MOLLY SCARED
Molly didn't get up and ready on time for her soccer game. She really struggles with getting out of bed. She chose to sleep in a little longer and was late to her game. When she realized she was late, she refused to go out on to the field. It was so frustrating. She kept saying she was scared. I am not sure what I've done to create this feeling in her about being late. This is the second time this has been a problem. I tried talking her into going on to the field with her team, but she wouldn't. She decided she wanted to go home. On the drive home she had talked herself into going but we were done. She had to live with her choice and wasn't too happy with that. It was rough. I am not sure how to help her with this. She's been trying to work on her attitude this week. I hope we can work through this and help her overcome this fear. 10-1-22
NOAH SCORED
Noah's game was right at the end of the first session of conference. He scored this week which was really fun!! He does a great job! 10-1-22
MRS. BURNS AT ERIKA'S GAME
This was pretty exciting for Erika. She and Kate and Morgan had stopped to visit Mrs. Burns on Friday and invited her to their game. How cute that she actually came. With her dog. They loved it! They played really well too. This was a pretty tough team, really well matched. Erika scored about 5 or 6 times!! I couldn't believe how many cool plays she made! Her ball handling skills are getting really fun. Erika really struggled with the decision to go to her game since it was right in the middle of the second session, but I think knowing Mrs. Burns would be there made it even harder. In fact, I think she wouldn't have gone if it weren't for her. But it was a really fun game, I was glad I got to watch and glad that she got to have her hero there to watch also. 10-1-22
GENERAL CONFERENCE
I am loving conference this time! As always. It's been really uplifting. I always feel so motivated to be better and do better! Makes me feel like I got this. The kids have been doing really well. Kelly was here for the first session. We had to move Creamed Eggs On Toast to lunch time Saturday because of the soccer game and Kelly had to leave before we had it, but now that she is trying to avoid wheat, egg whites, cow's milk, etc, it's not really the best thing for her. Makes me sad that our big family traditional meal is causing here pain! Everyone did really well even with watching a third session on Saturday night! Molly and Sadie were less than thrilled to be watching it another day, so with the help of the big kids, Luke's idea, I went to the store and grabbed some cheap little prizes to use for Conference Bingo. It worked out pretty well the first session on Sunday, hopefully it will work for one more. I've loved all the talks. I don't know if I have seen a theme, but I do get this overwhelming feeling that we need to do more and get even stronger in our testimonies. I am really excited about the new For The Strength of The Youth pamphlet they announced Saturday morning. It is SO COOL!!! So much left to the youth to be in charge of their own choices. I love that. I'm really excited to study it with my kids!! Hopefully they will love that too :). 10-1-22--10-2-22
STILL FIGHTING THIS COLD/FLU WHATEVER IT IS
Nate thankfully took over when he got home Monday. I was able to rest a little. I felt bad, but it was such a relief. I gotta shake this bug before Florida! Nate took a bunch of the kids to the church to clean, I stayed home and did nothing. 10-3-22
FHE
We had one of the worst family nights we've had in a long time. We were all a little off I think. The boys were all missing because they were at their Cross Country team dinner. It was Molly's lesson and neither of us had helped her, so Erika kind of stepped in and improvised for us. It was really nice that she was willing to help. She helped Molly tell us what to do and Molly did it, but of course was not real enthusiastic about any of it. There was other complaining and frustrations from other kids, Jack's scripture time was interesting. It was rough. Made me wonder how we've come to this. Maybe we need to put more emphasis on our family nights and make them more of a priority. We did have fat boys for the treat and we played hide and go seek for Sadie's game. That was fun. 10-3-22
LAST XC RACE OF THE SEASON
We had our last XC race of the season on Tuesday. Luke and Noah both ran. Brad is still trying to let his sprained ankle heal. The boys both did awesome! I was really proud of them. Noah even got a 1 minute PR on his 5K. Pretty awesome! I've been so impressed with the improvements they've both made. Luke did great as well. He seemed less thrilled with his time, but he always comes in strong and has pushed himself, which I think is the success. 10-4-22
PICKLE BALL
Had a great second week at Pickle ball with Leslie, Shalane and Karen. I was on Karen's team this time and we won one of the three games we played :). So far I've lost five out of six- HAHAHA! I am hoping to be on Shalane's team next time. 10-4-22
YOUTH FEAST
We had our lunch day with the youth in the ward again this week. That was a fun one. We had 12 kids there! Pretty good! Nate made teriyaki chicken for sandwiches and they ate like 28 pieces! Funny stuff. Nate had to go buy more chicken for my teacher dinner that night. We're happy they liked it. 10-5-22
TEACHER DINNER
I did another teacher dinner. I'm wondering if I should let someone else have that job, or keep keeping it to myself. But I had a lot of help this time. We had Nate do the teriyaki chicken for sandwiches, then everyone else brought sides and desserts. I think it went well. We had good reviews from all the teachers we talked to. Mrs. Moncur was very complimentary. It was a lot of fun. 10-5-22
PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES
We had a great time at conferences, as usual. Jack was first. Mrs. Moncur has been so awesome to help us out with some of Jack's struggles lately. He's been having a hard time focusing and staying on task. It was nice of her to notice and help us help him. He's doing pretty good, loves science and math. He has some areas that need improvement, but he's such a good kid in the class and such a good friend to his peers, I was really happy about that and so proud of him. He is such a good kid! Mrs. Moncur really loves having him in her class. He's going to work on his math facts and fluency.
Molly was next. She got raving reviews as well. Mrs. Smith had a lot of good things to say about her. Molly is the best reader in her class "by far!" and is doing really well with the social aspect as well too. We are really proud of her and glad she is thriving so well.
They both got to pick a book at the book fair! This is the good one with mostly good books. Just wish they didn't have the crappy liberal ones. 10-5-22
PLAYGROUP
We had a really fun playgroup this week! We went to the park by the library. Shalane, Natalie, Tarry, and Karalee were there. Sadie had a lot of fun this week, playing with the girls her age. Erica Ward happened to be there at the very same time with her kids, visiting her mother-in-law. So that was fun to talk to her for a minute. Ty showed up too. Didn't know who I was, which was strange since we had seen him at that same park, two days before and sat and talked for at least an hour. We even facetimed Kelly! Kinda funny. I keep wondering what his problem is. I can't figure it out. Good stuff though. 10-6-22
DENTIST
I took Molly, Noah, Luke and Jack to the dentist Thursday for cleanings. Felt so soon for some reason. They all did pretty good. Molly didn't have any cavities (shopping spree for her :) ). Same with Luke. Noah has one, and Jack has three. So we will be back to fix those I guess. But pretty good. It was a very chaotic trip to the dentist with Noah needing to get to the race cats race, me running around doing several kids at once. My phone dying, Molly missing her race... so crazy. We survived. 10-6-22
VOLLEYBALL
We barely had enough players for volleyball on Thursday night, thankfully! And they all did so well! It's been fun to see their improvement. We won two of the three games! Wahoo! We didn't have Annika this week, so we went to get donuts instead. While we were at Bohman's we ran into my friend Lindsey Lauder Parkin from High School. Pretty fun. She wants to hang out supposedly. I think I'm gonna hold her to it :). 10-6-22
BRADLEY IS 18!!! FAMILY AND FRIEND PARTIES
I still can't believe we just celebrated my little boy's 18th birthday! He can't possibly be that old! I just had him like yesterday! He seemed to have a good day. We didn't have his favorite breakfast, but he pretended that the puffy pancakes I made were his favorite breakfast. I am going to make him some breakfast burritos to make up for it. I did stay up the night before slaving over his birthday sign. He seemed to like it :). You can tell I was tired and struggling to come up with drawable ideas, but it's pretty decent. We had our study time where we draw pictures of our favorite memories with the birthday boy. That was fun. I like seeing what everyone draws. My drawings were sub par. I got to see him mid-morning again, since he forgot his laptop and lunch :). I was happy to take it to him. He had to give a presentation in his history class and did so well, his teacher said it's the only one he's learned something new from! Pretty impressive! He did do a really great job on this 2nd amendment power point! Cool kid. After school we got things ready for his family party! (Nate and I had been slaving all morning on the house, trying to make it presentable) He had wanted to have a party at home with ribs and potatoes for dinner :). Nate slaved over those too. We had a pretty good turnout. The Taylors (including Enoch and his girlfriend!), Grandpa Hatch and Jo, Grandma Hatch, Grandma Ruthie and Aunt Jen all came! Pretty fun! I thought it was a nice time. I think Nate was the busy one at this party. He did a lot with the food and was in the kitchen a lot of the time. We had brownies and ice cream in place of the cake. That was nice too. Brad seemed happy and had a good time :). He got lots of fun presents! Grandma Ruthie gave him a consecrated oil key chain- that's pretty cool. Gel guns from grandpa. We gave him some ear buds, sheets, protein bars and skittles. He was fun to come sit by me and we got to talk about his delivery for a secon. I have some pretty fond memories of seeing him when I was pregnant with him as well as right after he was born. There was a very special feeling in the room. One that made me just feel so much love for that new little guy. We watched Harry Potter after and went to bed really late. It was fun of Kelly to come down to help us celebrate.
