Halloween 2010

We went trick or treating with Riley and Brayden this year. Everytime Colton got a piece of candy he would jump up and down and say "YES, YES, they really do give you candy!!". So funny. The best story I have to share though is the one where one of the houses gave Colton a Twizzler and he promptly replied "oh no, I don't like those, you can have it back" and put it back in the guys candy bucket. OMG - I almost died, luckily the guy thought it was hysterical and asked him what he did like and let Colton pick something else. It was all very innocent and after that house I explained to him that it was rude and why you shouldn't say that, he was pretty embarrassed and asked me not tell anyone...naturally I post it here on the blog so it is cemented in his history. Auntie Heidi later explained to him that Twizzlers are her favorite and he should always take them and give them to her. ;-)

My little clone trooper (he thinks he is a stormtrooper though...hehe)!

One guess who Darth Vader is...

Riley...partners in crime!

Road trip to PA

We had a wedding in Scranton this past weekend which was great because we got to see Nick's entire family and it had been quite some time since we last saw them. Jeannette's best friends, Melissa and Eric, got married so Nick's whole family was invited to the wedding, even the kiddos. We finally got to meet baby Gracie, who is about 3 months old now and just cute as a button. All she does is smile, laugh and really just a perfect baby. The wedding was a lot of fun and Colton didn't get off the dance floor, it was hysterical. He definitely may have been the first one to get in the circle and start the dance off, he did the running man, the moonwalk, the worm and of course his signature move the robot. Words can't describe how funny it was, no joke I was crying and there may have been some older folk who peed their pants from the scene. It was a great weekend with family and we will be back in less than a month to see them all again for Turkey Day!

Me and one of my dates.

The whole clan (well half of some). :-)

The two pirates and their bird.

Just funny.

See You Later Mickey...

This is my last Disney post. Our flight home wasn't until 6:45pm so we had the day to hit our favorite ride, sit by the pool and do some last minute shopping. Magic Kingdom was the last park and Colton sat through the Mickey's Philharmagic about 4 times. Leighton did Dumbo, Riley did Space Mountain and Brayden did it all but was most excited about his monorail train Nana bought him. We were really sad to leave. Sometimes you go on vacation and are ready to get home by the end of the week, no one felt that way this time. We all could have stayed a few more days and believe it or not, we weren't sick of each other at all! Best family trip ever was probably said a couple hundred times that week by both the kids and adults. In all honestly, we will be back and do it all over again, we can't wait to see the kids a little older and just as excited. Like I said, Disney is truly magical.

Animal Kingdom.

We did hit the Animal Kingdom which was super fun as well. There was the Safari and the Rapids Ride (Colton LOVED this one and was just tall enough for it), the Everest Coaster (Alicia and I got stuck in the 1st seats...yike a-roos), and the animals and scenery were just beautiful. My mom has such great photos of our day, I am almost embarrassed to post what few photos I have.

We are in the second row (Phil, Riley, Alicia and me).
I think the guy with the yellow shirt though in the front row is just classic.

Epcot

October is a great time to go to Epcot because it has the Food and Wine Festival. With so much to drink and see we had to spend 2 days there, eating and drinking our way through. It was a lot of fun and we hit all the rides as well. I think we all agree that Soarin was our favorite attraction. Colton really enjoyed the Coca Cola from all the different countries...yuck. Epcot is a great place to meet all the characters and the Illuminations fireworks is a definite.

Hollywood Studios

I love Hollywood Studios, might be my favorite park. We did so much here I can't list it all. Dinner at the Sci-Fi Diner was awesome, you watch black and white movies while sitting in convertible cars that are designed as tables. Dessert was a chocolate peanut butter lava cake which also makes it hard for anything to beat it. We were sure to go on a night with the Fantasmic fireworks show because if you have never seen it, you need to. So fun and to see the kids and adults faces at the fireworks are amazing if it is your first or second...or third time. Colton truly believes Mickey saved the day and waved at him on the boat as they went by (if you haven't seen it, someday you will understand). We then stayed for extra magic hours and hit a few rides and the Disney Playhouse dance party where yes, the kids and adults danced and I may have gotten thrown into a "moms" contest where I had to compete against two other moms in an air guitar contest to rock n roll songs. My mom has video and pictures somewhere but this is my blog and I have publishing rights...I also haven't gotten my hands on my moms camera with all of our "real" pictures of Disney so we are stuck with my phone shots. Let's just say I didn't let my little fans in the front row down and I won the contest. I think Handy Manny was sort of my groupie, he kept giving me the thumbs up and I think he may have influenced the crowd. I also just play a mean air guitar. I won a blow up plastic air guitar...pretty funny stuff.

