Everything Else

April 15, 16, & 18

Islands of Adventure, and Universal Studios

Orland, Florida

Well, not EVERYthing, else--I guess everything else at Universal.  We did some other fun stuff that will have their own posts, but the rest of the park days can basically be summed up here.

SEUSS LANDING (Islands of Adventure)

This was a fun colorful area that we spent some time in.  We had lunch in a giant circus tent here, rode all the attractions they have here, including this carousel a couple of times.  Even Bennett got to ride and he LOVED it!

FIEVEL'S PLAY AREA (Universal Studios)

We spent one day at Universal and it felt like kind of a waste.  We'd know how to do it better next time, but since we stayed up late the night before, we slept in that day and got there around 10 AM.  It was crowded and all the lines were long and we waited and waited for the Minion Mayhem ride to go down, but it just got longer and longer as the day went on, so we didn't even get to do that one which was the main thing we wish we could have gone on at Universal.  We did the Shrek 3D attraction which was mediocre, and we did a Woody Woodpecker Roller Coaster which was fun but super short and the line felt forever long in the hot sun.  Some of us did the Mummy which was awesome, and the line was 5-10 minutes long, so I would have loved to do that a few more times but it was late and the kids were done.  I think the favorite Universal attraction for the kids was this water slide in Fievel's play area.  The kids went up by themselves to ride it and we stood at the bottom waiting for them to come down.  Hayden and Sydney went together--I don't have a picture of them because I was taking video.  But they were so cute.  I thought Sydney would be afraid, but Hayden held her hand and made sure she felt safe and when they came down they were all smiles.

The other favorite ride was Transformers.  But the line was forever and it snaked around in all these rooms that made me claustrophobic.  Sydney and Bennett both fell asleep during that 90 minute line, so that was good that they got a rest, but WOW Sydney is a heavy girl when she is sleeping! 

JURASSIC PARK (Islands of Adventure)

There was lots of fun stuff here for the kids to do.  The Pteranodon Flyer and a fun Jurassic Park play area with slides and water guns and caves to explore. 

 Of course there was also the Jurassic Park signature ride with the huge drop at the end.  

We were the only ones in our boat without ponchos and they put us in the 2nd row.  (rude.)  And then the jerks in front of us ducked so we got all the water that was meant for them.  (rude.)  And this is what we looked like after we were done riding.  

My mouth was open as we went over the edge because I was screaming and I got a mouthful of jurassic park green water in my mouth that had a very strange taste.  gross.  I still cringe when I think of it, and feel a sudden urge to use some mouthwash.

We saw this mother duck nervously corralling her ducklings across a busy walkway and totally identified with her.  I felt like I counted to 6 that week at least 859 times.

And Islands of Adventure WINS in our humble opinion.  

(Maybe Universal is more fun with older people?)  

Harry Potter Land!

Tuesday and Friday, April 15 & 18

Wonderful Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Islands of Adventure

Orlando, Florida

So the main reason for our trip to Orlando was to visit the Wonderful Wizarding World of Harry Potter, located in Universal's Islands of Adventure park.  You could almost spend a whole day just in the Harry Potter section.  We had three days between the two parks, so we spent 2 at Islands and 1 at Universal.  Here are all the HP pics and I'll do another post with everything else picture-worthy that wasn't Harry Potter.

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!

so magical

THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY

In line for the tour of the Hogwart's castle and the Forbidden Journey ride.

The Gariety's at HOGWARTS!

The Hogwart's Greenhouse

All of us entering the Hogwarts Castle!

Having a little Butter Beer Break:

(mmm, sooo delicous!)

FLIGHT OF THE HIPPOGRIFF

Sydney and Gavin LOVED this Flight of the Hippogriff coaster.  They rode it three times each on Friday morning while the bigger kids were going through the single rider line on the Forbidden Journey ride.  (Tuesday we spent LOTS of time in lines, but by Friday we were pros!  We were way more efficient by the time Friday rolled around.) 

This a cappella group was pretty fun to listen to.  They sang/scatted a bunch of Harry Potter songs.  

THE DRAGON CHALLENGE!

Here we are with the lovely ladies of Beauxbaton Academy of Magic 

and the Strong Sons of Durmstrang.  

HONEYDUKES

If you ever find yourself in Honeydukes Sweet shop, be forewarned:  The only thing in there less than $10 is the lollipop that Hayden is holding.  I think that was $5.  Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Chocolate Frogs, and Fizzing Wisbies are all $10+ each.  