Saturday was his friend party. That ended up being a lot of fun! The kids seemed to have fun anyway. They were so polite! He had a bunch of friends and Charity come early for a game of fugitive and while they were gone I set out all the snacks Nate and I had picked out, and got things nice for him to do whatever he wanted in the front yard or in the house :) They ended up coming back, eating lots of snacks, roasting marshmallows in the fire pit in the backyard. They played out there for quite a while on the trampoline and basketball court. It was so dark and I was worried about them being cold the whole time but I guess they were fine. They played another round of fugitive. It got pretty late before everyone had left, but they had a good time. Brad said he did as well. I was glad! I just love him so much! I hope he knows that. 10-7-22 and 10-8-22
LAST SOCCER GAMES OF THE SEASON
We did it! We made it through another season of soccer! We had our last games today. Noah's was at 8:00 in the morning! His game was kind of slow picking up- nobody scored for a while. Then out of nowhere our team just started pumping out goals! Noah even got one! This is his second one in a row!! Lots of fun! They won by a bunch. We came home and totally cleaned up the downstairs! Made me so happy!! The game room is back to normal as well as the toy room! Thanks to Luke, Noah, Erika, Jack, Molly, kinda Sadie and Kelly even came down and helped a little after she woke up! It went really fast and we got so much done! So awesome! Then we had Molly's game at 12:30. Her coach couldn't be there so Noah filled in! He did a great job! Molly ended up scoring at the very end of the game! Very cool. Grandpa was there and got some fun videos of her. And we hurried and came home for Erika to change and then got back out for her game at 2:15. Her game was a lot like Noah's at the beginning, just really slow, not a lot of scoring. We only had the one point Erika made at the beginning and the other team started scoring a little so we were behind for a lot of the game and then Erika finally broke the ice and scored again and then again and a few other girls, including Kate scored after that! So we won by a bunch which was awesome! And awesome that grandpa was there to witness it. That completed an undefeated season for her team! So cool! Her coach treated the whole team to snow cones at the Pala Kai on 200 North. That was a lot of fun too! Kelly, Molly and Sadie got in on the snow cone-ing :). Good season! 10-8-22
BRAD'S PRAYER AND SICKIES
Bradley, as a new adult, I'm guessing, was asked to say the closing prayer in sacrament meeting! Kinda cool. He did a great job. Luke and Erika both weren't feeling well enough to go to church and in an effort to get them better, I told them to stay home and rest up. I think they both slept the entire time. I hope they are better by Tuesday!! 10-9-22
FLORIDA TRIP 2022!!!
Monday- Not technically part of the trip, but we have to mention the extreme packing we did! Nate and I had dangerously decided that we could fit everything in three big suitcases and two carry-ons (each person was allowed a personal bag as well, so we were factoring those in). I spent most of the day Monday getting things all ready to go! This was huge! And we did so awesome making it all fit. Nate was our official weigher and we juggled stuff around a few times, but we made it happen! Charity and Kelly showed up with their suitcase. There was excitement in the air for sure!! I managed to keep my cool. I was happy about that. 10-10-22
Tuesday- This was the big day! We needed to leave our house by 4:00 and we did! We did have to loop around after leaving to grab our bagels I'd made for the flight there, but we made pretty good time! we showed up at the airport economy parking lot, found our shuttle pretty quickly, everything was so unknown, but seemed to be working out according to plan, without too much trouble. We rode over to the airport- Sadie and Molly loved riding the bus. It was so early in the morning that there wasn't much of a wait to get checked in. Nate had taken care of all the online stuff. We walked through all the switch backs to security, which wasn't too bad since it was so early in the morning. We saw Matt Kennedy's brother and his new wife, they actually took the same flight as us! We were so glad we had given ourselves so much time because we needed every minute of it. We went through security without too much trouble, found our gate and boarded our plane! This was very exciting! Most of the kids who were there don't remember the last time we flew and the rest of them haven't, so this was monumental!! Charity was very nervous, she was sitting by Nate and I could hear him doing his best to keep her calm. She had Jack on the other side, looking out the window, having THE TIME OF HIS LIFE! Behind them was Luke and behind him was Kelly. Those two had to ride by themselves with strangers. But she did have a window. Noah, Molly and Erika were in front of Jack and Charity's row, and then Me, Sadie and Bradley. We had planned on trading up a little on the flight, but never did. It was fun to look out the window as we took off and while we were up in the air. Sadie did great, fell asleep for most of the flight and then when she was awake Bradley was her entertainment. All the stuff I brought to keep her happy sat in my bag. Everyone did really well! I was so pleased! I think it was a good experience. Jack, like I said, was beyond ecstatic about it and was asking to go again when we landed. I assured him we would take another flight in 10 days :). He's so funny. We made our way through the Orlando airport, stumbling upon shuttles that look like Incredibles and finally to our luggage. We then wandered around for a little while looking for the car rental place we had reserved cars with. Surprisingly, they were not located at the airport, so we learned (after quite a while) that we were going to need to wait for and take a shuttle to the car rental place. That was a slight hang up, but we made it work. The heat while we waited to get on the shuttle and while we were getting the cars was very overwhelming. I think everyone was starting to rethink this idea :). We rented two cars instead of one big van because it was $1,000 cheaper to do so. We got a little SUV thing and a minivan. I took one for the team and drove the minivan. I weighed it and decided it would be worse to see my husband driving a minivan, than having to drive it myself. I do make some sacrifices, let's all just remember that. We got our cars and headed over to Panda Express- we needed something familiar at this point. Panda was delicious. We were getting a little tired and anxious to be in our VRBO, but we still needed food. So we decided to meet at Walmart. Unfortunately, we did not meet at the same one :). Nate grabbed half of the stuff, I grabbed half of the stuff, it was a mad dash, and we were back on the road. I cannot describe the relief I felt when we walked into our VRBO and saw that it was even better than the pictures! They did not do the place justice at all! I was so pleasantly surprised! That was a huge relief! It was perfect! We ran around exploring, everyone picked their rooms for the week. We ate some dinner and then swam for the rest of the night. We didn't love the little pool alarm, but other than that- we were in heaven!! The Furnisses visited us this night to pick up their box of meds. I was so glad we could bring that to them and it was even more fun to be able to see them upon arrival :). They are such a great family!
Highlights from the day: When Sadie ran into the trash can (at SL airport, she was chasing the reflection of the ceiling lights on the floor and just focused on those, so she ran right into a trash can before I could stop her. We did laugh. Sorry Sades.
When Siri's sister popped in on the navigation. This was so funny! We're listening to directions and all of a sudden, this deeper voice says, "Let's try that again", in a much deeper voice, and proceeded to repeat the instructions given by the much younger sounding Siri. It was SO FUNNY!! We all got such a kick out of this. Laughed for quite a while. Everyone was so funny about it. This was a happy moment because I really was starting to wonder how this trip was going to go. It had been a pretty exhausting day.
Jack's obsession with the plane was a highlight- he really loved it. Nobody would have been able to miss that fact :).
Kelly's seat mate was this teenage boy who didn't say one word to her! HA! Kinda funny, also not. She made the most of it.
