The Magic Kingdom- in pictures

The Princess is Home











Wish I could have managed a better shot of the castle but it just wasn't going to happen this time.

Disney's Animal Kingdom, in pictures!

Caleb vs Darth Vader!

Caleb took part in Jedi Training Academy at Disney Studios and to pass, he had to go up again Darth Vader and conquer the dark side.

Dancing Sadie

Sadie Dancing at Disney! enjoy!

What I Learned From our Disney Vacation...

1. Our children were not properly prepared for the Disney visit in that they hadn't seen many of the Disney movies and didn't recognize many of the characters. This was most evident on our first day in Animal Kingdom- they didn't know Rafiki or Jiminy Cricket and Sadie is now convinced that Pocahontas is actually Poca Hontas and has a beaver friend who takes care of her hair. We'll be spending all of April watching Disney movies to get caught up.

2. Caleb has a scientific mind and with that comes a curiosity about how the human body works. Add to that certain biographical information on Walt Disney and you get... well, an interesting conversation. We took the Magic Bus from the airport to the hotel and there was a short movie about DW on the bus. When Caleb saw Walt Disney, he began asking all these questions about how Disney had died. "Did his cells deteriorate?" "Did his organs shut down?" Not the happiest of conversations for the drive to the happiest place on earth and of course, everyone around us on the bus could hear but he's a curious boy with a desire to know things so we go with it.

3. Sometimes when the Walt Disney World Guide for Kids says that a ride is Dark, Rough, Loud and Scary, it might be a good idea to skip that particular ride.
Our first day at Disney was spent at Disney's Animal Kingdom and while there we decided to check out Dinosaur. Audio-animatronic dinosaurs? Cool! What could be scary?.... Well, at least Daddy liked the ride. Caleb and Sadie, not so much and we'll just leave it at that. And from then on, the kids would not go on anything that was listed as dark, loud, and scary. Oh, and we were also done with dinosaurs after that experience.

4. A little girl will spend the entire day in her Cinderella dress, hoping to meet her favorite princess. And yes sweetheart, you looked stunning.

5. If it's in an air-conditioned building, Mommy will stand in line for an hour or more to get princess or Pixar autographs. If not, Mommy will only do it once. Sorry Tinkerbell, you're just not worth that much time in the hot sun on the last (and hottest) day of the vacation. I learned my lesson with Ariel and Prince Eric.

6. Mommy and Daddy will stand in the hot sun with no sunscreen on eagerly watching their little boy become a Jedi and fight his enemy (Darth Vader). And Mommy will get teary eyed at how her little man is doing things that he wouldn't have even considered doing just a year ago. Things like putting on a Jedi robe and talking to people in costume- not a big deal for many boys his age but a huge success for our little man.

7. An adorable little girl can get a super hero to do just about anything. We have photographic evidence of Mr. Incredible doing plies for Sadie.

8. When you're done, you're done. Even if the fireworks are still going off in the sky.
We stayed to watch the light and fireworks show at the Magic Kingdom on Tuesday night. I couldn't believe the kids were even up for it but halfway through the show, Sadie turns around to me and says "okay, let's go" and her brother said the same thing. So we got up and headed for the buses, with out even a glance back at the fireworks finale.

9. Sometimes you have to push through the fear.
Dinosaur did a number on the monkeys and I hoped that they would get over it before the end of vacation. I really, really, really wanted to go on Pirates of the Caribbean. The kids really, really, really didn't want to go on it. With much convincing and well, picking them up and carrying them onto the ride, we did it. And they saw that it wasn't so bad. Still not their favorite Disney ride but I hope that we taught them that sometimes we do things for the people we love and audio-animatronic isn't always bad.

10. My happiest moments at Disney as a kid are very different from being there as a parent. There really is something magical in seeing such happiness in your child's eyes. It's really special.

Some More Jersey Shots!

/>

So you all can see that the kids didn't spend all week sleeping :-)
Thank you Aunt Linda for letting us enjoy your pool!

Our Week at Jersey G'ma's

very tiring :-)

more to post over the next few days!

