10 years!

Missed posting about the girls birthdays, but also missed posting about Brad and I's 10 year anniversary!!  That's quite a milestone, right?!

Well, have no fear...I did not let it go by without recognition in our daily lives.  Quite the opposite.  10 years happened to fall on the Friday night before Opening Ceremonies with softball.  I knew I wanted to do something special.  So my plan was to do a surprise get away to the place we were married at for a night.  I couldn't very well do that the weekend of opening ceremonies and miss all that hoo-rah.  So I planned it a week before...which happened to be Spring Break.  The girls could easily spend the night with family and Brad had enough time to take off for sure.

So way ahead of time, I had this planned, but didn't tell him.  I called his coworkers and schedule him off for three days....all unbeknown to him.  I reserved our room, made plans for the girls and did all the packing secretly.  I also bought him a gift (of tin - for 10 years) but more on that later.

The day of our departure came.  The night before I told him I scheduled him off work but only because I would've felt bad had he got up at the crack of dawn for no reason.  I told him that his mom was going to watch the girls while we had a date day - lunch and a movie or something.  I had dropped the girls overnight things with his mom way ahead of time, again, unknown to him.  So we slept in a bit, then took the girls over for their 'day' with Sammy (even they didn't know till after they were there....couldn't have them spilling the beans ;) ).  We went to a movie and a late lunch, which was nice.

He was driving, so after lunch, I told him, lets just drive out this way and see what's popping up over here (there's been lots of development - new restaurants and such - so it wasn't a hard sell.  He kept driving and I was telling him, "oh, turn here!  let's see what's over here"...all the while navigating him to the place we were married.

By the time we were ON the road of the bed and breakfast place, he told me later he kinda knew we were going to do a drive by there just to see the old place.  Still no idea we were STAYING there.

So we pull in and I direct him around the grounds...to the cabin we were staying at.  France (they are themed)  I have him park and I jump out to 'walk around' and see it.  He starts panicking...."Brandy, the light is on!  That means someone must be staying there".  You see at this place, you never really 'check in'.  The leave the key hanging in a secret place they tell you about ahead of time and you just go right in.

So then I walk up to the door.  Of course, *I* know we are staying here.  He does not.  He thinks I've lost my mind.  Hee hee...  I peek in the window of the door, he's back at the car, and I start motioning him to come on, come check it out!  He hesitates.  Then I find the key on the tree and show him it dangling, like 'look at this!  We can go inside!  Come on!  How fun!  We'll be sneaky!'  He is really thinking I've lost my mind now.  He slowly gets out at my coercion and as he's slowly hesitantly walking up, I tell him...."Oh!  Before you come, can you get our bags out of the back?"  (he did not realize our bags were in the back either)  That's when he starts to 'get it'.  And was so super surprised!  I LOVED IT!  Haha...

Anyway, so we stayed the night there, reminiscing and playing with his new tin (ok...metal?) iPad I got him for our anniversary.

The chapel in the back is where we were married...

The rest of the France cabin where we stayed...

We had a cat join us in the middle of the night too!  Random.  

We enjoyed our time away and seeing again the place where it all started...  it was a great little getaway!

And meanwhile, our kids were great.  It was kinda nice though to get texts from Brenna about how much she missed us.  My sweet girl.  :)

If you can't read text speak from a 5 year old, it reads...

Brenna: I love you
Me:  I love you too.  Miss you!  (heart, kiss face)
Brenna: I miss you too lots and lots too (heart face, kiss face, happy face)
Me: Are you having fun?
Brenna: No not without you (sad teary face)
Me (teary face) You are too sweet

Florida trip, day 9 and 10 - coming home

So after a fun-filled week, it was.... *sniff sniff*..... time to head home.  After we got all packed up and checked out of our room, we made a last stop at the World of Disney store in Downtown Disney. Got a lot of shopping in, bought some Christmas presents, and lots of souvenirs.

