andrew & simone

New year = New blog template!

2012-02-06T22:59:00.005-07:00

So it's been quite awhile since I've been posting on here. It's been a crazy past 6+ months over here. Jadon started kindergarten which was rather painless after the first day where he wouldn't go into the class room for the majority of the time. He's been quite the popular one and he's loving every second of it. Isabelle's vocabulary is booming. She can correctly identify all the letters and their sounds, shapes, colors, and she knows more words than we even know about. Andrew is still working as a software consultant (no, not tech support which he gets asked a lot). I have finally graduated with a B.S. in Psychology with a Human Factors certificate (which I actually need to make sure that I got...).

A new year means a new blog template right? Well, welcome to the new template. Andrew thinks it looks very scrapbook-y, but I think it looks very spring-ish so here's to the abnormally warm winter weather. Hopefully the real spring isn't too far away and that we don't get hit with winter in April. We have yet to go snowboarding or sledding with the abnormally low amount of snow this year, but hopefully we'll be able to go at least once before the season is over. Jadon needs to try out his skiing skills to see what he's been able to retain since last year and Isabelle is old enough to enjoy sledding this year.

The year of the water dragon brings us a lot of new projects. Stay tuned for more details on everything going on with us. Thanks for reading!

Couponing Loot

2011-08-22T10:40:00.004-06:00

For lack of things to blog about at the moment, I thought I'd share with you my loot from my latest couponing adventure.

3 boxes of Special K cereal
2 boxes of Apple Jacks cereal
6 boxes of Pop Tarts
4 boxes of Keebler Sandwich Crackers
2 boxes of fruit snacks
1 box of Scooby Doo snacks
2 packages of cookies (pic shows 1)
6 packages of Bic pens

With the help of couponing assistant, Andrew, we got all this for under $20. Not too shabby. Side note: We got the pens for -$.02 plus tax each. Gotta love free pens, but this wasn't as cool as last week's nail polish that I got for -$2. :D (<--I'm practically emoticon-illiterate since I don't use them that much, but this one seemed appropriate.)

Mommy Accomplishments

2011-08-09T10:53:00.005-06:00

It's amazing to me what I've learned since becoming a mom. Ranging from minor things to things that have taken awhile to figure out, here's a quick list of things I've accomplished:

1) Learned how to change a diaper. I had never changed a diaper before and my first attempt was in the NICU with Jadon. Talk about nervousness with the nurse standing close by and a preemie to change. Now, I'd like to say I'm pretty darn good with diapers.

2) Became incredibly informed on childhood development. Not only did I read a baby book with Jadon, but I also took not one but two "Infancy and Childhood Development" courses in college. Why two? I took the first one as a non-major class before I changed majors and needed the major class. Also, basically every psychology class has some sort of childhood development involved.

3) Learned American Sign Language basics. From previous posts, you can tell how much I love using ASL with babies. I started some with Jadon but really kicked it up with Isabelle. I'd like to attribute Isabelle's language boom to ASL and it's amazing to be able to communicate with your child at such a young age. They both have something they learn together now and it's amazing to watch how quickly they pick it up and how much they enjoy it.

4) Learned how to make my own baby food. Yes. That is an odd one. I'll even admit to that. I completely forgot that I had done this. Sure, I have a bad memory, but I did this for like 6+ months. Come on... I think I actually literally forgot that I was doing this and so I stopped and then she didn't need it anymore. I started doing this to partly save money, but mostly because it was healthier.

5) Became a babywearer. I never had a baby carrier with Jadon which I sorely regret since he needed to be held so much, but I got an Ergo baby carrier as a gift from Isabelle's baby shower and my interest in babywearing grew from there. I purchased a Moby wrap for the newborn stages, which I highly recommend, and carried (or "wore" as you say in the babywearing world) Isabelle for several hours a day. She was bad at sleeping so this was a lifesaver. When the Ergo didn't work for me when Isabelle got old enough for it, I turned to the babywearing world to find a solution. To make a long story short, I have tried just about every type of carrier out there and have accumulated a ton of carriers along the way.

6) Learned how to cloth diaper. To go along with all the other hippie things, I also turned into a cloth diaperer with Isabelle. To mostly reduce waste and to save money too, I researched cloth diapering for a long time before having Isabelle. I settled on BumGenius and haven't had a need to stray away from that brand. I didn't cloth diaper her much at night or use cloth wipes, but the cloth diapers alone have saved me a lot of trips to the store to get more diapers.

7) Became a baby product addict. I am so well versed in the baby product world that I feel as though I owe it to myself and others that I share my knowledge by working in a baby store some day. Partly joking there, but I am an over-researcher so I can talk to you about strollers, baby carriers, diaper bags, and other fun baby related items, as well as where you might be able to find them on sale.

I think that about sums everything up. I can't really think of much else to add. It's amazing what you can learn when you want to.

Attempts at Domestication

2011-07-21T10:43:00.000-06:00

I think the title of this post is appropriate for this next segment... I have hardly any skills in the good housewife department. I don't know how to cook and I don't like to clean, but of course, I cook sometimes and I have to clean. Since we want to save money for the future (and because I want to learn useful skills), I've taken up some activities to help with saving money. These activities are obviously leading me onto the domestication path. Whether I can follow this path and actually succeed is another question. Here are a list of my attempts. Look out for updates in the future.

Attempt #1 - I went to a couponing class. There, I said it. I have decided to start couponing. If Extreme Couponing on TLC pops into mind, I don't blame you. That show has given a bad reputation to couponers all over. Personally, I would like to call myself an informed couponer. Yes, I get the Sunday paper now. Yes, I have a couponing binder. I subscribe to the Savvy Shopper Deals newsletter to stay up to date on deals and I also use their "Shopping Wizard" to help me in finding where the best deals are. If you're interested in couponing, let me know. I'd be happy to help or at least refer you to someone who knows what they're talking about. It's been an interested adventure so far. I do enjoy it, although it can be a pain at times, but I can't really complain when I can get things I'd use for free rather effortlessly.

Attempt #2 - We've started doing Bountiful Baskets. If you aren't familiar with BB, check out their site. It's basically a co-op where you can participate to get locally grown produce and fruit. It's cheaper and fresher because they eliminate the middle man (grocery stores) in the process. You sign up each week. Conventional boxes are $15. Organic boxes are $25. You can also add-on the other things available, like breads and fruits. The boxes are 50% vegetables and 50% fruit, but they're different each week and you aren't guaranteed anything, which means you're up for a surprise of produce each week. That can be a fun thing or that can be a pain trying to figure out what to do with something foreign. We've done it for 3 weeks already and it's been pretty good for us. I've been able to expand my very limited cooking skills with the motivation to use all the food before it goes bad. I've been able to make fresh strawberry lemonade, salsa, kale chips, beet salad, cilantro lime butter on corn, and I've even practiced my knife skills by slicing all that fruit each week.

Hopefully, my efforts will pay off in the future. Wish me luck!

Seattle 2011

2011-07-06T15:38:00.001-06:00

Not long after our trip to Disney World, we packed up our things again to head to Seattle for my sister's graduation. This time, instead of packing for the heat and humidity of Florida, we packed for the rain and mild weather of Washington. Andrew had driven through Washington before. He went to Seattle for a day with his friends back in high school, but I had never been there before. We knew to expect rain and temperatures in the high 60s/ low 70s, however, we lucked out and the weather was absolutely perfect for the majority of our stay. It was sunny and warm for most of the time, except the last full day we were there which happened to be the day of graduation and of course it poured throughout the ceremony.

We managed to arrive in Washington in the late afternoon so we were able to head over to Selina's house after checking into our hotel to do some sightseeing. We went over to Point Defiance to do a little hiking and exploring. My first impression of Washington was of how pretty the scenery was. I've heard from many people that there are trees everywhere there and they were right. I'm not a huge fan of scenery, but I instantly fell in love with the atmosphere of Washington upon arrival. Point Defiance was no exception. It is on a tip of a small peninsula that juts out into the Puget Sound. (FYI, a "sound" is another word for a type of body of water.) It's a huge forest basically surrounded by water and it was extremely pretty. Even though the beach was basically full of rocks, it was nice to see the water all around us. It was extremely windy and cold there though so we retreated to the forest to explore. Jadon had fun running around the trail and almost instantly found a hiking stick to use.

We were only in Washington for three full days. One and a half of those days was spent attending events related to Selina's graduation. That left us with only a day and a half to "do" Seattle. If you were wondering if you could really go through Seattle in one day without feeling like you've missed too much, I think I can say that you really can. Although I would've liked to have another full day in Seattle, the days we had there were adequate enough for us to absorb most of what Seattle had to offer. Here's a breakdown of how we did it.

First of all, I once again borrowed a Seattle travel book from our local library. Because of how much I loved the Frommer's Disney World guide, I was glad to see that our library had the Frommer's Sea ttle 2011 guide available. I cannot recommend getting a travel book enough. Without this, we wouldn't have done some of the best things we did in Seattle.

Since Seattle is a pretty compact city, and upon recommendation from our book, we decided to drive over to Seattle Center (which is the location of the Space Needle as well as many other amazing buildings) to find a place to park our car for the day. We parked at our first destination and went inside to buy the Seattle CityPASS. Because most of what we wanted to do was available on this pass, it was the most economical way of doing things and it was a nice motivator that we had to get at least some of these things done in order for the pass to be worth it.

Pacific Science Center
Our first destination was the Pacific Science Center. None of us (Andrew, Selina, or myself) had much knowledge of this place. It has a pretty unassuming exterior and could easily be missed had it not been for our passes and my book. Inside, we found a plethora of science-related interactive displays. Jadon and Isabelle had fun going around playing with everything and it was equally fun for the adults to explore. We could have stayed there for many hours more than we did. As a bunch of science geeks, it was seriously amazing how cool they presented science in these fun, interactive ways. They even had a butterfly house which we had to wait in line to get into. Once inside, we were surrounded by butterflies. It was one of the coolest things we did there. Probably the best thing we did here was see Born To Be Wild in 3-D. It was such an inspiration story and is definitely worth a watch.

Space Needle
A short walk away was the Space Needle. Built for the World's Fair in 1962, this attraction was a pretty short one for us. There was virtually no line for the super fast elevator to the top so we were able to get through this easily. The views from the top were magnificent and reaffirmed my love for Seattle. With the coldness and the huge gusts of wind up there, we made our way back down after a couple of laps around the top and a bunch of pictures later.

Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum
The Experience Music Project (EMP) was probably one of the things I looked forward to the most this entire trip. It was built by the co-founder of Microsoft to house his vast music collection. The Science Fiction Museum was built afterward and connects directly to the EMP. This was the one place that I absolutely had to go to. It was really cool to see the Nirvana exhibit with all the memorabilia from Dave Grohl and Kurt Cobain. We also got to see other really cool memorabilia from other amazing musicians, like a diary from Jimmi Hendrix where we got to see his handwriting and his documentation of several days.

One of the things Selina and I really wanted to do was make our own music video at On Stage. Basically, they take us into a room where it's suppose to simulate what it's like to perform in front of an audience. We played "I Love Rock 'n Roll" with Selina on the keyboard, Jadon on the drums, and me on the guitar. After we finished our song, we got to watch ourselves on TV performing with a bunch of screaming fans. We bought a picture of us rocking out and were also presented with a couple of ticket stubs of from our sold-out concert. Our band name was "The Blue Lips" because Jadon had blue lips from some candy he was eating. It was definitely a fun experience, especially with Jadon being able to play with his all-time favorite instrument.

Another thing that I really wanted to do here was go to the Sound Lab and play around with some of the instruments there. I got a lesson in the drums and learned a basic drum beat, which was amazing because I've always wanted to learn how to play the drums. We went into some of the soundproof rooms and tried our hand at singing and playing the guitar too. These rooms were cool because they time you so everyone gets a chance to try out the rooms and you get uninterrupted time without feeling like you're hogging it. This would have been a fun place to stay longer at too. It was kind of hard with the kids, but they were pretty content trying to play the guitar in one of the soundproof rooms for awhile.

I really looked forward to the Science Fiction Museum where they have props from movies like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but they only had one exhibit open (Battlestar Gallactica) while the rest was under construction for the Avatar exhibit. Too bad we missed out on that one.

