Part 4- North & South Carolina

To finish up our 2 week vacation, we headed up to the Carolinas to meet up with the rest of the family for Chanda & Nate's open house. We left right from Typhoon Lagoon and within a few minutes our kiddos looked like this in the backseat...

They were out! We tried to wake Ethan up to eat at Subway and he just couldn't wake up, so we let him take a little snooze on the bench.

We stayed that night at our half-way point and then made the rest of the drive on the day of their open house.

I thought it was so cool to see where the I-10 begins!

We arrived in Charlotte, NC just in enough time for me to fix Chanda's hair and get myself ready before all the guests arrived. Justin was amazing with watching the kids and getting them ready for all the wedding stuff while I helped Chanda out!

I love this picture of Ellie eyeing down my food!

Chanda of course looked so happy and gorgeous even though we received a good ole' southern rainstorm right before the reception that made them move everything inside.

Once the rain cleared up, everyone made their way outside. I thought that this was such a cute picture of Justin, Ethan, Chay & Jordan.

Ethan was loving all the attention he got from everyone and he was intrigued by this toad that was found. He is fearless when it comes to holding yucky reptiles! Sorry, no offense to all you reptile lovers out there!

The Watterson's backyard was incredible. It should be featured in Better Home & Gardens or something. This picture is only a glimpse at what this yard was like.

It felt like you were walking into a tropical oasis. I could live here if I had a backyard like that, even with all the bugs and humidity :)

The next day, after church, we drove down to Charleston, SC where we stayed at a gorgeous beach house located right on the beach. The Wattersons were so nice to rent it out for all of us to stay in. On Monday we headed down to the beach and spent a big chunk of the day there.

Ellie loved the water and spent hours just meandering around, doing her own Ellie thing. Caryn was so sweet to watch her while I went out and played with everyone in the waves.

By the afternoon, she was exhausted!

But she got her second wind and was ready to explore some more....

Ethan LOVED playing out in the waves with all the big kids.

We found out that floaties don't really work too well in an ocean with waves. Ethan was up on a raft that Justin was pulling and there was a huge wave came that flipped Ethan out of the raft. We were all near the raft and Ethan had his floaties on so I didn't really worry previously but when I came up out of the wave to look for Ethan I saw his floaties drifting with the wave separate from each other, I panicked (ok, freaked-out!). That is the worse feeling in the world and we started searching frantically for Ethan. Luckily, Nate somehow saw him underneath the flipped over raft so we quickly grabbed him. He ended up being just fine but was a little scared of the waves after that. Justin was so good to hold him and help him to not be scared of the waves anymore. Ethan then went back to being his fearless self. Now we know that life jackets are essential for our little ones in the ocean!

The sun can really wear you out and so we went back to the house in the late afternoon. Ethan loved wearing Jordan's goggles and I thought it was cute that Ellie had to have them on as well to be just like her big brother!

Tuesday we headed to downtown Charleston to take a ferry to visit Fort Sumter where the Civil War began.

This place was fascinating and it was cool to be in the actual place where the bloodiest battle in our history began.

After that, we took a bus tour around Charleston and admired all the beautiful, old colonial homes and saw and learned a bit more of our nations history. Our bus driver was awesome and really made for an entertaining ride!

At the end of the tour we stopped to watch the sailboats and play in the water fountains.

Once we returned back to the beach house, the kids went down to the beach to see what they could find at night. They found a big crab, I think some other small things, and a baby shark!

The next day we flew back to AZ. We had such a fun vacation and hope to visit that part of the U.S. again someday. Even though it was a blast, we were glad to be home again and not living out of a suitcase. You know how it goes :)

Kickin' the Addiction

ad·dict

tr.v. ad·dict·ed, ad·dict·ing, ad·dicts

1. To cause to become physiologically or psychologically dependent on a habit-forming substance.

2. To occupy (oneself) with or involve (oneself) in something habitually or compulsively:

Ok, so maybe I'm not physiologically or psychologically dependent on this substance but I just have lost all control to say no. Same thing? Maybe. The substance(s) I am talking about is...sugar.

I used to be SO good at just saying no to eating an excessive amount treats, desserts, pastries, etc. and I think after this last miscarriage I stopped caring and thought that I deserved to eat as much of the sweet stuff as I wanted- after all, I wasn't trying to keep my body healthy for a baby anymore. *Just for the record, I was not depressed and yes, of course I know that healthy bodies need not only be for carrying babies :)* Anyway, I love desserts and my usual post- miscarriage nightly bowl of ice cream has continued on for oh like 3 months now. I feel like I have lost all control to say no and I am nipping this thing in the bud before I start to pack on pounds :)

Solution? No sugar for a month. Yikes! I'm not going to be super nazi about it (like not eating my usual bowl of cereal because of the 2 grams of sugar in there) but I am not allowed any treats, ice cream, brownies, candy, or whatever resembles these things for a whole month. It's not so much a lose weight thing but more of a have control over myself thing. I think it will be hard at first but worth it in the end! Days 1 & 2 have been so far so good. It's funny, I catch myself subconsciously heading right to the freezer for ice cream at night and just direct myself to the watermelon in the fridge instead. Wish me luck!

Memorial Day Tradition

I know I'm almost a month late with a Memorial Day Post but I'm trying to play some catch up before we leave again for 2 weeks to Minnesota.

