Winners!!!

If you've been following me for a while then you know that last year I finally gave up trying to win the bicycle decorating contest for 4th of July and we put all our decorating eggs in one basket and went all out for the float (and we won).

 

 

This year I decided to give the bicycle another try, mainly due to my dad's new tricycle he got for his birthday. 

 I mean, how can an adult-size tricycle not win?

Well, apparently, I was right, cause it was a first place victory, baby!

 

 

 The theme was "Star Spangled 4th" and my mom and I pulled this one together, and yes, those are all individually tied red, white, and blue strips (they're plastic table cloths).  It really didn't take as long as you'd think. We didn't start until after 7 the night before, and I was totally done by 11. 

 

 

Reed made the flag (my mom made the letters).  If you look closely, there's 10 extra stars. I told him it was fine...his flag is ready in case we decide to add some more states anytime soon.

 

 

Here he comes down the parade route.

 

And there he goes.

 

We spent even less time on our float.

It was my mom's idea to use their choir boys that are Christmas decorations, but once we added a little 4th of July decor to them, you'd never know they are for Christmas.

 

 

My dad pulled the decorating together on this one. 

 

 

My mom made the sign, and the boys and I hung flags and stars. Jason drove.

 

 

Here they come.

 

 

1st place ribbon for the bike and 25 bucks for the winning float.

So with this win, I am officially and totally redeemed in bikes...which means I am officially and totally done with bikes. 

(Floats are way easier!)

 

 

Truth be told, JR was way more impressed getting to meet a WWII veteran than winning a ribbon for a bike his mom decorated.  (He does make me proud.)

Happy 4th on the 5th

I really meant to post this yesterday, but I just didn't get to it.

 

We ran up to my parents for the night so we could do our annual 4th of July parade (more on that later) and this was the cake for after the parade.

 

Jason noticed the 'creative grammar' right away.

 

It gave us a giggle.

And if you're wondering why I haven't been keeping up with my blogging, well, these boxes used to filled with our stuff. 

So, yes, the unpacking is coming along.

Moving

Today was moving day.

Here's what it looked like this morning.

 

This picture is just the tip of the iceburg.

 

I'm not sure what I'm most excited about in this move: having my washer and dryer inside the house, having a paved driveway so I'm not slopping through mud puddles every time it rains, or not sharing a bathroom with 4 guys.

I started making trips from the rental house to the "real" house last week. And, of course, I found it humorous that one of my moving loads was only dead animals and hats. I'm not sure much else could so appropriately say 'Jason and Jan'.

 

 

Feathered Friend Friday

I don't care much for bird shows, and totally not into parrots and such for pets, but the bird show we saw in St. Thomas was pretty much the most awesome thing ever.

 

As you can see by the pictures, a crazy bird lady has trained her birds to be held like babies.  She can even throw them up in the air in this position and catch them (they just lie still like they are).

 

Look how excited Kyle and Reed's faces are to be holding these birds.

The birds (who she's had for 35 years) also play basketball, ride bicycles, and roller skate.

 

She told us they'll live to be about 85, and that they are going to go to a zoo in Australia once she can't care for them anymore.

 

 

When it was Kyle's turn to get his individual picture made he said, "I'm taking off my hat, I want to feel the bird on my head!"

 

I've never been so excited about seeing some birds in my life, I even told the crazy bird lady she should try out for America's Got Talent.

 

Not a lot of Him

I have to be real honest, I didn't see a whole lot of JR on the cruise.

 

As an 11 year old, he was able to go the tween club, and even more exciting (for him especially) he could check himself in and out of it, which basically means he could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted while he was on the boat.

 

 

He came back to the room each evening to go to the nightly show and dinner, but other than that he did his own thing. (And as soon as he was done eating dinner, off he went.)

He'd head off to "the club" and say, "I'm going to improv class" or "I'm going to a cooking class".  He stayed out every night until 1:00 AM when they shut down.  (I know!)

 

 

But it's not like we didn't ever see him throughout the day.

We'd run in to him at the pool

and around the boat

and I could always count on running in to him picking up a spicy chicken sandwich

(I think he ate at least 3 a day).

