Disney, day 1

Yep, we're still alive over here in SA! Been a busy May...and when I've had free time, blogging wasn't what I felt like doing...honestly. But I think I'm back! Let's get to it! The awesome trip to Disneyworld!!!! Here we are on the plane to Orlando. Picture courtesy of Jeffrey! Great seats courtesy of having a crippled son!! Jonathan's crutch (which he was still having to use since it had only been two weeks since his surgery) and wheelchair were the ticket to short lines in the airport and at Disney! His knee didn't bother him at all thankfully.

After we landed in Orlando, we met up with Mike, Julie and fam as well as mom and dad. We then drove to the house we were staying in. It was great! 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, pool, and lots and lots of kid stuff there! Awesome!! The next day, Monday, we headed to Disney Hollywood Studio. One of the favorite rides was Toy Story. Here's Jeffrey and Jeremy waiting in line. I think over the whole week, the longest line we stood in was probably about 30 minutes. Sweet!!

Jonathan in the wheelchair. He was SOOO glad to have this, not only beacause it usually cut our wait time down, but mostly because he didn't have to walk around the parks. It was a great investment of $10/day!

Josiah, Lauren and Jeffrey on the Backlot tour.

The Mickey watertower.

One of my favorite shows....Beauty and the Beast. Arguably the BEST Disney movie ever made....well, Lady and the Tramp...that's a great one! OK, the best Disney animated musical. There you go...it gets that one for sure! Everybody's enjoying the show!

Posing for a picture outside of another ride. Notice the stroller Jeremy's got...our house had 4 strollers in the garage, so we brought one along to the park that only held food bags. It was so great because we were able to take in a lot of food and snacks (save big bucks) and I didn't have to carry any of the bags!! There were always ready hands to push the food stroller!

It was a fun day! Coming up next...day 2...Animal Kingdom!

April Showers...come on May flowers!

The entire time we've lived at our house (this is our 3rd May, hard to believe!) our woods have looked like this.



It's been an excellent source of dirt for our garden in the spring and wood for our fireplace in the winter. The floor is covered with leaves that crunch under foot and rocks and sticks everywhere. A couple of weeks ago, we got some rain. Some rain, indeed. To the tune of 7 to 8 inches in the span of a couple of days following a week of rain almost every day. One Saturday morning following an evening of rain, Michael and I walked outside and hear something that sounded like wind in the trees. We noticed that there was actually NOT wind, but water! Rushing water! We headed down to the woods to see what we could see.



Turn your head sideways and see what we saw...(sorry I forgot to "flip" the picture!)

To put this in perspective, there has NEVER (in our time here) ever even been a little water here. There was a creek bed of rocks as evidence that there had been water at some time, but since the last two years have been so drought-ish, we hadn't seen any. (Now you can turn your head back the right way.) Look how green everything is! We felt like we were in the rain forest. There were plants growing and growing quickly where we had only ever seen leaves...dead, brown ones at that.

Here's some more water. Michael asked me if I thought I could jump across the stream. Um...YEAH! I mean I do P90X Plyometrics! So here's the action shot!

BTW, OF COURSE, I made it across!!

Lots and lots of green!!! And even a waterfall!

The awesome thing of it all was that the week before, mom and dad had come for Easter and mom and I planted our garden. Guess who LOVES all the rain and cool weather.....

Our tomatoes...

basil, thyme, oregano, cilantro, dill...

cauliflower, squash, asparagus, peppers, peanut, snap peas, watermelon and cantelope. And all the weeds surrounding them!

The rain has since left and taken the cooler weather with it! Bummer! Our plants are in shock I think. I'm really hoping they are still around after we're gone all week next week to Disneyworld! Come on May flowers!