Disney's Animal Kingdom

On Wednesday May 5th, the four of us along with our friends Brandt, Renee & Emmett headed to Disney's Animal Kingdom. The first thing we saw there was the Festival of theLion King. Here are Andrew, Emmett & Carson waiting for the show to start.

The music, singing voices, dancing, costumes were fantastic. (not nearly as good as the live show Chad & I saw last summer but still wonderful.) Carson loves the movie Lion King. He was a little concerned that there wasn't a girl lion in this show. He also kept asking "Where is the king?"

The three boys were asked to participate in the show at the very end. Andrew decided to give it a try.

On the last song, he walked around with the actor/actresses and shook a maraca.

waved to the crowd

at the end of the song, Timon came over to Andrew and said "And YOU were the best" and gave him a high five. (I'm sure they do this to one child each show.)

Andrew was very mellow about this whole experience. I thought for sure he would get excited about it....at least at some point. He never really did. In fact he seemed really shy and a bit embarrassed by it.

Brandt & Carson inside a hippo (?) skull

Andrew, Emmett & Carson TROUBLE!!

These 3 boys had so much fun together. Andrew & Emmett were good buddies when we all lived in Dayton, and they seem to pick it back up again whenever we get together. While we were in Florida, Andrew would get very upset if we weren't going to eat supper with Emmett.

The boys showing off some fantastic dance moves.

The boys dancing with and meeting Flick from It's a Bug Life. I don't think the boys have seen this movie or even know who Flick is, but they still enjoyed meeting him. Later we saw a 3D show called It's Tough to be a bug. This was actually a bit scary for the boys. At one point there was a stink bug, and then the theatre was pitch black. Andrew had his head buried in Chad's arm. At the end, it felt like bugs were crawling in between you and your seat!

We also saw the Finding Nemo musical. That was really well done as well. Both children and adults could truly enjoy this too.

We went on the Kilimnjaro Safaris. This was really fun. They made it feel like you were really in Africa on a safaris. The road they drove on was bumpy and driven through shallow bodies of water. The animals were amazing, with baby giraffes, elephants and rhinos. The baby rhino was really cute running after it's mother.

Another fun, hot day at Disney!

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Sunday May 2, the four of us went to Disney's Hollywood Studios. We started out the day taking a shuttle from our hotel to Magic Kingdom and then another shuttle to Hollywood Studios. I think the boys thought it was fun to ride on these shuttles not restrained in anyway. They did a good job of sitting still.

The above picture is of a painting that made it appear that the road & buildings went on forever. My family went to Hollywood Studios back in the late 80's (?) and this is one of the things I remember from that trip.

One of the shows we watched was the Playhouse Disney show. The picture on the left is of Chad and Carson watching this show. It was live with one woman hosting the show and then puppets for the shows Handy Manny, Little Einsteins, My Friends Tiger & Pooh & Mickey Mouse Club house. Pretty entertaining for the little ones.

Andrew & Carson meeting the characters Lightning McQueen & Mator from the movie Cars. The cars would make engine revving sounds or honking sounds occasionally. Fun!

And all of us with Lightning & Mator below.

Here are the boys waiting in line to ride/play Toy Story Mania. The boys recently borrowed the Toy Story DVD's from their friend Tommy and love these movies. They can't wait til June 18 when Toy Story 3 comes out! This Toy Story Mania ride/game was in 3D, if the glasses weren't a give away, and you had targets to shoot arrows at (not real arrows, more like a video game). No surprise, Chad had the high score of the 4 of us. We all thought this was fun & actually would have gone on it again if it wasn't for the line. This was Andrew's favorite thing.

Andrew sporting a little 'tude. He had some pretty extreme highs and extreme lows on this trip. I don't recall what he was upset about in this picture. I was told numerous times "Mom you are the worstest!" (We could have left you at home.... :) ) but also numerous times "Mom you are the best!!"

Here is Carson strapped to a rocket waiting to meet their hero, Buzz Lightyear, from the movie Toy Story.

The boys were truly star struck when meeting their favorite movie character Buzz Lightyear. So fun to see them excited yet in awe and amazed by this character.

We also went to see the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show. This was another thing I remembered from my family's trip there back in the day. It's a show where they show you how they film high speed car chases for movies. This was Andrew's second favorite thing. It was nice to sit in the shade to watch this show. It was very hot the day we were there.

