Our big summer vacation

O.K. maybe our vacation wasn't so big or so far away for that fact but hey it was a vacation away from home. All summer, Jon and I have wanted to take the kids and get away for a few days, but we really didn't have any money set aside for a vacation. All of our money that we have saved up is spoken for for other things we want to do. We were both getting a little crazy being home all summer long. In the past, we have taken off right after school gets out and head down to Disney (of course:) ) for about 10 days. But with our year long Disney passes expiring right before school got out that wasn't an option (that is why we went for Spring Break). It just seemed like school would never arrive. Anyway, We happen to fall into a little bit of unexpected money so with that we tried to figure out where and what we could do with it. We really wanted to go to Washington D.C. (mainly because all of our entertainment would be free) we would just have to pay for hotel, food, and gas. Well first off we are used to paying Orlando hotel/rental home prices (the cheapest in the world). Since our family is so big we would have to get 2 conjoining rooms or see about renting a house. After searching for a while nothing that I wanted to pay for was coming up in hotel rooms/suites/rental houses. After weighing all our options, it didn't seem like a good idea to go there. The main reason was we would take one day to drive up a day to drive back home and 2 days there. We only wanted to use 2 of Jon's vacation days because we are hoping to use his remaining vacation days right after Christmas and are hoping to go to Disney. Plans are in the works on how we are going to get the extra money for that trip. Hopefully things will go as planned. Anyway, we decided to check into a Marriott Residence Inn (it had 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms, a fold out couch, and a kitchen all for a great price) in Atlanta for 2 days and do a few things around the town we live in. The first day, we went to the World of Coke. Coke's headquarters are in Atlanta. They build a new Coke museum about 2 years ago. The new World of Coke is way better than the old one. I still think it is a little too pricey, but the kids have been wanting to go there for sometime now. They have a 4 D movie, some Coke art, old coke products and advertisements, a Coke bottle plant that they actually fill bottles of coke that they give you at the end of the museum, and the kids favorite part the Coke taste center. The drinks are divided by countries and you can taste different Coke products from that Country. Some are good, like the watermelon and others are horrible like the Beverly. I like just watching people try the Beverly for the first time. Most look like they are ready to throw-up. It is just that gross a drink. It was pouring down rain when we got to the museum so Jon dropped us off at front and then he parked the car. I forgot the camera in the car so I have no pictures of the World of Coke. That makes me a little sad. After that, it was getting to be dinner time so we walked over to the Phillips Arena (home of the Atlanta Thrashers hockey team and the Hawks (I think that is what the basketball team is called) ). It is also connected with the CNN center. Well in there they have a big food court (kind of like the ones in the mall but bigger). So the kids got to pick which restaurant they wanted to go to and after only having to go to 3 we all ate dinner. Then we checked into our hotel and went for a swim. The pool wasn't very big. The hot tub was almost as big as the pool. Then we went to bed. We had Hayden in our room with us, the girls on the couch bed, and the rest of the boys upstairs. Brenton was on the floor upstairs. At about 2am I could hear Connor. I took him to the bathroom and decided to lay with him so he would get up and start turning on the TV and light and waking everyone up. So I put Talmage down in my bed and tried to sleep with Connor. He stayed in bed the whole time but I don't think he ever went back to sleep if he did we both were asleep at the same time and it wasn't for very long. So that nights sleep for the both of us was terrible. The next morning Jon took half the kids to the lobby for some free breakfast. When he came back, I took the next group. I tell you this was the best breakfast we have had. Usually it is only continental breakfast and sometimes you get waffles, but this was called warm breakfast. So you got the main Continental breakfast items (cereal, fruit, yogurt, pastries, breads and juice) but we also had waffles, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, sausage, potatoes, biscuits and gravy. It was yummy. Then we went to Stone Mountain. Stone Mountain is about 15 miles from downtown Atlanta. It is the worlds largest piece of exposed granite. On one side of the mountain is Stone Mountain Park. At the park are different attractions to do.

