Backtrack a little to Daytona Beach....

i loved these shots from our room at Daytona beach.....it was a little high...and it freaked me out (due to Eric Claptons son....)--but it was beautiful. and the boys made friends on the morning we left (yes...it took that long for me to let them out there!)

i think its been one if their highlights...by the end the birds were eating out of their hands....

Especially elliot...he stayed out there the longest with his little mug of bread.

Monday - gear up for Disney Day.....

We all arrived in Orlando on Sunday......we have all been waiting for this week! Mike and Susan arrived at our place on monday around noon....it was so nice that we took a few hours to swim and enjoy the sun..... Then most of us (excluding Isaac, of course!) had naps..... We soaked in a little more sun, and appreciated it so much more knowing it was snowing at home....then spaghetti dinner in our place....

After dinner, we left for Downtown Disney and walked in the warm night air and watched the boardwalk performers. We took a boat across the harbor and were home in bed by 9ish to gear up DisneyWorld the next day.

It was a good day.....

5am thoughts....

We are in Orlando. I just checked in on my boys and am sitting here in the dark wondering what i should write about this journey to date. I am feeling thankful....pensive...a little hungry...a little tired....and a little nervous.

Thankful because those boys are so beautiful..this trip has been such a growing experience for both of them and their relationship with eachother and with us. They have been learning and getting much better at negotiating with eachother enstead of coming to us for every little disagreement (which i love!), chris and i have never heard elliot laugh as hard as he did in the bath this evening..isaac was cracking some kind of joke, but had his little bro cackling like i had never heard!

Pensive because something little and icky ran across my face as i was trying to sleep an hour ago and i am still wigged out on what it was. Its a clean place, but we still saw a huge cockroach on the sidewalk as we ate at bubba gumps last week....meaning, there are bugs from a hot climate around and i am not used to that....don't get me wrong, it didn't stop me from eating and enjoying my shrimp...but ya...ugh.

Hungry because we ate at 4:30...it was a travel day, so we did brunch at 11 in Daytona beach at the Starlight Diner (we loved that place), we drove, checked in, unpacked and headed out for dinner...we had the seafood feast at red lobster...i have never seen isaac eat so fast and so much...try to give that kid regular food and he is like meh...but he is a beast in front of a plate of crab, shrimp and lobster....we were scared for our neighbors watching isaac up on his knees violently trying to rip apart those crab legs.....stuff was flying....

Tired because - well, refer to bug paragraph.....

And a little nervous because i didn't sanitize elliots hands that much this evening and we went to this really busy mall where he touches everything!! Godiva chocolates gave each boy a little chocolate and i saw elliot licking his hands when he was finished....i am up now initially because elliot was crying out in his sleep...and i am thinking about sickness. The 'what if's'....and we have been so fortunate up to this point...can it last?? I am kicking myself for not being more diligent as i usually am with the sanitizer, especially in hot, crowded places like a mall. I guess we will see in the morning.....

If everyone is well in the morning.....Gatorland maybe?

We are all good......

Looking for Obama..... a picture of my brave boy toying with a cockroach.......

Today: Chris slept until noon....however, he was up at 7 pacing the room feeling 'restless' as he said....i didn't think he would go back to bed..but he had a bath, relaxed a little and was gone until almost noon. The poor guy has driven us all the way down the East Coast coming right off some crazy hours working on that reno....and he hasn't stopped yet.

So, i took the boys swimming.....we had lunch in our room (yay full kitchen)....and left for a tour of the local chocolate factory for 1pm. Chris was hungry, so he grabbed a sub and we were heading for the 2 o'clock tour. Then i got shopping and we decided to hit the 3 o'clock tour. Then we got the boys haircut...and they had time for me too....so we went to the 4 o'clock tour. Turned out to just be a walk down a hall watching the people work on the chocolates....we bailed, bought a bunch of chocolate and went down the road to the magic shop and looked at tons of cheap touristy tricks and fake poop...it was a lame shop. But in regards to the chocolate shop, chris said he would have been more enticed to stay if they were dressed up as oompa loompa's.....i would have stayed too.....

We picked up groceries, had dinner, and gathered on the couch to watch SpiderMan...isaacs new infatuation (he got new spiderman runners this afternoon-they lite up (he was happy), they were on sale (i was happy).

Its been pretty low key, nothing new to report except we are all good.

3 weeks left?

Here are a few shots of our departure! Grandma saying goodbye.....

And i can't remember if i put this picture in to any of my past blogs...but i still think its hilarious how happy these boys are to sleep in the closet 'forts' when we get a room with a big enough closet for their little bodies to fit into !! They are going to look back on our holidays and be like 'you put us into closets???' and i will say (proudly because we were being industrius!) YUP!!

It feels like we have been away for a long time...and we aren't due home for a while still. Right now i am sitting in the lobby of the hotel listening to the BeeJee's...they are having an 'adult' pajama party downstairs! Funny hey? They have activities for the guests....today we mini-golfed, i could have taken a Zoomba class, but was the only one who registered.....can't remember what it on the list for tommorow....but its the stage of the trip that we are all tired.

The boys were in bed by 7, so was i (til now). We took the boys to see the movie 'Planet 51' this afternoon....walked around the boardwalk....it was nice. But we aren't used to this pace....its definatly an adjustment to just 'be'. Major transition. We don't have anywhere we need to be until the 13th...so i booked another 2 nights here and after this we leave for Orlando to meet up with Mike and Susan for a week.

