Orlando and Disney Trip

It has been ages since my last post. Life gets busy and somehow blogging has not been high on my to do list! We finished out school for the year but are doing light school throught out the summer. It's good to keep some routine and keep the kids practicing their handwriting and math. We are also looking foward to a summer filled with swimming and reading good books!

We have just retured from a wonderful vacation to Orlando. For Christmas this past year Chase's parents surprised us with a fabulous gift of a week at Mariott's Grande Vista. Our villa was awesome! Thank you Mimi and Papa! We also spent a day at Disney's Magic Kingdom park and a day at Disney's Hollywood Studio park. Here are some pictures from our trip. Enjoy!

In front of the Playhouse Disney Showat Hollywood Studios. Fun and interactive show for the younger kids.

The Muppet show was great, very funny and entertaining and nice and cool!

This rental stroller was great for our tired kiddos. Having 2 strollers worked out very well.


A fountion outside of Muppet Vision 3D

Beauty and the Beast was the girls favorite show at Hollywood Studios

Outside of the Wilderness Lodge

On a walk around the Mariott Grande Vista

Kassidy trying to ride the bikes off the balcony. :)

Caedmon and Chloe by one of the pools

Swimming was one of our favorite things to do and we had some great pools!

View from our balcony.

Very interesting bison outside of the Wilderness Lodge . I'm not sure what JCaedmon is holding though.

In front of the TRex cafe. Very neat restaurant. Dinos were so real and made such realistic sounds that the kids were scared to go inside at first.

Cooling off in a fountain in Downtown Disney.

Chase and John Caedmon by a Leggo shark creation.

This is outside the Disney store in downtown disney. There was a whole section just for princess stuff. My girls loved it!

Cinderella is Abbey's favorite princess!

Amazing Leggo people creations outside of the Leggo store at Downtown Disney.

John Caedmon has found that he LOVES leggos. This was an increadible store to see.


Here we are at the somewhat beginning of our day in the Magic Kingdom. After walking to the tram, folding up our stroller and shoving it on while trying to hold all our bags, riding the tram, getting off and then riding the ferry, then waiting in line to get our tickets from will call, then renting our second stroller....after all that we finally made it in to the Magic Kingdom in Disney! Yipee!! It only took about 1 1/2 hours to get in. :)

My parents got to join us for part of our trip. It was very nice having them with us!

Here is our van packed full and ready to go!

Inauguration day

Chase and I watched the inauguration today on tv, with the kids. The thing that stood out most to us was the contrasting prayers offered by Rick Warren and Joseph Lowery. What did you think about them?

Chase posted them on our church's website to try and get some feedback:

Joseph Lowery prayer transcript.

Rick Warren prayer transcript.

Check them out, and leave us a comment!

Our Four Bundles of Joy!

This picture was taking at the Knoxville Zoo during Thanksgiving.

Time to update my blog!

Hello All,

I just had a moment and decided to check on our blog. I found 3 drafts to posts I had never posted. So I went ahead and posted them. I would love to update my blog soon. Can anybody tell me how to update to the new blogger format without loosing all my past posts?? I just do not know as much about the computer as my husband does! Maybe I will be able to update our blog over Christmas...

I am enjoying the rain this morning. What a wonderful God we have who sends rest and refreshment to us. A God who quenches our thirst when we are dry and weary. Praise God this morning with me!!

The baby has gotten into the pantry! Gotta run...

Gratitude

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name." Psalm 100:4

Recently I was meditating on Psalms 100. Verse four always stands out to me. It seems to give a key to entering the courts of heaven. A key to coming into Gods court to meet with him. We enter his presence with thanksgiving and praise. I am not always very good at thank-you notes. But God is showing me the importance of not only having a grateful heart but putting it into action. Today we begin our family time of Advent. We are all excited about these special family time each night. My hopes is that during this Christmas season we will not forget to come into his presence each day with gratitude and praise!

Speaking to gratitude, we just returned home from a wonderful trip Knoxville to visit family for Thanksgiving. We had a great time visiting will Aunts, Uncles and cousins. We enjoyed going to the Knoxville zoo, hanging out and talking with family, watching movies in Uncle Herb's Theater, seeing Cousin David's chickens, having a wonderful dinner with my cousin Gary and Angie and their 8 kids, eating LOTs of food and even going to the Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga on the way home. I always love to go to Knoxville. I wish we could visit more often. I am blessed by a wonderful heritage of family that follows the Lord.

I always enjoy talking with my cousin Angie. She also homeschools her kids and does a great job with her family. I have lots of questions I like to ask her and she has such grace and wisdom. Angie has eight kids! Isn't that great!! Anyway, this year she gave me a grain mill to try. Yes that is right. A mill to make flour! We will see how that works around here...

I just posted a lot of pictures to Flickr. Check out our newest pictures by clicking here. Flickr page

Science Day at the park