Stone Mountain has a carving in it. It is the largest high-relief sculpture in the world. This is what it looks like.

It is a Confederate Memorial carving of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. It is 400 feet above ground measuring 90 x 190 feet and recessed 42 feet into the mountain.

The first thing we did was take the tram up to the top of the mountain. We knew it was going to be a hot day so we wanted to get that done first.

Brenton, Connor, Talmage, Payton, Kennedy, Gretta, and Hayden on tope of Stone Mountain

Talmage on top of Stone Mountain splashing in a big puddle

Then we took the kids to what is called the Great Barn. It is like an indoor playground. It has slides and tons of balls all over the place. You can up the stairs and put the balls in guns and shot them down. or collect them and put them in different collection places and when the basket is full of these balls a big siren goes off and the ball dump out of the baskets all onto the ground again. Hayden and Kennedy liked putting then ball in this suction vacuum that sucked the ball up all the way to the baskets.

After that we ate lunch. We brought a picnic lunch to eat. We drove to a picnic area and got out and noticed tons and tons of bees by the garbage cans which were next to the tables. We turned right around and ate in the car. Then we went to a little museum. It basically has lots of old fashioned cars, bikes, nick knacks. Our favorite was the the player pianos. They had lots of them that all worked. You put in 25 or 50 cents and it played for a long time. Then we headed back to the hotel. I took a much needed nap with Hayden while Jon took the others swimming. Then we had some dinner and went back to Stone Mountain. We did the 4 D movie and rode the train. Then we got ready for the laser show. Every night in the summer they do a laser and firework show. It was fun. Since this was the 25th anniversary they added a few new songs. The new part was my kids favorite (they did Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and High School Musical songs with laser pictures going along to the music).

It was a fun and long day. The next day was Saturday August 2nd (Kennedy's birthday).

Deal #2

My sister-in-law, Melanie had to go back to work after spring break (she works in an elementary school cafeteria). My mother-in-law was going to watch 6 week old Elizabeth while Melanie was at work. My mother-in-law had 2 weeks worth of vacation already planned from now until school got out. One week in the end of April beginning May and another one 2 weeks later. So with that being said Jon's mind started formulating a plan on how we could (rather I could after all I guess it is my turn since Jon redid most of my parents bathroom) watch their baby for some sort of trade.

THE BIG TRADE

This is what we came up with. I would watch Elizabeth for the 2 weeks Jon's parents would be out of town minus one Friday (so 9 days total). Thomas (Jon's brother and yes he goes by Thomas now) took off that Friday (He could do that easily since Jon is his boss.). Then on Friday (May 2ND my birthday), Thomas came over to our house with Elizabeth and watched our 2 kids, Talmage and Hayden who are not in school while Jon and I drove down to Disney World for a long weekend (Friday-Sunday). Thomas and Melanie and their kids would spend the weekend at our house watching our kids as well as theirs (10 in all). The best part is (well besides getting away from the kids for a few days) Jon's parents are Disney Vacation Club Members and they happened to be there that week. So we crashed in with them. We got there around 2:30 pm (about a 7 hour drive if there is no traffic) and basically threw our things in the hotel room (we stayed at the Old Key West Resort) and headed off to Epcot (and yes our year passes were still good they didn't expire for another 22 days). We went to Epcot with Jon's parents. Well, we started out with his parents but split up later. They went to Epcot in the morning while we were driving. Since we were staying on Disney property Epcot had the extra magic hours that evening so it was opened 3 hours later just for people staying on Disney property. So it closed at midnight for us. Most of the people I know are night owl. I am not, so staying awake till midnight was a tough one for me. I am lucky to still be awake at 10:30 pm during the week and 11:00 pm during the weekend. We were able to see and go on everything we wanted except for test track. When we got to Epcot (about 4 pm) all the fast passes to Test Track were already given out and the lines never went down enough for us to do that and Soarin. So we chose to do Soarin. This was the first time Jon and I have been able to do Soarin together (by the way this is Jon's favorite Disney ride). We usually have to baby swap it because Hayden is too short. I am proud to say I made it till the park closed (all thanks to the 45 min Universe of Energy ride we did at 10:30 pm Zzz!) The next morning we went with Jon's parents to Magic Kingdom. The last time they went to Magic Kingdom was when Jon and I went down with them 4 months after we were married in 1994. We did rides with his parents and had lunch and then they headed back to the hotel and Jon and I hopped on a bus to Animal Kingdom. We only did a few things there. We wanted to do Everest since we have only done it one time for me and 2 for Jon. The line was too long and the fast pass distribution times were for a time much later than we wanted to stay at Animal Kingdom. One of my favorite rides in Animal Kingdom is the Safari ride. They really do an amazing job at the way they keep the scary and dangerous animals (lions, cheetahs, elephants etc) looking like they could leap right on top of you if they wanted to, all the while there is a pit that is camouflaged. I saved the safari pictures for this post since I didn't take very many pictures of this trip.

