Spring Break 2011

Oh wow…I have a ton of pictures and a lot to write about.  Spring Break 2011 is one I hope we remember for a very long time!

Since we were driving to Disney World (20 hours from our house) we decided to break the trip up going to Orlando and coming back home.

We left on Friday afternoon, after Matthew got home from work.  (I had planned on having the car packed and ready to go by the time he got home but I seriously over-estimated my ability to get everything done by 3:00…we ended up leaving at 4:00.)

Here is a picture of the “pharmacy” that I had to bring with us-and no one was sick!  It’s a tad ridiculous, but you never know when someone is going to need a dose of medicine.  Sigh.  I remember when packing was easy…

We ended up spending Friday night in Little Rock with Brian and Julia.  Look at how big sweet little Esther has gotten:

She’s already 6 weeks old.  Hard to believe that in 7 weeks, this will be Rives that Elyn and Nora are holding instead of Esther…cue panic attack.

The next morning before we left, we got all four kids together for the “cousin picture’:

Nora-5 years old; Elyn-3.5 years old; Noah-2 years old; Esther-6 weeks old

I love how Noah looks like the biggest one of the group.  Nora takes that prize, I am sure it’s just how they are all sitting.

We drove the next day to Hattiesburg, MS to spend the night with Pops and LeeLee.  It’s so nice to have family along the way!

The girls had plenty of “entertainment” in the car!  I made sure they were properly outfitted with crayons, markers, coloring books, stickers, magnets, etc.

We stopped quite a bit, for the girls and for ME (I was under strict instructions from my doctor to stop every 100 miles or 2 hours-whichever came first).  At each stop, we “exercised”.  Nora asked at every stop, “Do we get to exercise now?”  (And, no, I did not participate in any jumping jacks-ha!  Can you imagine that?)

But all that “crafting”, exercising and movies can sure wear you out-ha!  (Do you see the glue stick in her hand?)

When we got to Hattiesburg Saturday night, LeeLee had a family dinner to go to, so Pops took us all to Gatti Town.  This was our first experience with Gatti Town and going at 6pm on a Saturday night was probably not the most wise-ha!  Let’s just say, it prepared us for the craziness of Disney World.

Bowling with Pops

The indoor carousel…it was at this point in the trip that Elyn decided to stop smiling for the camera.  She provided many great photo ops while at Disney World (sarcasm).

At Gatti Town, the girls won some tickets (like Chuck E Cheese) and were able to redeem them for prizes.  Elyn chose these gold teeth-ha ha ha ha!  And she wore them ALL WEEK!  They are probably her favorite thing from the entire trip…sigh.

We left Hattiesburg early for the last leg of our journey.  It was a lot of the same…sitting in the car, watching movies, taking naps, coloring/crafting, stopping at rest stops…

We packed a soccer ball and ball/glove type thing in the van for our longer stops…

I’m not quite sure what exactly happened in the next series of pictures but I do know that whatever happened resulted in Elyn crying and sitting in time out…three is a hard age for her!

Thankfully, she was able to serve her “sentence” and recover in enough time to play the last game before getting back in the car.

We arrived in Orlando and headed straight to dinner with my mom (she was able to spend some time with us at DW during our time there), stepbrother, Drew, and his wife and kids.

While we were there, Elyn decided to write her name…all on her own.  She has been writing random letters for a while.  She can recognize several letters (I have no idea how many though, I should really write that down) and can reproduce any letter, but she has never written her name without assistance   Here it is:

My mom with her grandkids (most of them).  And yes, Elyn is wearing her gold teeth…

Okay, that is our journey TO Disney World…next up, DAY ONE!