We decided to take a quick holiday out-of-town this week during the kid’s spring break.
Here are a few pics that captured our adventures.
We stopped in Orlando, not for Disney World this time, but Sea World.
I found a hotel close to the fun..
The hotel offered some fun too.
But not like Sea World….
I woke up normal this morning. Same time. Normal time, thinking about my gym time.
Then it hit me
This is it!
Game time!
We spend so much time planning, and decorating and preparing our hearts each December and I realized this morning….THIS IS IT!
THIS IS THE DAY!
Well, one of them.
Time to make some memories for our young (and old)
LOL so I changed my focus for the day, put on my Santa hat and opened my mind to ‘experiencing’ this year’s Christmas holiday.
Yep, we are all ready!
“…in hopes that St. Nicolas soon would be here.”
My elf is ready!
Elf Lana pretending she’s a snowman
Even our greyhound got in the spirit of things this morning!
Blitzen came by for an early Christmas visit
And, if your house looks like ours this Christmas, you have a lot of this…
“and visions of sugar and homemade Baklava and chocolate covered popcorn danced in their heads.”
And, for me, nothing spells ‘celebration’ like..
yes, Christmas is a time of celebration
If you have been following this blog for a while you know each Christmas starts early for our girls.
That’s right. The week before Christmas boxes and boxes and cards and gifts come in from our girl’s many special Grandmothers, each with their own very special version of ‘Love’ for their adopted granddaughters.
The more love the better!
Yes, our girls are blessed with about 5 very special sets of grandparents. And the love and generosity they show these girls is touching.
This year that received everything from sweets, high-tech gadgets, clothes, money, toys, gift cards and even a Movie Night or two in the mail.
Amazing!
So we wanted to send each of our adopted family a Christmas card and a glimpse of some of the smiles and kid quotes that happened when opening these great gifts. And one very special version of ‘the spirit of Christmas’.
Thank YOU so very much ladies!
We love you all so much!
And as you can see everything was a big hit with the girls.
OK, I have dilly-dallied long enough. Its 11am and I am being called out to the living room. It seems Grandma #5 is taking her turn at spoiling spreading some Christmas cheer for our girls.
Game time…
I hope your holiday is filled with lots and lots of happy smiles.
Time to be a kid again.
And remember the reason for the season.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Hey everyone! Want to be let in on the latest fad?
Want to see what is sweeping our area; that all of my friends and family are looking at?
It is a crazy, fun, generous fad that all the cool, hip people are doing. Wanna see?
But first, here is a commercial that Dylan did for YOU to tell you about it….
(you don’t want to miss this)
Yes, I am pimping this blog once again to encourage one of our kids. But hey, the kids get little rewards for the more pledges they bring in! After her very first night of receiving a few $1 and $2 pledges she received a Fun Run lunch bag, cool water bottle, and a trendy bracelet for her rewards.
Now, after a few more pledges, she only needs one more pledge to win a pair of Fun Run sneakers. Three more pledges allows her (and her class) to participate in “No Shoes Day” where they can take off their shoes at school and just wear their socks in her classroom for the day. How cool is that?
Dylan actually has more dollars per lap donated than all the rest of her class combined. She is a Leader!
And if she gets another pledge like she did from my buddy Jay she may just have her name broadcast across the morning announcements. Gosh I would hate for that to happen 🙂
The goal of the Fun Run, besides raising money for their school is for the individuals to develop some interest in Fitness, Leadership, and build some Character. Not bad ideas for our young people these days.
If you would like to participate in this fast growing fad, here is a link to Dylan’s homepage at school for the event where you can look around and find out more. If you care to make a pledge to support Dylan in her Fun there is a pledge tab to jump on.
To my friends in Canada, or Switzerland, or Mexico or else where and abroad if you want to participate in this X-tremely fun (and rewarding) trend email me or let me know in a comment. Hopefully we can work something out. 🙂
Thanks for considering Dylan’s Fun Run drive!
Its for a good cause and brings smiles to lots of kids faces.
(like mine)
Isn’t that infectious smile in the video worth a dollar a lap in itself?