After Animal Kingdom we hopped back to Magic Kingdom and did the rides we had gotten fast passes for that morning (Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear) and a couple more rides by then the lines were way longer than we wanted to wait so we headed back to the hotel.


Jon and Gretta on Buzz light year ride Yeah Yeah I know I cheated and took of a picture of the picture they want you to spend $15.00 for!!



Once back at the hotel we took a boat from our hotel to Downtown Disney. I wanted to eat a big Ghiradeli sundae for dinner. When we got there, the ice cream parlor part of Ghiradeli was closed for refurbishing. They candy shop was open (so I grabbed a couple free samples and left). We had to settle for some other ice cream place (I think it was Hagen Daz not too sure). It wasn't the same the sundae wasn't meal size so we had to get some other food to tied us over.
Sunday morning we finished packing up our things and loaded the car up. Jon's parents took us out to breakfast at Fort Wilderness. We drove to Fort Wilderness and from there took a bus to the restaurant. While an the bus we passed by the camp grounds, cabins, horses for horse back riding, and the night show Hoop De Doo Revue. A little further is the Fort Wilderness Resort Hotel and Suites (for those of us who like the wilderness feeling but love a good nights rest that would be me). I would love to stay in one of those cute little cabins. The buffet was excellent. Love the Mickey Mouse waffles. They are too cute. Then it was time for the drive home. Traffic wasn't bad since it wasn't a holiday. So we made it home in about 7 hours. I felt very refreshed and was happy to see my kids again. We had a wonderful time with Jon's parents. This was the last time we used our Disney passes for real this time. I know I said that after Spring Break. Until next time Disney. We love you.

Two weeks later I was on baby duty again. Which by the way was the last week of school. So that was kind of crazy. Thanks to Jon who helped out a bit with watching the kids so I could go to Payton and Kennedy's end of the year parties (it worked out great they were on the same day back to back). Brenton had his party at someones subdivision pool after school.

Talmage feeding Elizabeth

Well that is it for our deals. We are always on the look out for deal #3. Any takers?? We may have a couple in the works.

Our Year of a Million Dreams

For Spring Break we went to Disney World. Last May 2007, after much calculation and Jon's famous charts he loves to make on the computer we decided to buy a year pass to Disney World. Last May we wanted to go to Disney World right when school got out. Actually, we pulled the kids out 3 days early (from previous years we have found out they turn all their books in the Friday before school gets out so the last week is filled with field days, movies, games, and parties). We wanted to go to Disney before the summer heat and crowds hit. Our first thought was to buy a 10 day pass (the more days you buy the cheaper the price is per day). But then we were thinking we wanted to go back right after Christmas and with those two vacations it was cheaper for us to buy a year pass. With that in mind we decided it would be cheaper if we did all of our vacationing in Disney World (and boy did we do all of our vacationing in Disney World). We have really gotten our moneys worth with these tickets. We went in May 2007, Jon and I went for a long weekend just the 2 of us in August, we went for a week during Thanksgiving, after Christmas, and for Spring Break. I think all in all we spent 30 days at Disney parks this past year (Jon and I a few days more).