This afternoon before the movie, we took the boys to a timeshare presentation...i know! i know! We told ourselves before this trip that we wouldn't do it...but they promised us a disney world pass.....hmmmm.....i said we would do it for 2 passes. They met us half way and gave us one and a half passes and we paid the difference....not bad. But what was so great, is one of the first questions he asks us is 'are you really interested or are you just here for the passes?'....i responded 'do you want the honest answer, or the one i know you want to hear?'......he gave us those passes after making some small talk, making us watch the 10 minute movie and sent us on our way. He knew....we knew....nobody wanted to waste eachothers time i suppose. So with our 2 passes to Disney World in our hot little hands....we took off, unscathed from the dreaded timeshare pressure sales tactics.

So what should we do for the next 2.5 days before heading to Orlando? Sleep? Watch movies? Kennedy Space Centre? Chill? yup....all the above.

So...this is the 'transition' blog.....from fast paced to slower paced...here is to hoping we survive with as much excitment as when we started and that they money doesn't run out til we arrive home!

Washington to Daytona Beach

We hit Washington after New York...and one definatly needs more than a day to see this beautiful place. There was so much to see......these pictures were taken on a night walk chris took when we arrived at our hotel.

Hotels are crazy expensive in this city! So i took a risk on priceline and got a beautiful 4 star hotel 1 block from the white house for $65!! Makes the visit even sweeter, you know?

i'm so glad he got these shots....towing the boys around really infringes on your ability to look up and really soak things in....but we did take in the Smithsonian Museum (beautiful!! interesting!! and not as overwhelming as the Smithsonium Museum in New York)

These next shots were taken in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia--everyone in their costumes...we both thought that jenny would have loved it here! But we saw their prison, how they cooked in their kitchen (isaac figured out the mechanism of their chicken rotisserie before chris even noticed it), they had these garden mazes that the boys had fun running through with chris chasing them with the video camera--its the kind of shots that are going to make be bawl when i am locked up in my attic and have only old clothes and videos to watch until someone unlocks the attic door (National Lampoons christmas vacation scene....)

the above shot is something i wish we could do with them when they get too loud in the car!!

We have laughed alot....we have talked about how thankful we are alot....we can't believe that we are here....we can't believe the places we are able to stay on the budget we are on, or the amazing things we have been able to see (like all the Smithsonian museums are Free!!! The coolest museums in the world....free!! they soak you at the cafeteria, but thats another entry!)

We arrived into jacksonville beach this afternoon and discovered it was quite a hole...so we headed for Daytona Beach. We just got back from dinner at bubba gumps..chris always wanted to go there....chris and i were talking as we walked along the beach with the kids running ahead that its almost embarrassing to talk about how our trip has gone so far....how are we so lucky? Should we even be speaking of this? And this is what we chalk it up to-God is good to us...so good.

First Leg of the Trip - New York!

Out of 154 pictures so far...here are a few of my favorites. Guess where we are!!

Spiderman inside the Sony Wonder Technology Lab....so fun and FREE!! one of the exhibits actually got chris to dance! I am sure he complied because it was for 'science'

The window displays were amazing.....

During the set up for the tree light up at Rockefeller Centre...

2 of my boys....

The wonderful company we kept! (Jon behind the camera)--but Marsha, Rosa and little Mackenzie...

NBC!! Radio City Music Hall!

This picture just made me laugh.....

My favorite museum ever! Museum of Natural History...i love that i got to bring all my boys there! we saw like, an eighth of it!!

HUGE whale...i liked it cause it looked like it was kissing isaac.....

King of the subway......

Little prince of the subway.....

re-building at ground zero.....

Finally-some fruit!! Fitting to have apples in the big Apple!!

guess where?

Battery Park.....

One on one......

Empire State Building...taken just outside of Macy's where we tried to get the boys picture taken with Santa...until Isaac started freaking out about meeting him and Elliot had to pee....

Putting them to bed tonight in Virginia.....yup--its a closet.

My favorite pose of his!

I often wondered......

what would i be like in my 30's? Would i be mature and responsible? Would i be just like i am now, with just some more wrinkles and hopefully more money in the bank? Who knew i would still be a total dork, driving around with my chosen awesome girlfriend who would be a dork with me to brave the "twilight" saga on a Saturday afternoon a week before i turned 34: The 'before' shot....trust me, we were still giddy and smiling AFTER the movie too...especially because we weren't standing in that huge lineup in the rain for a showing 2.5 hours later! I just walked in, bought a ticket at 12:45 for the 1 pm showing--i still wonder why people stand in line to buy tickets when there is that wonderful computer that will spit a ticket out at you with no line ups!!

Cristin likes Moose....

Sharon likes "muddy sneakers"....the favorite "share'sies" food when i go to Victoria with friends.....we actually had this for dinner...why? because we are adults, almost 34 to be exact and we can do what we want!

MEC and LULU, here we come!! "Wha? there is a Santa Clause Parade? In one hour? Ack--that means there will be kids around!! Lets get out of here!!!" (yup..moms night out=no kids! ours or anyone elses!!)

Aveda eyebrow wax: Shaggy BEFORE shot:

Aveda brow AFTER wax: (hard to tell isn't it?--darn Clinique lighting)

My FRIEND!!! It was a great day!!!