We all loved when we flew through the clouds in the plane! What a fun sensation. 10-11-22
Wednesday- This was our Islands of Adventure day! I was most excited for this park, so I put it on the first day :). Not sure if this was the best day for this park. We parked, walked about two miles, bought our tickets, and made our way into the park! This park is a lot of fun!! I loved all the buildings and themes everywhere. So much fun!! Our first stop was Jurassic Park River Ride. We needed to catch this one before the lines got too long. Also, this was THE WHOLE REASON I wanted to go to Islands of Adventure. I have been dreaming of taking Jack on this ride for years!! I just knew he would love it! It took us a while to get situated and figure out the rider swap thing, but we found a groove. I got to see Jack go on this ride for his first time! It did not disappoint! It was very thrilling! I think he was a little scared out of his mind, along with everyone else in the boat- Charity! But I think everyone liked the ride! They all got to go a second time (minus Molly) while I waited with the girls. Such a fun ride! We decided Velocicoaster was our next must ride and waited in a pretty long line for that ride. I was shocked that Jack was not even going to give it a try and a little bummed, but the rest of us (Molly and Sadie were too short) were able to ride and then switched so Nate could have a turn with everyone. This is my new favorite roller coaster. So fun that you're racing the Raptors at the beginning. I was totally freaked out by the height, and then just when you think it can't go any faster, the ride SPED UP!! It was so insane!! Very fun! I loved that ride! Universal was good at the ride swap thing- they had it down. By this time it was already lunch time and with the new humidity and heat a lot of us were getting hangry. Kind of a bummer, but we were doing our best. We had brought lunch in the car, but the walk back to the car was so long that we didn't want to go back to get it so we just found this little restaurant next to Hogsmeade and ate chicken strips and fries for lunch. There were no tables bit enough for us, so we sat on the ground. Which happened to be the stage for King Julian- this was a funny surprise because I didn't realize he was Universal and seemed a little out of place for some reason. We made our way to the Hagrid's motorbike ride and some of us were done with standing in lines with little people who hadn't been on any rides. So I took Jack, Molly and Sadie over to Dr. Seuss town while everyone else did the funnest ride they've ever been on. Not sure why this is when I decided to leave. Do I regret it? A little. Although, Jack, Molly, Sadie and I had some special fun as well. It's always fun to shake up the dynamic a little and this was a fun two hours-ish while we went on the train, the carousel, One Fish Two Fish (flying fish ride) and the Cat In The Hat ride about three times. They were all buddies and having fun together. Jack was the big tough brother. It was fun. And Seuss Town was so fun!! So cute!! I was wishing we had the older kids with us to see it, but also didn't want them to miss out on any big kid fun. It took a little searching, but we finally found Nate and the big kids in Hogsmeade (we'd said to meet at the entrance, but didn't realize there were several :)) and they had a bunch of Butter Beers for us to share with them. So yummy!! That did not disappoint. We tried out the magic wands the Furnisses had let us borrow- that was fun! I loved Noah's reaction when he was the only one who could get them to work. He really is a magician! This is also when we got sprinkled on a little. We loved how everyone just scattered when the rain came. We loved it! Then we made our way to the Harry Potter's Journey (or whatever it's called) and rode that one. The line was pretty cool, takes you through the movie. Not everyone loved this ride. I had the pleasure of doing this one with Charity next to me and she was hilarious! Constant commenting and I was busted up laughing the entire ride! It was hard to breathe I was laughing so hard! Nate got really sick on this one. That was a bummer. Some of the other kids were feeling a little queasy as well. I was totally bummed about that, but we decided to trudge on :). We decided to pass on the Spiderman 3D ride- since the Harry Potter 3D ride was so nauseating, and made our way to the Hulk Coaster. This was a really long line and it broke down a few times. Nate had stayed out of the line with the littles and actually found a place to lay down and take a nap with Sadie! Charity sat this one out as well. So Brad, Luke, Noah, Erika and I waited and waited! This ride was cool- very fun twists and turns, but super aggressive in the words of Brad. My head was pounding when we got off!! We located Nate and the rest of our fam and nobody wanted to utilize the rider swap pass I had painstakingly gotten, so us five went back up there and rode it again! HAHA!! I don't know why I don't feel guiltier about that than I do, but I did get pretty woozy on the second ride... so I think I faced the consequences of our actions. Just kidding. But not about the nauseous part- I really felt sick! Kind of annoying. It wasn't as jerky the second time because we were in the front, and it was a really cool ride, but unfortunately, not a good one to do twice in a row really quick. We were all feeling the day at this point and nothing was sounding exciting enough to wait 85-90 minutes for, so we made our way over to Seuss Landing again and experienced it with everyone! I am so glad we did this because Kelly's reaction was priceless! Almost as exciting as Molly's :). She loved it, took pictures of everything... it was fun. We went on The Cat in the Hat ride with everyone- I think Brad regretted this one because he was feeling a little sick too. But it was fun for the littles to share their rides with the big kids I think. We went over to the carousuessel and most of us went on that again. We were definitely starting to reach our last lap though. Everyone seemed exhausted. It was kind of funny because I had been hearing about the Furniss's trip and all the time they spent at several parks and I was starting to think we were a little wimpy :). It was all good though. We made our way to the Jurassic Park gift shop to pick up Jack's Therizinosaurus and that was when Jack's vacation was complete :). We grabbed a few other souvenirs and then headed out of the park. We ran into Hard Rock cafe for Brad to get a hoodie and then a picture in front of the Universal Globe which is awesome and then slowly dragged ourselves to the cars! Peanutbutter and Jelly never tasted so good! We broke out our lunches we had packed and ate our dinner right there in the parking lot since we didn't want the mess in the cars. It was nice to sit down and eat! We were exhausted! It was nice to get home and watch a movie and go to bed!
Highlights from the day: Hagrid's Motorbike ride (everyone tries to downplay how amazing this ride was so I don't feel left out, but it sounded amazing! Riding a motorcycle, going forward and the track ending and having to go backwards... very cool!! I will go on that first thing next time I go there :).
Brad was my nagivator on this trip and was absolutely hilarious most of the time. We were a funny team getting us places. We struggled with following Nate and he struggled with following us, and that got a little frustrating at times, but overall Brad made a great Siri :).
The kids all loved meeting people from Kentucky in the line at Hagrid's and talking with them. So fun! They also played a lot of fun games in line too- very memorable for them.
We all got a kick out of King Julian for some reason it was just such a surprise and then with Charity's impression of "I love you, King Julian" and the stranger even pointing out what a good impression it was, was pretty funny/memorable.
The fries were delicious!
Sadie on Cat and the Hat was pretty fun- she was following the story line and was pretty disgusted with "that guy making a mess!" Made me smile.
When we got home from the park we were greeted by not only our doorbell wasp, but a cute little frog!! So fun! He hopped all the way up the screen on the window. We were in awe.
We saw a cute lizard when we were eating lunch that day too.
Kelly seeing Seuss Land was a major highlight.
Charity made the Harry Potter ride what it was for me! So funny!
When we were eating dinner at the cars and Noah was eating his PBJ he said that he needed to slow down when he eats sandwiches because it's always "blocking his air hole"- HA! So funny.
Thursday- On Tuesday night, I had been glancing at the prices at Discovery Cove one more time (because I couldn't get that place out of my head) and found out they were offering 30% off all of a sudden! So Wednesday morning, I talked Nate into calling and getting us tickets for Thursday. Thursday became our Discovery Cove day :). This was very exciting! I was totally looking forward to how easy and chill the day would be, not having to bring a whole lot with us and having food and everything included. I was SO anxious to see what all the hype was about :). We wanted to get there early, so it was rough dragging everyone out of bed after the long day and short night before. Everyone was pretty tired- luckily there was very little to get ready. We had a really funny drive to Discovery Cove. Brad was guiding us. I don't really remember why things went so weird, but we ended up away from Nate's car and just kind of navigating on our own. There were lots of signs so we eventually made it there. We only stood in line for a few minutes before being able to check in and then minutes later, Nate showed up. It was all so unknown, so we had to ask for help with everything we did :). That was awkward, but we wanted to get the full experience! It was time for breakfast first. The food there was so good! French Toast sticks for me! So yummy! Everyone was happy and getting along. We were all excited for the day's adventures and also so relaxed. There were some white birds we think were called Ibises. They were pretty entertaining, just walking around, eating whatever we threw to them. I think we were some of the few who were enjoying their presence. After breakfast we headed to the locker rooms to get dressed in swimsuits, snorkels and wet suits for some of the kids. I really loved the ease of this place- and even though it costs a fortune to go there, having it feel like things were free while we were there, was priceless! The lockers just had keys you wore on a lanyard all day, no extra charge. Seems simple, but it was really nice. They had all the gear we needed. Life jackets! Sadie and Molly were able to get suited up and play in the water pretty freely. We found a whole row of lawn chairs to put our stuff on- felt like there was nobody else there. We started out in the fresh water pool, mainly because we weren't sure what we were doing :). It was nice, we were still kind of taking the whole place in. We could see the dolphins and the people doing the dolphin experience, that was cool. We decided we wanted to go snorkel a little so we went over to The Grand Reef, the salt water pool, after asking for directions. This was the coolest part of the day in my opinion. My goal was to prove that Michelle was exaggerating about the stingrays with wing-spans as wide as hers- wrong. I was sure she was telling a fish story. But as soon as we got our snorkels on and got in the water- I was put in my place!! I loved everyone's first reactions- the word "sick" being one of them :). It was probably the coolest thing I've done in a very long time. I couldn't get enough of the fish and the stingrays- just swimming by and brushing up against us. SO COOL!! I spent a little time trying to get Molly to put her snorkel on and look at stuff, but she didn't like the salt water, so it took further coaxing from dad. But she eventually got in there. I think this was the favorite part of the day and we spent a lot of time in the salt water pool, but we did want to explore some of the other things available. We went over to the lazy river and got to watch the marmosets and got to see them feed the otters, that was cool. I loved that we all stuck together as we moved along the river and just enjoyed everyone's company so much. We went through the lazy river and then through the bigger one that takes you under big waterfalls (HUGE waterfalls) and into the aviary! So fun! Everything is so beautifully done. I loved it. It was the perfecct way to feel like you are experiencing the wild without the danger. We played in the river for a while and then got out to go eat lunch. I forgot to mention that we would stop at the snack shacks every time we moved pools and would get dole whips and chips and cookies, drinks, and pretzels, just whatever we wanted when we passed them. That was pretty fun. Erika was cute saying she felt weird just taking stuff :). "All-inclusive" became a word we really enjoyed :). Before lunch we went back over to the saltwater pool to check out the sharks! This was a major highlight! Being right next to sharks in the water!! With only glass between us! So COOL!! I really loved that! Lunch was great- we were all in towels :), we sat at the banquet tables this meal, so that was really fun with everyone together, feeding the squirrels and ibises. Lots of laughter and fun. I wish there was a way to bottle up that day and keep it on our mantle forever- I just loved the feel of that day. We tried to make the rounds and spent some more time in each pool and river again. I let Nate go off in the saltwater pool with the big kids while I juggled the littles for a while- Nate was happy about that. We ate some more dole whips :). It was really just so cool. I feel like none of us could get enough of the sting rays. They would let you pet them and then loop back around for you to pet them again. So fun. Near the end of the day we even got to watch them feeding the rays. That was pretty cool. Getting showered and dressed was pretty eventful, but so much easier since they had all the shampoo and conditioner and towels available there. That was so nice. I loved the unlimited towels. We had just a couple more minutes as we were walking out to take it all in one more time- I wish we'd taken more pictures for sure, but such a great day!! So memorable and so much fun. I hope we get to go there again someday. We ran to the store on the way home for some quick dinner. When we got home we had another movie night.
Highlights from the day: Erika liked the sting rays.
Luke's boogers- I need a refresher on the story.
We were so happy to learn that the Dole Whips don't have any dairy in them! Kelly's been doing so well at taking out all of the foods she's sensitive to.
