Family Vacation

We took  a family vacation to the happiest place on earth....Disney World!

 

It's been at least 5 years since we last went on a vacation of any significance just for fun.  So after MUCH planning over the course of nearly a year, we boarded a Southwest flight bound for Orlando and looked forward to a little magic, Disney-style!

 

We flew in Saturday afternoon, took Disney's Magical Express (see the magic has already started!) which is a bus that takes you from Orlando International Airport to your resort and brings your luggage (with any luck) to your room, and arrived at the Animal Kingdom Lodge (Jambo House) around 6:00pm.  We've always driven for two days to start our vacation, but since it would cost almost the same amount of money to fly as to drive, eat and stay overnight in a hotel, we opted to save a lot of stress and fly.  It was a great choice.

 

Above is a picture of the lobby of the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of the outside or the pool.  No idea what I was thinking.  We were on the 5th floor and had a view of the savannah which allows you to (if you're lucky) spot some animals grazing on the grounds from your balcony.  (Those pictures will come another day.)

 

 

Here is the queen-size bed.  As a note, all the pictures inside the room are from our last day there at about 6 am.  So, the room looked better before we stayed in it for a full week, but you get the idea.

 The couch folded out into a large bed (at least a queen size if not bigger) where the kids slept.

 

 

This is the other side of the room, with an armoire, a dresser and tv, and a table and chairs that you can't really see. 

 

 

 Here's our very helpful little kitchenette with a microwave, toaster, unused coffee maker, fridge and sink.  It was nice to be able to wash our few cups/water bottles and keep some cold drinks in the fridge.

 

 

And this is what you get when you take a very excited 4 year old boy to Disney for the first time...

Captain Underpants!!

 

More pictures (probably more than you want) to come!

Sink or Swim

It's swim lesson time for our two kiddos.  They started off very excited....and while Emily will probably be mortified that I posted this picture some day, somehow I think Ethan will always just look at his and laugh...they were too good to not share.

 

 

Ethan's lessons are first every day. He is sort of focused...and very cold.  The poor kid has blue lips and chattering teeth and shivers the whole time, but loves being in the water.

 



Taking a spin around the pool with his teacher.

 



 

Just chilling (with goggles on, of course)!

 



 

And while Emily waits, she spends most of her time in the lazy river portion of the swim center.

 



But she also enjoys a good slide as well.

 



And who can resist the bubbling fountains?

Then it's time for her lessons.  She's not really enjoying them nearly as much as she thought she would.  She's hanging on to the float with a death grip and has a look of grim determination.

She's having issues with trust..even when she floats on something.

 



 

And while the cat's away, the mouse will play...hard!

 

 



He's (mostly) fearless in the 6 inch water.

 

But he loves his goggles and wants to wear them all day.

 



 

 

Blowing bubbles in the water.  He spends most of the time in the water appearing to swim.  He looks pretty good, as long as you don't realize he's in, at most, a foot of water!!

 



 

 

I'm going to take an educated guess that at the end of week two (this week), neither kid will still be able to swim, but hopefully if nothing else, we'll have gained some good familiarity with the water and swimming techniques.  And then.....school starts for another year.

A Day at the Beach

 

Saturday was one of those utterly gorgeous days that you wish you could bottle up and save forever.  The sky was beautifully blue and almost cloudless, the breeze was gently blowing, the temperature was 75 with low humidity and in short, it was a perfect day for the beach.

 

I used to scoff at the idea that Indiana (or in this case, our northerly next-door-neighbor Michigan) had a beach.  After all I grew up on the East Coast where a 45-minute drive would take you to the Atlantic Ocean.  The real Beach.  But I have to admit that our little beach overlooking Lake Michigan is awfully nice and pretty darn close to the real thing.

 

Nothing but blue skies, blue water, warm soft sand and the sound of the waves lapping the shore...I think I could live there quite happily.  The kids are fond of it too.

 

 

Ethan is still pretty tentative around the water, and considering the waves take him out every time we go, who can blame the guy?  But he does love splashing his feet in the water.

 



 

And then there's Emily.  She's anxious and fearful about so many things in life, but she does love the water....and the camera.

 

I guess the beach makes everyone a little less reserved in front of the camera!  Ethan showed us his muscles.

 

Last time we came here, Emily could hardly hang in one place on the monkey bars.  This time, she was swinging from them like...well, a monkey!

 

Ethan loves a good slide and what kid doesn't love a playground ON the beach?

 



 

And then there's Miss Photogenic.  I don't tell her to pose.  She just enjoys it.  Perhaps she's our future supermodel....she's got the legs for it!

