Disney World

This was completely an impulse decision, but we decided to add on an extra day to our vacation and go to Disney World! (Our friends were doing 2 days of Disney after Universal. It was just too tempting because we were having so much fun!) We would have loved to go to Hollywood Studios, but the wait times for all the rides were insane. So we started the morning in Epcot, then park hopped to Animal Kingdom. 

Waiting in line for Ratatouille. This is a new ride that I thought was so clever!

Guardians of the Galaxy was the ride we were most excited for. (New ride) I'm amazed that they can come up with new ways to make roller coasters exciting. This was Space Mountain x10. The individual cars turn sideways during the ride!

Animal Kingdom was not busy for the last 4 hours it was open. We were able to ride Mt. Everest a total of 9 times. The kids had fun coming up with new picture ideas!

Safari ride--rhinos in the background

Giraffes

Just finished breakfast, gearing up for the long drive home

We decided to drive straight through on the way home. We left after breakfast on Saturday morning. Traffic was not our friend, however, and it added 2 hours to our trip. (We did lose an hour with the time change.) We pulled in around 12:30am. 8:30 church the next morning was a little difficult!

Spring Break

Three years ago, we went to Universal Studios at the height of Covid. We loved it so much and knew we wanted to go back. Last time we were there, they were building Velocicoaster, which we heard was one of the best roller coasters ever. Another incentive to go again! We met up with our friends, the Millers, and hung out for a good portion of the trip. Our plan was to do a day each at the 2 theme parks (Universal Studios and California Adventure) with fast passes. Day 3 we went to Volcano Bay, their water park.

We left Sunday after church and broke up the driving over two days so that we could make sure to be rested before starting bright and early Tuesday morning.

Harry Potter World

Last time we were too cheap to buy the interactive wands. We got two this time so the boys could enjoy taking turns doing spells.

Butter beer

Waiting in line for Hagrid's Motorbike. It's my favorite ride!

Velocicoaster was awesome!

Dr. Seuss Land

Minions

Austin and Mommy time while the others rode a ride he wasn't tall enough for

Volcano Bay

The parks were so crowded for Spring Break. We are glad we got fast passes as the wait times were 20-30 minutes versus 90-120 minutes. It was a little chilly for Volcano Bay, 78 degrees was the high, but we didn't have fast passes for day 3 and none of us wanted to stand in long lines for rides we've already done. Plus we needed a rest day. We slept in that morning and didn't get to the park until noon. We only stayed for 5 hours, then got dinner when we got back to our hotel. The scenery at Volcano Bay was amazing, but living 20 minutes away from a waterpark, we weren't that impressed with the water slides...nothing special. The water coaster was fun and different though. 

Piano Competition

Caleb is working hard to finish Book 7 of Suzuki. He's learned almost all the songs and is now polishing and memorizing. I'm proud of him for pushing through and making piano a priority even though he is so busy in high school. Quitting piano in high school is one of my biggest regrets. He participated in a piano competition at the end of January where he performed in front of an audience while being judged. The two songs he played were Alla Turca by Mozart and Nocturne in C-sharp Minor by Chopin.

Christmas 2022

We had the opportunity to join in on some service activities this year that hopefully made Christmas a little more memorable.

After caroling to an apartment of refugees downtown, we stopped off at the Giving Machine and let the boys each pick out something to donate.

A friend invited our family to join in making sack lunches to pass out on Christmas Eve morning to the homeless. We had an assembly line going for decorating the bags, making the sandwiches, and assembling the lunches. Then we drove downtown to pass them out.

My mom hosted Christmas Eve. It was a night filled with musical performances, chimes, dinner, the Nativity, white elephant game, and gift exchange.

The boys were so excited to open their presents on Christmas morning.

Stockings

Christmas Jammies

Caleb got lots of hand sanitizer and gum in his stocking. It should last him awhile!

Not pictured are the orbeez guns for Austin and Bryson that were supposed to arrive in time but ended up coming 2 days after Christmas even though they were ordered on December 9th!