Soccer Fun

Here are some pictures from our season of soccer. The weather didn't cooperate very well and many games were rained out, but we were able to make up some at the end of November. The boys had a great time playing and in many of the pictures you can see smiles on their faces. I liked soccer because the boys were constantly running up and down the field, they were very active. Tanner was good at falling down, he would just fall down on purpose, for no reason and Tyler liked to run into other players...we will work on the rules in the off season!

Why is it so quiet?

Those of you with young children know something is up when the house gets quiet. Here are a few instances of sneaky quiet children.

My mother in law made little chess pies one day and we heard Tapanga go into the kitchen, but didn't hear her leave. Well when we looked up she had gotten herself one of the chess pies, a fork, and sat down at the table, where she proceeded to eat the pie until she got caught. You see the basket in the back? When she finished her pie, she knew to clean up her mess, but threw the leftovers in the basket!

The kids playroom is upstairs and one day while watching t.v. Tapanga comes and looks down upon us like this. She found some stickers in a book and decided to decorate herself!

Tanner and Tyler have taken to playing in Tanners room lately. Tanner has a closet that is like a clubhouse and the boys like to hang out in there. Tapanga went into Tanners room one day and a few minutes later came out crying, because the boys wouldn't let her color. Well, the boys are not suppose to be coloring in their rooms so I yell at Tanner to come see me. When he does, I ask him what he is doing and very quietly says they are giving haircuts...WHAT! It seems that they decided to give some of their stuffed animals haircuts, including Tanners favorite horse, Buttercup. You can see in the picture how Buttercups hair isn't as fluffy looking as the other horses. Luckily, we caught this within 4 animals, but he had hair all over his bed!

Day 9 - Going Home

Day 9, November 1, 2009

Time to pack up and get ready to head home, we have been gone for more than a week. I have enjoyed most of my time away and think the kids have had a great time. Before heading home today, we are heading to Downtown Disney to do a little shopping and check out a new restaurant, T-Rex.

Tapanga, Tanner, and Tyler enjoy their Mickey ears early in the morning.

At Downtown Disney, the kids enjoy checking out and taking pictures with the different sculptors all around.

After doing a little shopping it is time for lunch, so we head over to this new restaurant T-Rex, where I get the biggest scare of my life. While walking up to the restaurant someone asks where is Tapanga? Huh, shes with Thomas...I think???? THOMAS! Is she with you...No, shes with you, NO she is not! I ran back to the Lego store where we were just at and since Tapanga can't read, it seems she decided to play on the play set that has a big sign, do not play on. I find her sliding down the slide, pick her up and hug her..."You were lost and didn't even know it!"

Luckily, we found her quickly and could enjoy the T-Rex restaurant. This restaurant was created by the Rainforest Cafe creators and is owned by the same people, so you know what kind of experience you are in for. (Some of the pictures aren't that great, but I want to show what we saw!) The bar area is an octopus, where the tentacles move...pretty cool.

I am glad we didn't sit in this room, because it changed colors and when we walked through it everything was the color of the room.

Notice, same room different color!

The Rainforest has rain showers that go off every half hour or so, but this place would have meteor showers every half hour.

What a great way to end our vacation with a new restaurant, new experience for all of us who have visited Orlando and Disney more times than we can remember. I really enjoyed the cruise part of this trip and although I didn't particularly like the ship itself, I am excited about the chance of taking the kids on another cruise. I enjoyed Disney and will never visit Magic Kingdom on Halloween night again, will go back to visit. I absolutely loved the Animal Kingdom Villas! I most definitely want to stay at this resort again, the beauty of it, the fun of their water play area and the space of the rooms was great! Thanks again to Mom and KG for taking us along on a great trip!

Day 8 - Halloween

Day 8, October 31, 2009

Our last full day of the biggest vacation we have every taken. What a great vacation! We will probably never take a vacation like this again and without Mom and KG's help would not have been able to take this trip...thanks Mom!

Today, is a very busy/long day for us. We are going to start off with Mommy, Daddy and Tapanga time. Thomas and I took Tapanga to EPCOT where we have lunch reservation with her favorite characters...the Princesses! Before lunch we ride on Nemo and visit the sea creatures. Thomas must have made a wrong turn, because he and Tapanga are in Bruces mouth!

After visiting Nemo, we ride Figments ride and she loved him, so picked a stuffed figment as a souvenir. Its time for lunch! Again, the heat is kicking and even though we have priority seating reservations must wait for our name to be called, but we are so excited when it finally does!

Our first princess visit is with Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Mulan comes to visit next, Tapanga doesn't look so sure about her!

I love her reaction to Cinderella, so cute!

Princess Aurora comes to visit with Tapanga and Figment.

Is that the princess look from Tapanga?Princess Ariel came by and visited with us, Tapanga's reactions were priceless when visiting with all the princesses. Funny comment heard while visiting with the princesses is after Ariel left our table the next lady says "We saw you yesterday with your tail!" This was said with such enthusiasm!

Today is Halloween and we have tickets to Mickeys not so scary Halloween party. So after visiting with the princesses we go back to the room to relax and rest before going out tonight. After resting, we get the kids dressed. What an interesting picture, Tanner as Peter Pan with a light saber on the savannah! You can see how close we were to the animals though!

Here we are spending Halloween at Magic Kingdom!

What a great photo op, our Peter Pan and gang with Captain Hook.

One thing we were told not to miss was the parade, so we got our places along the parade route and ate dinner as we waited. The parade started with a headless horseman sprinting down the route!

The parade was very good, with lots of fun characters and floats. We continued along our path trick or treating and jumping in line to ride rides. Tapanga and the boys love Its a Small World ride.It was fun to ride the carousel as a family.

Arriving back at the resort late allows us to see the beautiful light fixtures aglow, which I tried to capture.The doors of each room were all decorated following the African theme. Our last night in Florida ended on a late note. It wasn't easy carting all the kids back down the long, long hallway. Tomorrow we fly home, but have a little more time to play!