Well enough of that now back to Spring Break. This is the first year I think we have gone on vacation during Spring Break. We usually tend to stay home and go on vacation right when school gets out (1 1/2 months later). But with our Disney passes expiring the day school gets out we thought it's now or not for awhile. I voted for now. It took me a little bit of persuading Jon to go. With such a large family the only way we go to Disney now is by renting houses. It is much cheaper than getting 2 conjoining hotel rooms or a suite that fits 8. Their are many people from the UK who buy houses in Orlando to rent them out to vacationers. The houses are 15 minutes away from Disney. Many of the houses have there own screened in pool (we like to get the spa too), wireless Internet, free long distance phone calls (even some international since many people who rent these houses are from the UK), and they have converted there garage into a games room (pool table, air hockey, foos ball, etc). I wanted to go for a week Sat-Sat, but we ended up getting a great quote on a 5 bedroom house if we only went for 6 days (they were trying to fill in their 6 day gap) so of course I jumped on it. We tend to spend on average $130.00 a night for a 4 or 5 bedroom house (some houses are double that so we shop around for a while). This includes tax and pool/spa heat (which is a must in the winter).
Our Disney schedule begins before we leave for Orlando. Jon types down all the days the parks open an hour early and close later for people staying on Disney property and those are the days we avoid. So we get to the parks right when they open and go, go, go until either at lunch time or just after depending on how much we were able to get accomplished (we usually spend 2 days at Epcot and Magic Kingdom and sometimes MGM depending on how many days we have and 1 day at Animal Kingdom). Then we head back to our house and some nap while the others swim. Then after dinner, we either go back to the parks for a few more rides and a night show, go to Downtown Disney, or stay home and swim. Since only 3 of the parks have night shows we usually only go back at night 3 times with the whole family. Jon and I have been taking turns doing a big kids night. We usually take 2 or 3 of the older kids (no strollers) and go to the park of their choice and do a few things. This trip it was my turn and I took Brenton and Payton and we started off at Epcot and took the monorail to Magic Kingdom (I have always wanted to do this but don't think I ever have) we left right before the firework to beat the crowd and watched the fireworks on the monorail.
Our Spring Break is always the first full week of April. So with Easter being in March a lot of other schools either have their break either the week before Easter or the week after Easter. So the crowds weren't too bad.
Enough typing already on with the pictures.

Our first day was Animal Kingdom.

Connor, Talmage, and Brenton

Brenton and Kennedy digging for fossils

Brenton and Kennedy

Hayden

Hayden at Rain Forest Cafe. . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . Kennedy with Cha Cha

Kennedy at Rain Forest Cafe


Our second day was Hollywood Studios (formerly known as MGM).


the new Playhouse Disney show

Talmage in front of Lightning McQueen and Mater


Magic Kingdom was our third and fourth day

Hayden with a huge lollipop

Kennedy in front of Pirates of the Caribbean

Payton and Kennedy in front of Princess Minnie

Payton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hayden

















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Brenton and Connor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Talmage, Jon, and Hayden

Our fifth and final day was at Epcot. They were having there flower and garden festival going on so I took lots of pictures by all of the cool character plants and flowers.

Sand sculpture

Payton and Kennedy at the butterfly garden. . . . . . . . . . . .Kennedy with plant and flower Minnie

The whole gang

Talmage in front of a robot. . .. . . . . .Talmage, Brenton, and Kennedy in front of beach Pluto

Butterfly garden. . . . . . . . . . . . .Brenton, Kennedy, and Talmage in front of the three Caballeros






















Brenton and Talmage Crocodile from Peter Pan. . . . . . .Talmage and Brenton with Captain Hook

.Hayden ringing a bell at the Peter Pan play ground





Connor with Peter Pan


Swimming in the pool

Talmage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kennedy

Hayden

Aloha!! What a Deal!