Pretty much every Memorial Day since I married into the Smith family, we have gone to Grandma & Grandpa Chapman's cabin up in the pines of AZ. It' a family tradition that I love and hope to continue every year. It is so beautiful up there and it is always a nice escape from the heat of the valley during the summers.

We almost always go for a walk through the woods and this time we got lost. We eventually made it to a little farm with some horses and the owners helped us get back on the right track.

Ellie loved the horses.

Ethan was so tired and luckily his uncles were willing to carry him on their shoulders for the hour plus hike! What good uncles my kids have!

Ethan LOVED riding the motorcycles with daddy. Don't you love his super safe (?) over sized helmet?

On our last day there we drove down to a beautiful little lake and walked along the shoreline skipping rocks and avoiding the mean geese.

We came back to the valley for Memorial Day and went to visit Grandpa Smith's grave site. Justin left for some foreign country that morning so he sadly couldn't join us. This is a tradition that they do and it was so neat for me to join them and learn even more of what a great man Justin's grandpa was.

It is so nice to have 3 very helpful aunts and uncles still at home to play with and entertain our kids!

Ellie didn't quite understand why we needed to be reverent at the cemetery and she was so.... helpful....with rearranging the bouquets of flowers on different people's gravestones and ripping the flags out of the ground. She has good taste for pretty things I suppose :)

Part 3- Back to DisneyWorld!

After a few days in the Keys, we headed back up to Orlando and tackled the rest of DisneyWorld.

We stayed in the same Holiday Inn Express from earlier in the week but this time we had time to play in this cool little water park they have for the kids who stay there. The water was too cold for me but the kiddos didn't even seem to notice.

Ellie loved scooping up the water in the cup and pouring it out... I love how the simplest things can entertain a baby.

Ethan made a few friends and used them for their toys :)

The next day we loaded our Wal-Mart bags full of food and water and headed off to Disney, for round 2. This day we went to Epcot.

Of course we had to stop by and see Nemo and friends. We rode the rides and even got to talk to the sea turtle, Crush!

Justin and I were able to ride all of the not so kid-friendly rides (in all of the parks)with the wonderful "Rider-Switch Pass" and so while one of us were on the ride, the other one was entertaining the kids in the gift shops. They were pretty easily entertained and Ellie loved taking out these Cars baseballs and throwing them everywhere.

I love Epcot. This is probably one of my top 2 favorite parks here in Disney. I love seeing the different countries, the architecture, and the firework show is amazing!

As you can see, Ethan enjoyed it too...

The ball is lit up so beautifully at night time that I just had to get a picture with my adorable husband. I should have just taken it with him in it and left me out! I guess it was a long day for me :)

Ethan fell asleep in the funniest places on this trip. Right here on the hotel floor, on top of the luggage while riding in the luggage cart, and he was always asleep when driving in the car. I guess we wore him out!

The next day, (let's see, I think we are on Thursday), we went to Hollywood Studios, the last of the DisneyWorld parks.

Ethan kept up with his record and rode all the rides he could including Star Tours & The Tower of Terror! I think I forgot to mention some of the other "bigger" rides he had ridden previously: Fast Track, Splash Mountain, Dinosaur, Soarin', Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Space Mountain (he LOVED it!).

After the ride had ended on the Tower of Terror, everyone in the elevator was asking Ethan if he liked it and he said..." That... Was.... AWESOME! Let's do it again!"

He really liked the action stunt show complete with fast cars, motorcycles and explosions!

It was fun and a little scary to let the kids run loose in the Honey I Shrunk The Kids playground. There were so many kids in there. I could easily see how they could get lost. Nonetheless, Ethan had fun exploring and Ellie had fun playing with the splash pad.

Hollywood Studios was probably Ethan's favorite place to meet the characters. He met Mike Wazowski,

saw the super cool Pixar parade,

(the Toy Story float was super cool!)

and met some of his favorite Disney Junior friends!

He was so excited to meet the Little Einstein cast even though he doesn't really want to watch the show anymore.

We also went to a Disney Junior Show where he got to see Handy Manny, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and his recent favorite, Jake and the Neverland Pirates!

To end the night we went to another super cool firework show, Fantasmic! We had a feeling that he would scream and cry with all the pyrotechnics so we shamelessly bribed him with a new toy if he was a brave boy and didn't cry. It worked and he sat through the whole show and commented to us throughout just how brave of a boy he is. It was totally worth the 5 bucks we spent on a new toy for him :)

The next day (Friday) was our last day in Florida and we decided that we all needed a water park so we hit up Typhoon Lagoon! We all LOVED this park. It is perfect for kids!

This wave pool is not your typical wave pool. This thing was like a tsunami coming at you! It was SO fun.

They have an amazing kiddy water park here that the kids spent hours playing in.

Ethan loved playing with the cannon on this boat.

While Ellie happily took a nap in the stroller, we took turns going on some fun slides with Ethan.

Ethan loved going on these slides. They went pretty fast and I was nervous for him but he didn't seem to mind and loved it!

At the end of the day Ethan & daddy went snorkeling in the shark reef. Ethan couldn't quite get the idea of breathing through the tube but he still enjoyed seeing the sharks from above the water. They also had some really beautiful fish swimming in there.

Typhoon Lagoon was the perfect way to end our DisneyWorld Adventures! I think we have now been spoiled by going to DisneyWorld and DisneyLand might not ever be able to compare!

Part 4 (the last one, I promise!) is soon to come with our travels to North & South Carolina!