Disney's Hollywood Studios

We had a great time at Disney's Hollywood Studios, the location of the most popular ride at all Disney parks---Toy Story Mania!  We had to wait 40 minutes to ride which was the longest we waited for anything our whole trip.  I didn't think it was too bad, there was lots to look at and the ride really was worth the wait. 

 

This was also the location of Paige's first ever ride on a roller coaster.  It happened to be the Rock'n' Roller Coaster which has a loop, a corkscrew, and is partially in the dark.  Paige liked it, even if she did have her eyes shut for a good portion of the ride!  The girls also bought some rock 'n roll sunglasses with a gift certificate from their Aunt Debby.



Other highlights of this day were the Tower of Terror and the Little Mermaid Show.  Ashley LOVED the Tower of Terror, but Paige was not a fan.  We made Paige ride it twice but she couldn't go a third time, so Ashley rode by herself while Paige and I waited in the spooky hotel lobby.

Waiting for the Little Mermaid

Honey I Shrunk the Kids!



Tower of Terror





EPCOT

Here are some highlights from our day at EPCOT:

Our hotel was connected to Epcot by a five minute walk, so we were first in line to enter the park in the morning.

We went directly over to Akershus restaurant in Norway for our Princess Stories character breakfast.  This was Paige's big birthday present.  She met and got the autographs of Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Ariel.  Paige wore her Cinderella dress and had a great time marching in the Princess parade.

 

After, breakfast we headed over to Future World to go on the rides.  We all loved the Test Track and Soarin'.  Paige and I enjoyed Mission Space, but Ashley wasn't a big fan of the zero gravity simulation (in her defense, you get about 100 warnings before entering the ride and they do provide barf bags, so it is a little intense.) 

Later on we walked around the whole International Showcase and the girls did a Kim Possible spy mission.  Their mission was in France and they really loved using the cell phone transmitter.  We probably would have done another mission, but by this time the temperature was about 90 degrees and we had been walking all day, so it was back to the hotel swim pool for us.

Close-to-Perfect Trip to Disney World

This past week Dave had a business conference in Orlando, Florida and so the girls and I decided to tag along and turn it into our first trip to Disney World.  We are now home and in the aftermath, I can certainly say that our Disney experience was close-to-perfect!

1-No crowds and easy touring of all the parks.  When it comes to Disney parks there is always the possibility that you will spend more time standing in line than anything else and leave feeling like you just wasted a lot of money.  To be as efficient and prepared as possible I studied up on touring Disney World with the an excellent guide book, full of good advice.  Fortunately, for us the crowds were so small during our trip that we probably would have been okay if we just winged it.



Every night at the resort, the kids could roast marshmallows
over a camp fire and watch a movie on the beach



We spent one day at each park and basically were able to ride all the attractions and see most of the shows by 3:00pm.  In fact, we were often able to do most of the rides twice, some with no waiting times at all.  By mid-afternoon we were pretty hot and tired so we would come back to our resort and spend the rest of the day and evening swimming, playing in the sand, and enjoying other resort activities.


2-Lots of sunshine and summer-like weather.  I figured that the weather would be better in Orlando than in Chicago, but little did I know.  When we left Chicago the temperature was about 67 degrees, while we were gone there were violent windstorms and tornadoes; we came home to 47 degrees--brrr! 

On the flipside, Orlando was literally the opposite.  The forecast called for 80s during the day and 60s at night, what we actually got were record temperatures of 90+ degrees.  In the evening it stayed in the high 70s, low 80s--perfect for evening swims.  It was so sunny and warm, I definitely "get" the whole Sunshine State thing.

3-Disney's.  Yacht.  Club.  Resort.  For our first trip to Disney World, we were spoiled not only to stay on site but to be at a deluxe resort.  Dave's company held their conference at the Yacht Club, so we got to enjoy the perks of being guests, which included hands-down the best pool of all Disney properties.  We went swimming every day and spent hours and hours pool side.  The Yacht club has a big sand-bottom pool, a lazy river, and waterslides.  Paige loved playing in the sand, Ashley loved the waterslide, and I loved soaking my tired feet in the hot tub---we were all happy girls! 

After a long, but fun day at a park I often found myself sitting by the pool at 9pm watching the girls play, telling myself, "who cares about bedtime?  Let's just have fun while we can.  We will be back to reality soon enough." 