On Valentines day Jon and I went to Hawaii just the 2 of us. How did we pull that off you ask. Well, one day in January Jon was asking my parents about their master bathroom (they haven't been able to use their shower for over 3 years due to it leaking and tile being ripped out) and what their plans were for it. I guess they were quoted a large amount of money to rip out the remaining tile in the shower and bathroom floor, fix the shower so it wouldn't leak anymore, and re tile the shower and bathroom floor. They just kept using the money for other things. So of course Jon's brain starts thinking of a plan for them to get it done. So here's the deal. My parents would buy all the materials and Jon would do all the labor for their bathroom (rip out tile, fix shower problem, re tile, put in new shower fixtures, new shower door, and probably a few other things). For payment my dad would use some of his frequent flier miles and hotel points (my dad travels all over the world for his job so he has lots of frequent flier miles and hotel points) to fly Jon and I somewhere and put us up in a hotel for 4 days. Oh and one more thing they would also watch our kids. We wanted to go on a weekend my dad would be home to help with our kids. Our first choice was Mexico, or some island in the Caribbean. Only a few hour flight from Atlanta. Those places were booked up on the weekend we could go (Presidents weekend). So our next choice was Hawaii (it was winter so warm weather was a must for me).

So here it was Valentines day. I dropped Talmage off at Jon's parents house (When Jon's mom found out about our trip, she insisted on watching Talmage (our 4 year old) which didn't bother my mom since she would be watching the other 5). in the morning and then dropped Hayden (my almost 2 year old) off to my parents house (the other kids were at school). From their Jon and I drove to the airport and got on our plane for an 8-9 hour non-stop flight to Oahu, Hawaii. It was a long flight but with no kids crying, hitting, whining, bugging, yelling, it was quiet and relaxing. We arrived in Hawaii about 9:30 pm their time (there is a 5 hour difference) so 2:30am our time. By the time we got our rental car and checked into the hotel it was after 11:00 pm (4 am our time). Luckily time was on our side since we only had 4 days. We only stayed on Oahu.

The next morning we hiked up Diamond Head the Volcano. The views were gorgeous.

Diamond Head Views from Diamond Head light house and Honolulu

The ocean, the green mountains, Honolulu city buildings. The only thing we didn't see were whales. A tour guide who was there said they don't come by until the afternoon. From there we went to Hanauma Bay. The #1 snorkeling spot on Oahu.

The water was chili. You would think being in Hawaii where it is warm all the time the water would be warm but no such luck. I guess the Pacific Ocean is quite a bit colder than the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea. Once we got used to the water (about 10 minutes) we snorkeled. We saw lots of different kinds of fish, lots of correl, and we we even saw a sea turtle.

Hanauma Bay

From there we headed back to the hotel and checked out the hotel. We stayed at the Hilton. It was a big hotel that had 3 different hotel buildings and between the hotel buildings they had shops and restaurants and a big pool. Our hotel was right on the ocean. They also had penguins (yeah I know penguins). They are the type that like warm weather. Our hotel every Friday and Saturday put on shows. We saw some of the show and afterwards we watched the fireworks they do over the ocean while we sat on the beach. It was real cool.

On Saturday we went to Pali Lookout (basically looking out on the other side of the island not the big city of Honolulu side). That place is supposed to be very windy most of the time. There was no wind for us.

Pali Lookout

Then we stopped off at a park on the beach and took some pictures.

Then we headed over to the Hawaii Temple. We walked to temple grounds and went in the visitor center. The grounds were so amazing and beautiful.

