A dad and his boys

The day after we got back from vacation I had a doctor's appointment for some follow up blood work.  Which I may add my cholesterol has went down over 75 points.  Yay me!!

 

Steve had also taken that day off to recuperate from Disney.  While I was gone he took the boys on a walk.  I think they had a good time :)

 

While mom's away, the boys will play.

It's Summertime!

Although Cooper has been out of school for about 2 weeks now, I never felt like it was summer until the holiday.  The summertime has never made too big of a difference for us, this time it's different, and a little sad actually.  We have a definite end to our summer, and really isn't that far off. 

 

Our weekend started off with a popcorn movie night on Friday.  Steve is on a mission to get all the old Disney classics so we watched Dumbo.  Saturday morning was boring; grocery shopping and lawn work.  Saturday night we went to Mom and Pop's, Cooper couldn't stop laughing that his ice cream was called Ants in my Pants.  Sunday was church and then my mom took us out to Olive Garden.  Steve works about 50% of the holidays, this was his time to have Memorial Day off.  We had a picnic lunch and play time at Silver Creek Primary park.  I love this park!  It's closed in and I don't have to worry about Cameron getting hurt since he doesn't seem to have any playground fear.

 Steve's parents came over Monday night and we grilled out steaks.  Our grill broke at the beginning of summer last year and we just now got it fixed.  They were delicious!  Steve did a great job. 

 

We played outside on and off most of the day yesterday.  They boys could have kept themselves busy for hours on the Better Batter Baseball Tee, except I had to keep turning it around for them.  I guess that's the problem with one righty and one lefty.

 I went to Jazzercise this morning and on a whim decided to take the kids to the pool.  The water was freezing!!!  Cooper didn't seem to mind, he got right in.  I couldn't tell if Cameron was scared or just cold, so he just stayed around the steps.

We are going to meet our neighbors at the pool again tomorrow.  It looks like it's going to cool down again so it may be July before the water is warm enough for me to get in.

 

Cameron is  napping and to me nothing screams summer more than a red cheeked baby napping on a hot day.  Hoping for many more of these days in the next two months.

 

Disney Day 4: Magic Kingdom and EPCOT

We woke up early Sunday morning for a very special treat.  The number one rule for a Disney vacation is to book early and get your dining reservations.  They start taking them about 6 months in advance and usually fill up quickly.  We booked our trip just 2 months in advance so even though I got good reservations, there were a couple that were just impossible.  One was Chef Mickey, a character meal with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto.  I kid you not, 10 days before we were set to leave my agent called that an opening had come available.  The reservation was at 7:00 am, but Chef Mickey is located in our resort, all we had to do was take an elevator. 

 

 It was so worth it to wake up a little early.  It had great characters, a wonderful variety of breakfast foods, all you can eat buffet, and a fun atmosphere.

Cameron of course wanted nothing to do with the characters.  This must be his, "you think I'm going close to those things, you are crazy", face.

 At one point they crank up the music and start waving napkins in the air and start dancing.

 7:00 was an early start for breakfast but it also allowed us to be back at the Magic Kingdom before opening.  We had one very important task to complete and that was to get Cooper on Splash Mountain.  Him and Steve headed that way while Cameron and I took a ride on the carousel and Peter Pan's flight, again back to back.  "I wanna do that again, Mommy".

 Steve & Cooper ended up riding both Splash and Thunder Mountain, AND got a fast pass for Splash so I could ride it with Cooper.  That's us in the third row.  I took this with my cell phone off of their screen, so it's not great quality.

 Steve discovered another small playground so him and Cameron hung out there and munched on some jelly beans.

 They also got a glimpse of Woody and Jessie, from afar of course.  Those masked creatures sure are scary, aren't they Cam?

 Next up was a ride on the Disney railroad, a train that goes around the perimeter of the park.  A perfect way to relax and cool down.

 Then it was one last stop in Adventureland before heading back for lunch and naps.  Pirates was another must do.

 We had lunch in our hotel and Cooper swore he wasn't tired.  I guess this is what you call not being tired.

 We couldn't wake them up.  The hotel provided a pack n play and extra blankets.  Yeah, we almost brought the blankets home.  They were the softest most comfortable blankets.  I can see why Cameron wanted to stay asleep.

 Since this was our last night we wanted to try and get back early to finish packing.  We had finished all we wanted to do in Magic Kingdom and didn't really want to fight the crowds again.  Hollywood Studios still had Star Wars going on so it would have been crowded, Animal Kingdom closes early, so EPCOT it was.  This was like a breath of fresh air.  Low crowds and afternoon rain showers had cooled the temperatures.

 

 Bruce the shark attacked us.

 If you go to EPCOT, you have to do Turtle Talk with Crush,  It's an interactive cartoon show.  Pretty neat.  Plus you get to look at cool fish while you wait, or dance, or play the huggie game. 

 Disney has their own tv channels with bed time stories with kids. Some are old school Disney short stories and one is a short story about Duffy the Disney Bear.  You can buy a Duffy in any park but only EPCOT has the real Duffy.  Cooper loved this thing and even asked for a Duffy bear.  It's so fun being able to experience the big kid stuff, like roller coasters, with him along with the kid stuff. 

 We rode a few more family rides, had dinner, and made our way back to the resort.  Despite our best efforts it ended up being another late night.  Cameron even fell asleep in the bed with me and Cooper.  He snores, so I had to move him back the pack n play.  I think he may be heading in the same direction as Cooper with his tonsils.

 The next morning I took one more picture of the sunrise, it was time to say good-bye.

 For some reason this cracked me up.  All we had were our iPod earphones and they wouldn't fit in Cameron's ears. 

 We had a simple direct flight home and made it back to our house just in time for lunch, and more naps.  Imagine that.  This time, I really couldn't wake these two up. 

Disney is exhausting.  It took me a couple days to recover, but worth every exhausting minute.  Our first family vacation is now complete and it couldn't have been better.  Well, unless we could have stayed longer :).