Packing for Vacation...

Finger Lakes, NY

Our first family vacation of Summer '08. We went up to the Finger Lakes area just outside of Rochester, NY for a long weekend. We stayed in a house on the lake with Granpapap and Grammie, and Sean, Emily and Claire. It was a nice big house with lots of space for the kids to run around in, which was a good thing- it ended up raining a good bit of the time there.

We drove up Thursday evening. The kids made the 5 hour trip well. We packed plenty of library books and that seemed to keep them busy. Sadie wasn't quite able to get at them herself and liked to flip through them quickly and then toss them on the floor so by the end of the drive we were almost constantly hearing her little voice yell "Book! Book!"

Friday morning, we got up and took a trip into Rochester to visit the Strong Museum
This is the National Museum of Play and it was great. The kids had a blast running around there and I don't think we even saw half of it. There was a huge Sesame Street area complete with games and puppets and all kinds of activities. There were areas with train tables and rice play and craft tables. There was a Clifford room that seemed to be the most entertaining for the kids. Then there was a whole other area for reading adventures. It was something else.

The kids were ready to crash after that so we came home for nap time.

Later in the evening we were able to convince Caleb to put on his life vest and go for a ride with Grammie and Grandpapap in the paddle boat. He's still very resistant to trying new things but is starting to understand the whole "if you do this, then you can do that" way of approaching things. He tolerated that vest and loved the boat ride.

Saturday was spent hanging out more at the house, skipping stones in the lake and going for boat rides. We couldn't get Caleb to wear water shoes so that left swimming out but he was happy to throw stones in the lake. Later in the afternoon, the grandparents managed to take all 3 grandkids out on the paddle boat. Caleb loved it. Sadie, not so much. She tolerated it but still looked pretty scared sitting in the back seat.

Grandpapap and Uncle Sean did some fly fishing and Grandpapap caught one and let Caleb help him reel it in. The kids were all excited to see the fish.

Then the kids got to feed the ducks. There happened to be two mama ducks with babies sticking around our part of the lake, so we got out some bread and the kids got to throw bread to the ducks after dinner. Caleb and Claire kept squealing and laughing watching the ducks devour the bread. Sadie couldn't understand why you would want to throw perfectly good bread away to the ducks- she preferred to eat it herself.

Sunday morning we had to pack up and leave pretty quickly. We did have time to play in the boats a little more and to get a quick family picture on the dock.

It was a fun weekend!

Our Weekend in DC

We survived our first trip away with Caleb no longer sleeping in a crib or pack n play. What an adventure. We traveled down towards DC to attend my cousin's wedding and to visit friends in DC. The kids were angels in the car on the way down. We were able to do the trip without stopping (another first for us). We got in to the hotel and we're able to get the kids settled a bit. We borrowed an air mattress from friends and brought the pack n play for Sadie. The air mattress was a big hit. The kids had a blast bouncing on it and flopping on it. But when it was time to sleep, Caleb wasn't as into it. We discovered on problem in our sleeping plan. The boy has gotten used to having stuffed animals all around him in his bed, even on top of him and we only brought Sneeze-Bear and Puppy-Dog. That was not enough and he let us know that. On top of that, Sadie has decided that she does not like the pack n play, no matter where it is. So when we tried to put Sadie down, she started crying. Since we only had one room to work with, I took Caleb out to the lobby to read stories while Andy settled Sadie down. We read through all of his stories and visited with some aunts and uncles and then went back to the room, thinking that Sadie was asleep. She wasn't. After some frustrating moments, Andy took over settling the kids and I went back to the lobby, my family was getting together that evening for a pre-wedding celebration.

Andy was able to get the kids settled and I was able to visit with family and we all got some sleep that night.

The kids were real troopers through the wedding and the reception, going without naps (although Sadie did sleep in the car through the ceremony). At the reception, they had a blast dancing and listening to the music. Sadie loved the dance floor and all the cute little girls that were following her around and taking her picture. Grandma and Papa brought a set of 4 puzzles for Caleb so that kept him busy. He sat in the corner and worked on his puzzles for much of the time.