Seattle Aquarium
Andrew's must-see was the Seattle Aquarium. We took the monorail from Seattle Center over to the mall in downtown Seattle. It was a quick ride and it put us just north of the aquarium. We had to walk several short blocks to get to Pike Place and then find a way through the market to the aquarium. It involved some long flights of stairs to get down to the level where the aquarium was which was a pain with Isabelle in the stroller, but we did it and were able to make it to the aquarium before they stopped letting in visitors at 5 pm with a closing time of 6 pm. I was a bit skeptical we'd make it there and still have time to go through everything, but we did and we there was lots of time for us to enjoy everything we wanted to see. The coolest thing here was the huge touch pool and the seals/otters.

Pike Place Market
By the time we got out of the aquarium, the Pike Place Market was also shutting down. We knew going into the aquarium that we'd only be able to do one or the other so it wasn't a surprise to us to see vendors closing up, which wasn't too much of a letdown because we weren't really going to purchase much anyway. We wandered through it for a little while. Andrew purchased some fresh fruit and I got to see all the iconic marketplace things like the huge array of flowers you can purchase for super cheap as well as the place they do the flying fish tosses. And of course we stopped at the world's first Starbucks to get ourselves a frappacino. We also stopped to eat dinner at a little place right there too before heading back.

Our day was very full, but it was a pretty good way for us to take in Seattle in a day. We accomplished everything we wanted to do that day without too much rushing around. I remember thinking that I was cutting down on the picture taking that I would have normally done since we went from place to place without much resting, but as I go through the pictures now, I don't feel like I'm missing too much in the picture department from that day.

The first part of the next day was spent going to Selina's departmental receptions. It was nice to see the campus and to visit with her friends and teachers. The campus was super pretty with all the trees and old buildings too and it was a nice experience. After we went through all the receptions, we went off again to complete our last schedule of events. On the way onto the freeway, we unintentionally passed by Stadium High School where 10 Things I Hate About You was filmed and I was able to catch a glimpse of the spires of the school. A fun surprise to me since I didn't actually plan on ever being able to see it and, although I didn't get to see all of it, it was still cool to be in the same proximity.

Woodland Park Zoo
Another of Andrew's must-see things, the Woodland Park Zoo was just north of downtown Seattle which meant a further drive than we had done before. It wasn't too hard finding the zoo, but finding parking was a trip in itself. We circled the parking lot we found for ages hoping someone would leave and we would be lucky enough to fill their spot. We learned later that there were several different parking lots around the park. This zoo was one of the best zoos we've ever been to. It was huge and each of the habitats were amazing. The habitats were made to resemble the animal's actual habitat and it didn't feel like a zoo at all. It was more like a safari with the animals roaming on large pieces of land. It reminded us a lot like the Animal Kingdom in Disney World and their safari ride. They had a small petting zoo area where we able to pet the animals. The best part by far was the bird room where we purchased sticks with food on the ends. We held up the sticks and birds would fly onto our hands to eat off the sticks. It was a lot of fun for everyone trying to get the birds to come eat.

When we were leaving the zoo, we unintentionally passed by another 10 Things I Hate About You landmark: The Fremont Troll. We were able to drive right by it, but I didn't take any pictures. Andrew had no idea what it was, but I was pretty excited to see it up close and personal, albeit from our car.

Ivar's Salmon House
We didn't do a lot of fancy eating out while we were here, but we did do one nice seafood restaurant dinner after the zoo. We chose Ivar's Salmon House because it was a family friendly recommendation from our book. It had good reviews and was right on the water. We were able to get a window table and we got to see some of the Space Needle before it started raining. There was an abundance of salmon and it was very good, but Selina's fried oysters were absolutely amazing and I wish I had ordered them too. There's always next time I suppose.

The rain lasted all that night through the next day. Selina's graduation took place in the rain and we were lucky enough to get seating on the uncovered lawn. The school provided ponchos thankfully. Jadon fell asleep under his poncho in the middle of the ceremony, but he was a trooper throughout. Thank goodness Andrew had taken Isabelle back to the hotel to nap, because the rest of us were freezing by the time the ceremony was over. After the graduation festivities, we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner before going back to the hotel to pack for our morning departure.

Seattle was an amazing city and I really loved visiting. I'm glad we made the trip and that Andrew got to see that there really are a lot of kid friendly activities to do in Seattle. So can you really do Seattle in a day? Sure you can, but you're definitely going to yearn for more days in the end.

Disney World 2011: Day 7 and our goodbyes...

2011-07-04T15:31:00.002-06:00

Our time in Disney World was amazing. We stayed there a whole week which in most places would be overkill, but it actually was just perfect for us to take in everything Disney World had to offer. We actually could have stayed a bit longer too since there really was more stuff we were never able to do.

On our last day there, we decided to take it easy so we packed up our stuff and checked them with the hotel while we went out to the park one last time. We went to Epcot yet again. It was so conveniently close and we wanted to go through it one last time. We got some more food from the food cart in China and went through the Japanese store to get more goodies before we had to leave to catch our bus to the airport.

One good thing about staying at a Disney hotel is that we get to use the Magical Express to/from the airport and they check in our bags at the hotel. All we had to do was make sure we caught our bus and that was it. We said goodbye to Disney World and made our way home in a much quicker manner than when we first arrived. (i.e. we weren't stuck in security for an hour and then get delayed even more while we waited for others stuck in security to make it to the plane.) Isabelle didn't fare as well on the flight home though and she cried for the last 20 minutes or so. She kept signing and saying "All Done!" and Andrew had to finally pretend that he was going to get up to change her diaper in order for her to stop crying.

Getting home was kind of a bummer. I remember how sad it was to leave Disney World the first time I was there in high school. It was like returning to reality then and it was kind of like that now. Jadon kept telling me weeks afterward that he missed Disney World and how he wished we could go back there. All I could think was, "Me too." Disney World was an amazing trip for all of us and we're definitely going to go back there many more times in the future, but first, we want to visit several other places before we head back there.

This ends our Disney World trip series finally. Thanks for reading if you were able to get through all the details. Now, we'll be moving on to more recent events and I'll update more often.

Disney World 2011: Day 6

2011-07-02T15:49:00.000-06:00

(Yes, I'm still writing about Disney World. Yes, I do realize that I'm VERY far behind...)

On the second to last day in Disney World, we planned to head back to the Magic Kingdom as early as we could so that we could beat the heat and the crowds. Since the first day in Disney World was a massive disaster at the Magic Kingdom, Andrew was not very happy to head back there but I pretty much demanded that we wake up early enough to at least do half a day there. We have kids after all. They have to ride something in the Magic Kingdom.

We arrived pretty soon after the park opened and it was a completely opposite experience than the one we had the first time around. It was practically blissful there. The weather was amazing and we walked onto pretty much everything we wanted to ride and were able to enjoy a nice lunch without too much of a wait or crowd.

We started out at the it's a small world ride which was Jadon and Isabelle's favorite in Disneyland. Jadon was surprised that things outside were completely different, but that everything inside was pretty much the exact same as Disneyland. After that we went to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. This was my first time ever riding on this ride and it just seemed like a pirates themed small world ride, since we rode them back to back. Jadon was terrified for the first part and closed his eyes, but he opened them for the end of it. He enjoyed looking through all the stuff in the gift shop and ended up picking out a telescope. When we got off the ride, we saw the last part of the Captain Jack Sparrow impersonator. It was hilarious and such an amazing impersonation. It would've been fun to see the whole show. Jadon even joined in when they were looking through their telescopes to spot something.

We used Fast Passes to ride Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin which was suppose to be what the Toy Story Mania ride was based on, but this one has lasers and Zurg instead. Jadon loved the Toy Story ride so much that I knew he was going to like this one and he was excited to finally get to go on this one. This one was pretty awesome too and I'm so glad that Jadon was able to ride something similar to the Toy Story ride without the crazy wait.

On a whim, we decided to watch Mickey's PhilharMagic. My travel book rated this ride as a MUST, but Andrew and I weren't completely sure of what to expect of this. We worried it would take forever and that we wouldn't make it to the Buzz Lightyear ride at the time we wanted to, but it was only a 5 minute wait with a 15 minute show so it fit into our timing perfectly. Seriously, this was definitely worth the trip to the Magic Kingdom. The travel book was right. This is a DEFINITE must do. We happened to be sitting at the perfect spot for the ending which featured Donald Duck so Jadon of course loved it. Everyone has got to do this. It's basically a short 3-D film that plays to all the senses. It's so worth it for both kids and adults.

After we said our goodbyes to the Magic Kingdom, we discovered that we were able to ride the ferry and monorail over to Epcot. This was our first time traveling from park to park so we had no idea how to do it. It was easy enough. Jadon had been wanting to ride the monorail so this was fun for him and the boat was an added bonus. Andrew and I have decided that we love Epcot, as if you couldn't tell already by the amount of times we had already visited it. Not only is it close to our hotel, it has a bunch of things to do for every age. When I first went to Epcot in high school, I didn't know all these things existed and neither did Andrew. Of course, I had read up so I knew more of all the features Epcot has to offer.

We decided to go through the Innoventions buildings first while Isabelle napped. Andrew had no idea this existed and it was a pleasant thing to do to beat the midday heat. There are two Innoventions buildings: East and West. We went to Innoventions East first and spent a considerable amount of time there. I watched Isabelle as she napped and Andrew took Jadon around to the different exhibits. One of the coolest things there was a game where you learned about recycling and Jadon got to push around a garbage truck from center to center. The other thing was the Sum of All Thrills where you design your own ride and then get into a simulator to ride your design. Jadon also got to make his own paper which was cool. Innoventions West wasn't as interactive as the East building, but it had a couple of really cool things to do. Jadon got to take a picture with a fire truck and go through a fire safety thing, which he enjoyed. The best thing here was the video game they got to play with the image of their own avatars. It was cool because it was the actual image of them playing in a pixel-ated environment.

The other new thing we saw in Epcot that day was the Circle of Life show, which seemed like a public service announcement about how humans have polluted the earth to me, but it was informative and it had Timon and Pumbaa hosting so that's always fun to see.

Wandering around Epcot was very relaxing this day, because we were able to just explore different areas we hadn't been to before. We even came across a sand sculptor who apparently just gets paid to be there to work on his sculpture. It was pretty amazing to see. Jadon even got a lesson on how to jump rope.

Stay tuned for the last segment of our trip in Disney World. I know it's incredibly interesting at this point... Then we'll move on to more current news.

Disney World 2011: Day 5

2011-04-15T13:15:00.002-06:00

We're almost done with the Disney World posts! Yay!

In this immensely drawn out Disney World saga, I last left you with a post about our relaxing day lounging around our hotel and a short evening trip to Epcot. Day 5 finds us arriving to Disney's Animal Kingdom right before the park opened to all guests at 9 AM. We were originally trying to get here earlier since the park opened to Disney hotel guests at 8 AM, but instead, we arrived to a big crowd lining up to get in. Not a huge deal though. We just had to wait for a little while and then we were able to get in with the rest of the crowd. Lucky for us, we happened to meet up with Heather and Jason right outside the gate without prior knowledge of the other one being there yet.

When we got in, we headed directly to the safari ride. From all my reading, it was best to arrive early in the morning or late in the evening in order to get a good view of all the animals. Once it got hotter in the day, the animals would be more scarce. As all Disney rides seem to go, this one was a bit more theatrical than I had imagined. We were pretending that we were on a 2 week long safari in Africa and there was a problem in the middle of the ride with poachers stealing a baby elephant and that we were going to help chase them down. We were able to rescue the baby elephant in the end. Jadon loved that. He continued to tell everyone about it when we got home. The ride itself was pretty cool. We sat in a covered vehicle with no windows so we were able to really get up close and personal with the animals. We saw many animals that I'm not sure I've ever seen before and it was a great time to go, because they were all out. We only weren't able to see the warthogs, I think, but that's about it. We saw rhinos right next to our vehicle that we're pretty sure were the ones who were blocking the pathway at one point and we all had to stop while they passed since they're free roaming and all. It wasn't much of a wait to get in at all and Andrew says it was probably one of his favorite things we did in Disney World.

It's about a 20 minute ride, so it was about time for us to check-in to our breakfast reservations after we got off. We chose to dine at Donald's Safari Breakfast which was located at the Tusker House in the African part of the park and happened to be right by the safari ride. Jadon is a huge fan of Donald Duck and so we thought he'd love this theme. We got to take a picture with Donald before getting seated and it was just awesome for Jadon. He went up and gave Donald a big hug and smiled big for the picture, which is an amazing thing for him to do. This was seriously the best buffet that we'd had there and maybe even the best character dining we have ever done. They had so many options that we all went back multiple times to get more food. We had visits at our table from all the main characters like Goofy, Mickey, Minnie, and Daisy. It was a lot of fun for the kids and we were all able to get some good food in.