But we gave him a lot of freedom to do his own thing, and we were very proud of how he handled it.

My Aqua Duck

Kyle also really enjoyed the kids' club (here he is after Toy Story boot camp with the green army men) but he spent most of his cruise in the water.

 He went from the Donald pool to the Mickey pool all day long.

 

 

On the Mickey slide

 

 

Snorkeling at Castaway Cay.

(BTW, Bringing our own snorkels and having them practice before we left was the best thing I could have done!)

 

 

The slide at Castaway Cay

 

 

But he said his very favorite thing was the Aqua Duck.

Here is a section of it. (It circles around the pool area, so it finishes back below where it starts. You're looking at the start.)

We checked out the Aqua Duck online before we left, and it said you had to be 7. 

We had already cried and gotten out all our tears about not being able to do it before we left.

But when we got there, Kyle marched right up to the lifeguard in charge and found out if you weren't 7 it was a height requirement (which they met). 

He came back with an arm band and told us all he needed to ride was a parent to do it with him. 

 

Needless to say, Jason and I rode the Aqua Duck many, many times. 

Here's Jason and Kyle on one of their many rides.

Kyle and JR are both really good about not being shy around adults.  Neither of them have any fear of asking questions or talking to people in "authority". 

Because of this, we put Kyle in charge of ordering all our room service.

 

(We found we usually needed a snack while getting ready for our 6:15 show to tide us over until our 8:15 dinner seating...cause, ya know, eating all day long hadn't filled us up yet.)

 

 

Here he is ordering up some chicken strips.

 

 

 A little after-swim room service on the balcony.

 

 

Kyle was the least interested in the characters of anybody, but his eyes lit up when we just happen to see Phineas and Ferb. 

He gave them both huge hugs and asked, "Where's Perry?!"  I was glad he got to see them.

 

 

We also saw Captain Hook one night. I'm not sure Kyle even knew who he was.

 

Yes, my little "aqua duck" certainly enjoyed himself.

Cartooning

I figured I finally better get to writing about the cruise. So here goes...

 

 Jason and I said many times our kids were the exact perfect ages for this trip.  Everyone got to do exactly what they wanted, when they wanted. 

 

 

So I'll start with the youngest and work up. 

 

This is my favorite picture of Reed.  Yes, he's wearing a tuxedo that he picked out and had me buy for him special for formal night. 

(I also think he looks like he's Jason's ventriloquist doll.)

 

 

 All of the kids had one thing in common.  Seeing the characters was at the bottom of their lists.  There were way too many fun things to do besides stand in line for pictures, so the character pictures we did get were ones when the kids just happened by at the end of a greeting when there were only 2 or less people in line. (If there were more than 2 people they refused to wait.) 

 

I also don't have any pictures of all 3 of them with a character because they were hardly ever all together.

 Here JR and Reed ran in to Woody after being at the pool.

Reed loved the pool and the kids' club, but what he loved more than anything was going to animation class. This class was really more for tweens and up, but Reed went to class and participated just like he was an adult. 

(I went with him just in case, but he would have been just fine without me.)

 

 

His first class was Donald Duck (he actually did go to this specific class in the kids' club).

 

 

They give you pencils without erasers which just about killed Reed, but I guess people would erase and redo and never finish the class.  So whatever you put down on paper the first time is what you walk away with.

 

 

Our first class together was Buzz Lightyear.  They said this is the hardest character they teach because he's a person and not an animal (and people are harder to draw than animals).  Reed couldn't stand the guidelines on the paper, so he used his own eraser and got rid of them when we got back to the room. (You can see where he erased them.)

 

 

 

We also went to a Pooh and Tigger class. 

I was feeling pretty good about my Pooh until I looked at how good Reed's is!

 

 

Tigger is supposed to be one of the easier ones, but you can see Reed and I both had trouble with his chin...and since you don't have an eraser, it just had to stay that way. 

 

 

 

When I asked the kids what their very favorite thing was from the whole week, Reed said the drawing classes. 

He even continued to draw Disney characters on the way home!