Yes, they grow up so fast!
Have a great weekend everyone!
We will now return you to your regularly scheduled blogs
Wait. Wait. Wait! Put the 5 Hour Energy and the Monster Fuel away. This is not going to be an all-nighter (it better not) I was catching up on some reading and projects when my 4 year old came over and told me its “Party Time!”
This time she means business. She came over and cornered me with her posse, Ariel, Eric and King Triton. There was no getting out of this one!
I explained, “I still have some work to do”!
Dylan put on her sad heartbreak face, as she looked down to the floor with her somber look, barely showing her eyes from beneath her hair hanging down.
I said, “But I have nothing to wear!”
So Dylan pulls out her Dora costume for me; a red halter top and baggie genie pants.
I told her, “This will never fit me!” I tried on the red halter top (please don’t picture this!) And sure enough it was too small.
So Dylan ran to get her Tinker Bell outfit for me.
Sorry! Ain’t gonna be no stinkin’ fairy I thought. Feeling the peer pressure I thought I would humor her. Sure enough, it was not going to fit either. I tried!
“Well daddy why don’t to try dis on?” she says, handing me her pink tu-tu from last Valentines day.
Darn! She got me that time as it was a tie-string format. I reluctantly agreed. ~sorry no pictures of this!
Dylan gathered her friends put them in the lil’ shopping cart she got for Christmas and said, “Come on dad, its dis way to the party.” as she walked back the hallway.
I still had so much work to do I knew I didn’t dare ‘throw down’ like days of old. What to do? She had me. I drew a heavy sigh of relief as I saw where the party was going… back to Grandma’s room, a.k.a. her nap room.
So I told her of the great kinds of parties we had when I was a kid (when we still lived by candlelight). I told her they were the best parties, the most popular ones….Slumber parties! And I explained the concept to her.
I told her, her and her friends could sit around and talk about who they liked and who liked them. And when they wake up we would have pizza for everyone; it’ll only be 5:00pm, so no pancakes this time.
The party crew: Dylan, holding Ariel in her PJ’s, Eric, and King Triton
Seeing she’s buying into this I threw in how I would take some pictures ( I really needed some blog fodder) so that her and her friends could share and save the party forever. As my parents did, I warned her there was to be no talking after I turned out the lights and checked for any flashlights in the room; and cell phones, or games, lip gloss, small computers ~ its so cool to be a kid now a days! She said, “OK”.
They slipped on their jammies and I put a finger to my mouth, saying “Hush, be quiet. I don’t want to come back here and see you girls talking after I leave.”
Dylan gave me a nod but then sprang up, as in another attempt to postpone the inevitable, and said, “I still hafta go potty!”
You girls better be sleeping back there!
I asked, ” who else in here needs to go potty?” But the room was silent.
She went. She did. She went back to the slumber party with out incident and I shut the door hoping to get some work done in the quiet. Another party under my belt (sigh) Just in time I thought. No more life in the fast lane for me
Wait. Hold on a second. Do I hear boys back there?
She never ceases to amaze me!
You know….sometimes you go through those days when you are just attending to one fire, one responsibility, one obligation after another. Where you feel like you hardly have time to look up. The world is grey. No fun. The Blues! Mom’s been calling the bathroom her ‘happy place’ right now! Heck, the other day she called out four names until she got to the right one. And one of them was mine!
Then, some days, your mind gets to travel in those fun things to day dream about. The playgrounds of the adult mind so to speak, when you can escape the monthly Blues and plan some happy, fun things. Planning vacations may fall into this category. Or shopping for new houses. Planning birthday parties. Or fun things going on over the weekend?
This week has been in that happy ‘upswing’ for me because we are trying to plan our summer vacation right now. (sigh) And I need some suggestions. Wanna help? Care to take a trip down the pleasant memories of ‘vacations past’ with me?
You see, we have researched several fun resorts that are awesome for kids only to find our girls can’t go in the same ‘kids club’ with each other as one club is for ages 0 – 3 years old and the next if is for ages 3 – 6 years old. Naturally we want our kids to be happy and feel safe in a foreign land. We prefer that each is able to go to the same kids nursery if Mom & Dad want to sneak out and explore the island. Have any of you ever experienced this problem?
