Knitting

Emily's learning to knit. Well, from me...I guess you could say I'm learning to knit too. I taught her what I know, so far. Erin taught me the basics and I've started a few times, but it usually gets unraveled before I get very far.
I did complete one thing, I like to call it a headband. I proudly wore it to
a girls house in our ward. After being there a while she asked, "So, is that...you have, like, a really long piece of hair?" I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. She pointed to the back of my hair. And then I realized it was the string from the knitted headband (that I'd tied it with) hanging down. I guess the brown was just about exactly the shade of my hair. Anyway, we cleared it up. She laughed and said she'd thought it felt sort of weird when she'd touched it to show me what she was talking about. Needless to say, I cut the string when I got home. So that's the story of my first knitting project. Someone thought I had a tail. Lovely.

Disney World's Hollywood Studios (with the kids this time)

So we finally went to Disney World's Hollywood Studios with the kids last Saturday! It was so HOT and pretty crowded, but we had a great time. I was kind of surprised we had so much fun even in the heat. I've really been dreading going in the summer. It did cool off a little in the evening when the wind blew and it sprinkled some. We were lucky that it didn't really pour like it usually does.

This is the line for the new ride: Toy Story Mania. And we got to see Lightning and Mater!

Garrett and Owen had a great time playing with pirate hats while we waited for Dad and the big kids to go on Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Even Emily went on it. She actually loved it and went on it again with me when it was my turn. That's my favorite ride and it scares me every time. Emily liked seeing a High School Musical Show and Beauty and the Beast.

Justin and Ian were bummed that Rockin' Rollercoaster was closed for the day. But we had fun in the gift shop. Rock On!
The car stunt show was pretty cool. (Cool as in Rad or Awesome, not temperature!) Herbie was split in half!

Shhhh....don't tell

Daniel and I went on a date to Hollywood Studios the other day. I didn't tell the kids where we were going, just that we wouldn't be home until late. If they actually visit and read the blog, they deserve to know. Otherwise...let's keep it to ourselves.
I met Daniel after work and our Bishop got me in for free. He was there working. (I really owe him since I was late and he had to wait for me to let me in...). When I finally calmed down (from my fit at being late) we had a great time. It rained of course and we mostly just went to the shows. Beauty and the Beast, Muppets, Fantasmic (water/light show). We hung out with a bunch of the interns Daniel works with. Let me tell you...I'm OLD!! They were all young 20-22 year olds and looked 15! And there are a bunch of girls. Only one other guy was there. (Who knew there were so many girl Mechanical Engineers. I guess they're all here at Disney.)
We rode the new Toy Story Mania. It's a 3D ride where you shoot things and it looks like there are actual darts or whatever coming out of your gun and hitting the targets. Pretty amazing actually. That's the ride our Bishop worked on as an engineer.
Well, while we had a fun time, it really just made us want to take the kids -so we're probably going tomorrow.

The BEACH!

We went to the beach today and I have no pictures to show for it. The battery in my camera was dead, which I noticed after we got there. It was about an hour and 20 minute drive there. We left after Daniel woke up from his morning sleep (recovering from working all night at Disney. They got to walk around some of the rides after hours with the lights on!).

The beach is different here from CA. We went to the East coast, just a small non popular beach called Eau Gallie Beach. The sand is not nearly as soft. It's full of shell bits and coarse sand so it sort of scrapes you when your in the waves. The kids were scuffing along the bottom like crazy. I'm sure they'll be complaining about being scraped up later. The waves were pretty big for here I think. And the water was warm. Cool at first but very easy to get used to. Owen didn't want anything to do with that water rushing toward him. Emily tried to get every shell there...but they were numberless!!!

It was fun and next time I'll have pictures. (I was wondering if I was actually lucky to have a dead battery. Cameras/sand/salt water...not great together, but I was going to be really careful. Maybe I avoided a disaster...?)

Sunday Walk

We went on a walk around our neighborhood. This is the little pond whatever they call it here. All the apartment and condo places have these. It was actually a pretty nice day with a cool breeze. Except for the killer ants that bit me, Daniel and Owen, we had a lot of fun on this little Sunday walk. Didn't see any alligators...

Owen's Birthday...He's 2!