(p.s. Sydney was pretty much done by the time we took this picture.)

OLIVANDER'S WAND SHOP

One of my favorite memories was the night we waited in line for "Olivander's Interactive Wand Experience where the Wand Chooses the Wizard."  You'd think that with all the kids we had in our group, we'd have a good chance of one of them being picked.  But nope.  They picked someone else.  It was fine, though, because she was from the UK and had a cool british accent which made it seem that much more real.  

Anyway, that wasn't my favorite part.  My favorite part was when we were at the front of the line waiting to go in, and the worker admitting groups into Olivander's was playing a Harry Potter trivia game with our kids and they were wasting him!  He would ask them a question and they would nail it.  Then they would ask him a question and he would get it sometimes and sometimes they would stump him.  One of the best questions he asked was:  Name three of the Weasley Brothers, but not Ron, Fred or George.  Immediately, Dallin and Daphne shouted, "Bill, Charlie, Percy!!!!"  Classic.  

Don't mess with  us.  

We know Harry Potter backward and forward.

The kids each worked really hard in the months following Christmas to save up enough money to buy their own wands.  It was so cute when they each went up to the counter and pulled out their wallets and started counting out $37 in ones and quarters.  The cool thing is there were no repeat wands in our group, even with the cousins.  Everyone of them chose something different.  We now have the following wands at our house: Ginny's, Draco's, Dumbledore's, Voldemort's,  and Fleur's.  Dallin also got a wand that doesn't belong to a character (so I guess it's Dallin's wand) and already had Harry's wand from a previous online purchase.  We could open our OWN Olivander's Wand Shop.

(If only they WORKED!!!)  

THE THREE BROOMSTICKS

Dinner at the Three Broomsticks.  This was a steal of a deal.  Kids meals were only $5.  And the fish and chips were pretty tasty!  Besides it looks just like the movie inside.

 We had a completely delightful time at the magical Wizarding World of Harry Potter!  Can't wait to go back when the kids are all tall enough to ride everything and check out the new Harry Potter attractions opening this summer!!!  (We just missed them!)

Orlando

Spring Break 2014
April 14-21
Villa Balmoral
Orlando, Florida

Remember back at Christmas when Santa gave our kids a trip to the Magical Wizarding World of Harry Potter?  Well that day finally came, after months of waiting and waiting and anticipating the adventure, it came!!!

We had a blast at Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios, Clearwater Beach, Gatorland, The Florida Aquarium, and the Villa.  (The house where we stayed.)  We met Jen and Brandon's Family there and Melanie flew out to party with us for a couple of days too.  We had such a great time hanging out with those guys!

I have so many pictures of this trip, I felt like it would be less overwhelming to divide it into a few a different posts.  So this post will be the introductory post:

We got up early to catch our flight Monday morning.

This is what it looks like when a family of 8 is checking in:

Bennett and Sydney's first time on an airplane.

They were champs.

We had a layover in Houston (that became 4 hours instead of 2.5) and they had a cool Children's Art Gallery there that we spent some time looking at.  The art was all done by children who were in the hospital with cancer.  They had postcards available that you could write a note to the child whose piece you loved the most, so we wrote some notes to those kids which I felt was a pretty awesome way to spend time during a layover.  But we sure were ready to get on with the adventure after that long layover!

Finally we got to the house where we were staying!  It was a 5 bed/4 bath home with a pool and a fun game room.

First order of business was to put all our clothes in the dryer since our luggage got completely soaked in a downpour at the Houston Airport.  I guess those tarps they had to cover the luggage were just for decoration.  While we were drying our clothes, we had a super late dinner and the kids swam because even if it's 10 o'clock at night, if there's a pool to be in after you've been traveling all day, you just have to swim. The kids swam almost every day, and just LOVED it!

There was air hockey, a pool table and a basketball game in the game room.

Movie night in the girls room.  

The kids did way better staying awake during their movie than the adults did for ours.  I was so tired I slept through most of ours!

March Quotes

Me:  Hayden are you ready for school?  Have you packed your backpack?  Is your lunch ready?

Hayden:  (sighing)  I've had enough of school.

Me:  Man, that's a bummer.  (enough of school in Kindergarten--he has a LONG road ahead.)

Hayden:  yeah, it lasts ALL DAY!

Sydney:  What is MY job?  What can I do?