While the boys went to get Fast Passes to Everest. Heather and I went to the Pangani Exploration Forest Trail and went through that while the boys caught up to us. This was pretty cool though it was crowded at parts. We saw lots of fish, gorillas, and other animals. I was hoping to see a naked mole rat (you know, like Rufus from the old Disney show Kim Possible), but I probably passed it because I never saw an exhibit for it.

One of my favorite things in all of Disney World was the Finding Nemo musical. I would've gone back to watch it again if we had more time. It was so amazing. I'm not super familiar with the movie since I've seen bits and pieces but never all the way through, but I'm so in love with this production. There were live performers with puppets and it seriously was so amazing that it's hard to describe. This is definitely something you should go do if you ever get a chance to. We arrived about 10-20 minutes early (can't remember exactly) and we were seated in one of the middle sections toward the back, but the view was still awesome and I'm pretty sure it would be good from pretty much anywhere in there. It seats a lot of people so I'm sure most people who just show up right before showtime are able to get in even if you have to stand in the back, but that's just me guessing.

In 2005, Disney added a thrill ride to Animal Kingdom called Expedition Everest. It's basically a roller coaster and incorporates a Yeti in there. Someone Jason rode with on the Rock 'n' Roller coaster was debating which of these rides were better. After riding both so closely together, I think we all decided that Rock 'n' Roller Coaster was way better. Expedition Everest is unexpected as well, but the thrill in RnR was lots higher. I rode with Jason first and I was scared out of my mind that something was going to jump out at us especially since we were seated in the front, but he thankfully told me nothing would. My picture for this was just like RnR which was pure terror. Jason rode it again with Andrew next and Andrew's picture was of his eyes closed again. Definite recurring themes here at our reactions to fear.

Jadon tripped on a rock and scraped his knee and elbow pretty badly so we went to take him to the first aid center while Isabelle napped in the stroller. He had scraped his other knee a couple days earlier which made him out to be a pretty clumsy kid, but he usually doesn't hurt himself that often. We had been to the baby care center at the other parks before to change Isabelle, but we'd never needed assistance. This was a really pleasant experience. Each of the first aid centers are staffed by registered nurses and one greeted us as we entered and told her what we were looking for. She asked us to sign him into the registry and she was very quick about getting him bandaged up. We even received some extra bandages which was definitely used later on.

The atmosphere in the Animal Kingdom was definitely super relaxed and there isn't a whole lot to do here, but we enjoyed wandering around and looking at everything. Andrew took Jadon to the Boneyard while I sat with a sleeping Isabelle and then we headed over to ride the Dinosaur ride, which incorporates the movie into it. Jadon was slightly scared the whole time going through the intro, but he was a trooper and got on the ride without much complaint. It was Andrew and Jason's first time on it and it was fun to see their reactions. I, on the other hand, have already been on this once before so I was scared out of my mind for the big scare in it and I was pretty much trying to hide from it the whole time since I couldn't remember when it came. Jadon closed his eyes and clung to us, but he didn't get totally freaked out. In the picture, I think Andrew might have had his eyes closed and Jason looked amuse like always, while Jadon was sunk low in the seat and I was turned away and hiding my face. While on the ride, I realized that I probably shouldn't have gotten on it again. I was seriously horrified the whole time and that was pretty much when I truly realized that I apparently don't do well with things jumping out at me.

Isabelle had woken up while we were on the ride and she was contently playing with Heather and Kaitlyn when we came out. We took her and went to get food while the others headed over to the Lion King show which we ended up not making it to because we had to feed Isabelle. Because of the timing, we ended up not sticking around to see the last showing of the day and instead tried out the huge turkey leg there, which Jadon loved, and then headed back to our hotel for a bit before going to dinner.

We had reservations to the T-Rex Restaurant in Downtown Disney. It's owned by the same people who did the Rainforest Cafe so we thought it would be pretty cool to check out. We arrived earlier to Downtown Disney so we could get some shopping in (we got some Disney merchandise and Andrew and Jadon put together their own light sabers) and then we waited to be seated at the restaurant. The place was pretty packed even though our reservations were for 9 PM. We got a huge table next to one of the many anima-tronic dinosuars throughout the building. They have meteor showers routinely and the whole place gets darker, all the dinosaurs come to life, and the huge iceberg thing they have there changes colors. It was pretty cool. Our server was amazing. We had huge servings of food (Jason had a huge rack of ribs that hung over both sides of his plate) and I'm sad we weren't able to eat our leftovers because it was definitely delicious. I thought it was definitely a good place to check out. The food was pretty good and the atmosphere was uniquely one of a kind. I'm glad we picked this one over the Rainforest Cafe. After dinner, we headed back to our hotel and thankfully were able to catch a bus right before it took off.

Disney Detour

2011-04-14T22:13:00.002-06:00

Since I'm sure you're all enjoying the uber detailed day-by-day posts of Disney World so much, I hope you don't mind taking a bit of a detour and checking out the recent posts on the Sabins' blog here and here.

The first one is of our awesome pedicure trip. I've taken Andrew to get a pedicure once before this trip and he really enjoyed it. He's not afraid to admit that he likes massages and being pampered. The first time he went, I had a gift certificate that had to be spent before it expired and so that was what ultimately got him to go. He liked it all except that it was at a cosmetology school and he happened to be the only one in the group of the three of us that had a girl who wore gloves the whole time. That didn't make him so happy, but he did enjoy the pampering. This time around, Rachel and I had Groupons to this awesome place called The Clique that I had been to once before. I also convinced Andrew to get a Groupon as well. When I first went, I had mentioned to the ladies there that he was a bit embarrassed about the fact that his girl was the only one who wore gloves the whole time. They said that I should bring him there and that they wouldn't wear gloves. It was all very humorous to talk about, but bringing Andrew to get another pedicure wasn't exactly exciting for him. That is until he got there and got to sit in a massaging chair while his feet were being nicely pampered. This is such an awesome place to go to and Andrew really enjoyed it. He got to relax and came out of there with super nice feet.

The second post there is about RowleyCon. If you know who Rowley is, I'm pretty sure that I don't really need to say much else, but if you don't, this was an event of all things Rowley. I wasn't able to attend as much as I wanted to, but Andrew was able to get in lots of gaming time. It was really fun for what I was able to go to and I can't wait until next year when I can actually dress up and compete in more games.

Disney World posts will resume shortly. April is a stressful month for me right now and I can't wait to get back to documenting our trip and moving onto more current events.

Disney World 2011: Day 4

2011-04-07T16:01:00.003-06:00

Andrew still wasn't feeling too good from the day before in Hollywood Studios so we decided to stay in this morning and hang out around our hotel. Andrew thinks he might have just had some minor heat exhaustion from when he walked around with Isabelle napping in the carrier out in the afternoon sun the day before. He wasn't feeling too good at dinner the night before so we thought it would be better to stay in and let him and Isabelle take good naps in our room before he got any worse.

We woke up relatively late this morning. I think it was around 10 AM and then we went to Port Royale for some breakfast. We decided today would be the day to take advantage of all the things we had around our hotel since we had been too busy before to do any of it and would likely be too busy for the rest of the trip to do ever do them. When we finished breakfast, we were finally able to rent out a surrey bike to ride around the lake. We had seen several families taking them around the lake and Andrew and Jadon had been wanting to rent one since our first time seeing them. There weren't very many rented out so we had our pick and we got a 2 seater bike with a bench in the front for the kids. It was a golf cart sized thing with a canopy and the kids were buckled in the front so they could see everything. Jadon was luckily seated on the side with the bell. The guy said that Jadon was the designated "people mover" and that he was to ring the bell to tell people in front of us to move out of the our way. Of course, Jadon loved that and he rode the majority of the ride hanging onto the string waiting for us to tell him it was okay to ring the bell. Andrew was seated with the handbrake and I could barely reach the petals at the very edge of my seat so I wasn't of much help. I did help go up the steepest hill there but that was about it. I got pretty sore from that one hill and the seat seemed to bruise my bum the next day.

After returning the bike, we went back to our room to put Isabelle down for a nap. Andrew decided to stay in with her and nap a little while I took Jadon out to the beach to dig in the sand. Jadon had been wanting to play in the sand the whole time we had been there, but he could only do so for a few minutes at a time. He ended up staying in the same spot digging away for over an hour while I sat in the shade reading my book. I was able to pull him away from the sand for lunch since Isabelle and Andrew were still napping and then we went to play in the little pool next to our hotel room. We played there for a little while before we went back to the hotel room to get cleaned up. Isabelle and Andrew were still napping when we got back, but they woke up shortly after we had gotten ready to go out to the parks. They both took a pretty good 3 hour nap which was good for them to catch up on some sleep.

We decided to head over to Epcot again to get some dinner and revisit the countries that we had skimmed earlier. We got Fast Passes to Norway's Maelstrom ride and then went over to the Norwegian bakery to get some food while we waited for our return to come up since it was only a 20 minute wait. We tried their ham and apple sandwich and a couple of their pastries. It was all pretty good and the kids' meal even came with a cool viking hat shaped cookie. Maelstrom was definitely an unexpected ride. It was actually pretty spooky in the beginning, but it turned out to be a lot less thrilling after the initial scare with the troll. Vikings were of course also a part of the ride. Andrew actually really enjoyed this ride and he wanted to come back to it for some reason even though both Isabelle and Jadon closed their eyes during some of it. Like many other Disney rides, this one exited through the gift shop and we had some fun looking through all the different things. Isabelle got attached to a viking hat and we ended up purchasing it to avoid any tantrums. She actually really liked it and wore it around for awhile and even refused to take it off for one of our Photopass pictures.

We went through as many countries as we could more so than we did before and tried out some of the food from a cart in China. They had some really good tea slushes (Mango Oolong and Strawberry Green Tea) that we tried and went back for another day. We took a bunch of pictures with the topiaries around the park. We decided to go into what looked to be a small store in Japan on a whim and went through the doors to discover that it was huge. It went through the whole building and had a bunch of really cool Japanese stuff. We all ended up purchasing some things from this store which was amazing since we really hadn't been spending much on souvenirs up until then. Isabelle picked out a Hello Kitty stuffed animal dressed up as a bunny, Andrew allowed Jadon to pick out an expensive fork lifter you have to build (we have yet to complete building it because it's super complicated and not exactly made for children) and Andrew of course went for the snacks. There was a lot of cool stuff to look through in that store, but I ended up getting some cool rice bowls with cute animations on them. Outside of the store, we went through a Japanese Anime exhibit that we happened to come across again. We initially passed it but then went back to see what it was. It showcased how some classic Japanese legends ended up in mainstream stories. Andrew enjoyed reading through them all while I watched to make sure the kids weren't making a huge mess since they already spilled something that I had to clean up and Isabelle kept wanting to hit the glass. I did however enjoy seeing Mario dressed up as a Raccoon and wanted to get pictures of that since I have a shirt of Raccoon Mario too.

We left the park as the fireworks started and the kids were able to watch some of it while we made our way out before the end of the fireworks. We hoped to make it out before the massive crowd and we were able to get onto a bus pretty quickly when we got to our bus stop.

Disney World 2011: Day 3

2011-04-05T15:03:00.001-06:00

We were able to actually get into Hollywood Studios pretty much when they opened the next day. We scheduled only 1 day to get to everything here and we were able to hit just about everything this park had to offer. When we first got into the park, we booked it over to Toy Story Mania to get fast passes. I've been wanting to ride this ride since its debut and we never were able to make it to the one in California Adventure, so this was pretty much the biggest thing for me to do that day since I've been reading that the Fast Passes for this go pretty quickly. We went to get them an hour or so after the park opened and our time to come back wasn't until 4:30 PM which means they were going quickly. After that, we were able to wander around the park and explore a little bit while we decided what we wanted to do first.

Hollywood Studios is primarily full of shows. There are a couple of extreme rides, but other than that, it's mostly pretty relaxed and easy going here. Of course there were crowds, but a lot of the shows were indoors and the waits were all very minimal. I think this was the perfect escape for us in the middle of our vacation.

The Studio Backlot Tour was the first attraction we went to. We didn't really know much about this ride, but it was pretty cool to see the behind-the-scenes stuff. We got to see special effects sets and props from movies. The kids didn't enjoy the loud effects that much, but they were pretty good throughout the ride. Jadon was curious about the water works and what was happening. Isabelle did get a little bored though and Andrew had to pull out his phone for her to play with. Andrew and I thought it was pretty interesting and it was something Andrew said was a favorite of the day. I thought it was pretty cool to see all the props and especially the plane that Walt Disney used to fly back and forth between California and Florida.