So far we have considered a Disney Cruise to explore the Caribbean, that looks great for the kids, but they are the source of various aged kids clubs. There are lots of fun things for the kids to do. Princess make overs! Disney characters throughout the ship. Great dining it appears, with your own personal servers for the trip. Evening movies on a large screen on the deck in front of the swimming pool and so on. But if we want to go for a swim with the fishes the kids might have to get separated. I picture having the off ship excursion all set up and we drop the kids off at the kids club and one throws herself on the floor crying and wailing. Can’t go then!
Get to play with the toys in Toy Story
We have found this wonderful resort, the St. James Club, on the island of Antigua. This all-inclusive sits in its own peninsula at the southern tip of the island, with water on two sides. It looks very nice. It has a great kids club and small water park. But the airlines make it difficult to get there, mainly leaving our air port at 6:15am and no quick layover anywhere. There’s nothing like passing 6+ hours in an airport with two hungry, tired toddlers! We’ve had that happen when we were ‘rained in’ last August in Philadelphia. It’s no vacation!
Very Tropical…once you get there
We found another resort on Jamaica where they give you a full-time nanny. Well, not really “give you”. We swore we would never go back to Jamaica again after our last trip and being badgered by the locals (Jamaica Mistaika!) This resort boasts itself as the best all-inclusive in the world on its web site. But you can’t even find what part of Jamaica its in unless you click on the ‘Brochure’ tab. ~ its not one of the best all-inclusive web sites in world!
Daddy, what’s the funny smell?
By far our favorite resort to pursue has been Beaches on Turks & Caicos. We’ve stayed with this chain before at a Sandals. The trip was exquisite! The resort and dining were extraordinary! This Beaches resort has the kids clubs, Sesame Street characters, a water park and all the great dining.
Elmo and the crew in the Caribbean
In fact, we had reservations to vacation at this very Beaches resort 2 years ago! We made the reservations. Booked the flights. Then, 3 days later we got word we were going to be visited by the child bearing stork in a few months with a new born baby girl. We had to cancel.
Bye-bye paradise
That was one airline seat ago. Now, we actually have to pay for 4 chairs on the Caribbean flight, which makes this total package a bit pricey. For what that vacation would cost, flight and rooms, I could pay someone to rebuild our patio-deck-in-progress instead of me laboring over it myself. …..plus the patio furniture….a good sound system for out there…a wet bar fully stocked…well you get the picture. Sadly, this extravaganza is not in the budget this year.
We have considered going to Disney World, Universal Studios and all those other cool parks in Orlando but the idea of paying for a daily tickets yet being some place by 2:00pm so that one or more of our girls can bed down for a nap doesn’t make much sense either.
Last year we rented a house in Ocean City, New Jersey. This was a great kids resort, in a town designed for families. We had a great time. There is a boardwalk built for kids with rides, mini-golf, arcades, bikes and crapfully–unhealthy food to eat. What could be better to a kid? Or the kid inside all of us? Moms and Dads, even got to revisit a childhood memory with a boardwalk players production of Schoolhouse Rock. Are any of you old enough to remember Schoolhouse Rock?
We even frequented Browns Donuts, which was to be my business model for my get rich quick scheme during my unemployed days. Fresh, warm donuts. Mmmmm! The vacation could have been better if our youngest hadn’t picked up an ear infection two days into the escape. The one problem was that our kids were not big enough to get on the majority of the rides on the boardwalk; another problem I see with all the amusement parks in and around Orlando, FLA.
So help us out. Where have you been to? What great ideas or adventures have you gone on, been to, relaxed at with two small children? (a contradiction in terms?) I would love to hear your ideas! I could really use your good ideas here! Or maybe just come along with us if you want to be a nanny to two sweet kids for a week! Please hurry as yesterday Mom was actually sitting down watching Sponge Bob with the kids! And she was smiling!
“What are your kid vacation tips?”
“Which do you think we should choose?”
“Where have you gone to on vacations?”
OUR LIFE IN 3D 