KerryAndGabe.com

Something I’m hoping: Well, when I first started writing this, I said that I hoped that Gabe and Cullen were better soon and didn’t spread their germs to me. Unfortunately, they did spread their germs to me, but after 24 hours of the stomach bug I felt a lot better. We are crossing our fingers that Maddie stays healthy.

Something happening around the house: We were supposed to have been out of town of this weekend, but we had to cancel our trip to Atlanta since the boys were sick on the way down. Our house might have been tidy, but instead it’s the usual disaster zone.

Something I’m reading: I finished the 4th Percy Jackson book, and I started and finished The Kitchen House for book club. I enjoyed it and look forward to discussing it at book club! I started the 5th (and final) Percy Jackson book.

Something Gabe is reading: He finished The Lightning Thief in the Percy Jackson series and started on the 2nd book. Unfortunately, the Percy Jackson series is no longer “always available” on the kindle at the library. Darn! It was so convenient. Oh well, we have the 2nd book in paperback, and we put Gabe on the waiting list for the 3rd.

Something I’m watching: We sorta watched Red, but it didn’t keep my attention too much. I took Maddie to see Puss in Boots at our dinner theater on Sunday afternoon. She really loved it! Mostly, we wanted to get out of the germ infested house with Gabe and Cullen and their bugs.

Something I’m playing: Go Away Monster and Kids of Carcassonne. I played a few minutes of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Something I’m creating: I have been creating more blog posts than anyone wants to read. I don’t have any lined up, so I’m going to have to work on those this week, I suppose. If I get the motivation… I am finally getting around to our Christmas thank you notes.

Something about both kiddos: The kids are very cute together this week. Sometimes, they can play together so well. Of course, they have their share of fights (and things can escalate so fast with siblings!).

Something Maddie is doing (46 months old): We went to her first movie at our dinner theater, as I mentioned. She also had her first in a series of ballet classes. Work is offering another set of convenient classes after work on Thursdays, so we’re giving those another try. She participated very well in her first session. She listened to the instructor and followed all of the instructions. This is quite a change from her first class last time. It helps that some of her friends are in the class!

Something Cullen is doing (23 months old): I took a cute video last week of Cullen singing almost all of the words to “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.” He’s quite the cutie! He’s had a stomach bug for most of the past week and a bit of a cold, too. Poor little guy. He’s also still working on those eye teeth. He has been in the booster instead of his high chair at the dinner table, and he’s done with high chairs at restaurants. He kicked the table last week and toppled his chair backward. It’s one of those things that happened in slow motion for me, but I couldn’t stop it from happening. Yikes! The top of his chair (and his head) landed on the carpet, which I think helped. Fortunately, he was fine, but it was scary for a moment! He has had some bad nights in the past week between teething and being sick and has done some waking in the middle of the night to fuss a bit and then goes back to sleep. He’s still using the paci at night.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I might book not just one but two Disney trips…one for me and a girlfriend (without kids!) and another with the family in October. Woohoo! I can’t believe that I’m planning to go to Disney without the kiddos, but I’m looking forward to doing some of the adult and less little-kid-friendly things.

Something I learned: Gabe and I are getting more educated about fructose malabsorption (something he was diagnosed with a while back but we haven’t been diligent about).

Something I’m looking forward to: We have dinner and games with friends, a balance bike date, and another ballet class, assuming that we are all healthy enough by then. Cullen’s birthday is Sunday. I can’t believe that he’s going to be 2! We are going to find some special ways to celebrate on Sunday, and the kids are having a small joint party this year in a few weeks.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: I enjoyed visiting with family this weekend, especially my great aunts and great uncle.

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking about what a wonderful person that my grandpa was, and I’m missing him already.

Something happening around the house: We were in Atlanta for the funeral, so it’s a mess (especially since the cleaners were supposed to come while we were gone, but we cancelled).

Something I’m reading: This week, I received notification that both The Peach Keeper and A Feast for Crows kindle versions were available for me to borrow from the library. I’m reading The Peach Keeper since I don’t have a print copy (and the waiting list is REALLY long). I haven’t had much chance to read the past couple of days.