Next up was the Indiana Jones show. Andrew remembered this show pretty well, but I could only remember the first part of the show. I had no idea how in depth it was and how many cool stunts it showed. Jadon enjoyed it too. We arrived maybe 20 minutes early and were able to get seats in the huge amphitheater, but we could have easily not gotten seats if we were any later in getting there. It was already pretty full when we arrived and it continued to fill up as we waited for the show to start. It wouldn't have been a very enjoyable show if we had to stand in the back for the 30 minutes it goes for. This was definitely an awesome show and I would definitely go back to this one. Andrew is a fan of Indiana Jones so I think he had fun watching it and introducing the coolness of Indiana Jones to Jadon.

We saw the Playhouse Disney show in Disneyland and Jadon loved it so much. He wanted to go back multiple times, which says something since he didn't want to do anything in Disneyland. Now Playhouse Disney has been changed to Disney Junior and the show in Disney World was very much like the one in Disneyland, but they changed one of the stories so Jadon wasn't getting a complete repeat of the show. The Disney Junior Show was a pretty short wait. We came in maybe 10 minutes before they started and we were able to get seated in the middle section and we had a pretty good view of the stage. It's all a pretty good view, but if you're too far back, you don't get any of the special features like the bubbles blowing towards you. We were just barely where we were able to enjoy them. Jadon was so excited to see that it was like the Disneyland one. He was so excited for the show to begin. The first time in Disneyland, he joined in and called out when they wanted him to, but he didn't this time. I think it's because he was already aware of what was going on. The show is centered around Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but they look at 3 stories from other Disney shows to solve their problems. We saw the same stories from Disneyland like Handy Manny and Little Einsteins, but the last story was different this time. Instead of My Friends Tigger and Pooh, they had their newest show Jake and the Neverland Pirates. With this story, Jadon joined in and used his hands as a telescope and was very interested in what was going to happen. They dropped gold coins in the form of paper circles from the ceiling and Jadon gathered up as many as he could and stuck it under his cap. It was super cute and I'm sad Andrew was out walking a sleeping Isabelle and that they both missed out.

Isabelle woke up just in time for us to see the Little Mermaid show. Andrew and I aren't huge fans of The Little Mermaid, but we were thoroughly impressed with the show. It combined live actors with puppets and it was all a really good overview of the movie. It was a bit dark and spooky in spots, but it was so good that I'm a little more interested in watching that movie again. Jadon and Isabelle liked it too. Isabelle clapped when she was supposed to and she really did well considering the fact that she just barely woke up from a short nap.

While the kids hung out for a bit, Andrew and Jason went on the Tower of Terror. It was their first time on the ride and I'm sad I wasn't there to see their reactions. Andrew is slightly afraid of heights so he said that he did have an "Oh no! I'm going to die!" moment when the doors opened at the top of the building and he looked out over everything just before dropping. He says the picture was of his freak out and Jason looking over at him to see his reaction. Too bad he didn't take a pic of it. It would've been nice to have to look back and mock at.

When they got back, it was getting pretty hot outside so Andrew took Jadon to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground while I got some lunch for Isabelle. There's a lot of shade in certain parts of the park and it was very nice to eat outside under the shade. Jadon didn't get to spend much time at the playground since he wasn't behaving, but he was able to eat some lunch too and then it was finally time to go back to Toy Story Mania.

Andrew thought it was hilarious that I was so excited for Toy Story Mania, but come on! I'm a Toy Story fan and the whole ride just looked awesome. I thought Jadon would really like it too since you get to play carnival games and use a "shooter gun" as Jadon calls it. Jadon definitely was getting excited as we went through the queue and he saw all the different toy elements and was able to recognize the Toy Story stuff. We did have to wait a little bit, but it wasn't too bad. Andrew played with Isabelle on his lap which meant he could only turn the gun so far with Isabelle hanging off the other end of it. Jadon and I played next to each other and it was seriously awesome. I'm glad it met my expectations. Jadon loved it too and wanted to come back to this ride, but that wasn't going to happen considering how long it took for us to get on and we were definitely not going to come back to this park just to ride this ride. I'm glad we were able to ride this one without a massive wait. I don't think it would've been as much fun if we had to wait over an hour to get in.

We went on The Great Movie Ride next. It didn't have a very high rating in my book, but Andrew and I thought it was enjoyable. It was definitely unexpected and entertaining throughout. This ride is a good example of how Disney turns everything into a show. It was more than just a tour through classic films. Characters literally came to life and we were all pulled into the story.

Afterward, it was about time for our Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Fast Passes. Isabelle fell asleep in the stroller while we walked over and we were able to rest a little bit before Heather and Jason got there. Andrew actually did nod off for a little bit while we sat down. This was the first time Andrew and Jason were going to ride this ride too. I remembered loving this ride from the first time I rode it and it was just as good this time around. Andrew was ready for the initial fast start and so his face in the picture is of him closing his eyes while I looked like I thought I was going to die. Basically, I looked the exact same as I did on my first time there.

We left just before the park closed to get to our dinner reservations at Paradiso 37 in Downtown Disney. One thing that we thought was annoying about the bus shuttle system was that there was no direct way to get to Downtown Disney from any of the parks. You can only get a bus to Downtown Disney from your hotel. A cast member told us that the bus drivers told him that the best way to get to Downtown Disney from Hollywood Studios was to take a bus to Saratoga Springs Resort and then take the Downtown Disney bus from there since it was the closest. It was a bit of a pain, but we made it there to see that it was incredibly crowded. We had a hard time walking anywhere and it took us awhile, but we finally found the restaurant.

Paradiso 37 stands for the 37 countries in the Americas and features food inspired by these countries. We were seated out on the patio was definitely nice to see the view of the water even though it was a bit windy and chilly. They had live music every night and one act had just finished when we entered and another one was setting up. I can't remember their name, but they were pretty good. I enjoyed the music even though it was really loud to talk over dinner. Even without the band, the restaurant's music was dance music and it was practically blaring. We had a hard time doing any talking across the table. The food was pretty good. I ordered the seafood platter which was a good mix of everything. I finished it all except the ceviche which I didn't like all that much. Andrew ordered the fish tacos which he said were okay. Nothing too spectacular about them.

It was pretty late after we finished dinner and Andrew wasn't feeling too good so we didn't wander around Downtown Disney at all. We wanted to get back to our hotel as quickly as we could to get the kids to bed but this was probably the worst night for buses. We saw two of our hotel buses leave as we got there and then we ended up waiting for 30+ minutes for the next one to arrive. It was definitely not a fun night for us waiting for a bus, but thank goodness we got seats on the bus back to the hotel. Again, everyone pretty much fell asleep immediately upon laying down in bed.

Disney World 2011: Day 2

2011-03-30T10:51:00.003-06:00

After another night of very minimal sleep, I woke up early to get ready and tried to wake up Andrew to get ready before we had to wake the kids up to go. This is how every morning went for the rest of our trip. I would set my alarm, wake up, and get ready while going over to Andrew and hitting him every once in awhile trying to wake him up. He would eventually wake up and get ready and then we'd get the kids up. Our goal was to let them get as much sleep as possible since they were obviously very sleep deprived there. They usually get 12 hours of sleep a night, so adjusting to our time schedule was very tiring for them. We pretty much decided that our plan of attack would be to hit the parks as early as we could to beat the heat and the crowds. They actually did very well though with waking up. Isabelle would pop up pretty easily while Jadon acted just like Andrew and would complain for forever before finally getting up.

Our plan for the day was to go to Epcot and to go to the Princess Storybook Dining for lunch. I forgot my itinerary (Yes, I typed up an itinerary which Andrew mocked at me for doing but he ended up eating his words yet again.) at home so I wasn't totally sure of what our plans were for any of the days, but thank goodness Heather had hers. We originally thought our character dining was at 10:20 AM but after a little mix-up we figured out that it was actually at noon. Isabelle dressed the part, sort of, wearing the pink Minnie Mouse dress and the ears I made for her.

For those who don't know, Epcot can actually be thought of as two different parks: Future World and World Showcase. It is twice the size of the Magic Kingdom. Epcot actually stands for "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" and was originally dreamed up by Walt Disney himself. Very interesting to learn about if anyone's ever interested.

Anyway, we arrived just after 9 AM in Epcot and of course saw the park's icon "Spaceship Earth." As we were walking under it, this is the conversation I had with Jadon:

Jadon: Mommy, what's that?
Me: What do you think it is?
Jadon: A big golf ball.

Yeah, that's about right. We went over to Future World and got fast passes for Test Track and then we went on the Nemo ride which was surprisingly a bit scarier than I thought it would be. It wasn't exactly scary, but it was definitely really dark. It wasn't the most exciting ride in the world, but we literally walked right onto the "clamobile" and the kids enjoyed it. It stated outside that it was a 5 minute wait, which is what it says for rides that are pretty much walk on rides, but this one seriously took several minutes to even walk through the queue to the front of the line. I can't even imagine sitting through that line especially since it was so dark walking though that I swear I was going to accidentally run into a railing at some point. After the ride, we checked out some of the fish tanks and then we headed over to World Showcase.

Apparently, we were in Epcot during their International Home and Garden Festival which was spectacular because there were so many beautiful flowers galore and really cool topiaries throughout the park. This one is the one we first see when we enter the park. It's of the Toy Story 3 characters and is covered with all sorts of plants to make them come to life. They had the princesses, Lighting McQueen, Peter Pan characters, and the Winnie the Pooh characters too from what I can remember. We weren't able to visit a lot of the attractions they put on but it was definitely cool to see these everywhere.

We went to our character dining lunch which took place at a restaurant in Norway in the World Showcase. It featured traditional Norwegian food as well as American friendly dishes. I definitely recommend booking a couple of character meals if you're visiting either Disneyland or Disney World, because the characters come to your table and you don't have to worry about waiting in line for them to sign your book and take a pictures. It saves lots of time and it's a lot of fun for the kids. We were able to take a picture with Princess Aurora before being seating and we even got a print of that picture as "a gift from Princess Aurora" which was a nice surprise since you usually have to pay for that. This meal was definitely worth it because it included the picture as well as a variety of desserts to sample from. They had a nice appetizer bar that Andrew loved because he was able to load up on his fruits and veggies there. (Andrew basically runs on fruits and veggies and finding a basic salad anywhere there wasn't exactly an easy task.) Kaitlyn was so cute because she stayed standing on her chair waiting for the next princess to come and Jadon hid under the table when they came which is what he did in Disneyland too. In addition to Princess Aurora, we also saw Cinderella, Ariel, and Snow White.

This was a far more productive day than day one. We were able to walk through the World Showcase countries and get an overall view of them all. We rode Mission: Space with Jadon which is a $100 million project funded by HP and supposed to be a pretty accurate representation of what it really feels like to launch into space. Jadon just barely hit the 44" height requirement and was pretty grumpy about riding it, but he was pretty good and stayed pretty calm throughout. Everyone in our group was assigned a position, Jadon was our pilot, which Andrew of course thought wasn't the safest option. Throughout the whole beginning part before the ride began, it kept telling us to not ride the ride if we were uncomfortable with "dark, enclosed spaces." Andrew had fun with that one and enjoyed joking about it whenever that line came up saying stuff like, "Well, I don't know who is good with dark, enclosed spaces!" We rode the green option, which is the less intense option, and it was pretty good! Jadon did really well and did everything he was supposed to do as a pilot even though he could barely reach the controls. He really enjoyed it during the ride and was saying stuff like, "Get them Daddy!" when the asteroids were hitting and moving the joystick around like he was maneuvering. Of course after getting off, he wouldn't admit to liking it, but he basically does that with every ride.

Andrew took Jadon over to ride Test Track with our fast passes while I stayed with Isabelle. Test Track was one of my favorite rides when I first went to Disney World, so I was happy to see that Andrew enjoyed it too since he had never been on it before.