We left the reception and then drove into DC to stay with Andy's college roommate John and his new wife, Andi. It didn't take too long for the kids to warm up to John and Andi, especially after they discovered that they could read stories. Caleb was very happy to sleep on the futon in their spare room and Sadie only protested a little to be spending another night in the pack n play.

On Sunday, we had breakfast and played a little before heading home around lunch time. Again, the kids were great on the road and we're very happy to be home. Caleb actually clapped when we pulled into our driveway and Sadie bounced up and down as Andy carried her into the house.

It was a pretty good test run for traveling this Christmas and I'm not too worried about how they'll sleep when we're away from home.

Idlewild 2007

Okay, this is probably not the best time to write this but if I don't do it now, it probably won't get done for awhile. The past few days have been a little crazy around here as we're replacing the windows in our house and at the same time packing to go away for a week to visit the fam in NJ.

However, we did just enjoy a family picnic at Idlewild Park in Ligonier, PA over the weekend. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the park, it's a smallish amusement parks that is really great for families. They have StoryBook Forest, a great kiddie land and even a nice-sized water park. I've been going there for as long as I can remember and worked there as an artist when I was in college. I realized coming into the park, this was the first time I can remember ever paying myself and driving myself into the main entrance of the park (when I worked there, we went through a special employee entrance). It was very weird.

We went there Sunday morning with my mom and step-dad and lots of other family from her side. We got a pavilion near a little playground area so that Caleb could play and set up tons of food. Then Andy and I took the kids to walk through StoryBook Forest. This was fun but a little overwhelming for Caleb. It seems that while he loves people dressed up in Elmo suits and Wildcat suits, he does not like people dressed up in more realistic costumes- raggedy Ann, Goldilocks, even the Little Old Lady in the Shoe. He was very shy around all of them. Everything else, he seemed to like. His favorite spot was Gipetto's Workshop from Pinnochio. It was just a little one-room cottage, that had a workbench set up with toys, but Caleb kept going back to look inside. It was fun to walk through and neat to scope out the artist stand that I used to work at.

After that we went back to eat lunch before venturing out to ride rides. Caleb enjoyed tiring out Andy and "uncle" Chris (Jackie's boyfriend) at the playground and getting filthy in the process. Sadie was the little doll baby who was passed around from aunt to cousin to aunt and she was so happy but so sleepy. There wasn't really a place for napping but Andy managed to get her to sleep for a little while in her stroller while we enjoyed some really delicious picnic food.

When the eating was done, we saw that we had a very tired toddler on our hands but no place for him to rest so we decided to just plow through and get him on rides to see if he would get a second wind. I should probably mention that he was running on little sleep after being up a good bit of Saturday night (we're not really sure why). Caleb went off with Jackie and Chris and Andy and the rest of the family followed shortly behind. I stayed and fed Sadie before taking her over to the kiddie rides. Caleb loved the rides and was even very patient standing in line waiting for his turn. He rode on motorcycles, cars, dinosaurs and boats. He rode special hand-crank carts with Andy. His favorite ride of all was the Doodlebug- a little bus that goes round in a circle. We didn't get to make it through the Mr. Rogers trolley because the line was too long for our tired little boy so we walked back over to the main park. Sadie enjoyed ice cream with Aunt Jackie- she tried pulling herself out of her seat to get bites. Caleb rode the carousel with G'ma Susie. Later I took Sadie on the carousel and she seemed to like that a lot. Kept trying to eat the reins though. The carousel had very strange music, if you ask me. I'm not used to hearing Johnny Cash songs being played on the carousel organ but that's just me :-)

After all of this, Caleb was fading fast so we decided to head back to the picnic area and pack up but not before one more stop so Caleb could have some ice cream. We got back and had time for some quick family pictures before heading back home.

The kids passed out and slept almost the whole ways into Pittsburgh and even after we got home, they were very happy to go to bed. Not a bad day for our first family trip to Idlewild.