Something Gabe is reading: The Hero of Ages.

Something tasty: We had a very tasty brunswick stew this weekend. I need to get that recipe.

Something about both kiddos: The kids were pretty good during our trip to Atlanta (with the exception of an hour or so in the car and bedtime the first night). Gabe said they were perfect angels during the visitation and funeral, as evidenced by FOUR new “buddies” from the Disney store. Gabe couldn’t resist getting Goofy, Daisy, Donald, and Pluto to complete our cast of characters from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Something Maddie is doing (45 months old): We told Maddie that we could no longer see and visit with Great Grandpa because he died. She asked some questions but seemed to understand that we weren’t going to be able to see him anymore. She did think that we would get “another Great Grandpa,” and we explained it didn’t work that way. She told several people that we didn’t have a Great Grandpa anymore. The night before we went to Atlanta, she said to me, “Great people live in Atlanta, right?” So sweet. She missed her last ballet class, unfortunately. She talks about ballet constantly. She worked on her book a little bit more. I can’t wait to post about that one. It’s entertaining. Santa is glad that he already has Maddie’s LeapFrog LeapPad Tablet (unbeknownst to her), as it seems to be very difficult to get at the moment! Maddie slept on a sleeper sofa for the first time. It worked out pretty well!

Something Cullen is doing (21 months old): Cullen’s crib days are nearing an end. He was trying to climb out of the pack and play several times. Since we have the cruise so soon, we’re not sure we want to make this transition quite yet! We were depending on having him in the pack and play at least through the end of the year. We had already decided to turn him forward facing before we found out about my grandpa. He seems pretty excited to be facing forward and has been chatty on our drives about what he can see now.

Something I am struggling with: Aside from the obvious, writing this blog post.

Something I learned: I learned that many people loved my grandpa, and it was wonderful to meet some of the people that have been so important to him and my grandma.

Something I’m looking forward to: Breaking Dawn and visiting with my family for Thanksgiving.

Something random: I received the following hilarious spam comment this week: I like seeing web sites that postulate the abetment of supplying a nature tip useful useful resource in that unshackle. profuse thanks since this glorious rudiment of knowledge about info.

Something captured: It was difficult to choose one this week, but I thought that this was a cute one of Cullen and me.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Continuing with the trip report, we got checked into our hotel, grabbed some groceries, and headed to my grandparents house. We had dinner at their house and did some visiting. We returned the next day and were joined by my parents, aunt, uncle, and cousins.

The kids were excited to be in a new place and to play with the special toys.

We had to watch Cullen closely to keep him from getting into trouble. He found every rocking chair in the house and tried to throw them off their rockers. That was a little stressful!

We celebrated my mom’s birthday. Maddie decorated the fancy bakery cake with Cars sprinkles.

My grandparents were so excited to see their great grandchildren.

The kids were excited to play with the special toys that my grandma always gets out for them.

John Thomas played his trumpet for the kids, and they LOVED it. They kept saying, “again! again!” They danced around and made requests (like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, naturally).

Somebody had a few too many buddies in their crib. The kids slept in the same room in Atlanta with mixed results. They kept each other up late. They were mostly happy, giggling and tossing stuffed animals. It was both cute and maddening at the same time. We considered it a good trial run for the cruise, if we decide to put them in the same room.

We met friends and my cousin and his new wife for brunch on Sunday on our way back. We had some nice visits during our weekend in Atlanta! Maddie wanted to wear her new boots on the way home – so cute!

We went to Atlanta to visit family over Labor Day weekend. It was a quick visit, and we didn’t take too many photos. We left at about 4pm or so and ran into the worst traffic that we have encountered on the way to Atlanta. We didn’t arrive at our hotel until about 12:30am. I can’t believe it took us over 8 hours to travel what should have been less than 4 and a half hours. The kids weren’t awful, but Maddie didn’t fall asleep until it was quite late. Cullen had a nice little snooze.

So, when we arrived at the hotel, of course the kids were wide awake, and we were ready to sleep.

Hi, Mommy! Hotels are fun! Do I look like I want to sleep?

Time for the DS and books! What else are we going to do at 1am??