 

And just to prove that I was there....

Andrew and I took turns watching the kids and relaxing.  I took them for a walk where they stopped to look for "treasures".  There aren't nearly as many shells on this beach, but they did find a few small ones plus some driftwood.

 

Toward the end of our walk, we found a huge piece of driftwood, so it seemed like a good place for some pictures.

 

 

I like this one of Emily a lot.

 

My little beach bums!

Look Who's Four!

Well, it's been a while. An embarassingly long absence for which I have little excuse.  And that last sentence is a fragment.  Oh well, life is like that sometimes!

 

Anyhow, yesterday Ethan officially turned four. 

 

He was just a little excited to open his presents, though you can't tell it in this photo.  What you can see is that he is into all things Star Wars right now.  Note the Yoda shirt, the Star Wars wrapping paper and bags and almost every gift with a Star Wars theme. 

 

The boy knows what he likes.

 



 

Isn't he pretty handsome?

He is all boy, or man, as he will tell you.

 

 



 

We'll be having a bit bigger celebration next weekend with a professional Star Wars cake, but I decided to get creative and attempt to make a Yoda cake.  As you can plainly see, I was NOT an art major.  Heck I would have flunked out of elementary art if there was any real criteria.

 

Below is the rough outline of Yoda's face.  I used green licorice (painstakingly peeled apart and cut to the appropriate sizes) to outline everything.

 



In retrospect, I think I should have just left the outline, but one never knows these things until she tries and it's too late!  So then I filled in the outline with squeezable royal cookie icing.  It spreads out and fills in and smooths itself. 

 

Personally, I think it would make a pretty good Shrek (from what I remember) but Yoda it is not exactly.  

 

 

Oh well, Ethan was thrilled and that's all that mattered, plus it makes for great blog fodder, so feel free to mock!

 

 

Here's the spread....He was one happy 4 year old!

 

The Bible (According to Emily)

A while back, I bought a tablet.   I found a great deal on a nice one (not an Ipad) at Best Buy during their Black Friday sale.  Andrew and I stood out in the cold (it started at the night of Thanksgiving) and patiently waited in line to get in....and then stood in line for about 4 more hours waiting to check out.  But at the end of a VERY long day, I had a tablet.

Fast forward about a year and the kids think the tablet belongs to them.  They have loaded it down with all sorts of unbelieveably silly apps and games and they had mostly taken it over, despite my stern warnings that they were to sit down while using it and treat it very gently or they wouldn't be able to use it.  What's that old saying...."Familiarity breeds contempt"?  Well, I think that's what started happening, or at least it led to carelessness.

One afternoon, about two weeks ago, Emily and Ethan were playing (I mean, fighting) upstairs rather loudly.  Unbeknownst to me, the tablet was also upstairs.  Somehow, the fighting worked its way into the bathroom, along with the tablet and the next thing I knew, one of the kids came downstairs and very quietly said something along the lines of  "We didn't mean to break it"  or possibly, "We'll give you our money to buy a new one".  In his or her hand was the tablet with part of the back popped off.  Apparently it had been knocked to the tile floor in the bathroom and "broken". 

I contained my frustration rather well.  I didn't yell (partly because I could pop the back on again and it appeared to still work), but I did calmly tell them that neither of them would be using it again for a long time, since they couldn't treat it nicely.  And I proceeded to put it away.  Out of sight, out of mind...

Until today.  While watching the Disney channel this morning, a commercial for some new app came on and Ethan asked if we could download the app to the tablet.  I reminded them that they were still not allowed to use it to which my dear 8.5 year old replied, with a completely straight face:

"Mom, love doesn't keep a record of wrong-doings."

Well.

While stifling a laugh, I replied something along the lines of, "Well that means that love doesn't hold grudges.  I'm  not still angry with you."  And she tried to say that I was holding a grudge because I wouldn't let them use the tablet.  To which I replied, "Well love isn't stupid either."

I'm pretty sure that's in the Bible somewhere too.

Nice try Emily....

The Bible (According to Ethan)

Ethan enjoys church.  Once he got over his fear of being left in a classroom with other kids instead of Mom or Dad (gasp!) he found his love of making crafts and playing with the kids.

