Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy 2nd Birthday James!

Our little James turned 2 Nov 24th. Lizzy was so excited about his birthday which made him very excited about his birthday. James talks a lot and is always surprising us with new words. He loves his dinosaurs, trucks, trains, cars, etc. He seems to be getting bigger and taller everyday. He has such a sweet personality and is a little jokster too. We love him so much! Happy Birthday!
 

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Rarely does it snow in Seattle and never before Thanksgiving, but surprise--Snow! It snowed all day yesterday and it was nice and sunny and beautiful today. The kids loved it! James favorite thing to do is to eat the snow. This morning I was barely able to stop him before he ate grocery store parking lot yumminess--yuck!

Also--as an update to our life, we are still living out of a suitcase. We moved out the hotel today to Adam's parents house for the holiday. They told us our stuff would arrive on Thanksgiving so we are expecting it to really come Monday hopefully and we can get settled just in time to decorate for Christmas!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Happy Halloween

Halloween was great this year. We celebrated at our ward trunk or treat on Wednesday, had a party with Lizzy's preschool class on Friday and her school had a fall festival on Saturday. The kids had a great time and loved all the goodies and candy!


St Augustine, Florida

On our way home from Disneyworld, we decided to spend the night in St Augustine, Florida. We had heard it was a cool little town and we thought a nice afternoon at the beach would be relaxing. The beach was beautiful except for the huge, dead jellyfish littering the beach. We still had a great time though as you can see.

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St Augustine was a pretty little town and had a lot of historic stuff to see. We mostly just drove by and also walked around the fort.

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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Walt Disney World

We decided to take our family vacation in October this year to take advantage of Disney world being only a 7 hour drive away and the fact that the temperatures would be a lot cooler. We went for 5 days and had so much fun with the kids. Lizzy was pretty much in awe most of the time and James liked it and had his favorite rides and moments. We hit Magic Kingdom Mon/Wed/Fri, Animal Kingdom on Tues and Hollywood Studios on Thur.

Monday: Magic Kingdom (Oct 18)

Magic Kingdom is just what it says it is: Magic. Lizzy was in awe from the moment we saw Cinderella’s castle from the monorail to the Mickey mouse confetti on the ground when they opened the park. Liz and James also got to meet a plethora of Disney princesses and other characters and loved, loved, Loved going on the rides and seeing the parades. (Liz loved peter pan, driving on the speedway, Goofey's roller coaster and buzz light year) (James’ favorites were the flying rockets, carousel, going on the speedway and buzz light year)

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Tuesday: Animal Kingdom (Oct 19)

We LOVED Animal Kingdom and could have spent more time there. The kids were beyond thrilled to start our day in a dinosaur park going on dinosaur rides.

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They had some of the best shows that I have ever seen. The Finding Nemo puppet show was absolutely amazing as well as the Festival of the Lion King. Needless to say the kids were in a trance throughout the shows. They also loved taking the train ride, visiting the petting zoo and the safari ride is amazing. James can never get enough of seeing the animals.

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One of Adam’s Highlights was riding the Mount Everest roller coaster while I was thrilled to be able to go on a more wild ride with Liz—the rapids. It felt so good to get wet!

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Wednesday: Magic Kingdom (Oct 20)

We got to the park about a half hour after it opened and saw Snow White as we walked in. Lizzy ran up and grabbed her hand. Snow White was awesome and asked Lizzy to walk with her to her pavilion where there was a line of people waiting to take a picture with her. It was great since Liz got to skip the line and have a great conversation too. 

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During our trip Lizzy also made us do cheers all the time. She would say, “Peter Pan ride, Who's in?” We would then all have to put our hands in to show we were “in” and she would say “All for one, and one for all” It would be followed up by Liz and James clapping and yelling “Yeah!”. We cheered a lot during our trip. Gotta love the stuff she comes up with!

Wednesday was also our one late night at the park. We took a break in the afternoon and came back in the evening so we could see the electric light parade and the fireworks. The kids loved the electric parade, but were getting pretty tired by the time the fireworks came around at 9pm. It was fun to see Tinkerbelle flying across the sky and the fireworks and music were so coordinated I thought it was an awesome show.

Thursday: Hollywood Studios (Oct 21)

We were kind of on the fence about visiting Hollywood Studios because it is mostly shows and has about 3 rides. In the end we went because they had an Ariel show and a Belle Stage play that we knew Lizzy would Love. They were also playing their big Fantasmic show that evening. The day started out great. Lizzy loved the Ariel show and still to this day believed she was under water during the entire show. Toward the afternoon the kids got more and more bored and just wanted to go on rides and not see anymore shows. We hit the Indiana Jones Stunt show and the highlight for James was seeing a tractor that was there to pull a piece of the set aside for the next stunt. He was disappointed when the tractor disappeared. The Fantasmic show was as it says it was “Fantasmic!” The kids loved it and all its effects, but honestly, if I was going with young children to Disneyworld again, I would skip Hollywood Studios as it felt 5 times more crowded than the other parks and the shows were not enough to keep the kids interests. We didn’t take too many pictures, but one highlight was meeting Sully and Mike!

