Pool Party

The last two years Curt's parents have won a pool party from a silent auction that their church holds during the yearly garage sale. A very nice lady named Mary hosts this party at her house and provides all the food and beverages (and of course the pool). The first year that we went I thought it would be really awkward because we didn't know Mary. But, after about the first 5 minutes I found that Mary just really likes people, she is very generous and loves to share her home. This year, I wasn't nervous and was looking forward to seeing Mary again. This is probably our last pool party though. Mary and her husband are preparing to move to....NEW ZEALAND. Doesn't that just sound so fun and adventurous? She's also an airline pilot. The more I get to know her, the more I like her.

Here are some of the pictures of our fun that day. Most of these were taken for me by Mary (she also scrapbooks!!).

This is all of us

This is Jacob trying to beat his daddy with a giant noodle

Here is Ethan going down the slide. Have you ever seen anything so funny?

Thank you Mary, we had a wonderful day. Thank you to the Ford's, without your winning bid and invitation we would have missed all this fun.

Parade Day

Curt's dad is a barber in the small town of Grand Ledge. Curt and I both grew up there. Curt was born and raised there, I moved in in time for seventh grade. Anyway, we go to Grand Ledge for our haircuts and on this particular Saturday in late June, Gary (Curt's dad) asked us to come in a bit early because there was going to be a parade downtown and parking was going to be a bear. We got there about an hour before the parade and were done in time to find a spot on the main drag and watch the parachuter land smack in the middle of the bridge.

It was really cool to watch him come in. They even had a little target for him to aim for and he landed right on it.

W also saw a lady walking on stilts. You don't see many stilt walkers anymore. Its kind of become a lost art, so to speak.

Anyway, watching the parade was fun. The boys filled my purse with candy, which we still haven't eaten and thought the coolest thing was the old police car we saw.

Calling All Scrappers.....

I was just on QVC.com (my favorite shopping site) and saw that on September 23rd, (the day before my birthday) they are hosting a Paper Crafting Fair. They only do this two times a year and it is coming up. Start saving those pennies. They are going to have a Today's Special Value which will kick-off the event at Midnight (am. on the 23rd) and all day they show new tools, product lines, papers, etc. It is fun to watch and just get some new ideas. I hope that you enjoy watching. Let me know if you buy anything.

Back at the Zoo

If you know my family you know that one of our favorite and very cheap excursions is to the zoo. Curt's mom and dad get us a family pass to the zoo that is less than 30 minutes away from our house every year for Curt's and my birthday. We like it because we can use it as often as we want and if we happen to go away to somewhere close to another zoo we can get into that zoo at a discounted rate. It is a great deal for us all around. Keeping all that in mind, I have a lot of scrapbook pages about the zoo. It is a great joke among my Rachel friends.

Anyway, this year our first zoo trip didn't happen until the week before we went to Disney. Yeah, I was packing away and then had to stop and go to the zoo. But really with those cute little boys wanting to feed the giraffes how do you say no??

The boys are very fond of maps. They don't really know how to read them, but they hold them open and look at them all the time. They've done pretty good at not running into things while they study their maps, but they've had some very close calls.

I love taking their picture while they are sitting on stuff. I don't know what it is, but I am sure that I have at least one picture from every trip to the zoo with the boys sitting on this same pile of elephant tusks.

This picture is pretty exciting to me. Ethan is the one feeding the giraffe a little cracker (especially made for the giraffes and provided by the zoo). Ethan is afraid of animals including dogs (even puppies) and cats (including kittens). He doesn't like them to get anywhere near him (especially with their mouths). But he did really good feeding them here.

Here he is petting the goats. You see he's petting it way up on its back and he wouldn't let Curt put him down to walk among the goats. Oooh No, that isn't going to be happening for a while.

This is the little elephant statue in the children's play area. I told you I liked taking their picture sitting on things.

I hope you all have a happy day today!

