The process has begun...

Today I had an appointment to meet with the design team to pick out all of the paint color, tile, counter tops, siding, yadeee yadeee. In the end, it was a 4 1/2 hour process that Nana helped me through. Ed stopped on his lunch hour so that I could run a few things by him. And in the end, I think we are happy with our current choices. We meet with another person on December 12 to finalize all of our other upgrades and perhaps sign the final change agreement which will then lead to them starting to build.

Polar Express in Green Bay

I was finally on the ball this summer and got us tickets for the Polar Express before they sold out. Yes I said this summer. Who would've thought something like this would need tickets bought so early! But we were golden this year. The kids really did enjoy it. Last night we watched the Polar Express movie in preparation! Eddie loved all the big trains. While we were supposed to be listening to the story, Eddie kept pointed at the trains!

They put on a little show and handed out hot chocolate...Eddie loved it. Rowan wasn't into it. She told me later she just wasn't thirsty. 

We listened to a shortened version of the movie via a story teller.

Then it was off to the train for a ride. Kids loved it. They got a piece of chocolate, we sang some carols, and they got their very own bell from Santa's sleigh.

Then once we arrived at the North Pole, we got to see Santa. Rowan told us over and over how she was going to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas (a barbie and stompeez)...but once it was our turn, she wouldn't let go of Ed or even look in Santa's direction. So this is what we ended up with. Eddie wasn't keen on him either, but at least we got the photo before he realized where he was.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This morning we headed to Grandpa Kris and Grandma Julie's house for Thanksgiving. It was such a beautiful day. Not every Thanksgiving do we get to play in leave piles, write with chalk and blow bubbles. The kids were in heaven!

Great Grandma Marion joined us for our Thanksgiving meal as well!

After we had our late lunch feast, us ladies decorated Christmas cut out cookies! Not sure how I managed to not take any pictures of that, probably because I was so deep in decorating. But Rowan loved painting the frosting on. Rowan and I were accused of over use of sprinkles. How rude! They were perfect. Here is the only photo I got!

A few more Thanksgiving additions...

Rowan's school projects...

I wish I got to be the 'fun' parent...maybe she'd be thankful for me too? Oh well, at least she said daddy and not her toys like some other kids!

When they did the footprint for this turkey, Rowan had worn tights to school that day, so she couldn't do her footprint and she was pretty bummed. So the next class she had to be sure to not wear tights!

bubbles and giggles

We decided to head south a day early this week so that we could spend some time with Grandpa Dick who was in town staying with Nana and Papa for a few days. We had some dinner, a bonfire, a bubble bath and relaxation prior to Thanksgiving.

 

Rowan and Eddie tested out Nana and Papa's bathtub! Eddie wasn't too sure of the jets and bubbles at first. But once Papa showed him how to control the jets, he was into it. Rowan thought it was a mini swimming pool!

Grandpa Dick was busy working on his laptop with Ed's help most of the time. But once we tore him away from the table, he got the kiddos giggling with his ginormous hands (that'd be where Ed III got his sausage fingers) It was really nice to see him out of his comfort zone of Cedar Rapids and enjoying himself! Nana started the kids riding on Grandpa Dick's walker, which they wanted to do over and over and over again. Rowan was super interested in his 'cord' aka oxygen. It was a short visit, but much needed for all I think! Hope we can get Grandpa Dick back over the holidays!

Looking back...

On our Disney trip...

There were many things that I got many opinions on or decided myself to do or not to do...

Here is what I would do different, what I liked and what I disliked.

*I would definitely do the Park Hopper pass again. Well worth it, we were at different parks most of the days.

*I would buy the tickets for the Very Merry Christmas Party despite the extra money. The kids were rock stars after naps and were probably better behaved at night and the lines were shorter too.

*Would probably do a deluxe resort over and over. We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, I liked it a lot. Not sure if I would take the chance on a different one since we didn't have any problems with this one, but would like to try something different perhaps next time.

*The meal plan was good, although we didn't have any extras at the end of the week and actually felt we were watching so we didn't run out. We did not have much in our room for eating, so I would probably do the grocery delivery next time so we wouldn't have to worry about our plan running out. Or I guess upgrading the meal plan?

*Magic Kingdom was the best park for our kids at these ages. But was nice to do other things.

*Rowan loved the character meals, might try to do more of them in the future? Definitely makes the table service meals worth it too so you don't pay more.

*Would like to see more parades next time (one of Rowan's favorite things). Many of them took place late afternoon when we were napping or swiming so weren't there at the right time.

That's all I have for now, but I'm sure I will add more as I think of them. Let's hope I look back on these when I plan our next trip!

It's over?

I can't believe that after all the counting down, and planning, our 1st Annual Family Disney trip is all over. And our trip home wasn't quite what we were hoping for.