(don't worry - we didn't get the humongous Stitch)

We left and decided to hit the road and just stop somewhere quick to eat lunch.  Brad was trying to find an unusual or different fast food type place.  Kids just wanted McD's.  Then we randomly took an exit marked for a McD's and happened to come up to the world's largest and most unique McDonald's.  It was amazing!

So you walk in and can order ANYthing.  Literally.  They have gourmet food that their 'cafe' prepares, they have regular McD's food, they have pizzas and pastas, they have sandwiches and salads, they have enchiladas and gourmet  desserts, and the list goes on and on and on...  So much to choose from.

The girls picked to have typical McD's food (boring!).  Brad chose an enchilada something or other and a I had a buffalo ranch chicken sandwich.  All of it was soooo good.  

Then afterwards, you go upstairs and the play area is way more than just that.  It was like Chuckee Cheese play area!  HUGE!  Everything from a playscape to video games to arcade style games.  We didn't stay and play but just went up to check it all out.  

Even the bathrooms were fancy!  The toilets had mechanical replacing protector sheets that came out and replaced the last one every time the toilet flushed.  I'm telling ya - it was cool.  

Ok, enough w McDonald's right?  So anyway.....we headed out (this was still in Florida...in fact, it was just outside Orlando) and made it all the way to Alabama by nighttime.  The girls crashed hard in the car.  Staying up till 1 in the morning is tough stuff.  

At our hotel, we got a free night's stay (thanks to Club Carlson) where the weather was getting colder!!!  

The next morning we were off and would be home by that evening.  

When we got home, we found our cheery friend, Chris had made it back in time to do some shenanigans before Christmas.  The girls were excited to see him and the dogs and all in all we were a little glad to be home, but honestly, were a lot sad to not still be at such a magical place.  

Florida trip, day 8 - Magic Kingdom, take 2

Our second day at Magic Kingdom (and last day at Disney) was going to be looooong and late night. So we didn't start quite as early and missed the opening.  Oh well.

We started off realizing we weren't going to be going on It's a Small World (and as I said, this was a disappointment to Brooke) as it was closed for repairs indefinitely.  Bummer.  So first we went and watched Mickey's Philharmonic show while we waited for our Fast Pass to come due for Peter Pan's Flight.  The show was funny (Brooke had remembered the ending even!) and Peter Pans' Flight was loved by all.  Then we headed over to the other side of FantasyLand and started in on the teacups.  Gosh, how the girls love this ride.  We must've done it 100 times I swear!

After leaving the teacups, we ran into Alice and the White Rabbit.

And then the girls wanted to the teacups another 57 times before we left that area.

We followed into the back section of the FantasyLand section again (the new part) and went into the Storybook Circus area (another new section).  There we rode another favorite, Dumbo.  The girls always love the Dumbo ride.  (have you seen a trend?  they like the up in the area, going in circles, able to move it up and down and even better if water shooting out you happens)

The Dumbo ride moved into the new section, so now there's actually TWO rides of Dumbo.  Its that popular.  They also did this cool playground area your kids can play in while waiting.  Pretty cool, huh?

From there we walked around the Circus area and saw some of Mickey's friends...

Brad wanted to stop at the store/gift shop/snack area...just cuz they had a cool look to it.

We finally left Storybook Circus and got Fast Passes to see the princesses.  This was where Snow White's ride used to be that I guess they did away with.  :(  You had to pick two (there were 4 available)...we chose Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  Of course you could go back and do the other two as well...but the girls weren't excited about whatever the other princesses that were there so we didn't.

We finally left Fantasyland and went to check out Frontierland and Adventureland.  We happen to get in the middle of the parade (that we had already seen the day before) and noticed in front of the parade today was a thousand dancers.  Literally, I really think there must've been a thousand.  They just kept coming and coming and coming.

After we could cut through, we had just a few snacky things for 'lunch in the area.  Then we went and did Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion (the girls freaked out on this at first...but alls well that ended well.  Getting trapped in a locked dark room is quite scary for a 5 yr old), and checked out Swiss Family Robinson treehouse.  We also got the famous pineapple floats.  Oh my goodness...I can still taste it.  Such goodness. We did the train ride for a 'break' somewhere in there.  And skipped Splash Mountain, etc.  While it was definitely warm, it had a chill to the air that if you got wet you could be cold.