**I haven't had much opportunity to update our blog lately. I am going to try to catch up with some of the goings on over the last month or so that I haven't been able to share. I am going away again this weekend (scrapbooking with cousin Beckie, I am soooo excited) and Curt is going to join me on Saturday night so we can spend Sunday with Beckie and Mike. I will try to post more early next week.

The Rest of the Vacation...

This is Orange Lake Resort (our home for a week). It was a beautiful resort and we loved being there. We probably could have stayed there all week and kept busy just doing things there. Of course, we were there only to sleep, eat, bathe and swim in the pool.

Curt didn't bring any reading material and our DVD player wouldn't hook up to the t.v. so he played the boys' games and tried to drive me crazy (because I had reading material).

Curt took this while I was riding Space Mountain. Just look at those beautiful blue eyes. The girls are going to be flocking to him someday.

One day on our way back to Disney after our afternoon siesta we saw these two bunnies nibbling on the grass with a pair of birds. Jacob just insisted that I take a picture.

And of course, we spent some time at the pools. The resort had three different pool complexes with multiple pools and waterslides in each. This particular pool had a huge lazy river.

We all had so much fun. Our vacation was better than we had ever dreamed it could be. We had two evenings of rain, but only one of those days kept us in and the other day it stopped raining as soon as we reached our evening destination. It was hot, but we were prepared with water and sunscreen. It could only have been better if it lasted longer, but we were so tired when we got home it took a good week for us all to be back to our happy selves. I'm not sure we would have been able to keep up our vacation fun pace for any longer. But it was definitely good while it lasted.

Sea World

I need to begin this post by saying that I really like orca whales. I think they are an absolutely stunning display of God's creation. What I also find fascinating is that people (highly trained and very brave) are able to teach them tricks. So, I took a bunch of pictures. I love the way they turned out and so most of these pictures are of the whales and sea lions and a few of our family thrown in (but I don't seem to be in any of them -- oh, the life of the camera carrier).

When we arrived at Sea World we were just in time to make it to the Shamu show. I couldn't wait. I was super giddy. I think it's because my family used to go to Sea World when it was close by in Ohio and I have very fond memories of it. I was really excited to share this with the boys and yes, I was a little sappy (if you can believe that).

This was right at the beginning of the show when the orca made its first jump.

It was so beautiful and powerful.

There were lots of jumps and dives...

and a little bit of orca smooching.

I thought "how fun to serf on top of a whale," but really, who am I kidding?

Again, it looks fun, but when I really think about it I these people are a little off their rockers.

I know it's a tail, but isn't it beautiful??

Here is one of the few family photos. The boys (and Daddy) are trying to pet the sting rays. Jacob did really good, but Ethan was a little short so he had to lay across the edge and really reach in. He was terrified of falling in so he didn't get to pet them this first day. When we went back at the end of the week he was a little bit more brave and finally got his fingers on one.

We were excited to see a little Sesame Street show (even though it didn't have anything to do with the sea). It was fun, the boys really liked it and the theater was air-conditioned!!

This sea lion show was hysterical. The animals don't always do what they are supposed to do so it was extra funny. The boys liked this one because it was about PIRATES!!

On Friday evening we saw the Manitee exhibit. It was really neat to see these animals. And the bronze statue outside the exhibit made for a great photo!

When we went back on Friday evening I tried not to take any more pictures of the shows, because I really had taken enough. And instead, I took a bit of video.

We just made it in time to catch the Sea Lion show. We missed the first five minutes or so, but it was funny. The whole show was a spoof on the Shamu shows (because he is the big daddy of Sea World). It was really funny and the boys even caught on to the jokes.

The last show we saw was the Shamu Rocks show. It is just a bunch of really loud Rock and Roll music (many of the songs were favorites of ours) and the orcas jumping and swimming and all that good stuff. It was amazing to see how they could communicate with the whales even in the dark.

This is my favorite part of the whole show. Just amazing!

