A Tradition in the Making

Last year the boys and I headed up to see my niece Baileigh's school play. Shortly after Joshua started asking me when her next play would be because he liked it so much. I wanted to know too, afterall, we ate poutine and pie afterward and ate the leftover pie for dessert the next morning in the hotel.

So when it came time for the production this year we headed up. There wasn't any snow left up north either, just a beautiful dusting up on Mt. Washington.

 Along the way we stopped at the fish hatchery.

 All the millions of fish weren't too happy to see us as we didn't have quarters with us to buy fish food.

 I'm pretty sure this guy was giving me dirty looks.

 A trick daddy teaches them to catch a fish with their hands. Brrrrr the water was freezing!

 I've often wondered how they keep the bears away from the fish. Once Auntie asked the people there and they said the bears don't mess with them. I saw several of these bear prints by the water's edge so I'm not so sure about that.

 Next it was off the the hotel pool after the long ride (which Joshua said was nothing compared to Florida!).

 The play this year was Tom Sawyer. They needed to turn some of the boy parts into girl parts since they had more girls than parts. Baileigh was one of the grave robbers.

 Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher

 And the boys' favorite, Huck Finn

 To end tne evening we headed to the Dairy Bar for Poutine, food and pie. But this time there was no leftover pie for breakfast. Boo Hoo.

Since it was a beautiful day we headed over to visit Bay again and take a walk.

 The boys were monkeys, she was freaking out, and I'm just used to it by now. Just another day in my life.

Can't wait to see what the play is next year and to spend the weekend with my boys swimming and eating what our hearts contend :)

Thanks for visiting ♥ Michelle

End of the Road

Joshua has been so very fortunate to have two awesome coaches two years in a row. Last year in his first year his team when 9 and 1. They kept getting better as the season went on but lost in the first round of the playoffs.

This year his team went 9 and 1 again. There only loss was to a team with a kid that had a foot on even Joshua. They kept him under the basket and his team just couldn't get their number. Wouldn't you know, they made it to the championship game and lost to them again. It was such an exciting game, you would never think it would be with 5th and 6th grade.

Here the team is being introduced...meet the Thunder with Coach Montgomery.

 Here Joshua is getting pumped up and getting his game face on.

 Team meeting, talking strategy.

 At least they still got tropheys. There's always next year. I just hope he is lucky enough to get another great coach. Three years in a row might be a lot to ask.

 He's a champion in my book.

Thanks for visiting ♥ Michelle

Downtown Disney

And so the theme continues of not enough time in a day. After taking a drive to see Gram and take her to lunch, we headed back to the pools. The boys chose that over the beach. Then we rushed off to Downtown Disney. We literally dragged kids by their hands through to get some food and get to the part we knew they wanted to see. We ran out of time before we got to go to Guirdelli :(

Here are some pics from our whirlwind trip through.

Thanks for visiting ♥ Michelle

Disney Day

After Amy and I's 2 hour planning session, you can clearly see from our notes that we decided Wednesday was going to be our Disney day. Wednesday is the day they have the electric parade at midnight. When we looked at the opening and closing hours it say 6am and 6am which we were sure was a print error. But when we arrived in Florida we were assured it was not a mistake. They were going to be open 24 hours for the Leap year celebration. The big hype in Florida was "one more day". We even got button souvenirs.

So off we headed to the land where dreams do come true.

Minnie was very welcoming.

 With tickets in hand we headed in to see the castle ahead.

 And I took the opportunity to have some fun with my camera.

 Our first souvenirs were sunglasses. It was just so darn sunny.

 We were lucky enough to find some clip over ones for Joshua and in the motorcycle style he likes since he really can't see a thing without his glasses now.

 While Joshua and Noah were excited to be tall enough to drive alone, Jacob and Brady were just happy to be able to drive. Of course he went so fast the wind was whipping through my hair.

I don't think Brady could see over the wheel so I'm glad I wasn't in that car!

                            
                             
We saw a few friends and I threatened the boys to get a picture taken with him. Though I'm not surprised they don't like to because as I type this I am reminded of how Joshua used to freak out whenever he saw large characters when he was young.

I love love the colors cast on the castle at night. I actually like it better than in the day.

Amy finally got to ride Splash Mtn. but it almost didn't happen. After waiting 50 minutes in line we were just about at the end and it broke down. "It could be 5 minutes or 5 hours. You can wait or you can go". We waited a few and all was good. Though I didn't feel so safe knowing we were the guinea pigs after it had broken down. You can see from Amy's face, it did not disappoint.

Because it was so hot out in the day...

we didn't even need our sweatshirts while we waited for the parade at midnight. It was still 80 degrees.

While I prefer the castle at night, I prefer the parade in the day.

We did have a magical day. Even though we stayed until 2:30 am, we didn't get to do all that I wanted to do. All the more reason to go back!
Thanks for visiting ♥ Michelle

Their Favorite Day

When people ask the kids what their favorite part of Florida was they say the resort day. Then when I go on to say how much money we could have saved Joshua wants to change his mind. I told him it was ok that the pool day was his favorite. The trip was about making memories and they have great memories about playing in the cool pools.

There really is a lesson to be learned. Sometimes parents feel they need to buy things, go special places, to give their kids a memorable childhood. Sometimes the best memories are the simple moments spent together.

I mean really, how cool are palm trees? Amy and I wanted to dig one up to transplant up here but we didn't figure it would survive long.

Brady and I had to wait poolside because mommy forgot the bubble...I know, such a bummer to have to sit poolside, soaking up rays in February.

This was $27 I will never get back. At the resort they had  a lazy river. You have to pay $9 a day for the tube. My boys are anything but lazy. They don't know how to relax and enjoy. They went around in them once and as you can see, it wasn't slowly. I couldn't go around on mine because it was so long that I wouldn't be able to keep an eye on them. I could have had three more drinks!

The resort has a couple of golf course and two mini golf places. We ended up doing only one of our two course. Time just flies by when you are on vacation!!! I was the keeper of the pen, but I had 2 eight year olds making sure I was counting every stroke of the 4 year old :) Must be the age.

Thanks for visiting ♥ Michelle