The picture collage below is from the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" Movie Set Adventure. Everything was completely over sized so you would feel like you were shrunk. I also remembered this. This was another favorite of the boys. They love to run, climb and play! Can you tell what decade this movie was made in? The Kodak film roll, the super soaker....

Our day was cut short a bit here. I thought Carson felt like he had a fever that morning before we left the hotel. He was acting fine, no other symptoms & I didn't have a thermometer but I gave him some Ibuprofen. He acted pretty good while we were at Disney in the morning. But by the afternoon, he was really tired, not holding up as well and the fever was coming back. I forgot to pack any medicine in our backpack, so while Andrew played at this Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground (for the second time) Chad went in search of some medicine and I held Carson.

Carson soon fell asleep in my arms. It was soooo hot. We were both sweating and he had a fever. After Chad got back, we thought - what are we doing?! So we decided to make our way back to the hotel. I carried Carson as he woke, slept, woke, slept.... as we walked to get out of the park, to one shuttle, then another, then a taxi and finally back to the hotel. He was fine, but I was concerned with his fever and then being out in the heat. We gave me a few more doses of Tylenol & Ibuprofen that day and pushed fluids. The next day he was fine. The fever must just be the way he responds to viruses.

Orlando Florida May 1-9, 2010

I've been putting off the post for two weeks now. We had a great week in Florida but for some reason I can't get myself to blog about it. Is it the pictures that are overwhelming me, the time that it will take to complete the posts, or my desire for it to be just so. (the spacing on the post about Andrew's TaVaci performance is driving me crazy... I have the paragraphs separated and spaced just so and then I hit publish and blogger posts it all scrunched up....anyways) Here we go!

We spent May 1-9 in Orlando Florida. Chad had a conference/yearly meeting to attend there and the rest of us tagged along. We had a great week of sunny skies and very warm temperatures.

Here we are waiting for the plane to take off. Andrew flew once when he was 6 months old and Carson had never flown. So this was a new and exciting experience for both of them. The squeals, smiles and giggles as the plane took off were priceless.

We were blessed with a 2 hour direct flight into Orlando. The boys did really well. Carson fell asleep when I was reading books to the boys. One funny story about Andrew on the flight involves listening to the satellite radio. He wanted to listen to music, so I put it on the Disney station for him. He said he wanted to listen to "rock music", I tried the other kids station. He still wasn't happy. So I turned it to the 90's station. He was jamming. All of a sudden he started laughing and said "healthy butt?!". I took the headphones from him and to my horror he was listening to the 90's song Baby Got Back. LOVELY.

We stayed at the Hilton where Chad's meeting was taking place. This is a view from our hotel balcony window. The hotel grounds were so pretty. Lots of beautiful landscaping. The four of us took a paddle boat out one day on this body of water.

This couch was in our room. Andrew chose to sleep on this couch probably all but 2 of the nights we were there. Carson had a double bed to himself! This is also where the boys spent time playing. It's hard being in a hotel for a week with two little boys! We didn't spend lots of time in the room but when we did it was hard to keep their energy in check. The minute we left the room they would want to run in the hallway, which we would frown upon. "Remember the two w's...walk & whisper!" The carpet in the hallway had these circular rings every 10 feet or so, the boys pretended these were laser beams that they had to jump/hop/quick feet over. I wanted to get a picture of this but never did.

The hotel lobby had two parrots. They were very pretty. The other one had a red body with colorful tail, a scarlet macaw - I know this thanks to Diego. :) & it would repeat things you said.

Andrew wanted to see what the parrot was eating...or else look at it's droppings, I'm not sure.

The last night we were there we went to the Lego store in downtown Disney. The boys each picked out a Toy Story themed Lego set. This picture is of Carson standing with the Lego Woody. There were amazing structures there made out of Lego's.

Outside the store was this Lego sculpture of children walking the dogs.

We spent two days at Disney parks (which I will get to in other posts) and 5 days at the hotel pool. The boys loved splashing around in the pool and going down the water slide. I enjoyed the pool but was ready to be done with it at the end of the week. You see Chad was in meetings all day Thurs., Friday and Saturday. So I was with the boys at the pool those days and neither one of them could touch or swim very well. We spent lots of time on the steps and bought a little floaty for Carson to swim around in. Andrew could touch on tippy toes, so he would swim a little and then bounce off his tippy toes but towards the end of the week they must have filled up the pool cause he couldn't touch as well.

