I’m baaaaaaack!

Yep, I’m back.  I can’t predict how long this will last though, so don’t get too excited about it.  Yes, I’m talking to you, Mom.  If you’re just joining us, I used to write this blog on a regular basis.  Just a way to keep the fam up to speed on what we’re up to.  But as the kids got older and not as cutesy, writing about their sassy attitudes and posting their reluctant poses where I pleaded with them to SMILE FOR THE CAMERA seemed kinda pointless.  But I guess it is what it is.  So, without further adieu, I give you – Our Life on a Lake!  Here’s Dyliebar.  Yes, this is mainly the one I was talking about – the one who refuses to cooperate with me for pictures.

I hear this runs in the family (NOT MY SIDE!).  He is still a pretty sweet boy though when he wants to be.  He’s sensitive and shy like his mama (my mom calls him a cream puff which is a pretty accurate description, actually! LOL), but he does show some sassy attitude which I can only assume is from Eric.  HAHA!!!  He has his moments of humor fairly often though which is definitely from Eric.  I find myself saying to him quite often, “You’re just like your Dad.”

This one, on the other hand, is our little ray of sunshine with only a few storm clouds here and there.  She’s all smiles but don’t cross her!  You cross her and you’ll hear about it.  She spends a lot of time screaming at Dylan – their latest “thing.” “Mom, he’s looking at me!!!”  Yep, you know the drill.  Ugh.  NOT my favorite phase from either of them.  I recently made a digital scrapbook of 2012 and did a several page spread of how loving they used to be towards each other.  Avery LOVED it and rubbed it in his face.  Dylan thought it was disgusting!

So yeah, getting them to take these pictures was FUN TIMES!  HA!  See how he’s holding her hand like she has some sort of disease?

Oh well, I guess we’ll keep them anyway.  I can only HOPE that one day this phase stops and they go back to the way they used to be.  I had always thought he would be an awesome big brother who sticks up for his sister and threatens to kill those who do her wrong.  Instead he spends his days telling her she stinks.  Calgon, take me awaaaaaay!!!

OH!  Wouldn’t you know it?!  We DID get to go away!  Though, we had to take them with us, so there’s that.  Yep, my parents took us, my brother, his wife and their kids to Disney World last month!  It was their first time there and they LOVED it!  They had zero expectations going in and now they are wondering when they can go again.  The first day we spent half at Epcot and half at Magic Kingdom.

Reluctant picture participation strikes again! “Nemo is for BABIES!!!”  Ugh.

This was on Daniel’s birthday.  We went to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party that night at Magic Kingdom (hence, the sort of park hop).  

Had to take pics in front of the castle of course!

I decided to take some selfies with Avery (cuz she is the princess of selfies) and all of a sudden Nat popped into the screen behind me.

Then Renae!

Then Jon!

And finally my mom!  We had a good laugh.  The progression of selfies. 🙂

It finally started getting dark on our very first day of Disney.  It was almost time for the parade to begin!

Dylan went as Harry Potter to the party.  He only wore his stuff during the parade tho.  Bah humbug, Dylan!!  Just like his Dad!!!

The parade itself was amazing.  I LOVED it!  I’ve had the song they played stuck in my head ever since we got home.  We even found a link to it on YouTube so we were able to relive it when we got home. 🙂

And here are the fireworks from that night!

The next day we went to Hollywood Studios.  Land of Tower of Terror and Frozen Sing A Long! 🙂  Dylan was a big fan of the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular.  We realized he hasn’t seen any of the movies so we’ll have to fix that soon!

Avery and I went to the Frozen Sing A Long which she really loved.  I thought it was kinda lame that Elsa didn’t appear until the END of the show, but it was worth it when she did.  And guess what she brought with her – SNOW.  Real snow.  So Avery was impressed with that of course.

Avery was a little too young for a lot of the rides at Disney.  She’s a bit of a chicken. Ha ha!  So she spent a lot of time with Grandma and Grandpa sitting on benches watching people go by.  I think they were all 3 content to do that.  They had lots of ice cream and lots of laughs.  She kept them pretty entertained.

The next day, we went to breakfast at the Kona Cafe before heading to Animal Kingdom.  I screwed up on the planning and wasn’t able to book anything in advance.  We WANTED to go to Tusker House, but oh well.  This was still good.

Here are some pictures from the Safari Tour at Animal Kingdom.

Dylan LOVED this and was yelling at me to get pictures of everything we saw.  So I had to do a lot of weeding out of pics here!  LOL

My brother took control of my camera at Animal Kingdom, so we ended up with a lot of scenery pictures of this day.  Good to have a few, right Taco?