Disney

Here are some pictures and snippets from our trip to Florida. I have decided to post a separate blog about Sea World and another of just fun stuff. I think I took over 300 pictures and about 200 of them were keepers. You won't have to look at them all unless you live close by and I force my scrapbook on you!! Enjoy.


I took a lot of pictures of the castle and this is my favorite one. This was taken as we were walking out of Tomorrowland toward Main Street, USA. There was a beautiful park area with tons of flowers and a little waterfall. It was a gorgeous setting. Definitely fit for a Princess.

Several times a day a cute little play involving several of the characters is acted out right in front of the castle (Can we say photo-op?). We watched the whole thing in two different parts and I was able to get some great pictures of it. You can't really tell but there are at least 500 people standing around watching it too.

One of my favorite moments came when the boys saw Snow White for the first time. In perfect unison and with a breathy awe in their little voices they said "It's Snow White!!". So many times on this trip I had tears leap into my eyes over their wonder and enchantment.

Of course it wouldn't be a Disney show without Mickey and Minnie standing in the spotlight.

And who are Mickey and Minnie without their good friends Goofy and Donald?

The first ride that we rode was through the Haunted Mansion. I don't know if it was one of our favorites because of the cool (as in neat) factor or because of the cool (as in air-conditioned) factor. Again, it was a great place to take pictures. Can you see the invisible horse waiting to pull the carriage? I thought not.

Some of the other favorite things we did were riding on Dumbo...

... and the boys loved the race track. They thought they were hot stuff to be able to drive. Of course, both Curt and I had a little whiplash when we were done, but it was all in the name of fun.

On the morning of the second day at Disney just as we walked into the Magic Kingdom there was a relatively short line to see Pluto (more about him later) so we decided to take a family photo with him. It is one of my favorites of the four of us on this trip.

This was taken while Curt was off riding Space Mountain. The boys were in awe of Buzz Lightyear and were just giddy with the whole thing. They thought it especially cool that Buzz turned their hats crooked. Ooh, to be touched by Buzz was a big deal!

There is a really cool Buzz Lightyear ride that is a little like a video game that you become a part of. Basically two people ride in a cart and you each have a laser gun and you shoot at little "Z" targets (Z is short for Zurg) and get points. The points don't earn you anything, but it was fun beating Curt!! Afterwards you get to see your picture on T.V. screens and if you want to order them (for a hefty sum) you may. I opted for taking pictures of the T.V. screens.

At 9:00 and 11:00 in the evening Disney had a Spectromagic Parade. It was all lights and songs and it was really cool. I have included a few short movies of it. I took some pictures, but they had a tendency to be blurry. The movies came out better.

We got to meet Mickey and the gang. You have to wait in line of course, but it moves relatively quickly. I have to give Disney props for organization. Everything is as smooth as butter.

Of all the characters, Pluto was by far Ethan's favorite. Every time we saw him he would say "I want to hug Pluto." He even would say it on our way back to the park after our afternoon siesta. It was really cute until he almost got his Momma in trouble. We were walking through a store on our way out for lunch and he spied Pluto through the window of the door (now mind you he'd already hugged Pluto at least twice already and it wasn't even lunch). He ran out the door with me on his heels and ran right into Pluto's arms. As I am saying to him "Ethan, we have to go now," a man says, "Ma'am, is he with you?" I said yes, and was then told that if he wants to see Pluto then he needs to stand in line like all the other kids. At that moment I looked to my right and saw a HUGE line. I felt horrible, but when I got Ethan away he just looked up at me with those big blue eyes of his and said "I just wanted to hug him Mommy, I just wanted to love him."

Last, but by far not the least ;-) is a picture from Curt's favorite show from his childhood that he just had to see with us. It is the Country Bear Jamboree and it starred Big Al (sorry I don't have a picture of him, you are really missing out on that one). Through the show Jacob kept leaning over to me and asking "When's this going to be done?" Apparently he was as excited about this as he was the Hall of Presidents.

We had a great time and I have to admit what they say is true. Disney World is the place where "Dreams Really Do Come True"!