Beat boxing in the tunnel- this was cute- the kids were just so chill- made it really fun.
Molly finally snorkeling.
The white American ibis birds.
The funny squirrel that wanted to see himself in Brad's phone.
Brad's crazy driving directions.
Watching the big fat fish eat the smaller one- Nate, Charity and I all saw this together, it was happening inside the shark tank.
Bradley feeding the Ray.
The sharks!
Complimentary EVERYTHING!
Friday- This was our Seaworld day. When we bought our Discovery Cove tickets, they bundled Seaworld and Aquatica with it, so that was kind of nice to just have our little lanyard passes to get in and not have to stand in line to pay. We got there without too much trouble since it was right by Discovery Cove and we had seen it the day before. The first thing we did, mainly because we didn't want to miss it was the dolphin show. This was so much fun!! I knew what to expect because I had seen shows just like this when I was kid, so I was mostly looking forward to their reactions, but then the show started and I was totally taken away! I honestly almost started crying!! I LOVED this show!! They are just such beautiful animals! And it's so fun that they can perform the way they do. I knew Erika was probably in heaven. You could see the look of wonder in most of their faces :). It was so cool!! This was also when we saw this cute little family walk into the stadium and my immediate thought was, "That's gotta be a little mormon family." and then the dad got closer and I could see his BYU shirt- HA! Their little kid was wearing a gnome costume for the Halloween festivities later :). We LOVED this show! It was a great way to start the day. We were even able to get seats pretty close to the splash zone and got a little splashed, just a few sprinkles. After the show, I was dying to go on the Manta ride, so we split up so that me, Charity, Luke, Noah and Erika could wait in line for Manta. It was a pretty long line, but not even comparable to Universal the other day. We had a lot of fun in line. Everyone seemed all rejuvenated that day, after relaxing so much at Discovery cove the day before. So that was nice. We were all pretty chill. This ride was INCREDIBLE!!! You get in the seat and it folds back so that you are face down! Such an unusual way to go through a roller coaster, hanging from the track instead of being on top of it. It gives you the sensation of swimming around like a manta ray :). SO COOL!!! We really loved that ride! I hope I always remember the way it felt when we went upside down! I was just baffled by all the different directions we were going! So fun!! We all loved that one. It wa sfun to go on that one with Charity and hear all of her reactions the whole time :). She's so much fun on the roller coasters :). Nate, Bradley, Kelly and the littles all went to Sesame Street Land. They went on a few rides there while we were on Manta. I think the one thing I didn't like about SeaWorld was how we navigated it. Walking really far in between each thing. I wish we'd been able to just walk and hit things as we went. Although, when we were walking back to meet up with Nate and his group, we did see a ride with a really short line and decided it was okay to go on some while we were there. The Mako. That ride was SO HIGH!! But SO smooth! I loved the roller coasters at SeaWorld. They were so smooth and fun. Kelly and Bradley got to go on the Ice Breaker ride together also while they were walking toward Sesame Street Land. When we got to Sesame Street land, Charity, Kelly and I stayed with the littles and everyone else went back to the Mako. Kelly, Molly and I got to go on the purple roller coaster (not sure what it was called). I rode in Oscar's trash can! That was Molly's favorite ride :). Lots of fun. Charity sacrificed and stood in line to get food while we went on the that. I couldn't believe how expensive the food was there! Holy Moly! And not that good. At least not from the food truck in Sesame Street Land. We ate and walked towards Nate and his group. They had gotten lunch as well, they got yummier sounding food, pulled pork and corn, etc. Then we all met up at the Sea Lion and Otter show! This had the potential of being one of the best shows or most entertaining, but the actors in it just couldn't stop laughing and messing up. It was funny at first, but then slowly just got kind of annoying. It wasn't my favorite show. Jack laughed a bunch, so that was fun at least :). It wasn't horrible, just felt a little like a waste of time. After that me, Charity, Bradley, Luke, Noah and Erika made our way over to the Ice Breaker ride, while Nate and the rest went to save seats at the Orca show. Kelly wasn't feeling well and needed to give her head a rest so she didn't go with us. That ride was SO COOL!! The beginning of it reminded me of the Boomerang ride at Magic Mountain when I was a kid. It started out going backwards, then stops, then goes up a slope and stops, rolls back down and up the first slope and stops again! Then it launched us out and we went through all the loops and turns of the rest of the ride- so crazy!! But so fun! I really liked the original rides there. The Orca Show was the most anticipated thing at SeaWorld by a few of the kids, so we were very anxious to watch this. We all got over there, very close to the stage! We were in the splash zone, so we got out some of our ponchos to stay dry- HAHA! Some didn't, but most of us were covered. The orca show did not disappoint! It was so fun! I just love those whales! Erika was in heaven. I was a little bummed that they don't get in the water with the orcas like they used to, but for good reason. I loved seeing them though- so magestic!! We headed over to Infinity Falls, one of the few rides we hadn't ridden yet and it was broken. Then we found Journey to Atlantis and a bunch of the kids went on this together. Nate and Bradley had gone over to the Manta ride that they'd missed, together, but we both ended up at the lookout spot to take pictures of everyone else as they went down the big drop. Pretty fun! I think they all liked this one. I would have loved to go on it. We were watching the clock because we wanted to go to dinner with the Furnisses, but we had some time for a few more things. We went over to the Kraken where most of the kids rode with Nate, then when they got done, Kelly still didn't want to go so she stayed back with the littles so that Nate and I could ride it together! That was so much fun!! We decided it was time to hit the gift shops if we were going to get any souvenirs- this is where Molly got her dolphin and Sadie got her flamingo. I don't think anyone else got anything, but Erika had been wanting to get an orca necklace all day and didn't mention it, so we totally spaced it. We got the iconic SeaWorld picture as we were leaving and I totally loved that they caught a picture of us getting ready to smile, while looking at each other! So that was fun. When we got to our white mini van (those of us in my group :)) we found a cute little lime green froggy stuck to it :). It was SO CUTE! We had seen one on our porch a couple nights before and Brad had insisted that we don't touch them, but apparently this rule no longer applied because he wanted to put the froggy in some nearby trees. They weren't nearby enough that he could just walk over and put him in there, so we got in the car, with the frog in Brad's hand and drove over there. Of course the little froggy was anxious and ended up hopping all over Brad and the window. Luckily he got him out okay and into the tree area. Kinda funny. I was laughing pretty hard by the time we were back on the road. The Furnisses had invited us to their pizza place called Unos, their treat! We had planned this a few weeks prior and I was so happy we got to hang out with them, a little embarrassed that we were letting them pay for us, but with the plan to take them some of Nate's yummy food as a thank you when we got home. We found Unos without too much trouble even though there was TONS of traffic getting over there. Five miles shouldn't take a half hour to drive. We pulled up, went in and they had a whole bunch of tables saved for theirs and our huge groups together :). This was a major highlight on the trip- I loved spending that time with them. We got to tell them all about our trip so far, they told us all about theirs, it was so much fun! They really are rockstars with how much they do while they are there. I don't know how they do it! And they were headed on a cruise on Monday! Unbelievable! They were all feeling a little under the weather which sucks, I felt so bad for them. That on top of forgetting their medicine suitcase, this trip had had more than one hang up! I loved when "MaryAnn wanted to talk with me", so Michelle invited me over to talk with them. that was a lot of fun. The pizza was amazing! I haven't had deep dish pizza like that in a long time. So good!! We ate so much. By now I had completely blown my attempt to eat healthy out of the water!! Everyone was really well-behaved here- we had a lot of fun. Then we went and got some ice cream at a cute little ice cream shop on the way home. That was a lot of fun too. We were pretty tired when we got home. Movie night!
Highlights fromm the day:
When we were talking to Charity on the phone while trying to not get lost from their car, Bradley, as they had finished the coordinating we needed to make, quickly goes, "Perfect." and then immediately hits the end button and quit the call- HA! We laughed pretty hard about that.
We stood in line for a picture when we thought it was the Manta ride- HA!
As we were getting on the Ice Breaker ride the attendant told Charity to put her glasses in her shirt and when she got done and put them back on she said they had smudges from her boobs on them- HA!
Sadie didn't want the waiter to take her plate so she said, "Don't take mine because I still want it!" HA!
The orcas.
The dolphin show.
Waiting in the Manta ride line.
Kelly riding Ice Breaker with Bradley.