View of the Boardwalk from the Yacht Club

 The only thing I would have changed about the trip was the amount of time we had to spend with Dave.  He was actually part of two conferences (attending one and teaching at another) so he was very busy and had little free time.  In fact, we had one late night dinner together and on another day we had 5 hours with Dave at Magic Kingdom and that was about it for family time.  I felt a little guilty having so much fun while he was working, but we sure do appreciate all he does and sacrifices to provide for our family and are very grateful for him!

Hello October!

I love October. 

This is a month that has got it all:

-cool evenings and mornings

-warm sunshine in the afternoon

-gorgeous and brilliantly colored foliage
-apple harvest
-pumpkins
-Halloween
-costumes

-parties

-candy and trick-or-treating

-hearty soups and breads

-sweatshirts and long-sleeved shirts
-football and soccer games

Each year the girls get a day off of school for Columbus Day and we usually go to an apple orchard or pumpkin farm.  This year because of an early warm season, the apples came early and there are no more u-pick available in the orchards, plus I already made applesauce.  And as for the pumpkins, no need to go anywhere because we have our own little pumpkin patch in our backyard.  Many months ago Paige helped me plant the seeds and now we have 7 pumpkins!  We won't be carving them just yet, so for now they are serving as porch decorations. 

Since we decided to stay home today, we invited friends over for some October fun.  First up, we made cut-out sugar cookies.  Ashley and her friend Kirstyn rolled out lots of cookie dough and cut-out pumpkin shapes. 

After the cookies, Paige's friend Zach dropped by and we all went outside to set-up Halloween yard decorations.  We have never really done outdoor decorations before but these were pretty easy.  The big girls did all the spider webs and the little kids helped me make the ghosts using old tomato cages from the garden.

 

Just as we finished the yard, our lawn service came to aerate and seed the lawn, so I had to pull-up the ghosts!  Fortunately, they are very mobile and easy to set-up again.  We all came inside for snack of cookies, punch, carrot sticks, and string cheese.  Then Ashley and Kirstyn air-popped popcorn so we could make some yummy carmel corn.

 It was a fun day, the kids worked hard and were very busy.  Friends, decorations, carmel corn, pumpkins, cookies...how can you not love October?

Homemade Applesauce

I couldn't let another apple season pass by without making some homemade applesauce.  This year I used a combination of Golden Delicious, Jonathan, and Empire apples.

The girls had a half day of school today so after a fun lunch at Portillo's I put them to work making applesauce.  We prefer the chunky kind of applesauce so I use an apple peeler-corer to prep the apples.  Here are my two workers getting the apples ready:

After some time cooking down on the stove we ended up with some "better than anything you can buy at the store applesauce!" 

Conference Weekend

Another busy, busy weekend at our house, but at least the "busy"ness was time well spent.  The girls had soccer as usual on Saturday but fortunately the game times did not coincide with conference sessions.  The only downside was that it was freezing cold, especially for the mom sitting and watching from the sidelines.

This year for conference, we continued our old traditions but also started a new one.  On Saturday, the girls and I set up a 1000 piece puzzle to work on while we listened to the conference talks.  We had never done it before, but now that the girls are old enough to work on a puzzle we gave it a try and it was a hit.  We will definitely do that one again.

I surely need to review the talks, but one of my favorite quotes was from President Uchtdorf, "in family relationships, love is really spelled t-i-m-e."  I also was very touched by Elder Holland's talk, can't wait to read that one.

On Sunday, we followed our "old" tradition of having our friends the Griffins come over.  The best part is that they liked the puzzle too!   Thanks to their work we were able to finish the puzzle by the end of the day.  I am grateful for that, because I was a little worried about having a puzzle up on the table for days and days and days.  We had a nice dinner inbetween sessions.  It was warm enough to fire up the grill for my pork souvlaki and enjoy Aaron's yummy baked beans and Juliann's homemade rolls.

Friday Frenzy

The first event of my new church calling is now complete.  Once a year our church holds a 4 hour crafting night for all the ladies in three wards (congregations) called Friday Frenzy.  It is a pretty big undertaking, I think the "Beware" sign above is pretty fitting when you are asked to organize Friday Frenzy.

Actually, I'm only teasing, it was a lot of work but it really wasn't too bad.  Lots of people worked on this event, volunteering their time and talents.  We had a wonderful cooking demonstration at which the teachers actually made trays and trays of holiday cinnamon rolls and cake balls for the audience...yummy!  There were also some very patient master crafters who helped novices like me paint and stick vinyl.  I think it turned out well, of course my standards are low--no disasters = success in my book.  I even had time to do a little crafting myself.  I made the sign above, it says "BEWARE the wicked witch and her little monsters live here."