The last day of our trip was filled with meeting many of the Disney characters!! We wanted to be sure and get in line to meet Mickey early because the line to see him can get ridiculously long. We had gone the night before to check the line and it was a wait of over an hour!! So we decided to go the next morning and beat the rush. We got there twenty minutes before they opened Toon Town and decided that when they opened the gate Elmo would run to the line with Mickey and Sweet Pea and I would catch up. It worked magically! We were second in line to meet Mickey and Minnie. So instead of waiting over and hour we only waited twenty minutes! Woo hoo!

Sweet Pea had a blast yet again! He walked right up to Minnie and gave her a hug!

And of course he showed Mickey where his nose is:

Sweet Pea also had a lot of fun with Donald Duck! He gave him a big hug and a huge kiss!

On our last day at Disney we got to go to a character breakfast at the Grand Floridian hotel. Basically while we were eating breakfast the characters came around to our table and we got to meet them. We met Pooh Bear, Tigger, Alice (from Wonderland), the Mad Hatter, and Mary Poppins. Sweet Pea had a blast! He ate waffles shaped like Mickey and got to give kisses to all the characters.

Sweet Pea enjoying his yummy breakfast:

Giving Pooh Bear a big kiss:

Giving Tigger a high five:

Showing Tigger where his mouth is:

The little fam:

The extended fam:

The Mad Hatter and his nose:

My Dad aka. Papa T and Mary Poppins

The character breakfast was so much fun!! It is such a great way to get up close and personal with the characters. I definitely recommend it.

Today we headed off to the Animal Kingdom. The new Yeti Ride opened a few years back and I had never been able to ride it because I was pregnant one year and nursing the next. It was so cool! After that we headed to the Safari. It was one of the things that was high on my list because Sweet Pea loves animals and I couldn’t wait to see his reaction. I was not let down at all! He loved all the animals. He pointed and grunted and made animal sounds the whole time. And the Safari is the best place to see animals. These two animals walked right up to our jeep! And all the others weren’t to far off.

After the Safari was over there were some statues of animals. Sweet Pea was obsessed! He growled at these lions for quite awhile.

After the animals we headed back for a nap and then went to Magic Kingdom to visit Toon Town. Sweet Pea loved it! We must have stayed in Minnie Mouse’s house half the time we were there. Here he is chillin in Minnie’s chair.

Here he is helping Minnie sew one of her prize winning quilts:

And here he is in Minnie’s kitchen. The oven baked a cake over and over and he just sat there and watched for a while. Other kids came and went but he was enthralled. It was so cute!

Outside Mickey and Minnie’s house was a garden. Here is Sweet Pea with the Mickey pumpkins!

After that we took Sweet Pea to play in Winnie the Pooh’s tree house. He had so much fun he didn’t want to leave. He must have slid down the tree slide fifty times.

And here is the family as we are leaving to go back to the resort for the night!

On Thursday morning we got up and headed to Epcot. My hubby, brother, grandpa and I all got to take a segway tour of the countries! It was so much fun! The first hour they spend teaching everybody how to ride the segway. It is definitely an experience. I have to say I was a little scared for some of the people taking the tour with us. You have to be able to balance really well and have good posture. The second you start to lean a little bit the segway moves. It took a little getting used to, but it was worth it! here is a picture of my brother and my grandpa putting their helmets on and getting ready for the lesson:

Here we are on our segways:

After the segway tour we headed off to find the rest of the family and ride some rides. Sweet Pea had so much fun with everything. He just took it all in. After all the rides there was something interactive for him to do and he loved it! Here he is “driving” with his uncle.

He was so worn out from the morning that on the way to eat lunch in Japan he crashed in his stroller. He just kicked his feet up and fell asleep.

Here we are enjoying our meal in Japan. It was so yummy!! Eating here is almost like going to see a show. The chef comes out and cooks the meal right in front of you.

And here is everyone after the meal. Tired, happy, and full.