Saturday- This was our Cocoa beach day! This ended up being our first beach day since we added Discovery Cove on a whim :). We were all very anxious to go to the beach! We packed a lunch and headed out! We had a little trouble coordinating where to park and getting there was a challenge, but once we paid and Jack found his coconut :), it was smooth sailing! Cocoa beach was amazing! We loved it! Brad, Luke, Noah, Erika and I (and Kelly for a little bit) all went out into the water to bob on the waves. This is so much fun! I don't know why, but you can just stand out there, jumping over the waves for hours! It was really fun. Lots of big gulps of salt water, lots of laughter, so much fun! The beach was really nice. There was one small section where the sand wasn't really sand, it was more like crushed seashells. Kinda weird and they stuck like glue! It was so crazy finding those molded into your skin later. Charity fell asleep on the beach and got a MAJOR sun burn!! On top of the one she'd gotten at Discovery Cove! So that was a bummer. Kelly, Luke, Jack, Molly and Sadie had a lot of fun burrying each other and making sandcastles. That was fun to watch. Nate, Kelly, Erika, Molly and Sadie had a lot of fun finding seashells. It was a beautiful, windy day, perfect for the beach. Near the end there Erika got a bloody nose. It was pretty overwhelming for her and she was not happy. The lifeguard came and gave us some gauze to help with it. It was a huge bummer. You could tell that others were feeling ready to go, so we packed up and started to move out. We just couldn't resist the urge to go shop in the Ron Jon's nearby, so that was our next stop. Erika's bloody nose was mostly under control. This was a fun store. Everyone was happy here. Mostly browsing, but Nate got a coupld shirts, I got a shirt, Brad got a hoodie, Luke got some sweatpants, Noah got a hoodie, Erika got a shirt (mostly because of how much her swim suit was rubbing the wrong way). It was a fun store. On our way home we decided to venture outside of our comfort zone and try out one of the many Waffle Houses we had driven past. We had no idea what to expect. When we walked in- it had the feel of an old cafe, waitress, one cook, not many tables, but a really long wait- haha! We looked at the menu and much to our surprise, there was only one waffle on the menu! HAHAHA!! Molly thought that was hilarious. Despite the strangeness of our restaurant choice, the kids were having a blast. The big kids were all at one table and the rest of us on another. They were having the time of their lives over there. Which always makes us all happy. The food wasn't bad. I really liked my eggs and bacon sandwich. Luke actually really loved the food here and ate several people's leftovers :). So it wasn't a total loss :). Very memorable. When we got home we swam a little in our pool (some of us) while Nate took some others to the store for food for Sunday and then we had showers and watched yet another movie and went to bed :).
Highlights from the day:
Laughing so hard at the Waffle House.
Luke's screaming at the waves.
Going way out in the waves.
Kelly's sand empire.
Luke's sea shell.
Sadie found a cool mermaid in Ron Jon's.
Erika and Brad looking for sea shells and walking down the beach together.
Kelly getting swallowed up in the waves.
Jack's coconut.
Sunday- Sunday was a really nice, relaxing day for us. We needed a day of rest for sure. We went to the Davenport ward at 9:00 which we are very used to and did just fine getting to it. Church was different but good. One of the things we thought was strange was that they didn't bless the added bread when they ran out. Kinda strange. I actually really enjoyed the Sunday school class. I got to sit there with Charity and Kelly and the teacher was teaching for her first time. I thought she did great. I loved the comments and loved the feel there. I felt bad that Nate had to hang out in the nursery with Sadie, but I was glad I got to go. Brad, Luke, Noah and Erika were all in a combined meeting which was fun. And Jack and Molly enjoyed their primary classes. It was great! After church we drove over to the Orlando Temple. This was a highlight for me. I loved this temple! We ate our lunch out of the back of the car- genius of Nate to bring the sandwiches and crackers, etc in his car. We thought it was fun that the "cute mormon family" we had seen at SeaWorld was also there the same time as us. They also had plans to go to Gatorland the next day as well :). So that was funny. They took our family picture for us, also a bonus picture of himself- HA! We walked around and took some pictures and felt the Spirit. I really loved that we made time for this on our trip. I only wish we had made time to go in. When we got home we let the littles swim a little in our pool. Nobody felt like it was the right thing to do on Sunday so it didn't really last :). We watched some TV, I got a call from Pres. Perry asking me if I could speak in the adult session of conference, Nate made some delicious homemade dinner, and we watched Greenland to finish off the night.
I was too lazy to get highlights that day.
Monday- This was our Gatorland day. We wanted to get there right as they opened at 10:00. We had our first group at the zipline scheduled for 10:30, so we had to make kind of a mad dash to the back of the park to get there and get waivers signed and get all suited up. Me, Bradley, Luke and Erika were in the first group. This was a major highlight of the trip. We got a group picture and then headed up the first tower. The zipline was pretty high! I was shocked at how little we could see from up top though just because the whole place was surrounded by trees. But you could see the whole park. We could also see the rest of our family! That was fun. They took pictures of us as well as a camera guy up top. That first line was the most exhilarating. Pretty crazy floating across the sky! I loved it though! It didn't feel too scary, I had been watching them very closely as they hooked us all up to the line- so we were safe :). I loved the time with my kiddos! We talked a bunch. We met the people in our group- the couple and the cute little boy from England. The dad and his daughter from Cleveland. Lots of fun there. I couldn't believe the little boy was totally fine doing this! He was so brave! We got to go on five different lines, all around the park. We went over the gator habitat, that was probably the coolest pictures! Then at the end there was this crazy unsteady bridge you have to walk across! Kinda nuts, but so much fun! We had a great time! When we got down we met back up with Nate and the kids, saw our pictures and then sent them off on their ride. It was Nate, Charity, Kelly, Noah, and Jack- he had made a last minute decision to go, which we were all thrilled about! They got all suited up and photographed and then up the tower. We got to watch them on their first few runs and then the littles got a little antsy, so we decided to go do some other things. We found the train and decided we needed to ride that. It was kind of like the train at the zoo. A little pointless. But Sadie was in heaven. She had a great time. In fact while we were waiting in line Sadie made friends with this cute little boy, Tanner :). Molly enjoyed the train as well. We made our way around the park after that and saw a few other things. Mostly gators :). Molly started her little, "It's not gaTER, it's gaTAR!" after learning how it is spelled. Funny girl. We met up with Nate and the other kids and then found some lunch. This food place was really fun! Lots of cool things we've never had before like Gator bites! and an extreme hotdog with mac and cheese on it!! Kinda cool. Most of the kids got chicken strips. The fries were also very yummy. There was a cool bird that came into the restaurant while we were eating and they made an announcement not to feed it- otherwise the kids would have fed their food to him. It was a nice lunch, I thought. We needed to see the rest of the park, so we headed down toward some of the shows. We watched the wrangler, that was pretty thrilling- he totally almost got his hand bitten off. Then it started to rain a little so we wanted to go back to the gift shop by the zipline and get our pictures on a flash drive. This was a big purchase, but totally worth it :). This is when it really started to pour!! Everyone else at the park had disappeared! But we were fine with it. We wandered around a little, Charity bought some gator food for Nate. We all watched as he and Sadie threw it out to the gators. Then we all watched one more show- the Jumperoo show, where we got to watch the gators jump up to get the food. Kinda cool. It wasn't orcas, but still cool :). Then we spent a good 15 minutes in the gift shop as they were closing. We loved the gift shops on this trip- lots of fun stuff! This one was especially cool with all the gator stuff. On our way home we tried to find a cheap gift shop for Charity to find gifts for her coworkers before setting off in the morning, and this proved to be quite the adventure! Took forever! The traffic there was horrendous!!! And for some reason the shops I had seen a dozen times were nowhere to be seen!! We did finally find one and got a few things there. Then made another trip to Walmart for some more dinner food. I don't know why we couldn't get our brains to buy a few days' worth of food at once, but we just couldn't :). It was all good though. That night it was tacquitos and then Hunger Games!
Highlights from that day:
There was this big white bird in the middle of the gator jumping show who had stolen some food from the gators. It was a really big chunk of food that we could visibly see was not going down! Erika and I watched him closely as he tried to swallow, let it come back up, tried to get some water to wash it down, and then stood there struggling for quite a while. I wish I knew how that turned out, but sure didn't look good!
The zipline!
Brad finally saw alligators.
Stumpy the alligator.
Sadie on the train.
Sadie and Tanner :).
The rain storm!!
Tuesday- Goodbye to Charity, Resort and Clearwater Beach day! We had to say goodbye to Charity on Tuesday. That was a total downer. It will never cease to amaze me how much of an impact each person in this family has on the dynamic of the whole. It's crazy. Things changed considerably when Charity left. We missed her. We had fun, just different. So we said goodbye to her pretty early in the morning. Nate took her to the airport. The rest of us went over to the resort that we had been so excited about but still hadn't been to! It was a pretty fun pool with a really shallow end and a slide and lazy river that we were able to play in for a couple hours. We didn't use any of the other amenities (game room, volleyball courts, etc), but the pool was great! The kids were hilarious in the lazy river. Looked like a hurricane coming through when they got out. Sadie wasn't a huge fan, so we went over to the kiddie pool, but we had a great time there. After that we met up with Nate at Wendy's for some lunch and then we all drove to the west coast this time and spent the rest of the day at Clearwater beach. The drive there was pretty cool. There was this amazing bridge- two of them I think- that had water on both sides. It was just pretty cool and I'd seen the pictures on google maps so much, I could picture right where we were, kind of out on an island. Parking was a little tricky at this beach as well. We drove around for a while and then settled on a spot on the road. It was a little bit of a walk and then I saw a "beach access" sign on the Surf Style shop and so we took that short cut out to the beach. We'd forgotten our newly purchased bucket from the other beach day, so as we walked through we took a trip to the bathroom and then we grabbed a new bucket and shovel. Kind of ridiculously priced, but what can you do. I had heard a lot of good thin gs about this beach, so I had pretty high expectations. I think it mostly delivered minus the fact that the water didn't really look clear. It was a super overcast day so the water just had a gray tint to it. I could tell it would have been really beautiful in the sunlight so I was praying for the clouds to move for a minute, but we were able to enjoy ourselves regardless :). It was a little cooler of a day as well, with a little more of a breeze than our other beach day, but we were determined to have a fun time. We did a lot of the same things we did at Cocoa beach, walked out as far as we could and played on the waves. They didn't seem quite as rough as the ones at Cocoa which was nice. The sand there was the best part! It was like powdered sugar!! Not exaggerating, it was amazing!! I totally loved it! This was a really nice beach day. We were really holding out for some sunlight and wanted to at least catch the sunset on the beach- Brad and I were totally counting down :). We decided to get dressed and stuff while it was getting closer and were able to snap a million photos after that. It was SO BEAUTIFUL!! In the words of Sadie. It was so nice. Then we found a cool little restaurant Crabby's where we were able to get a table and have dinner there. The food was amazing. Our waitress was awesome. Just a really enjoyable experience. So fun. I loved my fish tacos! It was a cute place. Our waitress told us about a couple that had been in and were here from where the hurricane had hit. Their house had six feet of water in it!! So unbelievable! Well, until I saw Shelley Smedley's pictures. But the waitress was telling us how they'd been expecting it to hit in Clearwater beach and had even turned off their power for a few days, but had been blessed by it just passing over. I can't believe the wreckage from that hurricane and all that was damaged. I was glad it didn't impact our trip at all, but what a devastation for so many. So sad. After dinner we made our way back through Surf Style and of course couldn't resist a little more gift shopping :). I got two hoodies, Nate got a couple hoodies- everyone was finding things they wanted as we hummed and sang with the music after the 50th time or so. Fun memories. After the long, dark ride home, we watched Hunger Games 2 before going to bed.
