Sea Shells and Sand...

...Up close and personal.

I thought it would be neat to bring home a little bit of the beach with us from our trip to Florida during Labor Day weekend.

But then I couldn't help but to play with it, just like I would if I was at the beach :)

Sea shells are beautiful!
Did you know, that most sea shells housed some kind of animal, and when they die, they wash up to shore. However, when you buy them at the store, they most likely have been caught alive and killed/cleaned out to sale. :(

Probably just like this little guy here. We had a really hard time finding shells on this trip, and we did buy a few at the store. I read up on shells AFTER we got back.

Sand can be very mesmerizing.
Seriously, I found myself playing with it more than photographing it. But photographing it can also be mesmerizing :)

This makes me wish I were back at the beach with my family.

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Our Trip in a Nutshell!

Waited til the very last minute to pack, like at 11p.m. the night before.

Left 2 hrs. later than planned.

I drove all the way there, ONLY because it made my hubby smile.

Discovered my son has to potty sooner than anyone else and obviously has a small bladder.

Stopped twice with 4 kids in the car on a 5/6 hour trip.

Stopped at Whataburger for lunch.

Had a crazy/homeless?? man asking my kids if they were going to finish their food...he wanted it!

As crazy as he seemed, my son gave him his fries and I gave him a cookie.

Then we got out of their ASAP.

Went to the beach around sunset and had fun taking pictures.

Was bummed that I forgot my tripod back home.

I had intentions of taking lots of family shots on the beach.

The last time I was at the beach I was prego and didn't know it.

But not this time!

Enjoyed a very nice meal at Olive Garden...my dad's treat!

Realized at 10 p.m. that I didn't pack any pull-ups and forgot the men's deodorant.


Left the kids with my dad and went to Wal-Mart.

Came back home with all kids passed out except for........little Mae Mae of course :)

Went back to the beach early the next day.

Macey wasn't terrified of the ocean at all!

When I want a picture of myself, Allison is who I get to do it for me.

Didn't listen to my body, and stayed about an hour too long.

Most of us got sun burned.

Did a little souvenir shopping.

My dad grilled some Elk burgers.

I did not like the taste of Elk.

My hubby did though.

Drove around and got the kids some Snow Balls (sno cones)

Found a Krispy Kreame, and my son thought it was cool that they had a drive thru.

Madison fell and hurt her knee:(

Headed back home a few hours later than planned.


My original idea was to stay until Tuesday.

But, my son wants to try and get perfect attendance at school.

Hubby drove all the way home.

Stopped pretty early on b/c Mae Mae had to poo poo.

Found a gas station, but Mae Mae did NOT poo poo.

Labor Day traffic was horrible!

The ride home was really boring.

Listening to Bon Jovi, and Michael Jackson livened things up a bit.

Loves listening to my hubby sing.  He has a really nice voice.

Had Taco Bell for super.

My hubby told the Taco Bell worker that he was "super duper"

Got home around 8:30.

Just in time for the kids to go to bed :)

Spent $230.27 for the whole trip.

Not sure if that is good or bad considering we had no lodging expenses and most of our food was free.

Glad to be back home.

Thank you Lord for getting us their and back safe and sound.

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Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Well I have been debating on whether or not to post this b/c I didn't want my kids at risk of reading this. They don't read my blog, but they do have a tendency to stand over my shoulder and want to read or see what I'm doing.

Any way, I think most of my readers know about our previous vacation trip. It was great, but all of that rain we endured was very hard. Especially after waiting 13 years for a trip. Hubby and I have talked and talked about how we can squeeze a trip back to Disney World...SOON. We finally said what the heck, lets just go ahead and book a trip. We can always cancel and no harm done, right. Well, now we have a trip booked for late Sept. (during my bday) I know it's crazy. I'm not even sure we can pull it off. It's going to take chunks of money from the next few pay checks to pay for the trip. Oh did I mention we would be getting free dining?

We are NOT going to tell the kids, at least not for a while anyway. I would hate to get them excited and then burst their bubbles. I hate to even burst my bubble.

I guess for now this means...
No Gain detergant (I love the smell of my laundry when washed with Gain)
No huggies diapers (shouldn't be buying diapers anyway)
No Bunny bread (I had to spreed P.Butter on cheap bread)
No Dr.Peppers (well for the kids anyway, hubby won't drink fake DP)
No Bounty paper towels (OMG, that will be a hard one)
No cereal boxes with well know characters on it (oh wait, we haven't been doing that anyway:)

O.K. so you get the idea.

