Traveling to Idaho

As if Disney World wasn't enough, we extened our vacation to include traveling to Idaho to pick up Brea and spend our Spring Break visiting Grandma and Grandpa. I decided to drive with Jackie and Dallin and then Jeff would fly a few days later, so he wouldn't miss so much work. That was a great plan, except for the fact that we didn't look at the weather at all. It turned out there was a crazy spring strom that came through Wyoming and Colorado they day I was driving. I was fine until Laramie (a whopping three hours down the road) and the Interstate was closed. After lots of phone calls and waiting in the car, we decided to stay the night there. Since we had just come from Florida we were in shorts and T-shirts (not ideal for a snow storm). I needed to go to Walmart to get some contact solution and they happened to have snow apparel on clearance. We stocked up on gloves, hats, and even a coat. We were set for the storm. We had a fun movie night at the motel and headed to bed early so we could arise and get on the road. Only problem was....the road was still closed when we woke up. Luckily it opened at 10:00 and we made it that evening.

It was so good to see Brea and give her a big hug. She ran right up and clung on to me. We all missed our Brea, she is such a fun a sweet two year old. We brought her back a Minnie mouse from Disney World.

We had fun in Idaho, Jeff made it two days later and we were able to attend Glen Miller Night at the high school. The Jazz band puts it on every year. A nice dinner (prime rib which was amazing) live entertainment and dancing. Jeff and I enjoy dancing, and even at 7 months pregnant we grooved to the music. It was a nice night without kids, thanks to my brother and his friend who watched all the grandkids.

Saturday we headed to Salt Lake for the blessing of our newest niece. My brother Matt blessed his precious daughter on Sunday. It was nice to be present for that, we usually aren't able to be there for those special occasions. It was a fast two weeks, but a lot of fun.

Walt Disney World

We had an awesome opportunity to go to Walt Disney World two weeks ago. An irrigation company that Jeff works with was having a convention and invited Jeff and his family to beautiful Orlando, Florida. They were willing to fly Jeff and I and provide food, lodging, and a three day hopper pass for our whole family. What a deal, we decided to take Jackie and Dallin and leave Brea with Grandma. She had a great time at Grandmas house and we had a great time in Disney World. The above picture was taken the night we got in. We had a yummy catered dinner at the hotel and a special guest arrived to welcome us - MICKEY. The kids were as excited as they would be if Santa had walked into the room. It was fun to watch them.

This is outside the amazing hotel we stayed in. It was on Disney property and had a huge pool with a water slide, a kid pool, playground, and beach area. We could have easily spent a full day just at our hotel.

My brother lives in Florida. In fact we visited him for Christmas - not knowing we would be coming back three months later. His family has a season pass (how great would that be) to Disney World so they met us there. It was really nice to have them with us because they knew all the good rides and best places to go. The kids loved having their cousins there. In fact the last day were by ourselves, and Jackie said "It isn't as fun without my cousins".

The cousins waiting for the parents to decided what to do next. They were happy to just play on the sign.

We got to ride on a lot of different kinds of transportation - including airplanes, buses, vans, Disney metro, rental car, and the Disney tram. The transportation was just as much of a ride as the rides themselves. Jackie is eating a lollipop, that is the one treat they both wanted. I have told them in the past about BIG LOLLIPOPS and how great they are. When they saw them at Disney World that is what they wanted.

Disney World is an amazing place, we could of easily spent another week there. Some highlights from our trip include:

-Amazing shows like Lion king with dancers, singers, gymnasts

-Scary rides like the Dinosaur ride that Dallin enjoyed at the beginning and ended up crying, but if you ask him now what is favorite ride was he will say "the Dinosaur Ride".

-Roller coasters those were Jackies favorite, she is such a tough little girl, scared of nothing.

-Of course the famous Splash Mountain, which I was not able to do but it was fun to watch them

-Illuminations Show at Epcot, we had a front row seats at a reserved balcony were we ate dessert and watch the show, thanks to RainBird!

-Seeing the characters - we saw Micky, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Donald, and three princesses. They were long lines but it was worth it to the kids. Especially since they had movies in those lines, we could hardly get the kids to move forward they were glued the the screen.

-Epcot had a lot of neat virtual rides with screens and images, high tech stuff

- My favorite are the 3-D movies with the special "glasses". It was so funny to watch the kids dodge flying objects and reach out to grab the images that seemed to appear right in front of them.

We definitely caught the Disney Magic. What a fun opportunity and great memories.