break in the middle of the month, it seemed that we were out of school more than we were in. We had a nine day vacation planned starting the second weekend of break and going until right before we go back. 

Meg invited us over at the beginning of the month to make fall crafts. The girls had such a great time. 

Right before we left for Disney the girls had their annual photos with Mr. Foto. Here is a snap that I took while they were waiting for him to get ready. This was the best that Maddie had ever done, I cannot wait to get the pictures back.

For the past four years we have been taking the girls to the assisted living home in town for trick or treating. This is such a rewarding experience for everyone involved. The girls got way too much candy, but they had a great time. Meg and Eme and Candace and Mallory met us up there. 

Halloween was crazy this year. There was the potential for severe weather coming in on Halloween night. So many of the surrounding communities moved Halloween up a day. The girls was not really thrilled about going about trick or treating, but wanted to help mom and dad pass out candy at the trunk or treat on the square. 

Boo At the Zoo

Because of Disney-we decided not to take the girls to the Boo at the Zoo this year. We have gone every year since Ellie was born, I think. Ms. Harbin, Ellie's teacher, sent me an E-mail this week. In the email she attached a picture. She told me that she had introduced persuasive writing to the students and Ellie took off writing. Here she is writing about going to the Zoo to trick or treat. We felt back, we had not said anything to the girls about not going or even going for that matter. But after this we were so proud of her writing that we could not deny her. So it was a beautiful evening and we took the girls on over there. Ellie was Pocahontas-this was one of her Disney items, and Maddie wanted to be Belle. I was glad the girls seen Belle and Merida--we did not find either one of them while at Disney.

Disney: Day Five

One of the draw backs to paying for everything in advance, you don't pay as much attention when you pass on something you have already paid for. We had one more day of parks, but were exhausted. Mom and Dad left this morning. We had appts at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique later in the afternoon in Downtown Disney. We were so tired and opted to hang around the resort for a bit and then head to Downtown Disney to look around there for a while before their appts. We dropped some serious money in the DD, but we got a lot of birthday and upcoming Christmas gifts for many people. As one who waits for the last minute to finish Christmas shopping, it was nice to have such a good start.

The girls were both getting the ultimate package for their birthdays that were coming up next month. I was not sure that Maddie would be on board, but she was such a trouper. She hates having her hair fixed and I was so shocked how good she did. But I will note that as soon as we walked back into the resort she had her hair down and everything pulled out. Maddie wanted to be Belle and Ellie was Rapunzel. I am not sure about the hairstyle she chose, but it was her decision.

As part of the package, the girls got a photo session. I was not happy with the pictures. Ellie has this new smile that she is doing (ugh) and Maddie was so tired and ready to go to sleep (she fell asleep while we were waiting for the pictures to print).

We headed back to the resort as soon as we were finished with the pictures. Both girls fell asleep on the bus back to the resort and Maddie would not wake up for anything. We all were so tired and needed to figure out about how to best get ready for our early wake-up to head back home. Might I also take a moment to say again how much I love staying on Disney property. We checked our luggage in at the resort, and they also printed off our boarding passes. We loaded the bus and arrived at the airport in plenty of time--and did not have to worry about any of our massive amount of luggage. (We opted to bring both the carseats for Daytona and the stroller--plus four rather large bags). We were back in cold Louisville by noon. We went from 90s to 30s and it was quite a shock. Mom and Dad arrived back at home a little later. So thankful that God protected each of us and we had a great vacation. 

Things to Remember for Disney in the future:

1.) Get the photopass and take tons of pictures. The $169 is worth all the pictures that you get, especially for a 5 day trip. 

2.) If doing BBB-then try to get it earlier in the week if possible.

Disney: Day Four

Today was much better. Each of us got the opportunity to go to Animal Kingdom for the first time. While I enjoyed much of the day (it was the hottest day of all and there is not a lot of shade and lots of hills), I am not sure we will come back here until the girls are bigger. There are a lot of great rides, but they are for the bigger kids/adults. 

Maddie needed a nap and fell asleep on me during a train ride to another part of the park. We could not bring our stroller on the train so we had to carry her around. 90+ degrees + sweating, sleeping 2 year old was not a good combination. So Maddie and I found a shaded spot by a fan, and Bob and Ellie went on ahead to explore. I am glad that they did. A favorite movie shared by both of them is the Jungle Book. Ellie found Rafiki and was so excited to tell me about it when she returned. 

After we got back to the main park, we had a fast pass for the safari ride. Which was actually pretty amazing. We got to see a lot of animals up close. Both the girls really enjoyed this ride. 

This park has an early closing time, which we were grateful for. We had a 5:45 dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. We actually got done with the park about two hours before dinner, but I was not going to pass on Rainforest. So we happened upon the Lion King show, which was awesome. It was interactive and since we worked our fast passes out to where we had one, we were the first to be let in and got front row seats. After the show we went to Rainforest early and got in a bit earlier than our reservations. The food was so good. By far the best meal of the trip. I loved the lava ice cream dessert. After dinner the park was already closed, so we left and headed back to the hotel at a decent time.

When we returned, the girls were excited to see the maid services latest work (each night we got home, something special was done).

Disney: Day Three

 Yesterday was so awesome, and today was the complete opposite. Epcot is normally my favorite park, but today it was so crowded and the sun was so hot and brought the temperature above 90. As you can tell from the lack of pictures, there really was not much to do here for the girls and with the conditions.

Dinner was a perfect cap to our frustrating day. We went into the Rose and Crown Pub, sat down and looked at their "new" menu. They had redone the kids meal. When we chose our restaurants to eat, we made our selection based on if the kids would like the food. There was nothing on this "new" menu that the girls would eat. So we got up and left. We then headed back to the resort and just ate in the food court there. It was not bad food and the girls ate well.

The only character all day

This is what Maddie did from about an hour in until we left. She was exhausted and needed a good nap. Daddy also rigged up a fan to help keep her cool because it was so hot.

Things to Remember for Disney trips in the future:

1.) Do not go to Epcot until the girls are much older. 

2.) This is not an all day park, plan to come early and leave early or come later in the afternoon

3.) Don't trust the menus for the restaurants online, they can change, especially if you make your reservations months in advance.