I took 59 pictures! He was soooo cute. Everyone was so excited for him to open his presents-as you can see. He got a Buzz shirt, A Cars shirt and a Wall-E shirt. Every time he opened one, he wanted to put it on. He would start pulling on his shirt to take it off and fussing about putting the next one on. He got Cars figures, Toy Story figures, the snake from Jungle Book, a Cars hat, and Buzz sunglasses. A Disney Birthday, eh? We pulled a "Mom and Dad" (that's my parents) and forgot to give him a bunch of presents the kids had picked out at the Dollar Store a few days before. (My parents were always forgetting to get all the presents out of their closet and if you'd peaked earlier-which I never did-and noticed one missing on your birthday that you'd seen in their closet, you'd have to wait until they remembered...IF they remembered. Or you'd find random things in their closet and ask about it, they'd say "Oh yeah! I forgot to give that to you on your birthday.") Anyway, he got those later and liked them too. We were all just too excited to give him things we knew he'd love. It was very fun. I wish you could hear all the sound effects coming from their mouths. Garrett and Owen played forever afterward.

and swimming...

We went to a lady's house to swim. It was very relaxing and fun. Their home was beautiful, surrounded by huge trees. You can see one in the backyard if you look carefully. Ian would have died to climb it. They are on a golf course too and very near a lake. I just sat and talked with her while the kids swam for a long time. It was actually not horribly hot that day.

She has one little boy Garrett's age.

Swimming

We go swimming a lot.
I've never really been much of a swimmer. Getting ready to go, all the sunscreen I have to put on (it takes a long time putting sunscreen on myself and 5 kids)...a BATHINGSUIT! But I'm getting used to it. I've stopped making it a big deal. We go in the morning a lot. There's usually no one (or very few people) there and I can take a shower afterward. Besides all that, it likes to storm in the afternoon. Thunder, lightning and big, heavy drops of rain and it's still very warm. Weird.

Skinner Lips

Daniel showed off his talented Skinner lips. He can use them properly now that the goatee is gone. (That's a straw, but he can hold heavier things like pencils and pens, too.) He has passed on his talent to his posterity, as you can see.



Well, Oh yeah? Look at this!

Happy 4th of July!

We went to our ward party. I've never been so hot and sweaty in my life. I should have just gone swimming. I didn't and so I almost died. The kids swam most of the time. There was a ton of food (meat provided, pot luck for rest), evidence this ward knows how to potluck! The rest of the day, we just lounged around inside our house recovering from the heat. :) Later, we watched fireworks from the shore of one of the many lakes here. This one's only a few minutes away. It was really pretty. I should take pictures in the day.

FHE Baseball

We were invited to play baseball for Family Home Evening with some other families in the ward. It was really fun (though kinda hot). Our sweat glands haven't stopped working since we got here (as Daniel would say). Didn't get a lot of time to get to know the people but it was still fun to meet them and felt great to be invited. Gotta love instant friends through church, eh?

Nothing exciting

Okay, I sort of feel like every time I post, I have to have something Disney related to report. I think I'd better get over that, because there's just not a lot to say on that topic from me. You'll have to ask Daniel about that I guess. I also sort of made his job sound like...well, less than a job and more like pure fun. Really I was just focusing on the fun stuff. He is also receiving quite a few projects (boring ones, if you ask me) that involve a lot of looking at spread sheets ...shrug. I don't really know.

My time is spent trying to get ready to register the kids for school, getting new immunization records on the special Florida form, getting the kids physicals, and worrying about everything. The kids are supposed to start school August 18th, but we'll be gone in Ut/Idaho until the 19th so they miss the first 2 days of school. Garrett's kindergarten is all day and I have to buy them all uniforms! @#%$# It's the first year for the school to have uniforms too. I don't think I'd mind them if I knew we were staying in these schools for years, but if it's temporary...that's annoying. I've heard a few times that these are really good schools though, so that's good.

The kids are learning to swim and doing well. Garrett is a little too daring in my opinion and has caused some late night worry for me. I just need to stay really alert and keep him close. I am so glad that everyone is learning to swim though. It's so good for them, and they are doing it on their own. I haven't taken any swimming pictures because I'm always in the water with them.