Highlights from the day: The sunset.
Holding our breath over the bridge and Kelly found a massive fruit snack.
Wednesday- This was our Aquatica day! We had checked out the weather the day before, since the temperature had dropped considerably during the past couple days, we saw that it was going to be high 50's and low 60's during the time the park was open. BRRRRRR!!! We were hesitant, but we had already paid for admission with our Discovery Cove/SeaWorld passes, so we really wanted to be able to go. It was our last day there and we didn't have any other plans, so we decided to brave it!! I wasn't too thrilled about going to be honest. I was dragging my feet in my head. I secretly hoped it was closed and we'd be able to skip it, but that was dashed when I pulled up to pay for parking and the lady said that they were in fact open! I decided to embrace it and start getting positive. We walked in, found the dressing rooms along with the INSANELY expensive lockers which we THANKFULLY didn't use and found some chairs to put our stuff on. There was next to nobody there so it's not like we needed to worry about our stuff getting stolen. First, the kids all jumped right into the wave pool and went way out. I had planned in my mind that the longer I stay dry, the longer I can stay not cold. So I was bummed they got all wet- they didn't seem to care. I pulled them away from the wave pool to go try the tunnel slides that go through the aquarium with the dolphins and fish- it looked SO COOL in the pictures online! Nate and I had agreed to split up for a bit so that he could take the littles to the little kid area and me and the big kids could slide. This one was actually heated! You could see the steam coming out of the tunnel before you went down, it was super nice to get in the water on that one. We loved that about it. The only thing I didn't like was that the water was splashing in my face so much as I went through the aquarium that I didn't even see anything for the few seconds that it did. So kind of a let down there, but we had to go a few times since it was warm. This was when we started to really love that we were the only ones (almost) there! We went on a slide that you share a tube with someone and can race another tube down the slide. That was a lot of fun. We went on that a few times. Then we decided to brave the scariest ones there. They were crazy scary! You STAND in a capsule at the top of this crazy high tower, they shut the door on you, kinda like a coffin. Then you are supposed to stand with your arms and ankles crossed as it counts down and then the trap door beneath your feet opens up and you fall down this insane verticle drop for like 20-30 feet before finally turning and then twisting around like crazy and you're going like a million miles an hour as you do!! SO CRAZY!!! Very cool though. When we went on that, the guy was like, "Who wants to go first?" and Kelly of course volunteered. She said, "Which one's the best?" He said, "The orange one." So she of course chose the orange one. Well, she seemed to miss the instructions about where to put her arms and legs and doesn't remember a count down, so when the trap door opened, her hands flew up and hit as she went down. It didn't seem like it was supposed to be like that so I was a little concerned, but then the guy walks over to the phone and calls someone, says something we couldn't hear and then walked over to the orange one, shut the door and says, "That one's not working. You should check on her when you get down there." WHAT?!!!! That's my daughter!!!! I was a little panicked, but I guess now panicked enough- we saw her get out and all seemed well. But UGH! So then everyone took a turn on this insane ride. It was actually really cool. I am so proud of myself for going on it. I wasn't sure what possessed me, this trip, but nothing seemed too scary for some reason. I was able to do a lot of things that normally would have been very scary and intimidating. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe I'm growing out of that!! I hope so! So anyway, when we got off that ride we absolutely had to get Nate to go on it! So we ran over to the kid area, got Nate, he, Erika and Noah went on it two times! He loved it! Very cool! So they took off to the other side of the park. While they were gone it was just Jack, Molly, Sadie and I in the kiddie pool. There were a couple of little slides there. Molly was fine going on the one with the tube for a few times and then she came back saying that the lifeguard told her she was only allowed to slide four times. Weird. I assumed she misheard him and tried to talk her into going some more (why would that be a rule? We were the only people there!), but she wouldn't have it. So we just kind of sat in the water, trying to stay somewhat not cold. It was fun talking with Jack. I could have done without Sadie's little tantrums. She was unfortunately too small to go on the slides and Jack was too big. Go figure. But it wasn't long before Nate and the kids were back to trade me again. So the kids took me on all the slides they had just gone on, which were so cool! I loved these ones! This whole park was just such a cool new place! We've never been to a fancy water park before. First we went on one that you could race and as you were racing through tunnels, there were parts that didn't have a top on the tunnel so you could see each other going down- kinda fun! Then we went on the one with the big family sized tubes! This was probably my favorite slide there. It was so amazing! I just never imagined going down a water slide like that! All six of us sat on one tube, legs towards the middle hands hanging on behind. The very first thing is a big drop that launches you onto this like half-funnel thing that you slide back and forth on, getting so stinkin close to the edge it was so freaky!! Luke made the funniest comment making fun of my serious scared face and said, "Mom was genuinely concerned on that part". HA! Luke!! It was genuinely concerning! So fun, but SO FREAKY!! Lots of cool drops and little waterfalls... pretty crazy! But fun that we were all on it together! I really loved that aspect! So after a few times of that, we went back to Nate and he had found another cool kids area- much cooler, but also much cooler (temperature wise). It was like a giant obstacle course/fun house thing that sprayed you wherever you went. It was so cool looking, but also made me think it wasn't that great during the cooler temps. But Jack and Molly were having fun spraying water. Nate was chilling on a lounge chair with Sadie- she was dressed :). She had gotten so cold. We grabbed Jack, because we knew he wanted to go on the river (I'm purposely not calling it a lazy river because it was anything but lazy!! It was SO FAST!!). This river was insane! You had to be really careful or the water would just sweep you away! It was crazy! SO fun though!! We totally loved it! And since they were closing the park early (which was dumb since it was finally starting to warm up a little), we only had a few minutes left. All of the different lifeguards along the river kept giving us mixed signals. A couple were really nice and told us we had plenty of time, others were getting mad because Molly didn't have a life jacket and telling us we needed to get out. It was funny. But we made a few rounds- lots of fun!! Then it was time to go. Kind of a bummer, but also a relief- HA! We weren't sure what to do next. We'd planned on going to the resort back at our place, but it just wasn't warm enough for that to be fun. Nate had been dying to go to Disney Springs, so we made our way over there. This wasn't really what we were anticipating it being. The parking situation was interesting. We had to park about a mile away. Then we were herded like cattle to the entrance. We did love some of the Disney stores for a few minutes and grabbed some suckers (that's about all we could afford there- HA!) for Molly and Sadie to give to their friends, but overall, it was slightly disappointing. Just really expensive stores and overpriced restaurants. It would have been cool to go to one of the restaurants if I'm being honest- the dinosaur one for Jack- but we needed to make reservations a while ago. We wandered around there for a while, there were some fun things to look at. The Lego Store would have been really cool, but there was a line to get in. We're not really wait in line to browse kinnd of people and I can't even imagine how overpriced the Legos would have been, but there was fun stuff to look at. Then made the trek back to the car and settled on Chick-fil-a for our last dinner in Florida :). We were pretty tired by the end of that day and I think we were all a little sad the trip was coming to an end. We tried to get as much packed as we could and cleaned up quite a bit, so we'd have less to do in the morning, then we watched Hunger Games 3 (or however they numbered them) and said goodnight. We had a big day ahead of us!
Highlights from the Day: The big family slide.
The steamy tube.
Broken orange slide for Kelly.
Aquatica in the cold.
"Genuinely concerned" HAHAHAHA!!!
Drop slides.
