Saturday, April 6, 2013

Hooray for Weekends!

I am soooo glad it is the weekend!  It's going to be a busy one, too!

We are starting with First Saturday Mass, then cleaning, then an Easter celebration at the girls' school, then a little mother/daughter shopping for a couple things for our trip and a special birthday gift for a special birthday girl(more on that on Mon.), then more cleaning and food prep for my new goddaughter's Evie's Baptism party on Sunday!

But nothing gets the house cleaner than throwing a party...and our house is definitely in some need of some cleaning T.L.C!

I hope to fit in a walk today and tomorrow, too....somewhere!  (I will be wearing shorts and a bathing suit very soon on our trip!  Gotta walk off those chocolate bunnies!)

And...speaking of vacations...


This is a pic from 2006.  We were in the Animal Kingdom the day after my sister got married in Disney.  Have I mentioned that yet?  I don't think I did....well, my sister got married in Disney in 2006.  It was quite an experience!  Pictures and story forthcoming another day!

In this pic we are standing outside of the Dinosaur ride with Jay and our 3 goofy oldest sons, my cousins, my paternal grandmother and my maternal grandfather(both in their 80's)...a few more cousins and 2 aunts and uncles were with us, too, just not in the picture.  
I thought it was brave of my grandparents to want to go on the rides!

There is a little back history with this ride.  On a previous Disney trip when we were a 'small family' with only 4 kids:), 'Dinosaur' was a new ride.(Actually, the whole Animal Kingdom Park was pretty new!)   Mike was 8, Andrew 6, Jon 5, and Sarah 1 1/2.  Andrew and Jon loved dinosaurs...especially Andrew.  (If you didn't get to read our Dinotherium story on Andrew's birthday post click here!)

My parents had been on the ride on a trip the year before.  (I told you they are Disney fanatics!)  They said the ride "should be fine for the boys...it's not bad at all!" 
 As we waited in line, I started to question whether we were making the right decision!

So, we get on the "car" with my sister, her future husband and Andrew sitting between them in the front row and me, Jon, Jay and Mike in the back.

Well, it's safe to say that my parents were wrong!  It is a bumpy, fast moving ride with several very loud, very large Carnotaurus dinosaurs...that look like this....


Yeah..not pretty!  I had Jon put his head in my lap and covered his ears!  Mike and Andrew screamed the whole time except for one brief moment when there was a big "long neck" dinosaur next to us and Andrew stopped screaming, looked at my sister and said very matter of factly, "Oh, look, an Apatosaurus!"...and then resumed screaming!

I wanted to buy the pic that they take during the ride and offer to you after to show my parents just how "ok" the ride was for the boys by seeing the look of terror on their faces!  
(Don't worry, they weren't scarred for life and it's become a funny family memory!)

To be fair, Jay and I took the boys on a ride that was way too intense for them at Sea World the first day of that trip, too!  Sometimes rides don't seem so bad when you are on the ground looking up!

Which leads me to a funny memory from that particular trip...We were on the "It's a Small World" ride and Andrew looked at me and said,  "Ahhh...I like this ride!  It's nice and slow!"