Time to play my special game!

We had lunch with my aunt, uncle, and cousin the next day. We got a little bit of a late start and stopped by the Stride Rite outlet to stock up on shoes for both kids. We were once again reminded that shopping for a child with two different sized feet is a challenge. The latest challenge is that her left foot is still toddler sized while her right foot is in the preschool sizes. Not too many styles cross over.

We spent some time with family and tried to get Cullen to nap. He just flopped around in the pack-n-play for a while until we decided to get the kids in the car and head to the hotel and my grandparents house, hoping he would sleep in the car. He didn’t! This was the first day that he went the whole day without a wink of a nap.

We took some photos in the front yard. The kids aren’t exactly cooperative with family photos these days. This is the best we can usually get.

Maddie had so much fun with my aunt Laura, and I think that she was confused and thought her name was Nana, too. She called her Nana and Nana Laura most of the time. I don’t think that Laura minded at all. They really bonded. Maddie made her ride in her “car” and take trips to the park where they had a dance party. We were amused watching her drag Laura all over the place with her adventures.

I was glad that we could coordinate a visit this time!

And the kids are always happy with new adventures and extra attention!

Part 2 coming soon!

Something I’m thinking: I was thinking about doing this yesterday from my mom’s iPad, but it was a pain…so I decided to wait until we got back home from Atlanta.

Something happening around the house: I think we found a new maid service. We really need them to come soon!

Something about our travels: We went to Atlanta this weekend to visit my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. We managed to do quite a bit of visiting this weekend! We stayed in a hotel on Friday night that was over halfway, but it took us about 8 hours to get there (instead of the usual 4). It was just about the worst traffic that either of us had seen. We encountered accident after accident after accident. Whew. The trip back was much better, thank goodness.

Something I’m reading: I finally finished A Storm of Swords! I decided to read Four Corners of the Sky on the kindle (and maybe a few other books) before starting on A Feast for Crows.

Something Gabe is reading: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. He’s already about halfway through the book. Gabe is on a roll!

Something tasty: My dad’s famous meatloaf. Nobody does it better.

Something Maddie is doing (42 months old): We stopped at one of the Stride Rite outlets on the way to Atlanta, and we bought every Maddie-pair that we could find in the store. Her left foot is still solidly in toddler styles while her right foot is now a preschool size. They do not make very many crossover shoes, unfortunately. We found a pair of tennis shoes, a pair of dress shoes, and a pair of boots. She’s excited about all of them. We noticed some bigger differences between the shoes in at least the tennis shoes. The soles are much different, so the bigger shoe just looks a lot bigger this time than it has in the past. I’m sure that most people won’t notice. If they notice that the bottoms are different, I’m sure they will just assume that the designer did that on purpose to be “cool.” Now if we can only convince shoe-makers to start making each shoe drastically different from the other in the pair, we’ll have a much easier time with this. Oh, and I learned that Maddie is quite motivated by tiny dinosaur figures. I promised her a dinosaur if she would be quiet for 5 minutes. I don’t think that the child has ever not talked for 5 minutes. She said, “ok!” and that was the last thing she said until I told her the 5 minutes was up and handed her the dinosaur. We were amazed that worked. I need to go back to the craft store and buy every tube of animals that they have. Later, Gabe asked Maddie if she could be quiet for 15 minutes next time. She looked at him very seriously and said, “no, I can’t. I can’t be quiet for 15 minutes. How about 5 again?”

Something Cullen is doing (19 months old): I couldn’t take his crazy hair any longer, and I took him to get a haircut last week. His new big boy hair cut is cute!!! I still didn’t want them to cut off his curls. They cut it a little shorter than I had anticipated, but the curls are already coming back. Cullen did a lot of talking over the weekend, and he is especially fond of repeating just about anything anyone says. His new phrase from being in the car for so many hours this weekend was “Get me book/dinosaur/Minnie/cup.” He dropped a lot of things and said this phrase often. In addition to sometimes saying, “thank you” unprompted, he now also says “thank you, you’re welcome” all together, anticipating the response. He’s putting together more and more two and three word phrases (and sometimes more, like the other day he said, “I’m watching a movie.”). He is quite fond of saying, “Mommy, no!” He said, “rocking chair” a disproportionate number of times this weekend as he discovered 3 different rocking chairs at my grandparents house. This made us quite nervous as he wanted to rock vigorously in them each time. Oh, and he didn’t nap on Saturday. This was the first time that he ever went without a nap for a full day.