I'm not exactly what we did the rest of this day, but I think we went back to our hotel to shower and rest for a bit. We came back to Epcot later that evening just before the IllimiNations fireworks so that we could get dinner. It was nice that our resort was about a 10 minute bus ride away from Epcot. We wanted to eat in Japan but we didn't have reservations and we didn't want to wait for a table, so we decided to do counter service instead at the Yakitori House. It seemed like we were probably at a pretty peak time though so Andrew waiting in the line that was coming out of the building and ended up waiting for awhile. He barely got our food just after the fireworks started and we were able to find a spot where we could eat and see the fireworks. Andrew had the Japanese curry rice and I had the udon noodles. The food was pretty good and comparably priced to our hotel food so it was definitely a nice dinner even though it was a long wait. Andrew got a melon flavored Japanese snow cone from one of the food carts and shared that with everyone too. It was definitely an interesting flavor to have as a snow cone.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise to me, but I didn't even think about the fact that our kids wouldn't enjoy the loud fireworks that much. Isabelle kept her head buried while I held her and Jadon watched everything while covering his ears. Isabelle did look up every time it was quiet though and clap her hands and say "yay!" In subsequent days, Jadon even looked forward to the fireworks and got mad if we said we weren't going to see them.

After the show, we finished off our dinner and booked it to our bus. It had been a long day and we wanted to get into bed as quickly as possible so we could get ready for Disney's Hollywood Studios the next day.

Disney World 2011: Day 1

2011-03-27T10:53:00.009-06:00

So our first night in Disney World didn't go as smoothly as we thought it was going to go. I also forgot to mention that we had the lovely privilege of sharing a van to our room with a super cranky and mean guy just wanting to pick a fight over stupid things. Not pleasant at all since it was just us and him. Our resort is so huge that the Disney Magical Express shuttle from the airport took us to check-in and then a smaller van took us to our room. We had a really nice bellhop who drove us and took our bags to our room, but it was probably not so fun for him to have to deal with this guy.

Our first day in Disney World was to be spent in the Magic Kingdom. Obviously, since we got in so late the night before, we weren't going to be able to make it there as early as we had hoped. We ended up waking up at 10 AM or so and got ready to go. Since we got in so late the night before, we weren't able to see much of what was around our hotel room. This is what we discovered upon waking up and looking out the door. Immediately across from us was a little beach along the lake that the whole resort is built around and to the left one was one of the many little pools they have around the resort. The main building called "Port Royale" with the food and the main pool was a little walk away. We opted to stay in a "preferred room" so that we would be closer to the main building. All of the buildings around the lake are named after an island and have a slightly different color scheme. We were in "Trinidad North" and were lucky enough to stay in a Nemo-themed room. It wasn't majorly themed but it was nice and having the beach and pool right by us were definitely nice even though we didn't have a lot of time to spend at them.

After we got ready, I had managed to somehow get the hotel to send an engineer with an air pump to attempt to pump up the tire of our P&T. Andrew took the kids outside to run around, explore, and enjoy the weather, while I waited in our room for them to arrive. The guy was super nice and he tried his hardest to attach the pump, which can be a huge pain, and finally came to discover that the tire was indeed busted. There was a squarish hole in the tube which was definitely not repairable. He said it looked like something must've been put on it that punctured it. Great. Now our biggest problem was not having a stroller for our trip. We decided to just figure it out once we got to the park. So we headed over to "Port Royale" for some lunch. They had kid's meals that came in a bucket and shovel which was awesome since we obviously didn't bring beach toys. When we were finally ready to leave, we got onto a shuttle for the Magic Kingdom. It took some time for us to actually get our tickets to the parks once we got there though because Andrew forgot to print off the paper for it. The lady was nice though and got on the phone with Travelocity and they were able to fax it over. Finally, we were able to get in the park at around 2 PM. We went in immediately looking to see what we could do about getting a stroller. I saw some umbrella strollers hanging on a rack in one of the outdoor stores towards the entrance and we asked how much it was to a cast member (this is what they call employees in Disney World) passing by and they told us it was a rental. We opted to just go without a stroller that day since it was already almost over and to see how that went.

Now, we were in Disney World during one of their peak seasons: Spring Break. Not exactly pleasant to have the weather so hot during the day (high 80s) with loads of crowds and long lines, especially at the Magic Kingdom. We arrived at the worst time of day. The lines were too long for us for a majority of the rides we were interested in and the weather was definitely not something our bodies were used to yet. We were in constant need of hydration. Isabelle was in and out of sleep almost immediately upon getting into the park and it took awhile but she finally fell asleep, which is the first time she's ever slept in a back carry and the first time she's slept while Andrew's been carrying her since she was a newborn. Last year in Disneyland, I was the one who was able to get her to sleep in the front carry. Since she was asleep, we just wandered around for awhile taking pictures around the castle and trying to decide what we wanted to do. We went through the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House and met up with Heather, Jason, and Kaitlyn to ride Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride. Isabelle woke up from her nap by then, so we waited in the relatively short line to the ride. It was Jadon's first real ride in Disney World and he didn't put up a fight at all. It was nice and it was also funny because he didn't want to ride with Andrew and me. He chose to ride with Jason and Kaitlyn. It was a pretty short wait and it was fun to see the kids enjoying it so much. After that ride, we were all pretty much ready to call it a day. I for one felt very defeated and didn't really feel like it was the "happiest place on Earth" just yet. We left the park and went back to our hotel to eat dinner and tried to get to bed at a decent hour.

Isabelle of course had different plans. Since we forgot that we didn't have a crib until the evening, we decided to try and get her to sleep in our bed again. That didn't work out so well at all. Jadon of course fell asleep pretty quickly, but Andrew and I were up trying to get Isabelle to sleep for awhile. She just wanted to play and Andrew let her play in the dark for awhile thinking she wasn't tired. Well, she must've gotten used to it, because she refused to be rocked to sleep and instead cried every time we tried to get her to sleep. Eventually, Andrew gave up trying and he called for a crib at 11 PM. We ended up having to wait for the crib for over an hour. During that time, Andrew was able to bounce her to sleep but was unsuccessful at laying her in the bed. She woke up every time he attempted. Once the crib came though, I was able to set it up quickly and Andrew was able to lay her in there without her waking up. She slept just fine after that and slept until the morning.

Disney World 2011: Planning and Getting There

2011-03-25T10:10:00.006-06:00

This year, Andrew and I decided to take a family trip to Disney World. We wanted to go some place warm and we were debating between San Diego (to make up for the Sea World trip that never happened due to plane problems), Hawaii, and Disney World. We were torn between Hawaii and Disney World because either trip was going to be a great deal. We even asked Jadon if he wanted to go to the beach (Hawaii) or to something like Disneyland (Disney World). Surprisingly, he chose the beach even though he's been wanting to go back to Disneyland ever since we came back home. We eventually decided on Disney World after exploring our options and my cousin, Heather, her husband, Jason, and their daughter, Kaitlyn, were also going to go the same time as us so it was perfect.

So the planning began. We decided to stay at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort because we loved the theme. We especially liked the pirate ship themed pool complete with water cannons and the beaches. Our biggest concern with this trip was that we would have a difficult time getting Jadon to ride any rides. In Disneyland, it was a constant struggle full of crying and whining to get him to ride anything other than the "it's a small world" ride (which we rode over and over again). We started about a month or so early with Jadon and told him he was going to Disney World and that he had to ride the rides we took him on without crying.

I'm a big over-planner and so I went to the library and borrowed a few Disney World books so I could be more familiar with everything before getting there. I went to Disney World when I was a sophomore in high school for a cheer competition, but it was a very short weekend there and I wasn't fully aware of all the things I could do there. Andrew went in high school and his bad memory of anything means that he couldn't really help me with recalling anything. I have to say that the best book that I found for Disney World was hands down Frommer's Walt Disney World & Orlando 2011. I also looked at a couple of other books but this one was by far the best book for us. I highly recommend getting this if you're planning a trip to Disney World. It looks pretty thick, but about half of it is Disney World and the other half is the other things to do in Orlando. This was basically our trip bible. Andrew thought I was a little nuts for being so thorough but this really saved us and helped us plan our trip and to also be informed on all the other lesser known things that they have in Disney World. Another resource that helped us a lot with Disneyland and helped some with Disney World is MouseSavers.com. This site has lots of great tips about visiting either of these places.

Another thing I wanted to do in preparation for our trip was to load up on Disney themed things before we went there, so we wouldn't be too tempted to buy too much there and so we could also be ready for any occasion. Isabelle was able to borrow a pink Minnie Mouse dress from Kaitlyn and I tried my sewing skills out again to make her a red Minnie Mouse-esque top complete with ears and a bow. Jadon already had some Disney shirts so we just bought him another one and he was pretty set. I usually tend to overpack but it worked out perfectly this trip and we had just enough of everything to get us through it. Jadon's shirts unintentionally even matched up to whatever it was we were doing that day. For example, he had a tiger shirt to wear to Disney's Animal Kingdom and a Popeye shirt from Italy to wear to Epcot. I couldn't have planned it better if I tried.

Now, getting to Disney World turned out to be harder than we could have ever imagined. We decided to take a later flight than Heather, so that we wouldn't have to try to wake up our kids super early and so we could try to get in a nap for Isabelle. We had a hard time getting her to nap though so that was already more challenging than we thought it would be. We were supposed to land in Orlando at 11 PM EST, which is 9 PM for us. We ended up landing an hour later because the airport had everyone at a standstill because of some sort of misunderstanding with a possible security breach. The flight wasn't too bad with the kids except that they were both on top of Andrew practically the whole time while I sat there watching TV feeling very queasy. They didn't seem to be affected during take off or landing which was nice for us and the rest of the people on board. Upon landing, we got our Phil & Teds stroller, which was gate checked to avoid any harm being done to it, to find out that one of the rear wheels had a flat tire. We didn't know if it was just flat or if it was definitely in need of a replacement, which of course is a massive problem for us. We took our P&T because it was a manageable sized double stroller for both the kids. Andrew wanted to bring the Maclaren stroller, but we knew that Jadon would want to sit too so we opted for the P&T instead which of course seemed pointless now that it was possibly out of commission for the trip. We didn't get to our hotel room and into bed until 2 AM. We got to our room to find out that we didn't have a crib in our room and we didn't want to call for one so late so we just chanced it and hoped that Isabelle would sleep in our bed. She's a better crib sleeper and hasn't ever slept in our bed for an entire night. Thankfully, we were all so tired that we almost instantly fell asleep.

Stay tuned for a full recap of our entire trip (or just skim through since I've been known to be too detailed)...

Library Love

2011-02-22T12:57:00.000-07:00

Andrew and I have started taking the kids to the library on a weekly basis. It's amazing that it took us this long to finally start taking them there considering how much they both like to read. Isabelle used to read one book at bedtime which was usually Goodnight Moon but then she got bored of it so we switched to Goodnight Gorilla. We initially tried to establish these as bedtime books only while we were trying to set up a bedtime routine for her. When she was finally a good sleeper, Andrew started to stray away from the typical bedtime books and introduced other books to her at bedtime. Well, soon after she wanted to read every book possible before bedtime so now there are always a bunch of books that are in our little reading nook.

We used to take them to Barnes & Noble a lot on the weekends to get new books so I think that's why we never thought seriously about taking them to the library. The library ceased to exist in our minds since Andrew hasn't been to a library for recreation since his early college years and I haven't been since my little incident with unnecessarily due fines in high school. (For the record, I have a little problem with the fines on my card and so I stopped using my library card to avoid having to pay the fines. It all resulted from my already paying the overdue fines when I went back once to return the books and then being charged another overdue fine even though I had returned the books on time. It's all really silly now, but I was a poor high school student before and it's really the principal of the matter for me.)

So we finally took them to the local library and Andrew signed up for his very first library card since he was a kid. I don't know if all libraries are like this now, but ours is very advanced now compared to what we were used to in its check-in/check-out system. No longer must we scan bar codes in order to check-out our books. They have coolest thing where you just put the books on it and it automatically detects which books you're checking out. There's also a cool conveyor belt that takes your books when you return them. It's definitely a fun process for Jadon to help with.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed hanging out in a library. I only remembered on our first visit there while I was just sitting there with the kids while Andrew read them books and it was all very nostalgic for me. I forgot that I could actually borrow a book from the library versus actually buying the book and how it's fun to try out so many different books. So my first book I checked out was a travel guide for Disneyworld since we plan on visiting soon. I'm a sucker for travel guides and I like being prepared so that was perfect. Jadon has lots of fun in the movie section and picks out a variety of shows for him and Isabelle to watch. We've started watching more family movies with the kids and it's fun to share our favorite films with them.