There was a coy pond right outside the restaurant. Sweet Pea loved looking at it! It was hard to pry him away.

We ended our day with a bubble bath in the huge tub! I think our whole family could have fit in there. Sweet Pea has so much fun. It was a treat for him to be able to move around so much in the tub.

Early Wednesday morning we headed off to the airport to go to Disney World. My dad’s company has a conference in Orlando every November and years and years ago my family started this tradition. We show up in Orlando on the last day of my dad’s conference and head for Old Key West, a Disney Resort. It is so much fun! Here is Sweet Pea playing at the airport. It was the day after election day and they still had all these balloons set up! Sweet Pea didn’t know what to look at first. The balloons or the airplanes out the window. He has such a great time! We probably could have stayed at the airport all weekend and he would have been satisfied.

We ate a healthy McDonald’s breakfast (yeah right) while waiting for our plane to arrive. This was a special treat for Sweet Pea as McDonald is not a regular staple for us. Here are the boys enjoying their pancakes!

The cool thing about our plane ride this time around was that my mom and little brother were already on the plane that we got on! Their flight had a stop in Dallas and we just happened to get on that flight! It was fun to meet up with them before even getting to Orlando! It also made it easier with Sweet Pea. This way he had four people to entertain him instead of just two. Here is our plane! I mainly took the picture to say “look! my mom and brother are on that plane!” Yes, I am that silly.

We made it to Orlando without a hitch! We rented a car and headed to the resort. We stay in a room that has a kitchen so that we can make some of our meals. This year my mom ordered all our groceries through a service and had them delivered that day. This eliminated a long shopping trip right when getting there. It was such a huge time saver! I recommend it for all travelers. Anyways, with the food already there my mom, grandma, and I started cooking chili for dinner! Yum! Here are my mom and I being goofy, good thing we are at Disney right?

And here are some of us enjoying the chili on the porch. We are also solving (rather arguing) the country’s problems.

Our first Disney related fun came in the form of a boat ride! After dinner we headed to the docks at Disney Yacht club and took a boat ride to watch the fireworks and light show at Epcot. It was very cool! Sweet Pea did a lot better than I thought he would. When the fireworks first started he got a little upset but then just sat in my lap and hugged me the rest of the time. No real tears. Yeah! He was also required to wear a life-vest since he is so small. The only reason he was okay with that was because our boat driver let him “drive” the boat. It completely distracted him from the life vest. Oh…and we gave him chips.

Here is the whole crew!

It was a fun first day! Until tomorrow…

Hello all! We are in Disney World having a blast! WIll be able to write more and post pictures on Sunday! Talk to you then!

A few weeks ago my mom and I took Sweet Pea to visit family in West Virginia/Virginia. So far I have written about it here, here, here, and here. After finally finishing the move I have had a little time to put the rest of the pictures from the trip on the computer and share them. So get ready for a long post filled with lots of pictures.

My great-grandmother lives in Virginia on the same farm that my grandmother grew up on. She actually still lives in the house that my great-grandfather built. Here are a few pictures of me and Sweet Pea on the farm.

While there I got the pleasure of visiting lots of family. Here are some pictures with my cousins. They are two of my favorite people in the world and they are both very pregnant!! It is so fun to see them and there is never enough time. I always leave wishing we lived closer.

Our kids are the three great-great grandchildren of the family. Soon there will be five!! Here are the three great-great grand kids:

And here they are with their great-great- grandmother. We tried to get a picture with just the kids but they just wouldn’t sit still, so the mommies joined them.

And here are our awesome five generation pictures. Great-great grandma is 91 and still going strong. She also still lives by herself.

On the way back to West Virginia from Virginia we took a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The views were beautiful. The pictures do not do it justice.

One of the stops along the parkway is Mabry Mill. We decided it would be fun to get out and walk around. Here are the pics from that:

And of course every journey sadly ends with a trip to the airport. And if you have ever traveled with a baby you know how much stuff you have to bring with you. Here is Nana and Sweet Pea with all the luggage:

Good Bye West Virginia! Can’t wait to see you again!

