Spring Break 2010

We had no plans when spring break started. Our start to spring break was watching conference and Easter. After 2 days of basically being stuck in the house, I knew this would be the longest spring break ever since I didn't have any plans except for going to the Tennessee aquarium one of the days. Well, Sunday night after a long weekend of being at home. I started searching the web for deals in the Great Smokey Mountain area. I thought it would be fun to rent a cabin and just hang out and explore. I guess so did everyone else because all the good priced cabins were taken and there are a lot of cabins for good prices. I just couldn't make myself pay that much money for a cabin knowing they had much cheaper ones. Maybe one day when I am more on the ball I will book early to get a better price. So we checked out our stand by Orlando. Orlando has never let us down. We know there are always good prices to be found at a moments notice. I went to one of our favorite Orlando vacation villa sights and typed in our days we wanted to be there and just a few people responded back and we picked one and next thing you know we were driving to Orlando. We left on a Wed morning and arrived there just in time for dinner. The only sad thing is we knew we wouldn't be going to Disney on this trip. But, we did know that in a little over 2 months we would be at Disney for 2 weeks. Sea World had a special for Florida and Georgia residence. Buy a one day pass to Sea World and get a second pass free to either Aquatica (Sea World's new water park) or Busch Gardens. So that is what we did. On Thursday we went to Sea World. I like Sea World mainly because it is the next theme park second to Disney as far as family oriented. It was a fun day filled with sea show and rides.

Kennedy, Hayden, and Payton




Shamu show

Dolphin show

Shamu show

Shamu show

Payton, Hayden, and Talmage

Kennedy and Brenton

Talmage playing the drums

Kennedy and Payton

Payton and Kennedy

Hayden, Brenton, and Talmage

The next day, we went to Downtown Disney. The highlights there were the Lego store, the huge Disney store, the toy store, Mc D's, boat ride, and of course my favorite Ghirredelli sundaes.

Hayden with Indiana Jones made of Leggos

Hayden and Talmage

Hayden hiding behind a Bionicle made of Leggos

Hayden, I took many pictures trying to get him to look at the camera and smile but he was way to interested in Buzz's buttons

Brenton, Talmage, Connor, and Hayden on the boat we rented

Talmage and Jon

Kennedy and Payton

On Friday, we went to Busch Gardens. It is in Tampa which was a little less than an hour from Orlando. I have only been there one other time before with my parents Morgan and Taylor and Brenton was just barely one years old. The whole feel of this place was no Disney. The crowd was different. A lot more teenagers and couples without kids. And people just walking around in their bathing suits. A lot of the rides were either roller coaster thrill rides (which we went on a couple of the smaller ones) or either little kids rides that the parents couldn't go. There weren't very many rides that the whole family could go on at any age. That is why we like Disney so much. We still had fun and hey it was free.

Rhinos on the train ride around the wild animals

Giraffes

Hayden and Payton

Talmage and Kennedy

Connor

Talmage and Kennedy

I am glad they had the sky buckets that go way up in the air. I miss those at Magic Kingdom.

Payton and Kennedy

Hayden

It was a fun trip and a well deserved trip since we hadn't gone on a trip in over a year. Not counting the overnighter at Birmingham, Alabama to go to the temple. We also spent lots of time in the pool and enjoyed it very much since we hadn't been swimming in 7 months.

I can't wait till next time we come to Orlando and spend 2 weeks at Disney.

The call back

Well it happened. I got a call back from the Census at the beginning of April and they offered me a Census job going to peoples homes that didn't mail their Census form back. I start training classes in a little less than a month. I am kind of excited yet a little nervous all at the same time. I haven't had a job since Brenton was born over 13 years ago. I am not counting the job I do for Jon's business doing the book keeping and bills since I can do it pretty much whenever I feel like it and I really only do it a couple hours a week and I don't really have anyone to report to in fact Jon and his partner come to me for all the things regarding money and bills.

