St. Paddy's Day!

What do you know...it's still March
and I'm posting about St. Patrick's Day!
While visiting my sister, Kristy, we decided to turn this somewhat unobserved holiday (at least by our family) into a grand day :)  Starting off the day before by visiting the bunnies and chicks at IFA.  Emmett was so excited and kept saying, "dah, dah" (dog...his name for all animals).
 

In the morning, the kids woke to
green french toast, milk and a side of green eggs.  

As you can see, Aaron was not pleased! 

Next, a little leprechaun hid green paper shamrock clues around the house to find his hidden pot of gold.  Armed with green folded paper baskets and colored rainbow handles, the hunt began.  We ran, hopped and even whipped out an Irish Jig to find the clues.  After sliding down the rainbow, there really was a pot of gold waiting! (black bowl with gold wrapped candy under the slide)

Our day of green ended with  broccoli, potato soup, zucchini fries & green "shamrock" rolls.  So fun!  I'm glad Kristy shared her home, food and creativity with us.  We had a great time! 

 

The World of Disney

After months of anticipation we were so excited to help Grandma Caine live her dream to take the whole family to Disney World!
The first two out of five hours on the plane looked like this:

Yep, that's right.  All three kids were out (I did get a little shut eye in as well) for a full two hours.  The rest of the time was spent opening fun gifts Grandma had sent for the ride.  Their favorite were these cool re-usable stickers.  They stick to the windows, seats, trays...pretty much anything!

We spent 7 beautifully sunny, 70 degree days of fun, craziness, tired, excitement, peace (at the temple) and only a little bit sick (Elina did wait until the 2nd to last day to come down with pneumonia :)  There couldn't have had better timing..no grand kids are in school yet, Jeremy's girlfriend was here from Korea and no one was pregnant :)  With plenty of time to "see everything", we spent a day at each park with a couple of extra days to re-visit our favorites. 

We had fun wearing these matching shirts Jeremy and Yun Joo designed for us.   

The Epcot Center has a building where 5 Disney Characters are in one place to meet.  Aaron was sooo excited, he'd hug one then run to the next...needless to say, every photo was blurry :)  Elina wouldn't hug Goofy or Mickey.  She said she only likes Donald, Pluto and Minnie Mouse.

Out of all the fun rides and things to see...by far, the kids favorites were playgrounds.  The dinosaur playground @ Animal Kingdom, the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" playground at Hollywood Studios and the generic hotel playground!  As I overheard one couple say, "We should have just come to the hotel instead of spending tons on Disney World...give the kids a pool and a playground and they're set!  I had to smile at that.  Elina did LOVE Splash Mountain though. 
They also loved the viking boat ride at the Epcot Center.  It was a little spooky in the darkness with deep voices, thunder & trolls so we tried to make it really funny for them.  It worked because they talked about that ride for days after coming home.  They'd pretend to be the "silly one-eyed troll coming out of the tree" as if it was the biggest joke around!

Elina: "Back Bird...this is mine!" (Elina protecting her burger from the bird)

Bryce came back from getting food and found Aaron like this....no idea how or what he was doing :)

I'm grateful to have attended church right across the street from the Orlando Temple.  Before coming on this trip, we had a family home evening on Temples and their importance.  We tried to make it a point to have the kids notice how they feel around the temple compared to Cinderella's Castle.  Although the castle is pretty and fun to be at, the Temple has such a peace and inner joy.

All in all, we had a wonderful time and are so glad everything worked out. 
We made good memories for years to come!