Oh crap, I just remembered that we would have to board our dog. Hmmm things are adding up fast. Like I said I feel real doubtful that we can pull it off, but if we don't then any money we have been able to save can be used for Christmas , right?

Yes, I know this photo has nothing to do with this post, but I think a post with no photos is boring. So here is a picture of one of my beautiful daughters sporting her new toothless smile.

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Our Disney Trip Eighth Day 05-25-09

This was our last day. We were packing up and wanted to do some more shopping before we headed back. We decided to not do a park this day. We had a 10 plus hour trip ahead of us. Ugh!

Here were some last minute pics of our cabin.








You get your own deck and grill too.


Our cabin number.



The cabins were a pretty neat place to stay. You get a full kitchen and it sleeps 7, and it's reasonably priced. It is a little further away than some of the other resorts, but you also get to park your car right up to your door. Also, it's nice to NOT be jointed right beside someone else like in a hotel.

One of my souvenirs. I'm hoping someone doesn't still it.


And who's do you think this hate belongs to? Me! Thanks, Heather. :)


While we were on the interstate heading back home we had a car honk at us. They were all waving and the little boy in the back was holding a Mickey doll. They too had just left the World.




The rain didn't stop for us going home either.


We were probably still about an hour away from home when Macey started really getting mad. The long trip down there, the 8 long days we had and then the long trip back had finally pushed her over the edge. I still had some glow sticks left over and this bought us a little time until we could find a McDonald's.



That seemed to do the trick. We didn't even go into the play area. It was late, they were empty and she just ran around. Not something I usually allow, but for this night, it was o.k.


Well there you go. That pretty much sums up our trip. I hope you all have enjoyed our adventure through my blog. We had a blast and we are already making plans to go back.

To view the previous post click here.





Update on Mango, our dog.

Before our trip she started acting weird (you can view that post here. We were afraid we were going to have to put her down right before our trip. She started to improve some and we decided against it. She stayed with a good friend of mine that I use to work for. Slocum Ridge Pet Camp is a wonderful place for your pets to stay.

She loved this so much better than going to the vets and staying, and has much more room to play.


When we got back to pick her up she was much stronger than she was when we left her.


She has done fine all the way up until this past weekend. Sat. night she started acting the same way again, but by the next morning was doing much better. That morning my hubby made her a ramp for the stairs. We're still working with her on them. I know our time is limited with her, but as long as she is not in any pain we still want her with us very much.

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Our Disney Trip Seventh Day 05-24-09

This is our last FULL day. We went to Disney's Hollywood Studios. The day started out sunny, hot and crowed!


We found out while standing in line to get in that it was Star Wars Weekend. I had no idea we were going to be there the same time. I knew it was coming up in June. I guess they do more than one a year. I LOVE Star Wars, but I would have to assume that this draws in more people than normal and I was trying to avoid that.

Oh, well. We did enjoy seeing all the Star Wars stuff. Especially Darth Vader!


Oh, yes, the big man himself.


Warren had left the line to go get a FastPass for the ride Toy Story. The FastPasses allows you to move about the park until a certain time. When you come back you get to go through a faster line than you do if you didn't have a fastpass.

Anyway, it has the times posted and Warren was afraid that the Toy Story FastPasses were going to run out. He waited until the time posted was well after our meal so we could ride it.

I said all of that to say...He showed up just in time to get his photo with Darth Vader. I believe this is the only character Warren got his photo with.


We went to Honey I Shrunk the Kids. It was a play ground for little ones.


Macey loved the slide.



We went to Pizza Planet for lunch. Can't remember if I mentioned it or not, but when we checked in, they gave Alex a Happy Birthday pin. You wear it all week and he got birthday wishes all the time. The cashier at Pizza Planet gave him this souvenir cup. Oh how I LOVE freebies!


Every time I look at this photo it makes me feel like I was the paparazzi, lol.


Disney has the most awesome 3-D shows. Macey didn't care for them too much though.
We saw Honey I Shrunk the Audience, A Bug's Life, and this one.


We rode the Star Wars ride. At the end of the ride the exit leads you to a Star Wars gift shop. A lot of rides do that. I can't believe they can actually make you go into a gift shop, LOL.
Aunt Heather got Alex this Yoda backpack for his bday. Alex had seen a guy in the Darth Vader line with one of these and really liked it.


