Sandy Days

We spent most of the next two days just hanging out on the beach...collecting shells, playing in the water, digging in the sand, and a bit of complaining here and there (I mean, they're 2 and 4, right?).  We also managed to get a few shots for our Christmas cards...which I won't post quite yet until I know which pictures I'm using!  The boys were fascinated by the THOUSANDS of shells, and every find was a big deal.

Checking out the shells in the bucket

 

 

 

 Scott dug a huge hole for the boys to sit in

 I had to include this picture...because I think I read approximately 3 sentences in this book.  But I look relaxed, right?

 "Working so  hard" that I couldn't get them to look at me for a picture!

 

Fortunately, Julia slept through most of the beach time.  We set her on the sand and she immediately put a fistfull into her mouth...9 months is not the best age for a beach trip!

The hotel also had a pool on the 8th floor which overlooked the beach--it was pretty amazing.  We stopped by a few times and the kids enjoyed the kiddie pool.  Many thanks to my parents for the financial and moral support on the trip--with kiddies this young, we needed all hands on deck! (and now, I think I need a vacation from the vacation...)

Magic Kingdom

We arrived in Florida on a Wednesday afternoon, with enough time to check out the beach for an hour and then have dinner before putting the kids to bed.  Our first night, Charlie had a cough...and since all 5 of us were sleeping in one room, it was a rough night.  After getting up a few times in the middle of the night, we still decided to stick with our plan to head to Magic Kingdom on Thursday (for fear that Thursday night might be even worse!)

The drive was easy and uneventful, but it takes such effort to actually get to the park when you don't stay on Disney...especially with 3 kids (even though we had 4 adults!).  Car to tram (we skipped tram and walked since we had the stroller) to the monorail and then into the park, whew.   We went straight for the Dumbo ride.  Sam was thrilled to give it a try; Charlie (my cautious firstborn) decided to wait to see how Sam fared before deciding it was a safe thing to do.

 Julia wanted to nurse so we sat this one out with grandpa...and just took a few pictures instead!

The kids in the "portrait" Dumbo.  My dad was taking the pics and while I appreciate the close-up, you can't see that they're sitting in Dumbo :)

 We all started clapping and making noise trying to get the kids to smile, which of course made Julia start crying.

 

The boys were very excited about the race cars.  I regretted my decision to let Sam "drive" as it was really hard to steer while leaning over him!  But both boys loved it.

 (Julia thought the cars were a little boring...)

Buzz Lightyear ride--my dad didn't want to buy the picture so he took a picture of the screen. Sadly he only took the one of our cart and missed out on the rest of the family--but I love his intense stare (he creamed Charlie, if anyone was keeping score)

 Watching the show

 Our crew minus dad (hindsight...should have sought out the rental strollers!)

Sam's favorite part of the day was meeting Mickey.  The "new" Mickey actually talks, which caught me off-guard (the old one was just plush if you know what I mean).  We got to visit him "backstage" with almost no wait at all, and he was so cute and chatty.  I wish we would have made more of an effort to get a better family picture, but it was the end of the day and we were all tired!

We rode several other rides.  Charlie's favorite is different depending on when you ask him-but he loved the rocket ships over Tomorrowland, and the flying carpets of Aladdin.  The train was out of service (disappointing especially since we talked it up to the kids before we realized it!).  The crowds were a bit overwhelming, even though we never waited more than 20 minutes for a ride so I can only imagine how crowded it is at capacity!!!  We had a fun day but were grateful for our beach escape for the rest of the vacation :)

A wordy update

I just haven't made time for updating the blog lately.  We've just been busy with...well, life!  And honestly, while Julia is the best baby and so easy, the transition to 3 has gradually made my "personal time" disappear...so blogging is often at the bottom of the never-ending to-do list.

We have been busy!  In August we had our house trim repainted...which ended up being a multi-week project.  After the paint was freshened, we decided it was time to tackle the deck...so early in September (I think?) we set aside a whole weekend to scrape, clean, and re-coat our deck with a special deck paint--basically to coat over and fill in cracks rather than replacing all the wood.  We're pretty pleased with the results,and I hope it lasts for years!  We would love to have a stained deck, but since the previous owner put paint on it (which we have tried several different times to remove), we have to deal with what we've got!

Before pictures (Scott starting the paint)

 Our favorite helper...

 After

The spindles took more time than we had planned, and it seriously took 8 hours Saturday and another 8 on Sunday.  Fortunately the weather was beautiful and the kids enjoyed playing outside (by themselves for the most part!)

Another weekend in September, we decided to go camping with some friends to Hardin Ridge (a new place for us).  Our friends the Rudes have twin boys who are Charlie's age, and we also went with friends of theirs, the Uppoles, who have twin 5 year old boys!  Quite a crazy bunch...alas we didn't capture many pictures but managed to get a picture of myself and Scott (a rare thing!)

I totally skipped Julia's 8 month post, and since she's 9 months now, I'm not going to bother :) but these were the pictures I was planning on using...Julia has been busy pulling up on things, eating dog food, crawling into the bathroom, pulling clean clothes out of the laundry bin, eating everything off the ground, and climbing stairs...she can master the step out of the playroom with ease, and has made it up 2 stairs before I stop her :)

Florida/Disney pictures to come...hopefully posted sometime before Christmas :)

Fair Oaks Farm

Labor day weekend, we decided to drive up to Fair Oaks Farm to use a Groupon we bought and also to see my friend Devin and girls (who moved to Chicago a few years ago).  Sadly, I'm THAT far behind on the blog...I know.  To quote Charlie, "I'm doing my best!"

The day was beautiful, very sunny and not too hot.  We took the "official tour" in the bus (not quite as informative as I would have liked as I wrangled my 3 littles) and saw the farm.  Then we had lunch at their cafe before checking out the play area.  The kids all loved the train, and a giant "bounce house" type thing that I didn't take a picture of.  After a few minutes, we saw a green light in the cow building, so we went in to see a cow being born!  It was pretty awesome, really. 

 By the "end" of the day (I'm guessing it was 2pm) my kids were exhausted and hardly wanted to smile for pictures...so this is the best we could do as a group shot of the kids.

All in all, I found the dairy a pretty interesting place--especially the place where the cows get milked!  It's a turn-dial type wheel where the cows get in line, step on...and then the workers down lower clean and get the cows hooked up to the milkers (all while it's moving).  The cow rides the circle around, where she is detached at the other side and then walks out just before another cow loads.  Pretty amazing.