Our flight was supposed to leave at 1230pm and with a short layover in Atlanta, we were supposed to arrive back in Appleton at 410pm. Well, needless to say after a delayed flight out of Orlando, we missed our connecting flight in Atlanta, got to sit in the airport for 4+ hours, and didn't arrive home until 10pm.

Yesterday when Eddie had his croup cough, I made a dr appointment for tonight, but then when he wasn't coughing like that anymore I cancelled it before our flight was even delayed. Good thing since we never would have made that!

And lucky me, had to work at 7am on friday morning. But we made it home, so did all our luggage, we have wonderful memories that we will never regret, and I will survive my weekend of working, I hope!

Last day...

Back to Epcot today for our Princess Lunch! Rowan wore her fairy dress that Nana made for her special for our trip! She got many comments on it. We were covered in glitter by the end of the day, but no worries.

 

Before our lunch we were able to hit up Mickey's 'clubhouse' or so we told Rowan it was called. And saw the characters below (probably why her book was over full, got a few repeats.) But it was the first time seeing Minnie.

Then for lunch (it was actually breakfast, but it was late breakfast for us) we got to see Aurora, Cinderella, Snow White and Belle. And then after lunch when we were on our way out we saw Mary Poppins (Rowan had no idea who she was, has never seen the movie,  we will have to work on that before our next trip) and Alice. As you can see, Eddie was all about the 'people' like characters, just not the big headed stuffed ones!

You guessed it, that night it was back to Magic Kingdom, and we got to see Tiana and Prince Naveen. The rest of the night was spent on the Dumbo ride, the teacups, race cars, etc etc...

Not sure if the busy week has caught up with him or not, but Eddie today has a croup like cough and hasn't been at his best. I had to get a picture of my bed...this is how the kids and I slept all week. I was in the middle of the two of them and Ed was in a bed all by himself. Clearly they weren't ready to wake up from nap. But couldn't waste our last night laying around!

Epcot

The place to eat...

 

We had lunch reservations today and tomorrow at Epcot. So we saw Finding Nemo and some live fishes and sharks. Saw a few characters...had lunch at Nine Dragons (a great Chinese place) and then had our standard afternoon of swimming and napping.

Then at night we headed back to our favorite place, Magic Kingdom. Can never get enough of the teacups, Dumbo and the racecars. We managed to arrive while the parade was going on, so saw some of that, and the fireworks from different areas of the park. I made Ed go on It's a Small World (apparently his most unfavorite ride) so I had to document it well for him to remember.

Animal Kingdom and Fantasmic!

We were on our way to Animal Kingdom today due to a planned breakfast with characters. When we arrived, we had time with no wait to do the animal safari! Tons of animals...Rowan loved it. I think she liked the giraffes the most! Eddie groaned and pointed a lot!

They got to play in the dinosaur land area for a bit as well before heading in for breakfast.

We got to see Daisy again, Donald (but no autograph), Mickey and Goofy today. Again, Rowan was out in the conga line with Daisy and the kids. Eddie was cool just eating a full sausage patty. Priorities!

Again, we were going to head out but realized that we had time to make the Lion King show. Eddie fell asleep on my lap, and Rowan liked all the singing, especially the monkeys that did the acrobatics.

Again, back to the hotel for swimming and a nap. Was a much needed staple. And this was the day it was actually warm in and out of the water. Rowan would have gone down the slide the whole time we were at the pool! She loved it.

After nap and dinner, we tried to head to Magic Kingdom again for the night...but turns out it was the night of the Very Merry Christmas party (which we opted not to buy tickets for because I didn't know if the kids would stay up late enough to make it worth the extra 55$ a person, well they would have so I was bummed that it was sold out) needless to say, we arrived at 6pm and had to leave at 7pm, so we opted to walk to the Disney resort next door to take the bus to Hollywood Studios instead. It was by far the worst bus ride of the week. We had to walk to the resort, wait for like 20 min, get on the bus for it to make 2 other stops before even getting us to Hollywood Studios. And the bus was packed.

Anyway, we made it and were able to see Fantasmic! It was a water and lights show. It was neat, but the wait was a little long, and then there were a ton of people in the ampitheater, so took awhile to get out. But we were glad we got to see it.

more magic...

This morning we headed back to Magic Kingdom because the kids had a blast there last night and wanted to hit up more rides. We took the train around the park as well. Then when we were heading out of the park after lunch, we managed to hit the castle at the perfect time for a little show. Kids were quite into it despite the fact we were pushing nap time.

Rowan was just asking to go back and swim, so we left Magic Kingdom after lunchtime and the character show and hit the pool and a late nap before having dinner at a restaurant in our hotel. This lead to a normal bedtime to make up for our late night last night.

