Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Family Pictures
I like to time my photos around birthdays and holidays - so this time we were taking Penelope's two year old pics (a month early), and for Easter. My friend Emily took these out at the Clark County Wetlands - I think we barely scratched the surface for cool places to take pictures, and the light out there before sunset was awesome. We will have to go back out there sometime soon and explore - ponds, streams, cattails, ducks, rabbits, bridges, all sorts of fun things out at the wetlands.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Random Disney Pics
Because I just can't get enough of these pictures, and they are my souvenirs so I have to share them!
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Monsters Inc Laugh Floor aka We Were on TV!!
The highlight of our Magic Kingdom visit was getting the VIP treatment at the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor. Becky works with the Monsters, so she met us at the side door and we went into a separate line where we were escorted to our seats - we got to stay there for two shows in a row and didn't have to file out and back again with the "commoners."
The show is interactive - the characters on the screen talk to the audience and make them part of the performance, telling jokes to capture our laughs instead of screams, just like in the movie. In the first performance, Penelope got to be "Boo," the little girl from Monsters Inc. The monsters were trying to get her to do peek-a-boo and I was worried she wouldn't perform, but she pulled through in the end with some serious cute. Becky said normally the Monsters would have moved on to another little munchkin since P kind of froze once she saw herself up on the screen, but they held out for us. The next show, Claire and Miles got to be on the big screen and talked about their Halloween costumes. Claire said she was Princess Leia for Halloween (after some prompting from me) and then the Star Wars jokes were on!
The rest of the day, and trip, they kept saying - "Remember how we were on TV!" And people who were in our shows would see the kids throughout the park and say, "There's Claire and Miles!" or "There's Boo!" It was so cool! They felt like super stars!
The Monsters told one of Claire's jokes during the show too: What did one math book say to the other math book? Man, you've got a lot of problems!"
The show is interactive - the characters on the screen talk to the audience and make them part of the performance, telling jokes to capture our laughs instead of screams, just like in the movie. In the first performance, Penelope got to be "Boo," the little girl from Monsters Inc. The monsters were trying to get her to do peek-a-boo and I was worried she wouldn't perform, but she pulled through in the end with some serious cute. Becky said normally the Monsters would have moved on to another little munchkin since P kind of froze once she saw herself up on the screen, but they held out for us. The next show, Claire and Miles got to be on the big screen and talked about their Halloween costumes. Claire said she was Princess Leia for Halloween (after some prompting from me) and then the Star Wars jokes were on!
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| A photo for my blog book - wish I could capture the videos too! |
The Monsters told one of Claire's jokes during the show too: What did one math book say to the other math book? Man, you've got a lot of problems!"
So. Much. Fun. Thank you Becky Baird Hiller!!
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
More Magic Kingdom
I seriously think we could have left Penelope with Pooh and Tigger and come back at the end of the day and she would be just fine. I cannot express how much she just wanted to lean in and hug these guys - it was so genuine, I was amazed at how she was never scared.
Becky Baird was our tour guide - we had done very little planning prior to the trip since we were consumed with the move. I usually like to be in research mode for weeks prior to a trip, and that wasn't going to happen. I told Becky we would do whatever she thought we would like most, and I think that was the best thing we could have done. We chose which parks we'd see in our four days - two days at Magic Kingdom, one at Epcot, and one at Hollywood Studios. It was just right.
This next picture is to show how hot, humid and sweaty I was this entire trip... maybe we can call it a 'glow' so I feel better about it. The Jungle Cruise actually felt like a jungle for once with the humidity. I am just too used to the dry desert of Las Vegas - I was melting. Even during my conference I was hot. We had one of our lunches outside to get a break from the hotel and it was miserable for me to sit outside, without shade, in my black work clothes. I am used to freezing air conditioning at conferences and had dressed accordingly.
Becky Baird was our tour guide - we had done very little planning prior to the trip since we were consumed with the move. I usually like to be in research mode for weeks prior to a trip, and that wasn't going to happen. I told Becky we would do whatever she thought we would like most, and I think that was the best thing we could have done. We chose which parks we'd see in our four days - two days at Magic Kingdom, one at Epcot, and one at Hollywood Studios. It was just right.
This next picture is to show how hot, humid and sweaty I was this entire trip... maybe we can call it a 'glow' so I feel better about it. The Jungle Cruise actually felt like a jungle for once with the humidity. I am just too used to the dry desert of Las Vegas - I was melting. Even during my conference I was hot. We had one of our lunches outside to get a break from the hotel and it was miserable for me to sit outside, without shade, in my black work clothes. I am used to freezing air conditioning at conferences and had dressed accordingly.
Disney Love
We had two groups on this trip - those who wanted to go on rides, and only rides, and those who wanted to see every walking stuffed animal they could find. Guess who was crazy about Min-Mouse? P loved the characters and was not scared in the least. No hesitation to hug and kiss them, which kind of shocked me considering Claire and Miles were less than thrilled with the characters at that age. So I ended up going with Penelope to stand in line for the characters while Matt went on the rides - though we did switch quite a bit and I got to go on the roller coasters with Claire and sometime Miles. The only one I did not want to ride, that turned into a favorite, was Tower of Terror. No thank you!
Most of the time Penelope was all business when we finally made our way to the front of the line - she was very serious when she walked up to Minnie, Mickey, Daisy, Donald and Goofy. But then she would get a huge smile on her face when we were almost done. We caught her smiling on this one with Minnie, her absolute favorite. We even came back to wait in line again with Claire and Miles. Epcot and Magic Kingdom had some really cool versions of the classic Disney characters that we don't usually see at Disneyland.