Andrew has yet to check anything out for himself, but he also hasn't really looked. I wonder what his first choice will be. He hasn't been reading much at all with work and kids, but I think we're going to try to fit in more reading time since we both like to read. Andrew even surprised me with an Amazon Kindle E-Reader for Valentine's day. He caught me off guard since we weren't planning on exchanging presents this year, but he definitely did a good job of surprising me. I guess I've been talking off and on about wanting one so that I could read more easily and so he went out and got one when I was out getting Jadon from school. So far, I haven't downloaded much to it other than free books since it'll take me awhile to totally defer away from the real thing, but I think I'll slowly get there. (Heck, I'm finally getting around to the idea of downloading music but ever so slightly since I still haven't really downloaded anything yet. I enjoy having a physical copy of things.) I'm re-reading Pride and Prejudice now and Andrew likes to sit in and read every now and then too. I'm definitely loving the ease of the Kindle though. It's definitely been easy to read since I don't have to hold it all the time. I can just put it on my lap and read away.

We'll be heading back to the library fairly often now and I think the kids have really enjoyed trying out all of the different books. They have yet to get their own cards, but the limit on Andrew's card has never been close to maxing out so I think we're good for now. Maybe one day I'll even dig my card out of its overdue fine jail, but probably not since I've somehow persuaded Andrew to come over to my way of thinking of it.

Sundance 2011: Reagan

2011-02-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

We had the awesome privilege to attend a Sundance film this year with the Sabins. They purchase the locals only passes every year and are kind enough to offer up a chance for us to join them. In previous years, we never get back to them in time to actually get a ticket so we miss out. Last year, we were able to go see Skateland with them which I think is the first time Andrew and I have ever been to a Sundance film together. Andrew's not too interested in seeing indie films so I usually have to beg him to take a look at the film options with me which makes it difficult to decide on a film.

This year, I went through all of our prospects and picked out the ones I was most interested in seeing. Andrew ranked them and we gave our list to the Sabins. We ended up getting our first pick which was Reagan. Our overall view of the film was a good one. It was a very well done documentary that portrayed Reagan as a man and as a politician. It was very unbiased and I liked how it presented everything without trying to sway you to one way of thinking. The best part of the film for both of us, I think, was the parts that included Reagan's son speaking about his dad. It definitely added a very personal feeling to the whole film and an inside look into his son's feelings on his father's life. I didn't know much about Reagan before watching this and I definitely think this is a good watch for those interested in learning more about this president. Even Andrew, who is a bit of a history nut, learned some new things about Reagan and his presidency.

Even though this was a very well done film, Andrew and I would've probably picked another film to see at Sundance in retrospect. We definitely feel like we missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity of seeing Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey and meeting Kevin Clash and Elmo himself like the Sabins did here. I like to blame it on Andrew since he was the final ranker and wasn't as interested in Being Elmo as he is now, but we'll definitely catch the documentary once it comes out. Another one of my picks that Andrew ranked on the lower end of his list (and by that I mean he completely left if off his list) actually won a Sundance award (Being Elmo also won an award) so I think I'll try to catch it at some point if I ever have the opportunity. It's called Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles and has a very interesting story, but it was just a little too "out of this world" for Andrew.

I love being in an area where the Sundance Film Festival is so easily accessible. I think Andrew and I will definitely be more active in attending more films in upcoming years. It's always fun to see films that are off the beaten path. Maybe one day we'll have the extra time and money to buy festival passes for ourselves and indulge in as many screenings as we wish.

Farewell January

2011-02-01T22:13:00.006-07:00

January was not kind to me this year. I had two colds that kept me reaching for a box of Kleenex for most of the month. I've gotten used to sleeping with my mouth open when I sleep to breath and having Simone hit me at night to try and get me to stop snoring. My snoring was even bad enough to drive our clingy little boy from our bed to sleep in his own room. Okay, not really -- but he is sleeping in his own bed. This was really no small feat. We've been trying to move Jadon to his own room for years. Whenever he would make some progress, he always seemed to regress immediately and come crying downstairs to tell us that his room was "spooky" and he needed to sleep in our room. But now, as I write this I believe he is sleeping in his own room and I must admit that something good did come from January.

Sewing: Bubble Dress

2011-01-30T11:27:00.004-07:00

I finally got a sewing machine this last Christmas from Andrew. I've been asking for one for ages and he finally gave in. I wanted one for a long time so that I could make clothes and try out other cool things. It's been hiding in the corner of the office since Christmas, but I finally got around to picking what I wanted my first project to be: A bubble dress for Isabelle! Courtesy of this amazing free tutorial online, I mustered up the courage to actually start making the dress.

Originally, I had been casually looking around online for some cool Disney themed outfits for Isabelle to wear for our Disney trip, but I kept coming across things that I didn't like or things that were way too expensive for my taste. It took awhile before it occurred to me that I could just make one for her. Duh! It sounded ridiculously perfect that I can't believe it took me awhile to figure this out. Well, I went online to search for some free tutorials. Gotta love the internet. I came across a bunch that I loved, but I stuck to the bubble dress as my first project since it seemed simple enough for me to do. I learned to use a sewing machine back in junior high school and haven't really used one since, except once in high school and another time recently for a doll I made Isabelle for Christmas. It surprisingly comes back fairly quickly. I did have to learn a few things I never learned before, like threading the machine, etc., but it wasn't too bad after I figured that out.

Andrew and I took the kiddies to our local Joann store, which is always an adventure with the whole family in tow. Usually it turns into me browsing while Andrew is wrangling the kids. Once, I didn't have my wallet on me and Andrew took Isabelle to keep her distracted while I waiting in line to check-out. He was no where in sight by the time I got to the check-out counter. I kept looking for him to appear while the cashier scanned my items, but he never came. The cashier was super nice though and offered to call him over the PA system. It was pretty funny because everyone there knew what was going on and Andrew popping out of the aisle after his name was called was priceless.

So I didn't find my first choice in fabric for my Disney themed dress, but I will find it and make that another day. Andrew ended up helping me pick out this really cute ladybug fabric. I wasn't a huge fan of it when picking it out, but it turned out really cute. Since the tutorial is all about actual measurement of the wearer, it was really hard for me to get accurate measurements of Isabelle. She didn't want me to put the fabric or measuring tape anywhere near her so I had to eyeball it from afar. I had some minor problems here and there, but it worked out pretty nicely. I finished it all in one night minus the straps, which I did in the morning with Isabelle close by.

Here's the finished product:

This actually fits Isabelle pretty well, but I think I may make some modifications at some point for future versions. Andrew wasn't too sure about the bubble since he didn't really know what it was, but he says he really likes it now that he sees it completed. I've got lots more ideas I want to try out, so stay tuned to more of my sewing adventures.

More Signing Love

2011-01-20T16:57:00.004-07:00

So whenever anyone asks us what signs Isabelle knows, we always draw a complete blank. Usually the conversation goes like this:

Us: "Yeah, Isabelle signs and talks a ton now."
Them: "That's cool. What does she sign and/or say?"
Us: "Uh...."

I have no idea why it's so hard for us to remember, but we always seem to forget all that she knows whenever someone prompts the question so I figured I should keep track of her vocabulary at some point. That way, I can look back to remember how far she's progressed. Even with Jadon, whenever we tried to count the signs he knew we'd get to maybe 20 and then a long while later we'd realize that we completely left out large categories of signs.

With Jadon, we never used many aids only because I thought that they were unnecessary and I didn't want to spend the money on them at the time. I bought a couple of signing books to learn what I wanted to learn and then I proceeded to teach Jadon. Obviously, if you want to teach your child sign language, you have to keep consistent and continually use the signs. It's hard though when you have to learn them first and then teach them to your child. Anyway, we ended up buying the Baby Signing Time DVD and CD series because it was featured on BabySteals.com. (My love for that site is enough for another post...) We figured it was a good price and that we'd use it so we couldn't really pass it up. Well, my attitude toward aids has definitely changed. Sure, aids aren't necessary but they are definitely nice. Isabelle has learned signs from watching these DVDs that I haven't been teaching her. I pick several signs at a time that are most relevant for the moment to teach her, but she's somehow amazingly picked up signs that I never reinforced. I also took out some flash cards that I bought before she was born to teach her once I thought she was ready and she picked up those really quickly too. They're animal flash cards from Sign Babies. She loves animals so it was the perfect choice for her and she loves going through them.

Isabelle loves Baby Signing Time. She used to sign 'baby' every time she woke up from sleeping because she wanted to watch it. We've since then bought some more Signing Time DVDs and some more flash cards to teach her and Jadon some new signs. We'll see if we continue to buy more signing stuff, but it's definitely nice to see how much we've all picked up. It is American Sign Language after all, so it's nice to have the basics of another language down if we ever need it.

So here's a list of signs that Isabelle for sure knows and signs when asked:

Eat - Drink - Cracker - Water - Cereal - Milk - Banana - Juice - Finished - Mom - Dad - More - Bird - Fish - Cat - Dog - Horse - Frog - Hurt - Shoes - Socks - Hat - Coat - Please - Thank You - Sorry - Car - Train - Bus - Bike - Airplane - Boat - Ball - Doll - Bear - Wash Hands - Soap - Water - Sleep - Bath - Brush Teeth - Books - Blanket - Outside - Wind - Rain - Snow - Sun - Cloud - Tree - Grass - Flower - Leaf - Stop - Again - Go - Bug - Star - Moon - Nice - Feel - Happy - Laugh - Sad - Cry - Hot - Cold - Yes - No - Me - You - Dirty - Clean - Apple - Pear - Carrot - Peach - Juice - Bubble - Balloon - Telephone - Music - Your Turn - My Turn - Read - Thirsty - House - Home - Brother - Uncle - Aunt - Cousin - Boots - Gloves - Feelings - Grumpy - Surprise - Silly - Excited - Colors - Red - Blue - Rainbow - Strawberry - Pear - Peach - Grapes - Beans - Baby - Time - Turtle - Cow - Squirrel - Lion - Butterfly -Tiger - Kangaroo - Mouse - Alligator - Sheep - Elephant - Spider - Giraffe - Rabbit - Pig - Monkey - Snake

Not sure if this list is complete, but it's a good overview of everything that Isabelle knows how to sign back at this point. We're still working on colors and we'll move over to the alphabet at some point when she's ready since it's one of the DVDs we have.

Christmas 2010

2011-01-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

And another Christmas has come and gone. We didn't have much snow this year for Christmas, but I had a feeling the weather would make it up to us in no time. Of course it did right after Christmas. It snowed a ton and the weather dropped to the negatives. Thank goodness we don't have to shovel our driveway. Thanks to HOA fees, we only have to shovel our sidewalk (which is itty bitty) and the walk to our door. And some days, when we're lucky, the guys who shovel our driveway are nice enough to shovel our sidewalk too! Gotta love it here.

It occurred to me several days ago that this was Jadon's 4th Christmas and Isabelle's 2nd Christmas. This year was definitely lots of fun because Jadon knew very well what was going on this year and Isabelle also had a better appreciation for all the wonderful gifts given to her. Both the kids were spoiled like crazy of course from both sides of the family as well as from Andrew and me. They'll definitely have some great stuff to last them awhile. I'm thinking of doing a handmade holiday next year where all the gifts will be handmade, but we'll see how that goes. Andrew loves being able to spoil the kids this time of year. According to him, this is the only time other than their birthdays that it's acceptable to buy them mounds of gifts. Thanks to Andrew, the kids got plenty of toys all around from Santa and from us.

This year, we literally had almost a week of Christmas. Even though the weather wasn't your typical December weather (no snow on the ground practically) and it didn't feel much like Christmas, it worked out that we did about 4 days of Christmas with different groups of people. I guess that's a great perk of having Christmas on a weekend.

Christmas 1: Before Christmas, we got together with our friends, Adam and Abigail, and their daughter, Eden, for some dinner and exchanging of presents. Adam and Andrew were roommates back in their freshman year of college and have continued their geeky friendship since then. We ate some yummy food from the Olive Garden and played several rounds of Bang!, which is a great group card game if anyone's ever interested in looking into it.

Christmas 2: We went over to my parents' house for some dinner and another round of exchanging presents. This is where we met Jake, Selina's boyfriend, for the first time outside of Skype. My parents bought the kids a little Mercedes Benz powered car that they can ride around the sidewalks in. I guess it was nice there wasn't any snow out because they were able to take it out for a spin around the block. Jadon got a hang of steering and Isabelle was content just sitting next to him. It will be fun when spring comes and they can ride in it more often.

Christmas 3: We got to open up our Christmas presents to each other on Christmas morning. The kids woke up to lots of goodies from Santa. He brought them both a kitchen and refrigerator set. It's so cute. Jadon got the Thomas the Train Misty Island DVD and a Misty Island track set from Santa as well. He loved those. They both got some other toy goodies from us as well, including construction toys for Jadon and a 3 in 1 tricycle for Isabelle.