I think I might have failed to mention that Disney will give you a $70 gift card or a free one day admission to a park if you come on your actual birthday. YOu must bring proof of course. Alex had lots of fun spending that. I don't think I took any pics though. He bout a Star Wars shirt from in here though.

I wanted to stop and see these guys soooo bad, but the line was long, this was our last day, and we actually had sunshine. So at this point we said no more characters.


Haha, we had seen Mickey 3 times already. We actually had to "hide" him from Macey so she wouldn't pitch a fit to go see him.


Look Alex and Mae Mae were twins. They both had a buddy riding on their back.


CAN NOT WAIT!!!!!!


About to go watch Disney Clubhouse show.


Need I say more. She love Disney!


We ate at Hollywood and Vine for supper. While waiting for our table, Warren noticed a guy signing autographs. He went over to see who it was, and it was a guy from Star Wars...a REAL star from the movie. He showed Alex and he really wanted to meet him b/c he remembered him from the movie.


They called our name so we decided we would wait until after we ate to go meet him.

Just a few minutes after we got inside it started to rain. Then it started to pour! We were sitting by a window and I finally decided to take a picture, but not until after it had slowed down, a lot. It's hard to tell in the pic, but that what was deep! People were walking through it and it was well over their ankles.


We took our time eating. Once the rain slowed down (we still had to wear our ponchos) we headed back out to only find out that the Star Wars guy was not there any more. I had no idea how much this was gonna make Alex sad. It broke my heart and I was desperately trying to make him feel better, with no luck. Remember this is was our last full day and I hated for it to end this way.

Finally it was time for us to use our FastPass to the ride Toy Story. We had no idea how fun this was going to be. We all loved, even Macey. She was helping me shoot.

We wanted to ride it again, but the line wait was like hour or hour and half. Yes, that is why I was trying to go at a slow time, and we show up during Star Wars weekend, oh well.


This was a neat boat ride. It went through several movie scenes. My fav. was Wizard of Oz. but nothing will ever compare to the boat ride, It's a Small World. Macey loved that ride and she would sing the song as we were going through. Any way here is a picture of the movie ride.


We came out of this indoor ride to faced with this. There's actually two rainbows. Beautiful isn't it.


Oh, yes, I almost forgot until I came across this picture. I was dieing to ride Rockin' Roller coaster. We had gotten FastPasses for it.


Me, Warren and Alex were going to ride it first. Just as we got in line we here...the ride is closing, OMG! What! have we not had enough bad luck? Oh, well, not sure if it was due to the rain, b/c I swear I think it's an indoor ride. Maybe it was just tech issues, but come on. Alright so now I'm bummed with Alex, but trying not to be.

So the restaurant we ate at earlier came with VIP seating for Fantasmic. The only thing was it said you need to show up an hour and half early. As much as I wanted to see Fantasmic, we had chosen to skip trying to get other stuff in. When we were denied a ride on Rockin' Roller Coaster I was kind of bummed we did go. We saw the crowds lining up for Fantasmic and decide lets go who cares if we missed our VIP seats.

As it turned out we were still able to get our VIP seats, yeah! and we only had to wait about 15 minutes or so for the show to start. Am I ever so glad we watched it. WE all loved it and before it was over, Alex was smiling and talking about how awesome it was. Yes, this is how I wanted our trip to end. Thanks to some Disney Magic.

Yes, crappy pic. I know, but I wanted to show you all of these people. My kids were amazed at all of the people in one spot. And, they have another Fantasmic show right after this one, with this many people again.
Trust me, the pic doesn't do it any justice, there were TONS of people.


Oh, wait, just found a better pic. lol. It still doesn't do the crowd justice as I could fit everyone in my view finder.







My camera died. Had to finish up with Alex's camera. But the pics can't do Fantasmic justice.


Here's a little clip of the beginning of Fantasmic.



Yes, one more photo opp. Macey was already gone.


Macey got a Mickey and Minnie Mouse from there. When we go back I want to get her the whole gang.


That's a lot of shoes! Thank goodness for those Crocs! better than my Teva's, but I do like my Teva's :)


That sums up our last night there. I have one more post to make. Our journey home. Sorry this post was sooo LONG. We had sunshine most of the day :) so that means double the picture taken'

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