Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Pumpkin Patch 2009

This past weekend we took a family trip to a local pumpkin patch. It was a lot of fun. It was just a great weekend overall!!



The place we went was geared toward kids 1-6 years old, which was perfect for taking Sydney and Riker too, and the price was great too: kids over 2 are $3.00. That was it. Adults were free, Riker was free. So the trip cost us a total of $3.00 and we were there for 1.5 hours of fun!

We started by heading into the petting zoo part, and the kids had an absolute blast.




Of course they had some goofy little picture spots that we had to take advantage of.









The Pumpkin Patch even had a small playground area in with the animals that both kids were having fun playing on.



At this point we were a little confused. We thought there was more of a Pumpkin Patch and a corn maze somewhere. About this time we located a bunch of kids and parents getting on a hayride. We were like "WHY NOT?" So we headed to where you get on the hayride. The kids loved it. We then found out that the hayride took you to the pumpkin patch and corn maze. SCORE!



Sydney and Daddy did the corn maze for a second time and while they were doing this Riker decided that he wanted to take a pumpkin home with him. Just watch and see how that went:


Such a strong little man! And he did NOT want to leave the pumpkins!

We had a ton of fun and will be sure to do it again. And based on the two kids in this next picture I am sure you can tell that we had memorable time!


Monday, October 26, 2009

Sydney's Third Birthday

Another year has passed and Sydney has had another birthday. We thought we'd share a bit of her great day with you. Her day began with getting up. And here is what she said (there was no coaching for this! She just sat up in bed and started talking.).




After getting going for the morning Grandpa and Mimi picked her up for the day so Mom could decorate the house and cake and make the theme of the party be a big surprise (Phineas and Ferb - a Disney Channel show we all love that Syd said is her "favorite" - dad even had the soundtrack playing!). To make her day special Grandpa and Mimi took her many places. She got to pick out some pumpkins for her and Riker, and she even got to ride a pony!




It sounded like she had a great time during the day with them. But it sounds like she was also ready to come home knowing that there was going to be a birthday party for her when she got there.

Here she is as she comes into the house.



Here is a picture of this amazing cake that she was looking at, and for those of you who don't know who Phineas is, here is a reference picture as well.








Everyone made there contribution to the party. Jamie decorated the whole house and the cake and prepared the house for company. Dad bought 5 bounce balloons. :) Guess which one was the bigger hit in the house? You got it. Dad WON. Poor Mommy...




Sydney finally got to have everyone sing to her and eat cake - she was thrilled! She decided to eat some of Phineas' hair - and her whole mouth turned bright red!

Sydney received many gifts that she loved. But the one we think she liked the best (biased because we gave it to her) was her own digital camera. Here are some pictures she took with the camera (it is a Fisher PRice kids camera and she had it figured out in seconds!)


Hi Uncle Dean!



Say Cheese Mimi and Aunt Marilyn



Isn't Mommy cute?



Smile at the camera Uncle Ben!

So overall she had a great 3rd birthday party. Hope you have enjoyed sharing it with us! We just can't believe she's three!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Disney Trip Part 2

After a full day at Epcot in a "bit" of heat, we were hoping for cooler weather the next day for the Magic Kingdom. We could hope all we want, it didn't come true. It was another scorcher, but we didn't care we were at Disney World! While waiting to get in the park we had some fun with pictures of the Halloween decorations.


Ain't she strong?


Those are the smallest ears I have ever seen!

We started off the day in Tomorrow Land. We actually started with the Buzz Lightyear Ride (which we did twice). We had so much fun. Nothing makes you feel as much like a kid as that ride does. It was a lot of fun.

Of course we did EVERYTHING else as well. And we HAD to hit Pirates of the Caribbean (did that twice too). Danny really got into it.


Such a kid.

Jamie had never been to the Country Bear Jamboree so we made sure to hit that while we were there this time. We were BOTH disappointed, they didn't even sing the main song. I hate to say it, but that REALLY needs to be updated. Some of the animals only blinked with one eye...creepy.


Overall we had a great time and decided to be a little creative for our picture in front of the castle.




Of course we stayed for Spectromagic and we managed to get curb seats which was really nice, and we weren't about to give up our front row seats to kids. We were just bigger kids! :)

Here is a small video of our time at the Magic Kingdom"



As we approached our last day we were really really REALLY hoping for some heat relief, but again we were not blessed with cooler temps. It was just HOT!!! But that did not slow us down. We started the day with Rock n' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror, and from there we planned the rest of our day around when each of the shows would be on.