I tricked Andrew this year with his gifts. The only thing he said he wanted this year was the XBOX 360 Kinect and even went so far as calling up local stores to see which ones had them in stock. He then called me when I was out to tell me where it was available "just in case" I wanted to stop by and get it for him. Apparently he felt bad for only wanting a hard to find item this year so he wanted to make it easier for me. Sure. This coming from a guy who forbids me from picking out my own gifts. Anyway, I got it for him, wrapped it, and hid it somewhere. When Christmas came, all he had under the tree was a single shirt sized box under the tree while I had a bunch of random boxes from him. When he went to open his box, he found pajamas, several DVDs, and a card game. Not exactly anything he really wanted. He admitted later that he was definitely was a little disappointed. While I kept opening all my goodies from him (loads of DVDS and crafting stuff), Andrew was totally sulking about what he had gotten. Finally, when all the gifts were open, I got the last present out from its hiding spot and gave it to him. His mood definitely picked up when he opened it.

Christmas 4: Andrew's family does a gift exchange every year. This year, the people who had us were out of town so we didn't get to open our gifts until later (another Christmas event now that I think of it!), but we were able to sit around and enjoy everyone else opening gifts. The kids were once again spoiled and we went home with lots of fun, new toys to play with. With all the kids, everything was so chaotic but the kids shared really well and we didn't lose anything in the midst of wrapping paper by the end of the night. Jadon got more construction toys to play with and Isabelle got more cute toys and dolls to take home.

Christmas 5: Christmas with my family is always a huge event because I have a huge extended family and we always have a mountain of presents to sift through. It usually takes us a couple of hours to open all the gifts since we like to do it person by person. We also do a gift exchange within the cousins each year as well as a white elephant. This year, we added something new... An ugly Christmas sweater contest! A lot of us had handmade sweaters and it was far uglier than I ever thought it would be. Aside from the gifts, it was lots of fun spending time with the family and eating all the yummy food. By the end of the night our car was loaded and our kids were spoiled beyond belief with clothes and toys from family members once again.

Christmas 6: I forgot about this, but this would be when we were able to exchange gifts with Andrew's brother and his wife when they were in town. The kids got some fun stuff, we were given our gift exchange gifts, and I was able to give my gift exchange gift to Andrew's brother. It was fun to hang out with their family and catch up.

Whew!! And that concludes our Christmas festivities for this year. This holiday has been super busy for us, but it's also been lots of fun. Our house is still recovering from the aftermath but hopefully it will fully recover sooner rather than later. I love having family in town around the holidays. We had a very busy couple of weeks, but it's been totally worth it!

Santa, Skiing, and Skating

2010-12-29T13:09:00.001-07:00

Jadon has jumped leaps and bounds this holiday season. He actually WANTED to see Santa Claus this year. We've skipped the Santa visit at the mall for the last couple of years because Jadon freaked out the first couple of times he went and then refused to see Santa after waiting in line his third Christmas. He did get to visit the Santa at the tree lot last year and he loved it. It was the first time he actually talked to Santa and he loved the one on one time he had with him. This year, while we were making his list (he glued pictures from the ads onto a piece of paper and then slipped it inside of an envelope) he decided that he wanted to give the letter to Santa. He was so excited to give it to Santa that he made me, Andrew, and Isabelle also make up lists so that we could all present them to Santa at the same time. Our first try at visiting Santa didn't go too well though because he went on break (45 minute break! --Andrew likes to complain about that one.) just as we got into line. I had to get to a test for one of my classes, so we had to leave and explain to him that we would come back later. He didn't like that idea much. The second time coming back was a horribly long wait but our kids were pretty good for the most part and they did great with Santa. Isabelle wasn't sure what was going on but she let Santa hold her and take some pictures. Jadon had a great discussion with Santa, where Santa told him to listen to mommy and daddy so that he would get some toys for Christmas. It worked wonderfully immediately afterward when we needed to leave and get some dinner but Jadon wanted to ride the train. He began to whine and all Andrew had to say was, "What did Santa say?" And Jadon went completely silent and sat down peacefully in the stroller.

Jadon went skiing. Wait, Jadon went SKIING!?!? Yup. Andrew and I were just as surprised as you might be right about now. Jadon has always been interested in skiing, ever since he watched Curious George ski in one of the episodes. He has always chosen to ski over boarding partly because he wants to use the ski poles. This year, as the annual tradition goes on my side of the family, Andrew and I took Jadon skiing along with a bunch of my cousins. We usually have lots of family visiting from out of state at this time of year, so it's lots of fun to all go together. I've missed out the past few years, but was finally able to get back on a board this year and I have to say that it wasn't too bad. I didn't get any major injuries and it was a blast, even though I was so tired out. Andrew sadly enough wasn't able to get any runs in because he was dealing with Jadon most of the time.

Jadon decided that he wanted to come with us that morning rather than go to my parents' house with Isabelle. He really wanted to ski, but Andrew and I decided that skiing while we're boarding isn't exactly easy to do, so we convinced him to try out boarding. He agreed since he wanted to do what most others were doing. Then we got to the ski rental shop and found out that they don't have boarding gear for that small of a kid. Darn. We rented him skis instead. Once we got there, we put on his skis and tried to teach him the "pizza" so he knew how to stop. He did it just fine without the skis, but didn't want to do it so much with the skis on. The biggest problem was that he didn't want to stop, he kept telling us he wanted to learn how to go. He didn't want a teacher, which is the problem with a lot of things he wants to do. He doesn't realize that he needs to take the time to learn before being able to do it. Anyway, he refused to listen to us so we attempted to get him a parent/child lesson. Andrew and the instructor spent 30 minutes trying to get him to put on his skis. In the end, the instructor got a tip and we were refunded for the lesson. While Andrew and Jadon were waiting for me to come back from my runs so that I could switch off with Andrew, Jadon decided he wanted to go skiing with us. So we took him to the bunny hill and he took a few runs. He did so wonderfully! He didn't freak out on the lift getting on or off, which helped because Andrew basically had to pull him on and help him off. Towards the end of our time there, he was able to somewhat stop when he wanted to and he didn't panic much when he picked up more speed than usual. I think he really could pick up skiing if we went more often before the end of this season. He loved it and we'll probably try to go back some more this season. It's not easy to be a boarder and try to teach your kid to ski though. Andrew hasn't skied since he was 5 and I only ever went skiing once in my life and it was a very traumatic experience for me. After going with Jadon and basically walking down the bunny hill helping Jadon, Andrew has decided that he wants to learn to ski again so that he can teach Jadon and Isabelle how to ski. He says that he remembers it not being too hard when he was younger, so we'll see how that goes. It's nice to be able to have a potential family activity that we all can be involved in doing.

The next day, I took Isabelle and Jadon skiing along with Selina, Jake, and Melody while Ben and Andrew stayed home for some male bonding time (video games and movies). I didn't skate and watched Isabelle instead, while Selina, Jake, and Melody were nice enough to take Jadon around the rink. This was another first for Jadon and he was awesome about the whole thing. Even when he accidentally slipped on his butt from putting one skate on the ice and when his pants fell down while he was about to get off the ice, he was a trooper and was only in a bad mood for a little while before wanting to get back on the ice. He took a break after each lap while the others took a lap on their own which worked our nicely. He began stepping and gliding a little bit too. I saw several strollers on the rink with toddlers inside being pushed around by their parents. If I had known that was acceptable (really, how the heck would I have known this?), I would've taken Isabelle and skated too. I'm not a great skater though so I would be terrified to do so, but it's nice to know that I can. Isabelle was able to get carried around the ice by Melody for a little bit before they were busted, because it was against the rules to carry around a baby, but she loved it while it lasted. Maybe I'll convince Andrew to skate some time. He's all for family activities (i.e. learning to ski for the kids).

Check back later for some more posts about Christmas and the holidays this year. I'll try to post more often. Also check out the pics on Facebook once I post them.

Signing Love

2010-10-26T20:55:00.000-06:00

I don't think it's too big of a surprise for most of our friends and family to know that we are teaching sign language to Isabelle. We taught it to Jadon when he was younger and it has been a life saver so we're continuing to teach it to Isabelle. Even though we've been doing this for years, we still encounter weird or confusing looks from some people whenever we tell them that we're teaching Isabelle sign language. So why sign language?

I think everyone has heard about the wonderful stage of parenting known as the "terrible twos." This is usually the time when kids will go through many tantrums. Tantrums usually occur because a child gets frustrated from not being able to communicate what they want or how they feel to the parent. Sign language helps to reduce the terrible-ness of the terrible twos by giving the child a way to communicate what they can't yet say. Little kids are much better with their hands than they are with their speech and teaching them sign language gives them the chance to communicate much earlier on than they normally would with vocal speech alone.

A great little scenario of how beneficial sign language can be at a young age can be found in Baby Signing for Dummies. It describes a scenario with a baby waking up in the middle of night. The baby is crying and the mom tries to feed him, change him, and rock him, but he's still crying and nothing is working to calm him down. In the scenario with a signing baby, the baby then signs "hurt" by his mouth and the mom realizes that he's teething and gives him some medicine so he can go back to sleep. Without being able to sign, the mom wouldn't have been to easily figure out why her baby was crying. Andrew liked this story so much that he told lots of people this so that they can easily see how important sign language can be.

Isabelle is now just over 17 months old and is signing like a maniac. Jadon has also been learning lots more signs than he ever did when he was younger. It's something that Jadon and Isabelle are doing together and it's super cute watching Jadon trying to ask Isabelle to sign something. She's also starting to say a lot more words now too and is definitely not a baby anymore. Being able to communicate with her is priceless and I love that we can do this with her so early on.

If anyone is interested in learning more about signing or have any questions about it, feel free to let me know. I would love to help out in any way I can.

Summing Up Summer

2010-10-01T16:19:00.003-06:00

Summer is officially over (and has been for a little while now). It's sad to feel autumn in the air and to realize that the summer weather will be gone very soon. As exciting as it is to think about all that comes with colder weather (Halloween, Black Friday, Christmas, etc.), you can't help but wish summer would stay for awhile longer.

This has been our first summer at our new house and it's definitely been a fun one. We went swimming a numerous amount of times in the beginning of the summer at the neighborhood pool. It's a nice pool not too far away from our house that's great for little kids because of their water squirters and large shallow area. Isabelle is a lot like Jadon when he was younger because she loves the water too. She loved playing with all the squirters and splashing everyone like crazy.

This year, we finally put Jadon in swimming lessons. We've been wanting him to do it for awhile now, but finally were able to for the last session of the season. It was his first set of lessons of any kind and didn't go too well at first. He refused to get in the water for the first 2 lessons, but absolutely loved it when he finally got in. He didn't learn anything (seriously such a waste of money) but he enjoyed it and it was his first taste of group lessons. We'll probably put him in some private lessons at some point so he will actually pay attention and the teacher can then focus on him alone. We want both the kiddies to learn to swim when they're younger for safety purposes so we'll definitely be better about starting Isabelle earlier too. Side note: Andrew thinks it's hilarious that I'm a "good" swimmer compared to the rest of my family (with the exception of a couple New Yorkers...) and that's not even saying much, because he likes to tell everyone I almost drowned him on our honeymoon. For the record, I'm pretty sure I can swim to save my life.

Other fun activities we've done around our neighborhood include taking lots of walks. We walk to our garden, which has flourished despite our lack of gardening knowledge, the park, and around the lake. We've been able to get Isabelle to sit in the new Bob Revolution Duallie stroller we bought on sale from REI with Jadon instead of wearing her in the Ergo, so we even jogged/walked the neighborhood 5k fun run. It was my first 5k and Andrew's second running thing this year. The first being the Marathon Relay where he ran 1/5 of a marathon.

We've also gone camping a couple times this year. The first time we went to Palisades with a bunch of friends and camped in a cabin. There was definitely no roughing it there, but it was fun and Isabelle slept through the night very well. The second time we went to Yuba Lake and that was a crazy experience with the sand storms that went on when we first got there. You can read it about that trip on the Sabin's blog.

For pictures of everything that we've done this summer, check out Facebook. That's where all the pictures are posted. I'll try to be better at blogging and keeping updated. Thanks for reading.

September... Really?

2010-09-17T13:34:00.003-06:00

So I suck at blogging... I've been meaning to update this thing for awhile now, but never got around to it. Andrew even said he would blog and had me add him as a writer. Obviously that never happened... He said he may blog at some point, but we'll see how that goes.