We have about a half hour drive back home from church each week and we like to ask the kids what their lessons were about while we drive.  Often we get the standard "I don't know"  or "I can't remember", but sometimes we get some real information.  And from Ethan, we've come to expect some "interesting" versions of classic Bible stories.  Case in point, today's telling of  the parable of the prodigal son, as told to us by Ethan, age 3.5 years:

Us:  So what did you learn about in your class today?
Ethan:  We learned about when God's father gave him some money.
Us:  Umm...ok....
Ethan:  And then he "loosed" it all and got really hungry and had to eat the pigs trash.
Us:  (Laughing)  Ah...and then what happened?
Ethan:  And then he threw a big party and got some new clothes.

There you have it folks....the story of the prodigal son, according to Ethan.  (For the real story, check out Luke 15: 11-32.)

It is Finished (well, mostly)!

Well, I think Ethan's flushing fiasco has finally (almost) ended.  After a LONG week of workers in and out of the house all day long, the bathroom is finished (except for the installation of a sidesplash, which didn't quite match the counter).  I'm still on a quest to find a better match to the granite (and why it wasn't included....well, that's a mystery to me, but it's a minor detail.

 

Here's the finished product.  Brand new everything except the tub and paint (although I have some touch-up painting to do still).

 

 

 I agonized over the tile floor, as evidenced by the pile of various colors and sizes of sample tiles sitting right outside the bathroom door.  Then I agonized about whether to include the mosaic pattern or not.  I'm so glad I did.  It makes me happy everytime I go in there.  It adds just a little touch of class and sparkle.

 

 

 The granite countertop, new vanity and new faucet.  I love it all.  So shiny and new...and clean and I almost hate to use it...but I have.

 

 

The faucet.  Andrew didn't have many opinions (that he was truly brave enough to express, except that he thought that "I" might think the countertop was too "busy" after a while.)  For the record, I LOVE the counterop even more now that it's installed and not sitting in a box in my living room.  But he did mention that he thought this style of faucet was pretty cool and since we 100% agreed...it now lives in our bathroom.  It's brushed nickel, even though it tends to look a little gold in this picture.  It's awesome.  Enough said.

 

 

 

So that's the bathroom tour.  I am responsible for repainting the new bathroom trim (no big deal) and touching up the paint behind the new toilet and vanity, since of course they aren't exactly the same size.  I can handle that though.

Progress?

Well, it's been close to a month since Ethan's flushing fiasco, and honestly, until this week, there wasn't much to report.  Frankly, I think there should still be more, but there is finally some progress.

 

We went from a large rough hole in the ceiling with exposed piping to a larger, squared-off hole and lots of insulation in our ceiling on day one.

 

On day two of repairs, we had drywall and mudding done, along with a coat of primer on the ceiling (not reflected here).

 

 

Upstairs, we went from an ugly, but mostly functional bathroom with bare sub-floors, and rotting  vanity and large dehumidifier (which at times brought the temperature in the 5x9 room to a whopping 94 degrees!) to what it is now....

 

An even uglier, slightly moldy (but we're fixing that) and completely non-functional bathroom.  The only thing that works is the shower, but no one has been able to use that for almost a month now.  The vanity and toilet (probably both 20 years old) are now in the trash.  There is currently a cement fiberboard backing that looks clean and fresh and most importantly, is the right way to proceed before the tile is laid.  Oh and the door leading to the bedroom is propped up where the toilet used to be. 

 

We laid out all the tiles yesterday and picked which ones and a nice mosaic design, so now we wait...apparently the tile guy was called away on another emergency project, so while it was supposed to be cut and laid today....no tile so far.  I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for tomorrow. (Please, please, please!)

 

We have a brand spanking new vanity and toilet sitting in the garage waiting to be installed, along with a sweet (although I don't think Andrew likes it) granite vanity top and very cool new faucet.  I'm just ready to be able to use my own bathroom again and not have to share with the kids in an even smaller bathroom.

 

Oh, and this it the new look we're sporting in the living room these days.  I took the Christmas tree down on Monday and by Tuesday, we had the plastic sheeting look blocking off half of the room in an effort to keep the drywall dust and mess to a minimum.  It's like something out of the weird scientist part of E.T.  Oh, and a loud fan is back part of the time so that paint and mud and spackle can dry faster.  Good times.

 

So that's our "progress".  I was hopeful that everything would be done by the end of the week, but I'm doubting that timeline at the moment.  We also have to have some painting done on the living room walls and baseboard reinstalled and painted, plus the carpet cleaned....so yeah, I'm pretty sure we're well into next week. 

 

And have I mentioned that it is very strange to leave my house with almost complete strangers working in it so that I can go pick up Emily every day?  I mean, I'm sure this happens all the time, but it's just weird.  Of course, by the end of this week, I'm pretty sure that Ralph (the ceiling/drywall guy) and I will be best buds because he's VERY chatty!