One of my favorite rides – the Expedition Everest.  I loved it!  We went on this one a few times.  We laughed and laughed over the ride picture of us.  I’m like WOO HOOOO!!!  Daniel and Jon are smiling.  And then there’s my mom all , HO HUM, whatever, this ride is just OKAY.

Treats and dancing in the street!

Eric and Dylan saved the water ride at Animal Kingdom for last.  And it was a good thing they did.  They were both SOAKED.  Eric walked in a wide stance the whole way out of the park.

Next day was Universal Studios.  Dylan was waiting for this day especially b/c of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  He is a huge fan of all things Harry Potter so this was a MUST DO for us on this trip.

Of course, the first thing we had to do was get wands.  Thank goodness for Grandma b/c these wands were pretty pricey!  But they were SO excited about them.  They were interactive in the park so they were able to cast spells at several places within the Harry Potter area.

I’ll tell you what MY favorite part of the Harry Potter world was – BUTTER BEER.  Glorious, glorious, Butter Beer.  Oh how I miss thee.  We have tried one “make at home” recipe so far since getting home and it was not even remotely close.  I’m afraid I’m going to forget what the real thing tastes like!  AHHH!

Ya know, this ride might have been my other favorite.  Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts.  It was awesome!  A 3-D ride which is hard to explain but it was a good one.  If the wait wasn’t so long, I definitely would have gone again!

More wizarding.

Yes, we had to get another Butter Beer.  HAD TO.

Finally, it was the end of the day.  Ugh.  This is when everyone started hitting the wall.  Mid week.  But, we had to press on!!!

Taco’s breakfast the next morning.  It was game time.

So we went back to Magic Kingdom for a FULL day this time.  Avery’s favorite ride was the Dumbo ride.  We did lots of selfies, of course!

Then, the most magical thing happened.  Avery was chosen to play the Beast when we went to the Enchanted Tales with Belle show!

So she got to dance with Belle!

The other best drink award goes to……..the Aloha Isle and the awesome Dole Whip!  Also smashing and worthy of having more than one!

One of my favorite pics I took of Muchachos.  She was so happy to have her new doll.  It was a miracle that I got this picture with no other people in it!!

It started getting closer to the end of the day when I realized we hadn’t taken a family picture in front of the castle!  GASP!  So I made them truck over there and take pictures.  Deal with it people!!

Then it was time for Avery to meet Rapunzel and Cinderella.  We didn’t have fast passes for Elsa and Anna, sadly.  So this had to do.  She loved them!!

After we were done at Magic Kingdom, we headed back to Polynesian for the Luau Dinner Show.  This was great.  Finally, we got to sit down, have some drinks and be entertained.  Thanks for the fun time, Mom and Dad!  Here’s the funny story of that night tho.  We had left the rental cars at the Magic Kingdom parking lot which was just next door to Polynesian.  So we ASSUMED you could just easily walk next door.  Well, let me tell you.  NOT the case.  Taking the monorail one stop down would have been MUCH easier but noooooooo, no one wanted to listen ME!  So we set out on our long trek and not one of us has a clue of which way to go so we’d walk in one direction, find out it was wrong, turn around, go back.  At this point, we lost Grandma.  As in, she said she could no longer walk.  So we left her on a bench with Renae and Daniel and set forth on our mission.  We finally were able to gain access to the parking lot with our cars, but then walked in the wrong direction for awhile.  OOPS!  And then, after FINALLY locating the cars – we realized RENAE had the car keys to one of the cars.  NOOOOOOOOO!!!!  So then we had to drive all the way to Downtown Disney with 7 people crammed in one mid sized car b/c well, thats the only place you can turn around to go back to Polynesian, folks!  Yep, we could have spit on them over the fence, but nooooooooo, you can’t just hop next door!  UGH!  But there were a lot of laughs over it, so I guess we got over it.

Our last say was at Epcot.  We got there early and we were the only ones there it seemed like for the first hour.  I took Avery on a couple of rides and we were the only ones on it!  Things then got crazy.  It was the Food and Wine Festival in the World Showcase so it was PACKED full of people.

We got Limoncello shots to cope.

The kids all enjoyed this little village in I think Poland?  I could be wrong on that.  They looked at this for quite awhile.

This was the hottest day by far.  Dylan and Eric went to ride Mission Space over and over again (not me – BARF!!!) so Avery, Grandma and Grandpa and I sat on a bench in the shade and sampled the beer, wine and food.  Twas lovely.

Avery once again, entertained us.  She made us all do selfies with her.

Then it was time to go home.  Sad!!  Back to reality and back to regularly scheduled fall weather!  I’ve never been more happy to see 50 degrees!  Is that wrong?  LOL.  Anyway, hope you enjoyed this update.  See you in a year!  Hahahahahah!!!