This spot in Harpers Ferry, WV has been THE picture spot my entire life. It is the place where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers meet. I have memories from when I was very young running up the hill to this spot to pose for a picture. Sometimes we stay just long enough to take a picture and sometimes we stay to explore. There have been times it has been freezing cold and we are the only crazy people out rushing up the hill to take a picture and other times all the tourists are out exploring and there is no way to get a picture without someone you don’t know in the background.

As much as I despised the tradition as a child, I am now doing the same thing with Sweet Pea. As a parent I can now understand my mom’s desire to see us in the same spot every year. It’s tradition. It is actually very cool to go back and look at all the pictures from year to year. So here are the latest Harpers Ferry pictures.

Can you believe that when I was little those bars were not there? The picture was definitely prettier then.

Ok…so amidst the moving frenzy Sweet Pea and I took a trip to West Virginia/Virginia to visit family with my mom. With the stress of moving/traveling I haven’t done a very good job of posting so the next few days I am going to be posting pictures from our trip telling what we did.

One of the things we did was take a trip to a REAL pumpkin patch. Being from the south we only get the pumpkin patches where a huge truck ships the pumpkins down here and they set them up on a street corner. It can be fun, but seeing the real deal was awesome. They provided wagons to pull around and pick your pumpkin.

Of course Sweet Pea was not at all interested in the pumpkins. He wanted the wagon. The reason we were at the pumpkin patch for more than an hour was because he was determined he was going to pull the wagon all by himself. He threw a big fit when it was time to put the wagon up and leave. Ahhh….good times.

The farm was also full of fun decorations. Here is a photo of me, Sweet Pea, and GG (my grandma, Sweet Pea’s Great-Grandma).

After a long day traveling yesterday we finally made it to my grandparents house in West Virginia. We woke up at 4:30 Wednesday morning and headed to the airport for a 6:30 flight. We had to stop in St. Louis and Sarah, I thought of you! I actually thought to myself how cool it would be to meet you in the airport. A little silly I know. But anyways, we changed planes and made our way to Baltimore! My grandparents met us at the airport, took us to lunch, and then we made the drive to their home in the hills. Sweet Pea did so good on the plane. He only fussed a little bit when I made him lay down in my lap to take a nap. He would have babbled the whole time to the peopel in front of us, but I thought they might need a break. Or maybe that was me who needed a break…who knows? Here are a few pictures of Sweet Pea on the plane:

When we got to my grandparents I set up his pack’n'play and we both took a three hour nap. It was wonderful after such a long day! Here is a picture of my grandparents house as you drive up. The fall season is so beautiful!

When Sweet Pea woke up he was ready to play! We went down to the garage to see what we could dig up. My grandparents have lots of toys that we have all played with over the years. We found this old plastic stroller that he loves! He has been pushing it around ever since. I have tried to put animals and dolls in it for him to push around, but he will have none of it! He just wants it for himself. He has even tried to get in, but as you may have guessed that didn’t work out to well. Here he is with the stroller:

He has also decided that he likes my grandpa’s chair. Every now and then he will climb up and kick back like he is going to just hang out and watch tv. He is very proud of himself once he gets up into the chair.

Sweet Pea played with his great-grandma (GG), on the back porch:

My parents are looking to buy some land around here so we took a drive to look at some properties. Here are me and Sweet Pea on one of the properties. Isn’t it gorgeous!?

Then we stopped to play on the playground at my grandparent’s church. Sweet Pea had so much fun with his great-grandpa!

And then here is Sweet Pea taking a bath. It is so funny to watch him play with toys that I remember playing with as a kid. That boat has been here for a looong time!

Tomorrow morning we wake up early to make the drive to see my great-grandmother. Sweet Pea’s great-great-grandmother. It’s a five hour drive so wish me luck!

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