Thursday- Fly Home Day. We got up bright and early. Finished packing the rest of our stuff, cleaned up some more, and headed out of our sweet Florida home. This was so sad! I don't think I've ever wanted to stay on vacation more than I did this time. It was really hard to leave! We gave ourselves a LOT of time to get to the car rental place, shuttle to the airport, get our boarding passes and check luggage, and then wait in security. It was a much different experience than going there because it was mid morning. We needed ALL the time we gave ourselves! Pretty crazy. Lots of waiting in lines. This was tough for a few of the kids. They weren't thriving in the Orlando airport. We had packed the best we could without a scale, so we did end up pulling things out and moving them around before checking the bags. That was exciting. Then in security, THREE of our bags had to be rummaged through. I felt so bad for the security guard. I'm glad she had gloves on cuz it was mostly dirty clothes in both bags she had to go through. We'd left the sunblock in one and Noah's laptop in another. The other one was just a lucky random one. So sad. Kind of embarrassing, but whatever. We did have to wait a little at the gate, but we were so glad we were there and not frantically trying to get there still. I don't think we could have planned things better that morning. We had a funny moment as we were boarding- or giving the lady our boarding passes. Some guy was trying to cut in line, in between our family. HAHA!! We'd been standing there for about 20 minutes (that was when Luke picked an M&M up off the floor and ate it- HA!), waiting to be boarded, and he thought he could just weasel his way in there. Funny that we didn't have a choice but to tell him, we had to go before him. He wasn't too happy about that. "How many of them are you?" Not sure about the grammar there, but we'll cut him a break. It's crazy how stressy people get traveling. I was the same after our flight- I just HAD to get off the plane! The flight wasn't too bad though. We made Brad sit by himself. Kinda sad. Noah and I had to entertain Sadie most of the flight. I did get to sit by the window on take off and for the first half of the flight- that was fun! It was so cool when I noticed that we were flying right over Clearwater beach!! It looked just like the map that I'd been looking at a ton a couple days before. I just love that stuff!! The ocean looks so cool from up there. The shadows from the clouds. I loved seeing the mountains too! So beautiful! I let Noah sit there for landing which also sounded pretty cool. Seeing the temples. We scrambled a little getting out and to the luggage claim. Then we found out our big red suitcase didn't make it home with us. That was kind of a bummer. It was a pretty quiet drive home from the airport, but we were all a little happy to be back home. Can't say we didn't wish we were still in Florida though :). Erika and I were trying to make it to our volleyball game, we were a little late, so Nate just dropped us off. That was a whirlwind! But fun that Erika got to play. Nate was mad that we were coming home to unfinished pain job on the railings, which was definitely a huge bummer, but how cute that he was trying to surprise me! The thought still counts. He's always so thoughtful. It was pretty late, so we ordered some Panda Express.
It wasn't til the morning that we learned Molly had left her backpack at the airport. She was pretty devastated as she was getting ready for school and left crying, so Nate, Sadie and I went back to the airport to retrace our steps and see if we could find it. This was after searching through the lost and found online like crazy for it. We ran into Emily Freeman on the shuttle to the airport- kinda cool- and then went right to the lost and found and they had JUST posted it online. So happy they had it! So happy we could take it to Molly! So sad our trip to Florida was over. It was such a great time! I need to get the kids' words on here, but that was it! We have struggled getting back into life. It was really hard for the kids to get caught up on their schooling since the term ended so quickly- I felt really bad about the timing, but it was two days fewer absent than would have been because of fall break. Hopefully they all recover from it! Fun stuff though!! Til next time!
Charity's list of quotes from the trip:
"I was trying to explain something else after I gave him my answer and he goes "perfect!" and then ended the call" lol -Charity
"Don't take mine cuz I still want it" -Sadie
"traffic in Orlando s u k s sucks" -Dad
"Sadie did you see the well? the killer well, the killer wishing well" -Luke
"Why are you looking at me while it's playing, ou're making it uncomfortable" -Dad
"No, I want you to pee your shorts" -Molly
"If you take the w away from waffle house it says awful house" -Jack
"I didn't know we invited a whale" -Kelly
"Can you just breathe and stop" -Charity
"I got blessed with nonburnt back legs" -Brad or Kelly
"Charity can I feel your hair it looks so soft and thick" *rubs my top lip* -Brad
"What is it when I'm jump roping in my head but my brain won't actually let me do it?" -Noah
"I wonder what the crocodile to person ratio is" -Kelly
"Sadie, this one is named morton" -Luke
"morton?" -Sadie
**hits back of my knees with a stick* ow ow ow ow - oh sorry Charity" -Sadie
"We should start callinng you char bar cuz you got burnt" -Brad
"Ah don't push me into the weird girl socks" -Jack
"Guys, smell my feed. how about smell my flamango, it's pink" - Sadie
"Charity's making me go get her water bottle becuase she gets to choose the movie" -Erika
"Uhhh I don't like what it's doing with it's mouth"
"Hey, give that back! What're you doing? not fighting"
"How cool is it that my kids are like friends I want to be with" -Dad
"There was not a moment in time where I knew what direction we were going" -Dad
"Everyone say acorn" -Sadie
"They need to kill the guy who invented amazon music carplay as punishment"
"Mom you need to start going to the bathroom before we go places" -Brad
"That's not my mom voice that's my other person voice" - Brad
"What things are on your bucket list? eating a live alligator. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard" - Mom and Brad
"Something smells like bagels. It's Brad's fart" -Molly and mom
Sadie showing Noah how to put the goggles on: "No not like that, first you have to hurt yourself a little"
"My feet are dry my hands are dry my face is hot and my fingernails are too long" -Noah
"I might just take a shower at home because I don't like using the fake showers" -Jack
"Do you like penguins because the dads take care of the kids?" -Brad
I got to go watch Erika run in the Knight Trek 5K which ended up being a lot of fun. Noah was signed up to run also, but I think since he didn't run for the whole trip, he injured his knee and wasn't wanting to do more damage. Smart boy. I think it was hard for him to watch all of his friends running though. But he did cheer them all on. I loved watching Erika run her little heart out. There was some confusion about her time, she thought it was way higher than it was and was disappointed, but then a few minutes after she came in, we heard them call out a time way less than the one she thought she got, so we knew she had done WAY better than she thought! Then in the awards she was awarded 1st place in girls her age!! Pretty awesome!! It was raining and everything, which made it funny to watch, thankfully the Gecklers shared their umbrella. Fun stuff! 10-22-22
We had a great Primary Program! Molly and Jack both did great on their parts and were such good singers! We loved how seriously Molly takes this, and the passionate singing :). Jack feels a little old for this, but hopefully not too old since he still has another year :). Jack's part was: We all lived in heaven and we were sent to earth to gain a body and be tested. Molly's part was: I will prepare for a temple marriage by praying. 10-23-22
We went up to Grandpa Hatch's house for Heidi's birthday. I made her a Caramello cake because that's was her favorite candy bar. I made my own caramel with a can of sweetened condensed milk. First time trying that, so that was cool. We got to talk with Grandpa about our trip for a while before Heidi got there, so that was kind of fun. Showing him pictures and telling him all the fun stories. We had dinner and talked for the rest of the night. It was fun! Happy Birthday Heidi! 10-23-22
Emily and I finally got to go out and we went to Cafe Rio. It was super nice to get out. Sadie did pretty good, as long as she had her plastic knife, she was happy :). 10-24-22
We went to Smith's in West Kaysville for our pumpkins this year. They were all kind of small... or average... not much variety, so that was weird, but everyone picked a pumpkin, we grabbed some for the kids who weren't there and some pizza from Little Caesar's. We were pretty excited for this fun tradition! It went really well, as always, no severed limbs with all the knives and stuff. Everyone was so creative and came up with some pretty fun pumpkin designs. I love doing this as a family. Makes me happy. 10-24-22
Erika attended her first Junior High Dance this week! Pretty awesome! She liked it, seemed to have a good time. It was nice that she had Morgan and convinced Kate to come to :). Noah says it wasn't the worst dance, but with nothing to compare it to, Erika was perfectly satisfied :). Even danced with a couple of boys. Fun stuff! 10-26-22
We had to kind of hurry because we needed to get back in time for the Haunted Forest at the Maughan's but we squeezed our date in :). It was great! I had fun. I think we went to Texas Roadhouse and we went "window shopping" at the mall and ended up buying a bunch of stuff :). Good times! 10-28-22
We had a fun time at the Forest, as always! Everyone had beat us over there, since we were so late getting home, but the ushered us through the forest and then we all got to sit and chat with all the neighbors. Always a fun night. It was super cold, but I got to try out my new coat, so that was nice- seems like a keeper! 10-28-22
I don't know if I mentioned this in our Florida posts, but while we were there, on Sunday, I got a call from President Perry from the stake. I felt compelled to call him back and he asked me to speak in Stake Conference Adult Session. He had a strange request to pray for inspiration on how to connect better with my kids through the Children and Youth Program and to try the things I feel inspired to try and then share with everyone how it went. I wasn't sure how this was going to go. He made me kind of nervous with how many things he didn't want me to say, but it was only five minutes, so I knew it would be okay. Fast forward to the 29th, I had my talk written, I was able to try some things, but not everything, so I was just sharing ideas, but I was so happy to see Martha McKay come up to the stand and sit by me- I was glad I would be in good company. Then Lindsey Cutler came in as well. It was an all women roster for the night, which was interesting, but the whole congregation was a 50+ crowd, so I was kind of feeling like my talk was obsolete. I did see Becky come in the back and that was encouraging. I was reminded that my Grandma and Grandpa might be in attendance. Which is always nice. I miss them so much. I wish I could talk with them again. That's what I miss. And the hugs. I can still hear their voices, I can still feel their presence at times, but I wish we could tough and talk. Anyway- the night went off without a hitch. I think my talk went fine. I added a few things to my talk mid talk, not sure where they came from, but glad it went okay. My talk was the second one and one of the shorter ones so I was glad it was over when it was. Hardly anyone I know was there. I did get so many nice compliments and comments after from strangers who said they wantedd to pass on my information to their grown up kids. I had a few friends text me that I had done a good job, that was nice. It was a good experience. I really believe it was inspired so that I would do the research and pray about it and have new things to try with my kids. Such an answer to prayers. Many prayers. So I was grateful for the opportunity. I think I'll paste my talk in here.