We enjoyed going out to eat at fun restaurants like Rainforest Cafe and spending time with friends from Chad's Residency years. That's all for now, more to come later.

Lost in the Woods

After lunch today I headed outside to plant some flowers in pots for our porch. It was a beautiful day; sunny and 70's, something we haven't seen for quite some time here! The boys opted to stay inside and watch a show. I had our front door open so I could hear them & talk with them. Carson was upset about something and was yelling. I heard a rustle in the woods, I looked up to see a Momma deer scampering off and a teeny tiny deer left behind. I went inside to grab the camera.

When I came back outside, I saw TWO teeny tiny deer. They were so cute. Probably the smallest deer I have seen. So skinny and wobbly legged. I loved watching them explore the woods from our front porch.
I didn't want to scare the baby deer, so I stayed back and zoomed in with our camera and video camera. I went to our screen door and asked the boys if they wanted to see some baby deer. I told them that we needed to be very quiet so we wouldn't scare them. The boys and I stood on the front porch watching the deer in the woods beside our house.
It reminded me of the book & movie (each were given by his grandparents) that Andrew has, Lost in the Woods by Carl R. Sams II & Jean Stoick. The book has beautiful photography pictures of the woods and animals. It talks about this new baby deer and how it must first stay hidden in the woods and wait for Momma to come back until his legs are strong enough that he can go out with his Momma. All the other animals in the woods talk about this new baby deer and look out for it.These baby deer turned out to be a little more adventurous that I ever imagined they would be! They came out of the woods, onto our grass and soon up to the road and our mailbox! This picture might put in to perceptive how tiny they really were!

This made me a little bit nervous! Where were they going to go next? Take a walk down the road? Will they get lost, hit by a car? Could they survive without their Momma? Little did I know that they would soon be right up next to me, sniffing my pants (yes I had gone for a run and was quite stinky!) and exploring our porch!!!

What's inside here???

These two little cuties were not afraid. I was. I was worried that their Momma wouldn't care for them if she smelled my scent on them. Is that really true? Isn't that true of some animals, maybe birds? Perhaps I made that up! I never touched them just in case. The boys had gone back inside and had no idea that the deer had ever left the woods let alone were up on the porch peeking in the screen door at them!! I thought the boys might get too excited for these two little deer. So I just started walking back to the woods...and they followed me. They went back to exploring the woods and I continued planting the flowers.

I really hope they have found their Momma or she has found them by now. So amazing to watch on this gorgeous spring day!!

TaVaci ~ May 15, 2010

This past Saturday was Andrew's TaVaci performance. He meets with his TaVaci class once a week. They sing and do choreography and sometimes some games. He really enjoys TaVaci.

Saturday morning they had a dress rehearsal. Chad took him up to the theatre. As Chad was telling Andrew goodbye Andrew started clinging to Chad's leg and whimpering. But Andrew went up with his group but then started crying. His TaVaci instructor came over and was talking to Andrew and starting to get the practice going but Andrew was still crying. Chad went back to talk to him. Chad asked him if he was nervous for his speaking part (that was the only thing that was different than the performance in December which he did great at). Andrew said he wasn't. We think he was overwhelmed by all of the students that were there, instead of just his small group that practices each week. This clinging/crying is really unusual for Andrew. He is usually Mr. Social. He soon stopped crying and went on with the practice.

That evening as we were driving back to the theatre, Andrew said "I hope I don't cry like this morning." He didn't cry. He did act a little uncertain when the students were called to go back stage. But at the end of the performance he said he had lots of fun. His group sang in 5 songs.

It is quite the production. Lots of TaVaci students and they don't perform all their songs at once. They shuffle the students on and off the stage after all most every song. During these transition periods they have some of the students do little jokes. Andrew was in one this performance. Here is his little golf joke.

#1 - Hey, it's almost tee time. Where are our caddies?

#2 - I don't have a caddie anymore. I fired mine last week. I'm actually looking for a new caddie.

Andrew & his friend Owen - I wanna be a caddie! Can I be your caddie? I'd love to be a caddie! What does a caddie do?

#2 - Well, a caddie has to count my strokes, so he has to be able to add. How much is 6 + 9 + 8?

Andrew & Owen - Five?

#2 - Okay, you're hired!