Me:  Syd, why don't you help me mop the floor.  

That can be your job.

Sydney:  Well, I don't think that's gonna work for me.

Dallin, upon returning home from his show choir tour told me that one of his favorite parts was when an 8th grade girl predicted that he would be "gorgeous in high school."  He said, "I liked being called gorgeous, mom."  :)  Oh boy.  Here we go.   ("As a specimen, yes, I'm intimidating! My what a guy!  GAS-TON!")

Sydney and Hayden were fighting over a book during the prayer. After the prayer I corrected them and said, "Shame on you."  Syd started crying and said, "But I don't want a shame!!"

We recently found out that some friends of our are having twins.  That will make the third set of twins born in the La Cueva Ward in 2 years.  What are the odds of that, really?  Since the kids and I were praying for twins the last time around, we were talking about this and wondering about why Heavenly Father is sending what seems to be an inordinately high number of twins to our little corner of the world, but he didn't send them to us, when we put in a request! And then Dallin made a good point.  He said, "Well Mom, all those twins came to families who had girls first.  You can have more kids if you have a girl first."  
"Ah-ha!" I said, "So it's YOUR fault!"    

Sydney was freaking out one day because she didn't get to play Mario Cart on the wii with the other kids. She kept saying, "But I want to play with my kids!"

Syd: Who are you talking to?

Me: (a little embarrassed) Myself.

Syd: Oh.  I do that too sometimes.

One night on the way to pack meeting, the road to the church was completely blocked off by over 10 cop cars.  I told Dallin to look and see if he could count how many there were.

Dallin: We want to know how many cop cars there are so we can brag to our LC friends.  

Daph: Why would we brag about cop cars?  

Dallin: Because we're always trying to make them feel sorry for us about our scary building.

(he's onto me.)

There were some cute quotes that happened at our Pinewood derby this month.  My two favorite weren't my kids, but I'll let them be honorary guests on my March quote page, since I'm a little short on quotes this month anyway.  :)  

In his opening prayer Eric prayed:  Bless that no wheels will fall off or such. 

And in the retiring of the colors, Rowdy said:  Audience please be sad.  (instead of please stand.)  

Dallin said this gem while watching "Lord of the Rings" where Faramir hold Eowen's hand... "It was so easy to get a girl back then...you just needed to be gentle to them and good at fighting."

I was filling our kids school registration forms which is super tedious since there are about 11 forms per child and they all ask for basically the same information!  I enlisted Arthur to help me finish them and this is what happened:  

Arthur reading the form aloud:  Who is NOT allowed to pick up your child from school? ... ... ... Satan?  

Five Star Champions!

March 28, 2014

NM Showfest

I think it's safe to say that the highlight of Dallin's 6th grade year has been his participation in "Five Star," Eisenhower Middle School's varsity show choir.  They are directed by the fabulous Eisenhower choir teacher, Mr. Prior.  They practice most days before school starts and have been preparing their show "School of Rock" almost all year for competition.  

Last week they went on tour to CA and competed in a Regional Competition in Los Alamitos where they won 1st place.  This past weekend, they competed in the State Show Choir competition and won that too.  (Since there were only 2 middle school competing, it wasn't as impressive as the CA win, but the other middle school was very good too, so it wasn't a shoo-in.  

Anyway, here are some pictures from their performance this past weekend.  Their show has 5 songs.  They start as nerds singing "ABC" (by the Jackson 5) and "Hip to be Square" (my favorite of their songs). Then they sing this ballad that their choir teacher Mr. Prior arranged.  It is 4-6 parts a cappella, and they totally killed it this weekend.  It was the best I'd heard them sing it.   In the ballad they talk about wanting to change and become somebody different than who they are.  (Yes, it's a little Grease-ish.)  Then they sing "Still Rock-n-Roll to Me"  and their costume change happens in the middle of that song.  They turn into rock stars and end with a medley of "We don't need no education/We will Rock You/School's out for Summer."  Dallin is wearing a black leather studded vest and I always think--"Boy I sure love those nerd songs!"  :)

Five-Star won best choreography, best male solo, best song (for the ballad) and 1st place in the middle school division.  I'm so glad Dallin has had this experience this year--he's made a lot of good friends, gained a lot of confidence and has had such a great time!  Yahoo for Five-Star!

Here is a link to their performance in Los Alamitos, CA

School of Rock--by EMS Five-Star