Downtown Disney

We did make it to Downtown Disney one day to do some shopping and check out the scene. It was sort of a planes, trains and automobiles kind of day. We took the monorail to Epcot in the morning then when were done with the park we took a bus to the Saratoga Springs Resort where we had to switch buses to get the one to Downtown. Well OF COURSE Colton had to go to the bathroom and we missed our bus we had been waiting a half hour for by about 30 seconds so we decided to take the boat over. Well the boat didn't come right away and we could see Downtown so we decided to walk, but started to walk the wrong way so we turned around and thought we had missed the boat but it actually hadn't come yet so we debated and debated and decided to wait for the boat. Well plenty of people had now walked in front of us while we talked about it, the boat came and low and behold it was too full and we were the only ones not let on and we were told that we were going to have to wait another 30 minutes for the next one to come. We swore everyone on the boat was laughing at us and we sort of hated them (for being on the boat) and we sort of hated the Saratoga Resort and swear we won't be back. In the end we walked over, killing our buzz from Epcot and working off the good food we were getting ready to eat! It was a LONG day and I think we can laugh about it now. ;)

At Downtown Disney Wally bought Colton a special car at that make your own car store...I think it is a dad and son dream shop. You pick the rims, the wheels, frame, details...then you use power tools to build it. So cool. He also had Nana make one for Brayden, a special Lightening McQueen. Downtown was definitely happening and we had fun hitting all the stores and collecting more souvenir pennies (you know those stupid penny machines that get designs pressed into them...the boys each had a book and when they were good they got to get a new penny).

Magic Kingdom

You have to start your Disney trip with Magic Kingdom as the first park. It is iconic. The first ride we did was the people mover in Tomorrow Land, figured we would take a nice slow ride to ease us into the scene. Well the stupid ride stopped in the dark for awhile near Space Mountain and it really freaked Colton out, he wanted off the ride immediately and was pretty much scared of rides for the rest of the week unless they were absolutely not in the dark and designated a "kiddie ride". Riley on the other hand was tall enough to go on everything and took full advantage of being a kid with no fear. He did all the rides at every park, starting with Space Mountain, then Rockin Roller-coaster, Tower of Terror, Thunder Mountain...the list goes on. Some definitely scared him, but he did it. Colton will tell you his favorite ride was Dumbo (come on it's a classic) and the Mickeys Philharmagic (yeah not a ride but he did it at least a dozen times). Magic Kingdom is in the process of expanding, they are adding some new rides, I think a Little Mermaid ride and a Beauty and the Beast ride, there were a LOT of princesses. If you have a little girl who is into princesses, Magic Kingdom, well Disney, is the place to be, they are everywhere!!! I think my favorite ride at this park is still Peter Pan after all these years.

The Polynesian

Staying on-site at Disney was a first for all of us so we decided to go all out and stay right on the monorail at the Polynesian. It was truly cliche and just MAGICAL! They greeted us with flower leis when we checked in then our rooms were connecting, right on the water by the marina with our little first floor patios so we could come and go to each others room with ease. There was a volcano pool with a waterside (umm that sucker was fast, I got a little water up my nose). Colton did the slide one day for a straight 8 hours which he had to wear a life vest because the slide was so stinkin fast! Everyday they had contests and activities by the pool for the kids, they played in the sand, there was a pool bar (dreamy) and at night the water parade comes by and you can see the fireworks at Magic Kingdom complete with the same music pipped into the speakers on our beach...wow. We had the option of monorail, foot, boat or bus depending on where we were headed, super convenient with all of our strollers. On Saturday we kicked the vacation off with the Aloha dinner at the Poly and Alicia was picked to come up on stage and hula dance...I may have influenced their selection just a little (so what if I pointed right at her when the male dancer came along looking for their victim). On Sunday we stayed at the resort all day and rented a private cabana with a TV for the football games, drinks, our own "pool boy" who was so great and got us anything/everything we needed (need to contact Disney to tell them this!). We had such a great time at the Poly, we all agreed it was by far the favorite resort we saw while at Disney and were really happy with our decision. I think we will be back if that wish I made with the lucky penny I threw in the fountain on our last day actually does it job!

Pilot wings...

Finally back from our trip to Disney. It was one of the best trips ever and we had so much fun, it was too much to capture in one blog post so I thought I would split up some of the posts. We flew out on Friday night so we could wake up on Saturday and be refreshed and ready to roll. The kids were really excited to meet the pilots and they even got their pilot wings...hehe...didn't know they still did that! Here are some pictures of us waiting to board the plane. I will warn you I have better photos of our trip on my mom's camera but if I wait any longer to download them, the blog may never get updated so here is a look at our week via the lens of the iphone!

Apple picking 2010

Nicole, JuJu, Heidi and I took the boys apple picking this past Sunday to this orchard not too far from home. We got apples, donuts and of course candy apples. Fall is sooo here; time for pie!






























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