Shining Star

Quinn was recently chosen as Student of the Month for the month of March.  She was selected by her homeroom teacher and her peers.  

We already knew that Quinn is an amazing student, shows good character at school and is a hard worker...but it is always nice to hear that validation that she is doing what is expected and setting a good example for others.

We couldn't be any more proud of Quinn's accomplishments.  

Fun with Friends...

Quinn's school had their annual carnival last Friday.  It is a kids only event, so I am limited in the pictures that I have to the few that Quinn took herself and shared with me. She went with her good friend Whitney (on the left) and then stayed the night afterward with her.

Quinn said that she had a blast - inflatable basketball, games, music, pizza, glitter tattoos, hair dying and more!

While Quinn was away having fun at her carnival and at her sleepover, Sullivan was busy having fun of her own.  She had her friend, Phoebe, spend the night. 

Ryan was out of the house that night, so it was just the three of us.  

We went out to eat...

Topped it off with some delicious ice cream...

Phoebe and Sullivan made some slime...

And then built a fort to sleep in for the night...

The night was filled with a lot of action, for both Quinn and Sullivan.  

Fun times were had by all!!

No Puppies for Us...

A couple of weeks ago, Tessa Sue was spayed.  She handled the surgery like a champ, but definitely had more of a recovery than I expected her to have.  She just wasn't herself for a few days and frankly, I think she was mad at us for putting her through this ordeal.  I guess I can't blame her.

Here is Tessa on her sea of blankets in our room.  

The doctor had warned us that Tessa would most likely have an upset stomach from the anesthesia. When Tessa has an upset stomach, she ALWAYS finds a rug or carpet to do her business on.  Never the hardwood floors.  Go figure.  Hence the sea of blankets on the bedroom floor.

Needless to say, she is back to her old spunky self. As cute as she is, she is one of a kind.  There won't be any Tessa puppies running around this house!

 

Busy Making Memories

This past week has been a whirlwind which is why there has been a short hiatus in my blogging.  This coming week should (hopefully) bring a slower pace! Hopefully.

Last weekend, we were thrilled to host Nana and Papa.  While their visit seemed to zip by far too fast, we packed as much Nana and Papa into the weekend as we could! 

Quinn and Sullivan were thrilled to show Nana and Papa all their pins and Disney memorabilia from our latest vacation.  The girls had a captive audience, and seized that opportunity to share all the goods...

The weather wasn't the warmest that we could hope for on Saturday, so we took to the indoor activities.  We went to the movies to see A Wrinkle in Time.  All agreed that it was a good movie.  It wasn't a knock-your-socks-off fantastic movie, but a good one.

Sunday brought about another inside activity day, so we headed to the mall to play glow golf.  It was a great way to kill an afternoon, and fun was had by us all.

We celebrated with ice cream treats, because why not!?

The weekend also brought about a lot of game playing, but unfortunately I must have been too busy playing, because I didn't even take one single picture.  Shame on me.

Like I said, the weekend zoomed right by and before we knew it we were saying goodbye to Nana and Papa.  We appreciate them making the trip out to see us and can't wait for them to come again when the weather is warm and we can get outside!

Last But Not Least...Disney Visitor

This is the last of our Disney posts, but not necessarily the least important.  After all, it includes a very special person that visited us while we were at Disney.  I know what you're thinking - Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, or one of the many other special characters that roam the land of Disney?

Nope.

The special visitor that came to see us on the last evening we were at Disney was... 

The Tooth Fairy!!!!

That's right.  Sullivan Grace lost a tooth at Disney - thanks to a yummy, chocolate covered pineapple skewer that she had at Animal Kingdom.

Sullivan was sharing the deliciousness with Ryan when she bit into the stick by accident and made an already wiggly tooth even more wiggly.  It was apparent in that moment that the tooth wasn't going to stay in that cute mouth for another night.

Here is Sullivan right before the tooth fell out - upper right side next to her front tooth.