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Friday: Magic Kingdom (Oct 22)

We spent our last day in Magic Kingdom enjoying all the rides the kids wanted to do a second time and meeting a few princesses that we hadn’t seen yet. I was personally glad it was our last day cause my body was so tired! The highlight for Lizzy was meeting Ariel. Right now, if you are a mermaid, Lizzy loves you. The Ariel at the park was awesome. We waiting about 10 minutes to get a picture with her and she told Lizzy she didn’t have to take a picture right away, but they could talk for a few minutes. Lizzy told her she liked to dance and they twirled together. Adam was too close to get a twirling picture, but it made Lizzy’s day. After all, who wouldn’t want to dance with a real princess?

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We also saw the “Dream along with Mickey” show on the castle forecourt stage. This production was fabulous. Lizzy and James were entranced the whole time and I especially loved Maleficent.

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We loved our trip to Disneyworld and so did the kids. This week Lizzy said, “Mom, I miss Disneyworld” What kid wouldn’t?

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Pumpkin Patch

Today was the first time that I have ever taken my kids to a pumpkin patch. It may seem strange since Lizzy is 4, but since we were in Taiwan the past few Octobers it makes perfect sense. The plantation down the road from our house is always doing something fun and one thing they do is have the Boone Hall Pumpkin Patch. We went with Lizzy's preschool and had a great time. She was so excited to do everything with her friend Katie. The kids got to go on a hayride, learn about pumpkins, pick a pumpkin, decorate it and then enjoy the jump castles, haunted house and feed the goats. We skipped the corn maze, but I am sure it would have been fun to!





Pitt Street Bridge

Sunday was the most beautiful day. After dinner we went down to the Pitt Street Bridge Park. My friend had showed it to me the other day and it was so cool. We watched the sunset and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Gotta love October when it looks like this!



Monday, October 4, 2010

Baby #3

Don't you just love technology? Due to my "advanced maternal age" as my doctor likes to say I got to have a fancier ultrasound.


We are having a boy! Don't you just love him already? Adam and I are amazed we didn't see chubby cheeks as both Liz and James had the cheeks even at the 20 week ultrasound. He is due February 18th on my Dad's Birthday. If you have any name suggestions we would love to hear them as naming a boy is HARD!

We took James with us to the ultrasound and he kept looking at the screen and saying "Dinosaur, Dinosaur".  Well I guess I could see that. (to say James Loves dinosaurs is an understatement)

Liz was at school during the appointment. She is going to be disappointed that she isn't getting a sister, but I think I prepared her enough that she will be OK. Funny story though. Yesterday in between conference sessions we skyped with Adam's parents. Cindy is always making a baby blanket during conference and she showed us her current project which was a dinosaur blanket. Lizzy saw it and immediate said, "Grandma, you know if it's a baby sister you are going to have to start over and make a princess one". Lucky Grandma guessed right!

***So I picked up Lizzy from school and handed her the pictures from the ultrasound. She said, "Mom, this looks like James" I said, "no, that is the baby that is in my tummy right now". Liz said, "It looks like a baby brother" I said, "It is a baby brother, are you OK with that?" Liz: "Yeah! A new baby brother!"

Sunday, September 26, 2010

15 Minutes

In 15 minutes, we can drive here:




 We are loving where we live and the beach!!!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

You are Special

Conversation tonight driving home from a friends:

Lizzy: Mom, why did I get to stay up late?
Mom: Because you are special
Lizzy: I am not special
Mom: Why do you say that?
Lizzy: Jesus made me wrong, I wanted black hair

I guess she still has identity issues and wants to look like an Asian.

Friday, September 10, 2010

The Great Smokey Mountains

For Labor Day we decided to venture outside of Charleston. On the recommendation of a friend we went to Gatlinburg Tennessee home of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park with our friends David and Diana Hall.

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It was absolutely beautiful and just what I needed. I have been craving a hike just like I sometimes crave ice cream if you know what I mean. The mountains were not super tall, but good enough they were mountains with trees and trails to explore. We enjoyed hiking to a couple of waterfalls

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and also enjoyed driving around a scenic loop. We stopped a few times to view some old cabins and churches.

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The coolest thing was that a bear—a black ran across the road right in front of our car. What are the chances? It was AWESOME! Unfortunately this was the best picture we got of the guy cause Adam fell asleep and woke up when I yelled “Bear!”

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While there we rented a cabin. There are tons of cabins in the area to rent and I recommend it.

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Each day we would relax on the porch and the kids would go for a swim in the hot tub. After they went to bed the adults would enjoy games and a nice soak in the hot tub sharing stories and looking at the stars.

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On Labor Day we finished up our trip at Ober Gatlinburg Amusement Park. The park itself was OK and I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it. We took a tram up the mountain and at the top it is an amusement park in the summer and a ski resort in the winter. 2010-09-06 Smokey Mountains 096 

The view from the top was beautiful and it is safe to say that everyones favorite thing to do was to ride the alpine slide. Lizzy said “I hope I can go as fast as I did at the Great Wall” It was great to hear that she remembered that experience from over a year ago.

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Overall, it was a relaxing weekend and just what we needed.

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By the way, who do you think wins for best watermelon face?

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