After that we went to the Polynesian Culture Center. This place is owned by our church and most of the workers attend BYU Hawaii next door and work at the Center to pay for college. This place is divided up into 6 different Polynesian islands (like Tahiti, New Zealand, Hawaii, Figi, Tonga). At each area they put on some type of show all about their Islands culture, and most of them had some sort of dancing or music. They also have an IMAX theatre which they had a movie on Correl. It was very interesting. We bought the Luau package so for dinner we went to a Hawaiian Luau. We were greeted with flower leis and we ate the yummy Hawaiian food. I really wanted to eat real Hawaiian food once on our trip poi and all. The pork and chicken were my favorite. The desserts weren't anything to brag about. After the Luau, they have a night show where all 6 islands come out one at a time and do a dance native to their island. It was a fun show. I liked the fire twirling and throwing best.

Sunday we went to Pearl Harbor. We walked through the little museum and watched a movie about the events that happened on that day. It was very well done and I learned a lot of things I hadn't known. Then they took us on a boat out to the monument. The monument is directly over the USS Arizona, the ship that sunk that day and where most of the casualties occurred. The bodies still lie in that ship. It was very quiet and peaceful.

After that we headed off to the Dole pineapple plantation. Their we took a train around some pineapple and other fruit and sugar can fields. While on the train they gave us a background of the Dole family pineapple story. Basically they are not sure who brought the pineapple to Hawaii. But Dole bought all this land (the place where we were touring) and grew pineapple and had a shipping plant there. Later they moved the shipping plant to Honolulu (where all the other shipping ships are so they could ship them out easier). Then they ran out of space to grow pineapple so Dole purchased one of the small Hawaiian islands for pineapple. The only people living on this island were the Dole employees and their families. Then Dole died and someone sold some of the island to other people. They never said if the rest of the island still grows pineapple or not. We had a pineapple ice cream.

Then we were off to the North Shore to watch some surfers. The North Shore of the island is basically the only place on the island that gets real big waves. We saw a few surfers but really enjoyed watching the wind surfer. It looks like a surfer flying a kite.

On Monday, we hiked to Monoa Falls. It was a big waterfall running down lava rock. It was beautiful. The hike wasn't too much fun. Lots of rocks towards the end of the hike.

Then we went to what is called The International Market Place. It is basically a whole bunch of individual stands of people selling souvenirs (You know the ones like in Mexico, and the Bahamas that you can wheel and deal). It is by far the cheapest way to go to buy things like T-shirts, jewelry, nick knacks, Hawaiian dresses etc. Since we have lots of kids to bring things back to we didn't want to miss this place. We browsed a few gift shops the days before just to check out prices to see if what the market place was offering was a good deal. After that, it was time to get to the airport and return our rental car and get on the plane for our 8 hour flight. We arrived home Tuesday morning Atlanta time (still in bed asleep Hawaii time). We had a great time and were able to do everything we wanted (except see a whale). The best part was the weather. The few weeks before we arrived it was windy and rainy and chilly. While we were there it wasn't windy at all and only rained 2 times. Once while we were driving back to our hotel from the Polynesian Culture Center and that only lasted a couple minutes. The other we were at Pearl Harbor and it rained for 5 minutes. It was sunny and upper 70s low 80s.
Oh, I almost forgot there was one bad thing about our trip. Dumbie me left the camera battery charging in my bedroom outlet. Of course we couldn't have a camera that takes AA batteries. Luckily, our digital video camera has a camera still shot mode on it (not sure of the quality of the pictures I just downloaded them on the computer). After snorkeling, we were driving back to our hotel and we happened to pass by a Radio Shack. So Jon went in and what seemed like forever and something like $80.00 later came back with a battery (of course they don't come charged) and charger. The only good thing was the battery was on sale (we could have paid $100) and the charger wasn't just for this camera but for many other types of cameras as well as video cameras and maybe even other things. Of course they don't sell the chargers individually at Radio Shack (ya know it is only a shack and not a mansion in size). So if anyone ever loses their battery charger I bet I can hook you up. If I wasn't in Hawaii or on some other awesome vacation, I wouldn't have worried about it and just used the camera mode on the video camera but since I probably wont be going back (at least not to that island) it was worth the $$.