After making our rounds through all those 'lands' (also noticing that they did away w the New Orleans section of Magic Kingdom?), we rode the train, we went back through to Fantasyland and did the teacups (yes again!) while we waited on Fast Pass to Winnie the Pooh.

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party was starting at 7p going until 12a.  We had tickets for that.  Unbeknownst to us though, was that you had to 'turn in' your tickets and get wristbands to stay in the park.  Then whoever does not have a wristband has to leave by 7pm.  Seems crazy to make this work, but somehow it does.  So by the time we realized we needed wristbands the line to get it was super long.  Also seems like they could just mail you the wristbands and skip the step of a 'ticket'.  Whatever.  Brooke took a nap while we waited - haha!  (proof that kids are never too old for a stroller nap)

Brenna and Daddy took a quick photo pass pic while I waited in line and Brooke napped...

Afterwards some fun treats...

Some more pictures during my favorite time of day!

Another castle show

Another Celebrate It street parade

Then the countdown was on.  6p - party at 7p.  I knew that Captain Jack Sparrow would be out and about so I wanted to be sure we caught him.  We lined up to see him right at 6:40 or so.  To be close to first in line.  Then the idea was to get him in before all the other festivities started.  I don't know why I thought it would be much more lazy than it was.  We were really darting from one thing to the next to try to see all the cool Christmas Party stuff.  Anyway, first up.  Captain Jack Sparrow (from Pirates of the Caribbean).  He was quite impressive!

The girls thought it was great.  They LOVE those movies now and think he is hilarious.

Then we darted over just to catch the tail end of the castle show where they light the castle up

Next was the nighttime Christmas parade.  Because we didn't have good 'spots' the only person who could really see was Brooke.  On top of Daddy's shoulders.  Which was ok.  I tried to get a couple of pictures and Brenna napped.  :P  Too bad though, b/c it looked like quite a good parade.  Had I known how good and how long and how important to be there, I would've done this before seeing Jack Sparrow and scouted out our 'spots' better.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

Almost right after that was the show where they put the pictures on the castle.  This is so cool.  It might be my favorite part.  Better than fireworks.  ITs just really neat and something you have to see to appreciate.

From there, pretty much was straight into fireworks.  Brad took video of all this, but I haven't seen the videos yet, so I'm just posting without video.  Sorry.

After the fireworks, we still had a couple hours left in the park.  There was another show in Tomorrowland that we were told the kids would just love and is really great (several ppl told us that). So we walked over and were the front row seat for that.  I think the idea was to stand up and be part of the party (think concert stuff) but by this time of night everyone was so tired of standing and walking everyone was sitting on the concrete in front of the stage - haha!

It was a cute show though!  Afterwards and before the park closed, I wanted to get a couple of pictures in front of the 'icy' castle...even better if it was during a 'snow storm' (every so often snow would fall on Main Street USA.  So I promised the girls if I got a good picture quickly, we could go back to Tomorrowland or Fantasy land and do a couple of rides before we left.

Mission accomplished!

With just a half hour before the park closed, we did the Tomorrowland raceway cars again.

Then we walked over and did the teacups as our FINAL ride.  We were the only ones on it in fact.  Right as we were getting on, the cast members were getting reports to shut down the rides.  But we got one last ride in.  A good way to end it I guess!  No pictures there - just memories. :)

We walked back through the park and I was a little disappointed all the shops and stores were closed (same thing happened to us at Hollywood Studios).  A lot of times the actual park (Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, or Animal Kingdom, etc....) are THE only place you can get park specific souvenirs.  So, for instance, you cannot get a shirt that says "Epcot" at just the regular downtown disney gift store.  You have to go TO that park.  Same thing goes with the flattened pennies the girls collect.  So we missed out on a lot of that.  But we had fun.  We had a lot of fun.  And that cannot be replaced.  :)

(note: the above picture was taken at approximately 12:15am - we look pretty good for being after midnight huh?  ;)