Something I’m struggling with: I had a root canal this week. It didn’t seem to have worked.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: Until I took photos of Cullen at his haircut this week and took photos this weekend, I was caught up with uploading photos to Shutterfly. I also worked a little bit on Maddie’s “letters from Mommy” book.

Something I’m looking forward to: Games night on Saturday. My birthday isn’t this week…but it is SOON!

Something captured: This is why we have Catherine do our family photos. I don’t know how she works her magic, but this is about as good as it gets otherwise.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

We went to Atlanta for Maddie’s birthday where we had a very special lunch at the American Girl store. We visited with my grandparents and my dad’s sister’s family. We were joined by my parents and Gabe’s mom. We had a wonderful weekend! I’ll post about the American Girl Bistro experiences in a separate post.

The kids had fun playing with a mixture of toys that belonged to my dad, his sister, and my cousins. I played with a few of these when I was a kid as well.

The weather was beautiful on Saturday, which was the day before Maddie’s birthday. We decided to give her her main present early. She was excited about her balance bike!

Nana and Grandma accompanied us for her inaugural ride.

She is going to need a little bit of practice to get the hang of this thing. She loved it, especially when Daddy gave her a push.

We couldn’t believe how nice the weather was in February. This was a pleasant surprise after a cold December and January.

My grandpa loved cuddling and watching Cullen. I think he got a kick out of Cullen’s persistence. Cullen repeatedly wanted to get into cabinets, climb on things, and go after anything that isn’t for babies. My grandparents house isn’t exactly baby-proofed!

Maddie played outside for a little while with Grandma and Daddy while Cullen napped and Mommy took a side trip to Urgent Care.

We went out to dinner to celebrate (Great) Grandma and (Great) Grandpa’s upcoming birthdays. Cullen thought that the ribs were tasty.

Maddie was excited about her “dirt cup” dessert which came with the kids’ meal. Papa helped her sort through the worms.

Maddie had a lot of fun playing in Grandma’s bed while Daddy put Cullen to bed each night. She and Grandma had a big, fun time. She started calling Grandma, “Regular Grandma” to differentiate from Great Grandma.

Sunday, February 20th was Maddie’s birthday, and we celebrated at the American Girl Bistro. More on that outing later, but here’s a sneak peek of our special girl on her special day.

Nana and Papa headed back home in the early afternoon. We stayed until Monday morning along with Gabe’s mom.

Maddie loved all of her new doll accessories. The child loves her dolls! She sang Happy Birthday to Annabelle and Henry with her new table and birthday party set (shortly after this photo, they changed into their new soccer outfits).

Cullen looks like he’s trying to find something on the TV in the hotel room. The kiddos loved playing around in the hotel bed. I’m not sure what it is about hotels, but Maddie has always been very excited to flop around in the hotel beds.

It’s hard to tell in this photo, but Cullen was so funny with the air blowing his hair. He thought it was hilarious as well.

Cullen slept in the pack-n-play (well, when he wasn’t joining us in the bed). Sweet little boy!

Maddie insisted on sleeping with her dolls (who have to take off their shoes, socks, and shin guards before bed). We love her little inflatable travel bed!

It’s been a busy few weeks for us, so I pretty much knew I wasn’t going to be able to get both letters done on time. I can’t believe that Maddie is closer to 3 years old than two and a half. I guess I better get used to saying that she is “almost 3″ instead of saying “two and a half.” Here’s another letter to Maddie. I’ve been working on it since the 20th when she was 33 months old. It might take you until the next 20th to read it all. (more…)

Something that makes me happy: The idea of sleep. Too bad it’s not my reality. And, for the record, the time change business is stupid…especially when you have a baby and a toddler. It isn’t to blame for the majority of my sleep issues, but it DID NOT HELP.