Happy Easter

Last year, we decided to do what a lot of others are doing and that was doing our Easter baskets and egg hunts on Saturday and then on Sunday focus on the real reason we celebrate Easter. This year we decided to change things up even more. First, we started out on Saturday at the Tady's house for some breakfast and an egg hunt. We chose this time because it is Conference weekend and will be watching it starting at noon. Each family fills 10 eggs with candy for each of our own children (I had to fill 60 eggs). My mom does another 2 for each kids so then we hide all the eggs and they each get to find 12 eggs. The kids had a great time hunting for the eggs and even though we had some extra eggs filled just in case we couldn't find them all we would have a few extra I think we still couldn't find a couple even with a few extras. That was all we did with the kids on Saturday. That way they could enjoy those 12 eggs of candy. It was a pretty filling day with egg hunts and Conference especially for Jon and Brenton who had the Priesthood session as well to watch. I love Conference. I really love being able to watch it in the comfort of my home. It was kind of weird not going to church and seeing all the Primary kids in their new spring dresses and clothes. On Sunday we just hung around the house and watched conference and celebrated Easter with just our family. I made an Easter dinner the previous Sunday since my parents and Morgan and Taylor were going to be out of town on Easter for Spring break and all. Too bad 2 of my kids were sick so My dad came over and picked up the food and ate it over at the Tady's. I did not want them getting sick with Spring break just a week away. Anyway it was a nice quiet Easter.

The next morning I headed out to Target and Walgreens and bought some Easter candy 1/2 off and headed over to another store to buy some silly bands. Then during family home evening we did our family little egg hunt and they got their Easter baskets. We got the most out of this Easter 3 days worth. We have a lady in our ward who gave me this idea and they have been doing it this way for years. So instead of celebrating the whole Easter bunny on Saturday they do it on Monday and get all the same stuff but for 1/2 the price and do it during FHE. I think we are going to start doing Easter on Sunday and Monday from now on because things add up real quick when you are buying candy and little things for 6 kids and a few for mom and dad too. So here is to our new Easter tradition. Now what to do the rest of the week the kids are off of school.

Talmage

Connor

Kennedy and Payton

Hayden

I thought I took more pictures of Easter but I guess I only took some of the egg hunt at the Tady's. Oh well, the pictures all look the same year after year anyway because we do the same thing every year.

Swimming

My dad had a weekend stay deal at a hotel that was about to expire so my mom and him stayed at a nearby Marriott for the weekend. They invited us and Christa's family over on Friday night to swim in the indoor pool. Of course we took them up on their offer. The kids had a great time swimming since it had been since September since they last went swimming. I stayed in the hot tub and roasted and boy did it feel good since that day I was outdoors at the zoo and still a little chilled from that. The kids of course were in and out of both the hot tub and pool and had a great time.

Preschool Zoo Day

Today, March 26th, our preschool took a field trip to the zoo. Our topic in the beginning of the month was about animals so we thought we would wait till the end of the month so things would warm up a bit since this winter has been colder than normal to take a trip to the zoo. Instead of just our little preschool group going we decided to invite any kids in our church who aren't in school yet or who are in preschool but don't go on Friday's to come with us. We had 2 other mom's and their kids come with us. It worked out perfect because 2 of the ladies had annual passes so they could have 2 adults and 5 kids on their passes (didn't have to be from the same family like most passes we double checked) and so that took care of 4 adults and all the kids. One of the moms who couldn't go had 2 free tickets from when they purchased their annual pass and she said we could have them so the other 2 adults got those so we all got in for free. That was a nice unexpected bonus. We thought we might have to cancel because in the beginning of the week it was forecast to rain, but as the week went on the chance of rain disappeared. It would have been a perfect day weather wise not to hot and not to cold if it wasn't windy. Luckily, we all brought jackets because when the wind blew it was a little chilly. The kids of course all had a great time.

Hayden brushing a sheep

Hayden

Hayden with the elephants

Surprised this day didn't come sooner

Well it finally happened. Today, March 23rd was the first day one of my kids missed school. They all had perfect attendance until now. I picked Brenton up from school yesterday with only an hour left of school because he didn't feel well. So today he stayed home and went back to school the next day. He had a headache and was a little achey no fever or anything else. Then that coming weekend Talmage and Connor were both up on the same night throwing up sick. They didn't miss any school because it was the weekend. Then Brenton got sick with what Talmage and Connor had and he missed another day. So out of the whole year all five of my kids who are in school everyday missed only 2 days of school and that was the same person. And Hayden didn't miss any preschool days. Our family has been very blessed in that department and I am very greatful we don't get sick very often. Besides colds each of us probably only gets sick once a year and it is usually less than 24 hours.

Where did the time go???

Wow has it really been about 6 weeks since I have last blogged? Looking back yes it has been that long. Things have been very busy lately. Which I will be blogging all about starting now. I can't believe school has been out for 2 weeks now. It will be wierd to blog about school things now that school is out. Oh well. I do want to have a record of events in my family's life so here I go back to the end of March. I try to write things down on the calendar that I want to blog about so hopefully I wont forget anything. Then I just look back on the calander and hopefully all those memories come right to mind so I can blog about them. Maybe when all the kids are in school next year I will get caught up. Until then I am counting on my failing memory, calendar, and pictures.