Most of the time Penelope was all business when we finally made our way to the front of the line - she was very serious when she walked up to Minnie, Mickey, Daisy, Donald and Goofy. But then she would get a huge smile on her face when we were almost done. We caught her smiling on this one with Minnie, her absolute favorite. We even came back to wait in line again with Claire and Miles. Epcot and Magic Kingdom had some really cool versions of the classic Disney characters that we don't usually see at Disneyland.
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| Penelope with Vanellope |
Monday, April 7, 2014
Disney World!!!
We moved into our new house on a Saturday and we left for a previously planned trip to Orlando the next Monday - it was crazy trying to pack, unpack, and pack again for our trip. I had a conference on social media and public relations hosted by Disney, so you have to bring your family along for something like that! It was a splurge we had planned when we took our house off the market, and got a decent tax return to boot. We had no idea that less than a week later, we would get the offer on our house that would finally stick.
We decided to not tell the kids about the trip, mainly because once they know about something fun coming up - a trip, a birthday, a visit - they do not stop asking about it. Like every day, every hour - are we leaving yet?? So, we tried to keep it a secret from them, even though it slipped out in bits and pieces over the weeks and Claire pieced it together... Miles was still surprised. We stopped by our house in the southwest one last time to leave our keys, and then Aaron drove us to the airport. We told the kids about the trip as we were driving to the drop off area for Southwest. I said - I think we should go somewhere today... Miles, do you want to go on a plane? YES! So we did. :) They were excited, though not that crazy freak out moment that we had hoped for... but it was still a fun moment!
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Penelope, just a month shy of turning 2, was a lap child. I probably wouldn't have gone on the trip if we had to pay for her flight since they were pretty expensive, but in hind sight, it may have been worth the extra dough. She. Was. Awful. If she had her own seat, she was happy. But she wanted to go up and down the isles and switch back and forth all the time, and of course our four hour flight out there was completely full so there weren't any extra seats for us to snag. I held Miles part of the trip so P could have her own seat, until my legs started falling asleep. Claire and Miles were awesome though - I think we will only fly again if Penelope is closer to Miles' age now. Or if the flight is like an hour :)
A major perk of going to Disney World is to see Becky Baird -best friend/roomie/actress/comedian/best aunt who isn't related to you/owner of Becky Baird's B&B aka her apartment/cast member at the Magic Kingdom. She wears a lot of hats. : )
We stayed with Becky for three nights, split between the two nights we stayed in the Disney Beach Club Resort (where the conference was). She was so great to let us stay there - PLUS she got three of us in for free to the parks on FOUR different days. My rough calculations show that she saved us at least $2,000. We never could have made the trip if it wasn't for her, and frankly we wouldn't have gone except we got the chance to see Becky. Our last failed attempt at visiting her in Orlando was seven years ago when I was pregnant with Claire - both Matt and I had a violent stomach flu that lasted for days and made us miss our flight. So it's been a long time comin'!
Here are a few of my phone pictures and then I will have Disney photo overload pretty soon. We had some pretty great moments that outweighed the craziness getting there, for sure! I thought the whole trip was a bit like raising children - sometimes it is so, so hard and you wonder why you are doing this, and then you have a flash of something amazing that melts your heart and it makes it all worth it.
Butterfly Garden at Epcot
We decided to not tell the kids about the trip, mainly because once they know about something fun coming up - a trip, a birthday, a visit - they do not stop asking about it. Like every day, every hour - are we leaving yet?? So, we tried to keep it a secret from them, even though it slipped out in bits and pieces over the weeks and Claire pieced it together... Miles was still surprised. We stopped by our house in the southwest one last time to leave our keys, and then Aaron drove us to the airport. We told the kids about the trip as we were driving to the drop off area for Southwest. I said - I think we should go somewhere today... Miles, do you want to go on a plane? YES! So we did. :) They were excited, though not that crazy freak out moment that we had hoped for... but it was still a fun moment!
Penelope, just a month shy of turning 2, was a lap child. I probably wouldn't have gone on the trip if we had to pay for her flight since they were pretty expensive, but in hind sight, it may have been worth the extra dough. She. Was. Awful. If she had her own seat, she was happy. But she wanted to go up and down the isles and switch back and forth all the time, and of course our four hour flight out there was completely full so there weren't any extra seats for us to snag. I held Miles part of the trip so P could have her own seat, until my legs started falling asleep. Claire and Miles were awesome though - I think we will only fly again if Penelope is closer to Miles' age now. Or if the flight is like an hour :)
A major perk of going to Disney World is to see Becky Baird -best friend/roomie/actress/comedian/best aunt who isn't related to you/owner of Becky Baird's B&B aka her apartment/cast member at the Magic Kingdom. She wears a lot of hats. : )
We stayed with Becky for three nights, split between the two nights we stayed in the Disney Beach Club Resort (where the conference was). She was so great to let us stay there - PLUS she got three of us in for free to the parks on FOUR different days. My rough calculations show that she saved us at least $2,000. We never could have made the trip if it wasn't for her, and frankly we wouldn't have gone except we got the chance to see Becky. Our last failed attempt at visiting her in Orlando was seven years ago when I was pregnant with Claire - both Matt and I had a violent stomach flu that lasted for days and made us miss our flight. So it's been a long time comin'!
Here are a few of my phone pictures and then I will have Disney photo overload pretty soon. We had some pretty great moments that outweighed the craziness getting there, for sure! I thought the whole trip was a bit like raising children - sometimes it is so, so hard and you wonder why you are doing this, and then you have a flash of something amazing that melts your heart and it makes it all worth it.
Butterfly Garden at Epcot
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