Something I’m thinking: I’m exhausted after our weekend trip to Atlanta, especially now that our whole family seems to have gotten a cold.

Something I’m hoping: I hope that we didn’t pass along our germs to anyone else this weekend.

Something happening around the house: So, uh, remember the bushes that we removed from the front of our house? It seems that they were blocking the huge window above our front door. In the past day or so, it has confused two birds to their deaths. I hope that this isn’t a new trend. I am sad for the little birdbrains.

Something I’m reading: The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I am pretty sure I’ll be able to finish it before our book club meeting.

Something I’m watching: Gabe and I took an extra day of vacation before our trip and went to a see a lunchtime showing of Despicable Me at Raleighwood. We loved it!

Something I’m playing: We played some euchre with my parents on Thursday night. We stayed with them on the way to Atlanta (and took my dad down with us).

Something tasty: The honey roasted BBQ sauce from Chick-fil-a. Gabe has always complained when he finds that his sandwich order was missing the special sauce. Now I understand why. Yum!

Something Maddie is doing (32 months old): Maddie continues to amaze me with her language skills. She seems to be able to communicate almost anything now, and it is not often that we do not understand what she is trying to say. Yesterday morning, she refused to wear her orange and pink jacket and said, “No, Mommy. It doesn’t match. I’m not wearing any orange.” Oh, boy. At breakfast on Sunday, I allowed her a special treat of some Fruit Loops. She systematically ate all of the pieces of cereal in one color and then moved to the next color. This weekend, we made our first trip to the American Girl store. We all thought that was pretty cool (except for maybe Cullen who was positively indifferent). Maddie exclaimed, “these dolls have hair!” Santa did some shopping when she wasn’t looking. She also went crazy for the Cars movie car figures in the Disney Store. She has been convinced for the past few months that Santa is going to bring her some cars. Indeed.

Something Cullen is doing (41 weeks old): Cullen continued to have some rough nights this week, despite stopping the antibiotic for a few days. Unfortunately, we can’t tell if the antibiotic might have been the cause since he came down with a cold at about the same time that we stopped it. Frustrating! The last couple of nights have been better, which makes me think that the antibiotic may have been the issue and then he came down with this nasty cold. I’ve been sick, too, and it hasn’t been fun for me, either. Cullen went to the doctor on Monday (Nov 8th) to talk about his chronic terrible nights which has been going on for about 6 weeks now. We are trying to determine whether it is a reflux issue, a hunger issue, or (in my opinion) an issue with the antibiotic. Cullen and I went to the lactation consultant yesterday, and she suggested that I take fenugreek for a week to see whether or not my supply is an issue. The lactation consultant was very impressed at how efficient and quick that Cullen is when nursing. As usual, he was not very focused when nursing and kept popping off and on and was constantly “doing gymnastics” while nursing. The lactation consultant was shocked when we weighed him and he had actually taken in the proper amount, even with all that flailing around. That was a relief to me as I always wondered whether he was getting anything, given the amount of time that he actually seems to be nursing! Cullen has continued to add to his list of foods, this week eating Kix cereal, bits of pancake, green beans, peas, pasta, french fries, bread, and baked beans. I’ve been trying to give him more and more from my plate, and he’s definitely getting less interested in the purees. The doctor and lactation consultant suggested higher calorie and high protein foods, so we will be trying to focus on those. I’ve been eating some dairy, though I’ve tried to make good choices and stay away from it when possible. Oh, and the best news of all is that he did fabulously on our road trip to Atlanta! He barely fussed in the car at all, though he cried every time we approached the car. We didn’t even have to be putting him in the seat, he knew what was about to happen. Sometimes, we wouldn’t even have to be opening the van door. Once, he started screaming when I took the keys out of my pocket! When you try to put him in the car seat, he arches his back in an attempt to keep us from physically getting him in the seat.