1st full day at Disney

We started out the morning at Hollywood Studios. They opened an hour early for resort members, although we didn't really benefit from that. Kids slept later than usual, then by the time we got something to eat and showered and got the bus, it was almost regular park opening anyway. But we also had lunch reservations at Hollywood and Vine, so we thought it'd be smart to just start the morning there.

 

We walked in and saw Daisy almost immediately, so we had to get to a souvenir place immediately to get autograph books and pens. We also decided to start their pin collecting right away too. We are rookies at this, but apparently you can trade pins with people that work within the parks. This will be something they will get into when they are older maybe, but they have the lanyard now and 5 pins each.

 

Rowan was into the first couple characters, but her interested dwindled after that. And Eddie had no interest from the start.

After we got the first few signatures we wandered around looking for things to do (honestly, not a good park for preschoolers/toddlers) But we had to entertain ourselves until lunch time.

Then it was time for a character lunch at Hollywood and Vine. Took a little bit for Rowan to get into it, but by the end she was hugging all the characters and smiling pretty as well as dancing around the restaurant with the other kids. It was perfect. Eddie was still skiddish with the characters, but did better.

We got to see, June from Little Einsteins, Handy Manny, Special Agent Oso and Jake (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates). Jake played a little peek a boo with Eddie and got him to laugh for a minute.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel for a quick swim and nap. Then we headed to Magic Kingdom for the night. We did several rides, the TeaCups, Dumbo, etc...and managed to be in the right spot as they were starting to rope off the street for the Electrical Parade so decided to sit and wait with great seats in the end. Kids got some lazers for the parade and did great waiting patiently (probably an hour at least) there were plenty of people to watch!

Here is our front row view of Mickey's Main street Electrical Parade.

And shortly after the parade were the fireworks.

Ended up being a late night, but the kids really did very well, and loved every minute of it.

Disney bound...

We were up and out the door by 445am this morning, on our way to Disney World!

 

Flights went well. We flew out of Appleton at 6am, with a connection in Atlanta. Kids did well on the first flight, got a little antsy near the end, but overall were well behaved. Our layover was about 1.5 hours, but didn't seem that long by the time we ate something and got to our next gate. And the next flight was short and sweet. We had to wait a little bit to get out of the jetway, so the kids ran back and forth down the jetway waiting for the door to open. They had fun with the pilots and flight attendants. And they both got their first set of wings.

We arrived at our hotel, the Animal Kingdom Lodge, just before 2pm. Enough time to unpack, snoop around and then head to Downtown Disney where we had a 5pm dinner reservation at Planet Hollywood. It was a quick meal, as the kids were definitely lacking sleep from waking up early and not really napping much (Eddie fell asleep on the bus from airport to hotel, and that was it). So we ate quick and then went back to the hotel to bed. There wasn't much toddler oriented Downtown Disney at night anyway. Would have liked to go into the Lego store, but they kids were past their prime at that point.

Glen Elyn, IL

We were on the road Friday evening to head to Illinois to visit Uncle Dusty and Aunt Julie (Monty too) in their new house. We got there around 7pm, settled in and had some dinner. We visited, had a few drinks, tested our capitol knowledge (pretty sad, our knowledge I mean), and then were off to bed.

 

Rowan and Eddie had to be reaquainted with Monty. Yes, our kids were tired and hungry and sick of being in the car upon arrival, but he knocked both of them over several times, causing quite a few tears. He is a tank, and it didn't take much for him to knock both of them down. He was really just trying to kiss them and play, but they weren't ready for it, for at least an hour or so, then everyone was fine.

 

Saturday morning, Rowan helped Uncle Dusty make pancakes. Then we showered and all headed to Ikea. After Ikea we went out for lunch at a burger joint. Then home for nap and a little house work for the men. After that, Jill, Jamie and Matt joined us and we headed out bowling.

Excuse the lower pictures, they are all from my iphone. We met Bob, Kelly and Kaitlin at a bowling alley and threw a few balls. This was Rowan and Eddie's first time bowling. Rowan had fun, Kaitlin was her little coach and helper. Uncle Dusty helped Eddie throw a few balls too. We had a few appetizers and drinks, and then headed home for some grilled pizza courtesy of Dusty. Dusty and Julie got a new fire pit from Bob and Kelly, so Ed assembled that and they tried it out. I stayed inside, it was a bit too cold for that for me.

Sunday morning we got up and had breakfast and then headed home. We had to stop at Nana and Papa's to get Gizmo and Ed's car, and we caravaned the rest of the way home.

It was a fun and busy weekend. Love Dusty and Julie's new home. Definitely more room for all of us.

Meet Clay Matthews

We got to meet mini Clay Matthews today! Nana and Papa's neighbor's grandson was named after his daddy's favorite Packer. And we never seem to be visiting when he is visiting, so almost a year later, we finally met him. The kids played outside briefly. He liked having a few playmates I think!