I just looked at my calendar and saw that the date is September 17th. Wow. I feel like September just barely started. Let's go over what we've been up to this past month or so:

Andrew is consumed. Is it work, you ask? Maybe. But what I'm really talking about is StarCraft 2. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then maybe that's a good thing. The original StarCraft came out around 10 years ago. Apparently people were still playing it when this second one came out. Now that's loyalty. Andrew got the game along with a bunch of his friends and they've been playing it pretty much nonstop. We even hosted a LAN party catered directly to playing StarCraft 2. *geeks...*

Other than gaming, Andrew's been working away in our home office and enjoying the fact that he rolls out of bed literally 2 minutes before he needs to do his daily phone meeting. It's definitely a perk for all of us. Andrew doesn't waste his time commuting and he gets to see me and the kids throughout the day.

What's Jadon up to? Well, he's adjusted really well to the new year in preschool and is really loving his teacher, Miss Carli. His teacher called me the other day to give me an update on how he was doing. Apparently, he's very good at listening and minding her. He makes sure all the kids are doing what they should be doing, like playing with the toys correctly. He's really good at using scissors and his fine motor skills are amazing. He doesn't play with many of the kids, but he does enjoy playing with a girl named Shavon. (No idea if I spelled that right...) Of course. He loves all the girlies. I'm glad he's adjusted so well. He freaked out a little the first day, but he's been great ever since.

Isabelle is almost 16 months old. I seriously thought she just barely turned 15 months old! Boy does time fly. She's still NOT walking and isn't really too interested in it. She wants to be down more often and hold our hands to walk, but still doesn't like to stand by herself. We did trick her into walking at Toys "r" Us once (she held onto a push ball popper and walked while pushing it) and she's taken a few steps by herself a few times, but she isn't consistently doing it. Even though she hasn't developed too much there, she has been amazing at signing. She's really good with animals (we have animal flashcards so that's probably why) and she's really catching on fast to new signs every day. Sure, they may all look the same, but she does them consistently. She's also started pointing to her diaper when it needs to be changed. Andrew said yesterday that, "She's our reward after having to deal with Jadon." It was so sad, but so true. She's been an exceptionally easy child minus the first few months with sleeping.

As for me, I started school with 3 courses which is more than I have been taking in previous semesters. I should only have this semester and next semester left and then I'll be done! I'm continually doing IsaJay promotions and giveaways so definitely look to my Facebook page for them if you're interested.

I also signed up for Swagbucks recently. I have several friends who do this so I thought I'd try it out. Basically it's a search engine that gives you points randomly for searching for stuff. I don't really rely on it too much, but it's been fun earning points so far. You can redeem the points a their Swagbucks store for a bunch of different things. If you're interested, sign up with my referral link here or look to the bottom of the blog for the Swagbucks widget.

We're all gearing up for the colder weather now, but we've had lots of fun this past summer. I'll fill you all in later...

Welcome to August

2010-08-05T16:01:00.003-06:00

August is finally here and I can't believe that the summer is almost over. I feel like it's just begun.

IsaJay is open for business finally. I've been working on it all summer long and I'm glad I finally finished up. But then school is starting soon, so I'm starting to have anxiety attacks all over again when I think about all the things I need to get done once school starts.

Jadon has one more week left of swimming lessons. He finally adjusted to it and enjoys playing in the water with his friends, but it'll be over soon. His school's orientation is coming up and then he'll begin his last year of preschool. Let's hope he adjusts easily to that. I can't believe he's almost ready for Kindergarten. He's definitely growing up.

Isabelle is also growing up so fast! She still isn't walking yet or standing by herself, but she is showing lots more interest in walking while holding our hands. She has stood up by herself for a few seconds here and there, but doesn't do it much. She also is signing like crazy! She learned the sign for "no" today while also saying "no" at the same time.

Andrew is working like usual and being the fun daddy he is. He's actually joined me in watching "So You Think You Can Dance" this season and actually enjoys most of it. His favorite is Lauren right now I think, now that Billy is gone. I like Robert, but Kent and Lauren are good too. Andrew's currently entertainingly growing himself a beard. Hey, this is what he gets to do while working at home all the time. I actually don't mind it and wonder how long he'll keep it before he decides to shave it.

As for family news, we're thinking about getting a new car. Our current Honda Civic is pretty tight and we'd love to have more space in general, especially more cargo space for those trips to Costco. Playing Costco Tetris with the trunk of the car every time is not exactly fun. We were actually all ready to go start the process of buying a Subaru Forester, but then got cold feet since it's not too different in terms of space of what we have now. I've always wanted an SUV, but the minivans have pretty cool features too. I just don't know if I could do it though and be a minivan driving mom. No offense to those who do. I just never thought I'd drive one. There are so many different options out there that it gets overwhelming.

August is a fun month, but it also means the end of summer for me. I guess I'll just have to enjoy what I have left before school starts up again. Thanks for reading.

Isabelle at 13 months 3 days old

2010-06-22T20:53:00.003-06:00

One reason I wanted to start up a blog again was to keep track of the milestones my kiddies reach, as well as the random day to day things that I will have a hard time remembering years from now. I always say that I'll remember the timeline of when things happened, but then I don't months later. So here's a recap of Isabelle at 13 months and 3 days old, as well as some other random facts I remember from past months and some comparisons with how Jadon was at this age.

TEETH - Isabelle has a total of eight teeth. Four upper and four lower teeth. She got her first two bottom teeth at about 8 months I think and they just kept coming from then on. We had no idea she was even teething until Andrew had his finger in her month one day and she bit him.

Andrew: "She bit me and there was something sharp in there! That really hurt."

Her bottom two came in, then top two, and then the others filled in. For awhile there, there was a bunch of teeth that had broken through the gum but weren't all the way out yet. It took awhile, but they all came through.

Jadon on the other hand had a gummy smile way up to his 1 year old birthday and a little bit beyond. His teeth took awhile to come in, but when they did, they all came in pretty much at once. I think it was when he was about 13 months old that it all happened.

TALKING - Isabelle loves to babble. She started babbling when she was suppose to and her first words were "mum mum" which is slang for food in Chinese. After that Isabelle picked up "daddy" pretty quickly too. Now, she's consistently saying mum mum, daddy, and dada. Everything else is just babble, but she'll carry on a conversation for quite awhile.

Jadon actually didn't babble too much early on, but his first words were also mum mum. He also said dada pretty quickly after that and didn't say mommy for a little while. But when he did, he referred to me as mimi since my mom was mama in Chinese. It took him up 'til maybe after 2 years old before he actually started to call me mommy.

SIGNING - We first started signing with Jadon when he was about year old because he wasn't saying a lot then. Our pediatrician recommended it and he picked up the signs he wasn't saying pretty quickly. By the time he was about 2 years old, he could sign bird, monkey, daddy, hurt, shower, diaper change, I love you, and bunch more that I can't think of right now.

We knew we wanted to sign with Isabelle too so we started when most people recommend at about 6 months old. I started with food/eat and she recognized that one really well with the words for it. The signs she signs now are daddy, please, bird, food, drink, all done, and more. The other signs she recognizes but doesn't consistently sign back are shower, hurt, diaper change, and thank you. There's probably more, but I don't remember them all at the moment.

BTW, we definitely recommend signing if you are at all interested. It's seriously a life saver with being able to understand your child when they are unable to speak yet.

MOBILITY - Isabelle was early or right on with most of her physical stuff. She first rolled from her back to her stomach at 8 weeks old, by arching her back enough she could twist herself around. Then she rolled from her stomach to back at maybe 4 months old, I want to say... I don't remember exactly. I just remember it being kind of early. She was always really great with neck control. She didn't sit up on her own until I think 7 months. She crawled at about 9 months old. Now she's cruising on furniture but has yet to stand on her own much. She did stand on her own for 30 seconds or so a few months ago, but hasn't done it since.

CUTENESS - Isabelle is so freaking cute. She likes to blow raspberries with Jadon, click her tongue, and nod or shake her head when you ask her a question. She loves anything with a face and is super attached to Andrew and me. Jadon plays really well with her and she loves to play with him too.

Frustrations at this age that are frustrating now, but will probably be cute later on are that she won't go with many other people other than Andrew and me. She'll smack everyone away which pretty much just means she's smacking me the whole time. She arches her back really bad when she doesn't want someone to hold her or pick her up. She hates her car seat, car rides, and strollers. Loves taking baths, but hates getting out.

Alright, I guess I could write all day about this stuff, but I'll just end it here. It's been a fun adventure with Isabelle. She's definitely a feisty one. Everyone knows it. Even the doctors who see her for 10 seconds already comment on it. Lol. Thanks for reading everyone.

Spending the day with Thomas

2010-06-07T20:17:00.002-06:00

We took the kiddies to the "Day Out With Thomas" event this year. It was our first time going and definitely a memorable thing for Jadon to do since he is so train obsessed.

So basically, they had a real life Thomas train there that pulled some passenger cars you could ride on and a little mini Thomas fair. When we first got there, we went and bought some tickets and wondered a little bit before waiting to board. I swear all the kids there were having a magical experience as they watched Thomas come back to the station. Annie and Clarabelle (the cars Thomas normally pulls) weren't there since he was just "visiting," so that was kind of a disappointment, but Jadon definitely didn't care. We boarded the train and they had a Thomas CD playing that had songs and trivia on it. Jadon, of course, recognized the songs and it was a nice touch to an otherwise boring ride.

This was Jadon and Isabelle's first ride on a train. Jadon was timid at first and sat very still in the seat that wasn't next to the open window. When the train started and he adapted, he switched over to the open window and loved waving to the people outside the train.

I think the train ride was advertised to be 25 minutes long, but I'm not really sure it lasted that long. All we did was go one way on the track for a little while then came right back the way we came. Not exactly worth the price of the tickets, which was roughly $20 a ticket. Thank goodness Isabelle was free. She had no idea what was going on and was ready to jump out of our laps by the end of the ride.

The price of the tickets also included a wristband to participate in the other activities available there. Jadon got a map that he was supposed to get stamped at the different locations to receive a prize, which he really enjoyed showing off later. There was a haystack maze that Jadon ran through and a mini-golf course that Jadon loved. He got a temporary tattoo of Henry (his choice) on his cheek, which is still there now that I think of it... It's been a little while too. Oops. They had a big tent of Thomas tracks and toys for the kids to play with and an entertainment tent with random things going on, like a magic show and percussion guy. And don't forget the huge tent filled with Thomas stuff on sale. We were able to convince Jadon to get an inexpensive toy he couldn't just go to Target to buy. He also showed his map at the exit of the sale tent for a little Thomas toy.

Overall, I think going to see Thomas was something every little Thomas/train obsessed kid should go do, but it definitely was a bit pricier for what it was. For us, it was over an hour long car ride both ways too. Kind of a pain and I'm not sure we'll be going back again, but Jadon loved it and I guess that's all that really matters. He's going to remember this for a long time.

Calculus 2???

2010-05-30T16:34:00.006-06:00

For the newbies, you may be wondering what I mean under my blog title when it says, "it all started in calculus 2..." Well, that's a fun story of how Andrew and I met.

Here goes:

Plans changed and I ended up having to take Calculus 2 in the summer semester, instead of the spring semester. It was my second semester in college. This is where I met Andrew. He was taking Calculus 2 because he decided to take on a double major and ended up needing it after all. (He was almost done with his Economics degree when he realized he LOVED Computer Science, so he decided to do a double major.) Andrew was the kid who was always late to class and comes in, takes out his laptop, and sits there. I mean, who uses a laptop to take notes in Math? Anyway, he was the funny one who had a Tomb Raider screen saver, which he'll never live down.

One day, I was walking to my car after class and Andrew passed me as I stopped to talk to someone. Then, I passed him when he stopped to do who knows what. He then caught up with me and asked me if I was in the same class as him. "Uh, yeah..." Nice opening line, huh?

Andrew: Do you have a study buddy?
Simone: No...
Andrew: Do you want one?
Simone: Sure...

And there's where it all started. So whenever anyone asks us where we met we can tell them we met in a very cliche way. It was almost love at first sight.

Let's try this again...

2010-05-30T13:25:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone. Here we are blog hopping again... For those who have kept up with us, thank you so much! We've had some (not so much) fun trying out different hosts and such, but I guess Blogger has ultimately sucked us in. Darn Blogger! *fist shakes* We'll see how long this lasts... Lol. Pessimism at its best.