Something I am struggling with: This yucky cold, bad nights with Cullen, and endless video tapes.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I’ve been converting the tapes from our video camera to digital form so that we can sell the video camera. We never use it, and video is so overwhelming to me. I figure we may want a proper video camera a few years down the road when we’re dealing with recitals and school plays. For now, the snippets taken on the digital camera and iPhone are sufficient for us! It’s my goal to sell enough stuff from around the house so I can get the camera lens that I’ve had my eye on for a few months. We are also making progress toward our goal of each of us having a unique credit card in our wallet in the event that one of us loses a wallet or has it stolen (or just loses our main credit card since we have just one). This happened to my parents on our cruise last year, and they were grateful that their cards had different numbers! Gabe has a new card, and I hope to get mine soon. I just have to figure out which one is going to give us the best benefits.

Something I learned: The Target credit card now gets you 5% off of all purchases at Target! It doesn’t have any real benefits when used elsewhere, but we spend so much at Target that we’re glad to have 5% off everything!

Something I’m looking forward to: Dinner (and possibly a movie) with a friend tonight, dinner and games on Friday, and games night on Saturday. Fun stuff!

Something random: You’d think that this would be the easiest category to write about, but I find myself stumped quite often.

Something captured: It was challenging to get a photo of the four generations this weekend, but here’s one of them.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Some days I feel like I’ll never catch up on photos and trip reports and such, and other days I feel like I might be able to do it. So, I’m a little behind.

For those of you who do not want to read my long winded trip report, here’s some links to photos from our trip (if you don’t want to read my long winded posts and don’t care for the photos, then what are you doing here at all?):
Georgia
Disney
The rest of Florida

Before they knew that we were pregnant with Cullen, Gabe’s parents had booked a condo in Orlando and invited us to join them. We hadn’t told them about the new grandchild and tentatively said we would go. Since we knew the baby would still be very young by the time of the trip, we were really not sure whether we would want to go! We knew it would be somewhat of a last minute decision. I was pretty optimistic, but Gabe was not.

We knew that it was going to be a long drive, but we thought it would be easier to drive than fly this time. I’m glad we drove just based on the large amount of stuff that we had to bring with us! While I’m sure we could have been fine with much less, it sure is nice to be able to pack little conveniences like boppies, extra pillows, and pack-n-plays.

The first leg was easy. Maddie was happy, and Cullen slept the majority of the time. It takes around 3 hours to get to my parents’ house, which was our first destination. We decided to have lunch and spend a little time with my parents on our way down to Atlanta. We spent a little more time at their house than we had intended, but it was really nice to visit with them. The rest of the day did not go so smoothly! In fact, that was the only time in the car that was pleasant. We had lots of crying from both kids and very little quiet time on our rides.

Our next stop was Atlanta for a few days, including Easter Sunday. We visited with my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. This was the first time we had stayed in a hotel since Cullen was born, and we opted for Embassy Suites so that we could have a little extra living space. We weren’t sure how the two kids would sleep in the same room, so Maddie slept in the living room and the rest of us were in the bedroom. We blockaded the door with a chair since we were a little nervous about having Maddie in the front room. We left our door cracked open, too, and we were happy to have the video monitor. The room worked out really well for us, though the free breakfast was a bit lacking at this particular Embassy Suites.

We had a very nice visit with my grandparents, and everyone was so happy to see our kids. This was the first time that Cullen met any Atlanta family. Maddie was excited about the Easter Bunny. She and I had shared some Peeps recently, so she was thrilled to hear that the Easter Bunny would bring her a basket of goodies, including Peeps. When my grandma asked Maddie who the Easter Bunny was, she replied, “The Easter Bunny is a bunny who brings Peeps!” The Easter Bunny did indeed bring her Peeps as well as some other goodies. He brought a feeding kit for her doll, some coloring books, crayons, stickers, eggs with Play-Doh and bunny snacks. She loved all of it. We then had an Easter Egg hunt in my grandparents’ back yard. This was the first year that she really understood what was going on with the Easter Bunny, egg dying and egg hunts. I loved it!

We left Atlanta to drive about halfway to Orlando. Once again, we had a rough ride both to the hotel and then to the condo the next day. Whew! Of course, we knew that this was a possibility since Cullen had not proven himself to be a good car rider in his life so far! It didn’t help that we were off schedule, we discovered Maddie doesn’t nap comfortable in the car anymore, Maddie was constipated, and the kids alternated in some kind of secret pact who would be the loudest at any given moment. Good times.

