Valentines, Nicole's Birthday, Norah's first tooth and random February pictures

Norah lost her first tooth!



My 33rd birthday



Random Pictures

Disney World

We finally bit the bullet and planned a trip with the kids to Disney World. They have been mentioning Disney on and off for a couple years and it was like a dream for them to be able to go. Originally Abe and I were going to go to Thailand with my sisters, but with the kidless vacations we had just gone on an will be going on next year for Abe's parents anniversary, we weren't too thrilled about leaving the kids again and felt like we should go on a family vacation. I am happy we took the vacation with the kids, but am really regretting not sucking it up and going with my sisters :( Something I will probably always regret! We casually talked about going to Disney with our friends Preston and Lisa who we hadn't seen for several years. After talking on the phone about it, we decided to start seriously looking into it and book something. We haven't seen them in about 5 years, so I was really excited to see them! I had talked to Kara on the phone shortly after that and they really wanted to go to, so we all made our plans to meet up in Florida!

The kids were really excited and counted down the days until there were no more ring to pull off of the countdown!


The girls were so good traveling!


The first half of the day was spent at Animal Kingdom. The highlights were a little safari (that really was just ok, but the kids liked it), a Bug movie and some little rides. Norah really wanted to see Pocahontas, but she was only there certain times and we kept missing her and had a reservation at Epcot we had to get to. It would have been fun to spend a little more time there, but we were able to do/see most everything worth while. The bug 3D show/movie was really neat and there were lots of sounds effects, air blowing and even some little things that came out from the seats and touched you. Out of us three families and all 9 kids, only 3 or 4 of them made it through the entire show? The rest of the kids were freaking out and had to be taken out. It was pretty funny!








We all thought it would be fun to do a Character meal at some point. We had heard that the best "bang for your buck" was to go to this restraunt at Epcot where there were four princesses to see: Ariel, Bell, Aurora and Cinderella. The girls thought it was so neat because each of the Princesses came and visited our table, signed autographs and talked with the girls. I thought it was neat too.... but I probably won't ever do that again at $200 for a late lunch, early dinner!!!























The next day was Magic Kingdom!




























The 3rd day was spent at Hollywood studios. My kid were so excited to see all the Star Wars stuff and really wanted to see Chewy. I have to admit that meeting Chewy was actually way cooler than I thought. He was the real deal!















The 4th day we took a break from Disney and went to Sea World. I liked it so much more than I thought I would. Probably because there were absolutely no crowds at all and the kids could just run around without us feeling like they were going to get lost! We were able to get right on to all the rides and the Dolphin show was amazing! A crazy thunderstorm was rolling in and we had a long way to walk back to our cars. Of course the Killer Whale show was right before the park closed, so we just went and watched them practice for the show and had to run to our cars before the storm. It would have been nice to have had a couple more hours to see more animals and that show, but we had such a good time there!

(Playing on the playground at our condo before we headed to Sea World)
























Our 5th day was spent back at Magic Kingdom!


The parade was so amazing! It was so crowded and pretty much impossible to get the kids right up to the front. We were able to grab a spot right outside of the Wheelchair area so that we could get a better view. There was a little path in between us and the wheelchair area where no one was allowed to stand. The little man that was in charge let all 9 of our little kids go in that area right up to the front of the parade so they had great seats!




























We said goodbye to the Pierce's at Magic Kingdom that night and the Goodrich's and us drove to Daytona beach to stay for the night so we could play at the beach the next day. We got to our hotel super late and it was SUCH A DIVE! We were supposed to have stayed there one more night, but I got our money back for the next night and we stayed by the airport in a Marriott instead. They day that we had to play at Daytona Beach ended up being our worst weather on our entire trip. It was chilly and super windy, but the kids still ran around on the beach for a bit and had fun. We ate lunch at a little pizza place near the beach, let the kids pick out some homemade taffy at a nearby candy store and then said goodbye to the Goodrich's before we headed to our new hotel. We were lucky, because just as we were leaving, it started to downpour.



































Think the week wore them out?!