With the tooth coming out that evening, we were a bit curious if the tooth fairy would find us in Florida.  Waking up in anticipation, Sullivan discovered that the tooth fairy did indeed come to see her.

She was left with a note that eluded to the following...the Florida tooth fairy does not know how to do origami, so she wasn't able to leave any extravagant money creations like the Indiana tooth fairy does.  She did say that it is awful rare to lose a tooth at Disney, and as such, she left a very special treat.  The tooth fairy left a special Mickey pin, along with a cute tooth case to keep her tooth in.

Sullivan was beside herself excited to get a new pin, and vowed that this pin would NEVER be a tradable pin!

Disney, Part 4

Bear with me, I am wrapping up the Disney experience very soon.  Just a couple more parks worth of memories to share...

Hollywood Studios

Hollywood Studios is home to one of our favorite rides, Toy Story Mania.  It is a very popular ride, with wait times nearly 2 hours long.  Luckily, we were able to escape the long lines by getting there early and we were able to ride it twice!  Score.

After riding Toy Story Mania, it got Quinn in the mood to want to meet Buzz and Woody.  Sullivan was reluctant to meet them, but caved in and appeased her sister. Ryan took this opportunity to sneak away and ride Rock 'n Roller Coaster - a ride none of us ladies were willing to accompany him on!

Meeting these two gave Quinn the bug to want to meet a few more characters...this time Star Wars characters.  That's where Sullivan tapped out.  She absolutely did not want to meet them.  So we divided and conquered.  Ryan took Quinn, while Sull and I did some pin trading!

Another thing that the girls researched prior to going to Disney was pressed penny machines.  Apparently Disney has a gazillion penny machines throughout all their parks and resorts.  The girls brought plenty of coins to get their fill of pennies, and that they got!

Animal Kingdom

You can obviously tell that Animal Kingdom was one of our last parks. The amount of pictures that I took drastically dwindled.  That doesn't mean that we didn't have a blast there, it just means that I didn't do a great job of documenting those memories!

We started the morning on an African safari.  We saw lots of amazing animals - crocodiles, hippos, elephants, giraffes, lions and way more!

After that, we took in a musical presentation of The Lion King.  The talent in that room was overwhelming - those dancers and singers and acrobats were amazing!

Ryan and the girls took on another roller coaster.  I gracefully bowed out of this ride, as it is a cross between a roller coaster and the tilt-a-whirl.  I don't think my stomach can handle roller coasters well, let along spinning roller coasters!

Nonetheless, the three of them had a blast!

We ended the day at Animal Kingdom with a bang!  We had Fast Passes to the new Avatar ride - where wait times were over 300 hundred minutes.  That's five hours.  Yes, FIVE hours!! I can't imagine standing in line for 1/2 day for one ride.  But people were doing it.  Lots of people.

We had heard unbelievable things about the ride, but along the area around it called Pandora.  Now I haven't seen the movie and I surely didn't know a lot about it before we went, but what we saw was spectacular!  The pictures don't do it any justice.

No pictures of any sort were allowed on the ride, nor would we have been able to take pictures if we wanted to.  This ride straps you into a motorcycle like gadget.  Wearing 3D glasses, this ride takes you INTO the land of Pandora where you are riding on the back of a Banshee (the monster-like creature from the movie).  

Everyone had told us that you feel like you are flying - like F-L-Y-I-N-G.  I don't know that I necessarily believed them. I mean how real can a ride feel?!  And how can you feel like you are flying when you are sitting down strapped into a machine?!

Well, the answer is this... I don't know how they do it.  The technology is beyond my comprehension.  But the truth is this - the four of us FLEW over the land of Pandora.  We soared, dipped, whizzed, floated, and zipped through this magical land!  AMAZING!!!

I don't know about 5 hours amazing, but without a doubt, mind blowing!  It was a great way to end the day!

Just a short post left to wrap up our time at Disney... stay tuned to find out what special visitor came to see us on our last night there!