Adult
Session Stake Conference 10-29-22
I first
heard about the Children and Youth Program about six months before they
officially announced it because our dentist was in one of the pilot wards. He told me all about Luke 2:52 and the focus
on the Savior, the four categories for setting goals and just how simple it was
and from that moment on, I was all in.
It sounded perfect! I was so thrilled
that my kids would get to choose what to work on, the pace and level of
difficulty and how it catered to them personally. With nine kids it was a dream come true to
have one program that fit everyone. I
have loved it and gained such a strong testimony of how the program can help
kids grow and progress.
But! When I got this assignment to speak, I learned
that we have been missing out on a very important aspect of the Children and
Youth program. One of its purposes is to
build relationships. I am constantly
praying for help connecting with my kids and wanting to have better, more
productive conversations with them so this assignment started to look like an
answer to my prayers. I wasn’t quite
sure how to get these results though, so for the past couple weeks I have been
thinking about and praying for inspiration on how. I haven’t had time to apply
all of it yet, but here is what I came up with:
1. First, talk with your family and schedule a time to meet together and set some new goals.
2. Sometime before that meeting, pray with each child individually. I want to kneel down, one on one, with each child and talk to our loving Heavenly Father together as we ask which goals would be best to bring them to Christ. I have high hopes about this part and making the time with each of them very meaningful.
3. Regularly point out their strengths and compliment them on the things they are already great at while helping them think of things they can do to improve.
4. Listen and show support as they present their ideas. I have always been a big fan of allowing my kids to choose things that may seem unrealistic to me. Sometimes they’ve achieved something I didn’t think they could and other times it’s been a teaching moment to talk with them about other ways to carry things out. Failure is a great teaching tool and opportunity for more conversation.
5. Be intentional with your conversations. A lot of this seems pretty basic, and what we are already doing, but doing the things we do- with the purpose of strengthening our relationships in mind- might make the difference.
6. Talk about ways that you could incorporate their goals into your family activities and do it! Keep it fun and interesting.
7. For the older kids, talk about activities or ideas they could bring to their youth classes and things they could do at their weekly activities to work on their goals. This program is intended to be done mainly in the home and family-centered, but how awesome if they came to activity planning meetings prepared with these ideas.
8. Celebrate their successes together. Ask them questions about how they feel they’ve grown. Talk about what doors this new skill or practice will open. Talk about the benefits and recognize, together, the blessings that have and are yet to come from their diligence and hard work.
9. Lastly, I felt very impressed to talk
more with my kids about their goals in casual settings. If we’re going to use this program to connect
with our kids, it’s going to have to be a more natural everyday conversation
piece. I was struggling a little with
how to do that, so this past week, as I was sitting with five of my kids ages
10, 12, 14, 16 and 18, I asked them to picture themselves in front of a large room
of parents who want to know how to talk with their kids about their goals. I asked them what they would tell these parents. They had some good ideas:
Ask personal
questions about the goals they are working on such as which one has been the
hardest or most fun.
Ask them if they
feel like their goals are bringing them closer to Heavenly Father and the
Savior.
Talk to them
about YOUR goals, past or current- that was the 18 year old’s idea.
Regularly ask
what you can do to help them because sometimes they don’t know what help they
need when they plan the goal but think of something later.
Ask if you
can work on their goals with them.
Congratulate them and acknowledge when they’ve reached their goals.
These have
been so helpful to me already as we are driving to and from school and when
there’s been dead time together. It’s sparked
a lot of different conversations.
Listening to them and getting to know them better in this way is helpful.
On one of my many trips to the schools this past week, I looked over at Ponds Park field and noticed the whole field was covered in frost. When I got closer to an area with trees I noticed that just under the trees, matching the diameter of the tree, there wasn’t any frost. The grass that was under the tree was protected from freezing even though the tree and grass weren’t touching. This reminded me of why it’s important to connect with our kids and strengthen our relationships. We won’t always be right there with our kids. I’ve especially learned this with my two oldest moving out recently. But having these connections, knowing that we are there and knowing who they can turn to. Having relationships that they trust and knowing we trust them and instilling confidence in them will be a protection no matter how close we are. And even in the big snow storms that are bound to come, there will be less snow just under those same trees and less for that area of the grass to carry. How nice that Heavenly Father gave us a program that will aid us in that effort.
I have a
testimony that the Children and Youth program is inspired. Inspired by the watchmen on the tower who can
see what is coming. I hope we can use
these tools to fortify the areas of our homes that are and will be under attack
in coming days. I’m excited for the power
and blessings that will come through our efforts. I have a testimony of our Savior and the
protection He offers us through our obedience and willingness to believe and
follow Him.
I really loved Stake Conference this week! It was awesome. I wish I'd documented it sooner so I could remember the details I liked, but that's okay. I did love sitting near the front and being able to watch my cute Bradley and Erika in the amazing Youth Choir! They sounded great! Sadie did really well and lasted through the whole meeting, amazingly!!! Good day! 10-30-22
We had such a great Halloween this year!! Started bright and early making Jack's Mummy costume! I was not prepared for how much effort this costume was going to be. I remembered it being cheap and easy, but the effort... didn't remember that! He looked great! Molly was a cute witch in her cute purple witch costume. Kind of funny how she came to this costume. At some point Ms. Smith must have asked who was dressing up as a witch for Halloween, or something, because Molly got it in her head that she was going to be a witch for school and Spirit Riding Free's Lucky on Spirit for Trick-or-Treating. I informed her that we were not doing two new costumes in one year. This meant that she had to decide. She picked witch because she had told Ms. Smith she was going to be a witch. I admire her dedication to what she said, but I was surprised because she'd been talking about the other costume all season and for months before actually. So anyway. I found her a cute costume online. She loved it. She looked adorable! We could do the purple hair for the school parade, or facepaint, so she was easy to get ready. Nate had to take Erika to the endontist and then rush to work, so after getting everyone else off to school, Sadie, Molly, Jack and I headed over there. The big kids went in, Sadie and I went and found ourselves a place out on the field for the parade. Thanks to COVID we have our parade outside now, which in some ways is lots better. In other ways, not so much. For some reason that morning was a rough one for me. Maybe the scramble to get costumes on and get there with a chair and Sadie in the field. I don't know what it was. We got to watch Molly and Jack walk by with their classes- Sadie LOVED the parade! She was ooohing and aaahing over all the costumes and getting very thrilled over some of the costumes. After we saw Jack, we raced into the school to get ready for Molly's party. This was a lot of fun. A little chaotic as usual, but a lot of fun! I haven't been able to spend much time in her class this year so this was a lot of fun for me. Sadie made the rounds with Molly and got to decorate a cookie and make several different things and also play Bingo. I was in charge of the Spider hats. Ms. Smith picked all of the stations and had everything all ready to go so that was nice, but unfortunately she hadn't tried the hat paper on anyone and it wasn't quite bit enough. I had to improvise a little :). The kids seemed to have enough fun. It wasn't anyone's favorite station though- HAHA! Understatement. But I did love all of Molly's hugs and seeing her have so much fun in her space. After the party, I went and got Jack and we had to CUT HIS COSTUME off of him so that he could go to the bathroom!!! Kind of strange. Poor kid. But we did it! Then Sadie and I made the trek back to the car. I wish we'd had a handcart for this trek because our hands were very full. I think I had mine and Sadie's big coats, two spider hats, whatever toys Sadie was carrying around that day, Jack's costume which consisted of about a mile of fabric strips wadded up in a ball so that I could repurpose them for the night, I think I had Molly's costume in hand too... I don't know- TOO MUCH STUFF!! And of course Sadie was cryign for me to carry her. Kinda crazy. Those moments are always such torture. I guess it's good that I've had so many, I know that you eventually make it to the car and that you can go on to have a good day still, just really frustrating in the moment. The rest of the day was pretty chill. We didn't have a whole lot else to do, just waited for Trick-or-Treat time! It seems like I remember Nate making something delicious for dinner. Not sure what it was though. This is why I should document things sooner. I'm so behind! It was a mad dash to get everyone ready again. Jack needed his costume recreated. Jack and Molly both got their faces painted. We worked out a system with the Rapunzel braid for Sadie. It was crazy :). It was fun that Sadie chose princess and that she was happy to wear the Rapunzel costume we've had for years. Molly, like I said did a switcheroo at the last minute (thankfully I hadn't already spent the fortune on the Spirit/Lucky costume) and went with a witch for which I found this super cute costume. She loved it. Jack picked mummy all on his own. This is always a fun one. Not reuseable of course, but lots of fun. I had to cut it off of him again-HA! Erika picked a rabbit costume after hearing what Kate was going to be. Then Morgan also spun off of that and was a deck of cards! Super cute! The deck of cards was my idea. She was going to try to be a dove, but this was much easier. I was happy she used my idea :). Noah wore his chicken costume again. And everyone else was just themselves. Kind of sad we're back down to only five costumes! We had the smallest group ever for Trick-or-Treating this year too. Nate and I and Emily with just Erika, Jack, Molly and Sadie with Kate, Will and Jonah! We walked really slow with Sadie but the big kids really stuck close, which was nice! I kind of liked it! I have to really savor these last few years of this! We turned on a Halloween movie when we got home and went through candy, but everyone was so tired! Time for bed! 10-31-22