We did have a nice time while in Florida. We went to the pool, played ping pong and horseshoes, lost a little money at Bingo, and took it easy around the condo. We decided as we were driving into Orlando that we couldn’t be this close to Disney and NOT go.

So, we went to the Magic Kingdom for a day. It was a wonderful day, and I’m so happy that we decided to go!!! I thought that Maddie would be too young. I wasn’t sure how she would react to the rides or the costumed characters. She loved everything! Every time we rode a ride, she wanted to go on it again (with the exception of the carousel…she did not like it!). She loved Dumbo’s Flying Elephants, Aladdin’s Flying Carpets, and the Winnie the Pooh ride. She enjoyed going through Minnie’s House (which I thought was crowded and not terribly interesting, so I was surprised she wanted to do it again!). The highlight of the day was when she met her hero, Winnie the Pooh. She posed nicely for the photos, shook Pooh and Tigger’s hands, and hugged Pooh for a really long time. It was awesome. It was a little hot and at the height of Spring Break, but we still had such a great time. Next time, we will likely plan ahead a bit more (and pick a time of the year that is not so popular). Maddie did great with the lines and learned a thing or two about “taking turns.” She has been talking about how she met Winnie the Pooh and Tigger since then and how she gave Pooh a big hug. It’s about the sweetest thing ever!

The ride back was not smooth by any stretch of the imagination. The plan was to leave as early as we could and drive about halfway home. What actually happened was a flat tire on the van. We discovered it just as we were about to pull out of the parking lot of the condo. Fortunately, Gabe’s parents were staying one extra day. This was a very good thing since we had a place to be with the kiddos while we sorted out the tire issues. We called AAA and were excited to use the auto services for the first time (we mostly get AAA for the discounts on hotels). Unfortunately, AAA was worthless to us. They would only come out and change the flat tire, but they couldn’t even call us back for over an hour. The only thing that they could do is change the tire to our spare and could not do any diagnostics on the tire nor were they able to direct us to a service station that could help. Gabe and his parents decided to change the tire themselves while waiting for a call back from AAA. Gabe was already on his way to a service station by the time that AAA got back to us. Worthless!

By the time we had the tire inspected and back on the van, we had lost 3-4 hours. We now had a very wound up toddler who desperately needed a nap and was acting out in ways that I had never before witnessed. It was a very stressful morning and afternoon.

We finally got on the road over 5 hours after our scheduled departure, and ran into a massive traffic jam before we were even out of the Orlando area. That traffic jam took us two hours during which time both kids were extremely cranky. We canceled our hotel reservations midway as we weren’t sure how far we would be able to make it. Turns out that we should have kept our reservations in Savannah. We ran into another traffic jam after dinner. I’m not even sure we were out of Florida at this point. That traffic jam took us another 2 hours to clear. Now we have two cranky children and two cranky adults. By the time we cleared the traffic jam, it was around 10 or 11pm, and we could not find a hotel for over 100 miles. We called many hotels before finding a Hampton Inn in Santee, SC (about 2 hours from where we were at the time). We got the last room. Fortunately, they were true to their word and held the room for us. They had to turn away several weary travelers.

We brought in one pack-n-play, but we could have just left it in the car. We ended up each taking a bed and a child and got some sleep. The complimentary breakfast was the best that we had out of all the hotels on this trip. All of the staff that we ran into were extremely friendly. I can highly recommend the Santee, SC Hampton Inn! I had stayed in a few sub par Hampton Inns a while back, and this particular hotel has changed my opinion of the chain for the better.

The rest of the ride home was long, and we were extremely happy to be home again.

We can’t wait to take the kids to Disney within the next couple of years, though we will NOT be driving!! This trip was quite an adventure, though it will be a while before we try to tackle driving of that magnitude again. Whew! It was great to see family and positively magical to visit Magic Kingdom. We were glad that we went on the trip!

I can’t believe my sweet baby boy is already 3 months old. Babies sure do change fast, and I know we’re going to see even more changes and milestones over the next few months. So, here’s the next installment in the letters to Cullen series. (more…)