One of the highlights of our day was finally getting to meet some of the characters. Of course you can't got to Disney and not stop by to see Mickey.




Then we got to get pictures with some Pixar Characters that neither of us have ever gotten pictures with before....The INCREDIBLES!


Look at all those Incredible parents!

We did the back lot tour and had a TON of fun doing it. We were selected to be part of the show. Jamie was made the captain of the boat and Danny was made the engineer. Jamie got splashed with a bit of water while Danny had 600 or more gallons of water dumped on him! It was refreshing and a lot of fun. We also went to the Honey I shrunk the kids set and found some wonderful Play Dough.


Jamie LOOKOUT!

We made sure to stick around for Fantasmic. It was just really awesome to watch, always a great show! After watching the show we had time for one more ride and decided to head back to Toy Story (which is a SUPER fun ride!). We had a lot of fun waiting in line and taking pictures. Here are just a couple.







Once we got off of the Toy Story ride we knew the vacation was over which definitely did not make Jamie very happy.



Here is a short video about our day at Hollywood Studios.




That was our vacation in a nutshell. But the blog is not over yet. For the end of this 2 part blog you get a special treat. You get to see a short video of some of the outtakes from our trip. These might be just funny to us, but thought we would share!


Monday, October 12, 2009

Disney Vacation 2009 - No kids allowed!

We decided to take a vacation just the 2 of us (no kids). We even decided to go to Disney World! We were very excited for our trip. We spent many nights figuring out the logistics of the trip. In the end what we figured out was that the kids would spend 1/2 the week with Grandma and Pawpaw Fritz and half the week with Grandpa and Mimi Eggleston. We would fly out of South Bend on Monday and fly back on Friday. Giving us 3 full days at Disney World to have a great time. We decided this is an EARLY 10 year wedding anniversary gift to us.

Monday morning Jamie's dad took us to the airport where we awaited our flight.

Don't we look happy to be leaving?

After a very uneventful and fun flight(they did a raffle!) we arrived in Orlando, FL. We rented a car and then made the hour drive to Disney World (in 40 minutes...Go Danny!). We found our room which was really cool for a simple room at All Star Sports Resorts.




They even had a towel decoration for us in the room.

Can you say Mickey Mouse?

From there we headed to Downtown Disney to spend the rest of Monday shopping and looking around. The sites we saw included the really cool Lego Store, a new Dinosaur Themed restaurant that reminded us of Rain Forest Cafe, and many many shops that we enjoyed walking through. We also saw some great characters.


Watch out Jamie, Stitch does Spit.


"Buzz Light year to the Rescue!"

Here is a small video account of our first day of Vacation:



Now onto our first day at the parks. We decided to head to Epcot for our first day, because of the extra Magic Hour in the morning for those people staying on Disney Property.




We started the day with the new ride Soarin'. It was really cool and a lot of fun. From there we headed over to Test Track which is always a blast.

Danny was a a great crash test dummy.


We then decided to try Mission Space. Not my best choices of rides. I was told this ride was basically a G-Force machine that pushed you into your seat. I was WRONG. It does that AND is a simulation ride. Simulation rides and Danny just don't mix. By the end of the ride Danny was in a cold sweat from head to toe. We moved on but the feeling stuck with him most of the rest of the day.

We then rode some other rides, nothing much to speak of. We decided to try out the Kim Possible Mission adventure. You will see a bit about that in the video later. We did the first set of missions, but then stopped because it was quite warm. When I say quite warm, they were pulling the cactus inside to keep them out of the sun! The Kim Possible mission was really cool and does make the countries a lot more fun for the kids (and those that are kids at heart like us).

Side note, because this was our anniversary trip Disney gave us buttons that we wore each day. These buttons had cast members wishing us happy anniversary we they saw it. It made us feel sort of special.



Because of these buttons when we walked into the American Pavilion in Epcot, they asked us if we were going to stay for the show and if we would be willing to be the 'First Family' for this show. We thought "sure that sounds cool". We had seating up top while there were singers for the preshow and got announced as the "First Family" celebrating our 10 year anniversary and got priority seating in the movie theater. And we received this cool certificate.



The aquarium ride has been themed since we were last there to the obvious theme of "Finding Nemo". We both thought this ride was great, a big improvement on the old set-up, and got into the act with some fun pictures.






Here is a video account of our Day at Epcot.



Stay Tuned for Future Blog(s) about the rest of our Disney Adventure!