Magic Kingdom

Open to close. Feet still hurt. Kids had a blast.

We don't have too many pictures, as we spent the day weaving in and out of crowds (it was surprisingly busy) and riding as many rides as we could manage.

Grant's favorite ride: Thunder Mountain
Grace's favorite ride: The Speedway
Mommy's favorite ride: The Peoplemover (which I rode back to back to back with my feet up)
Daddy's favorite ride: Splash Mountain (but, mainly because Mommy got soaked)

Here are a few pics.







Today, we're off to have breakfast with Minnie, Donald and Goofy, and then, it's relaxing by the pool, packing, and taking Daddy to the airport.

Peace.

Things I Learned At EPCOT

1. Apple Computer provided the "next great innovation" in 1976 with the creation of the Apple I computer. This achievement followed neatly in line with the discovery of fire, the creation of the Phonetic alphabet, and the development of the printing press...at least according to the "Spaceship Earth" ride. I suspect that Steve Jobs is also lobbying to have the iPad as the next achievement shown on the ride.

2. Simulated hang gliding makes my mother-in-law wet herself. "But Deb, it's just a giant screen showing a movie of you hang gliding. We're only a few feet off the floor!" Some people are more susceptible to "simulations" than others.

3. Foreign ladies are very, VERY proud of their natural gifts. I'll say no more.

4. "Magnetic strip down and to the right" apparently means you should continue to try to insert your ticket in the same orientation at least 100 times (mostly with the magnetic strip on the left) before screaming about how broken the machine is and calling for an EPCOT employee to help you.

5. "International Food and Wine Festival" == "Disney finally provides enough alcohol and spicy food to make seeing grown adults trade pins with six year old children tolerable."

6. You can present hydroponics to a toddler, and he will think it's the coolest thing since the iPad, as long as it is presented using a boat on a track and animatronic scientists.

7. Not even cute little mouse ears can overcome the fact that you have a tattoo of a butterfly with a dagger through it on the center of your back.

8. There needs to be a FastPass for the French bakery which allows me to get there when it opens and have them pour the cream from the cream puffs directly into my mouth via a garden hose.

9. It's a good bet that the handful of people milling around the "Oh Canada!" exhibit in the World Showcase are, indeed, Canadian.

10. And finally, there were no mentions of government bailouts surrounding the GM exhibits at Test Track. But somehow, a Kia version of the same ride just wouldn't feel the same.

EPCOT and Rest

We dived into a day at Epcot yesterday a little bit limp from a long day at Sea World the day before, but despite our tired bodies and sore feet, we enjoyed our day at Epcot.

Grant liked Epcot more than we anticipated, mainly because he could ride Test Track, Soarin' and many of the other "rides." We spent the morning touring Future World; we left mid-day for naps, and we returned to the World Showcase (and food and wine show) for the evening.

Just when Grant started to bore of the World Showcase (okay, read: stops for "beer flights" and chocolate crossaints), a lady came up and gave him a sword she had found. If you know Grant, you'll know that he loves his weapons, and so this was an ideal gift that occupied him for the rest of the evening. In fact, Grant has three new swords from this trip, only one for which he has paid. In addition, two different ladies at the pool dropped off all of their pool toys before boarding their respective planes, so Grant's been playing with his free toys (including two huge super soaker guns) all week. He is starting to think that toys materialize on demand.

Aside from the rides and free sword, a highlight for Grant was a kiss from Mulan (about the only decent princess, in my opinion). The highlight for us was the sunset dinner at the new Hacienda de San Angel. Yum.

Here are some pics from Epcot.






Today, we're taking it easy by the pool. We have a great pool complex, complete with pirate ship with five slides, a massive splash park, and "big kid" water slide too. Grant's had a few meltdowns this week--the biggest when he missed riding the "big kid" slide by an inch.



The Magic Kingdom tomorrow!

Sea World

We spent yesterday at Sea World, and thanks to some friends, we scored four free passes, which made for a much price-reduced experience. Grant and Grace loved the rescued pets show and the sea lion show, but because of a baby killer whale birth last night, there was no Shamu show, which was fine with us, as we were beat by late afternoon. It was Sea World's Halloween Spooktacular, so the kids stayed hyper thanks to the candy, which helped them both make it out of the park without a nap.

On the whole, it was a great experience, and we're thankful for a fun-filled day. Grant, of course, liked the roller coaster best, so he should have fun at Epcot tomorrow.

Grant goes for the roller-coasters; Mommy and Daddy go for the food and wine festival. Bring on Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow.

Downtown Disney

We walked around Downtown Disney last night and looked at overpriced merchandise (including princess dresses for $60!) before heading to the T-Rex restaurant. Most of the time at the T-Rex restaurant (as with most themed eating venues), you go for the atmosphere (in this case, prehistoric animatronic dinos) not the food, and for most people in our party, this adage proved correct, but I (Erin) had the best salad I have ever had, and I only paid $18 for it.

Then, because we are traveling with Bret (and this is how most evenings end with Bret), we headed to the Ghirardelli ice cream fountain for grossly huge ice cream sundaes.

Of course, I forgot the camera, so you're left with a few "before" pictures, namely: Grace in her Minnie Mouse dress (to die for cute) and Grant with his new sword (a gift from the condo place).

Today, it's off to Sea World--camera in hand.

Aqua

I've discovered that in the time since I got married (an event unrelated to the rest of this post), I've become a water snob. Except that unlike most water snobs, I'm not so much concerned about my drinking water. It's me bathing water with which I have issues.

I've been truly fortunate to have traveled all over the world, and almost without fail, the first thing I seem to notice when I go someplace new is the water, and Orlando is no exception.

Orlando's water smells like the sea and appears to be incapable of being absorbed by human skin. It just sort of hits your body and rolls off into the drain, leaving behind a kind of gray, scaly film.

We have fairly nasty water back home. It frequently exits the faucet looking a little bit like the hot dog au jus that you see brats being boiled in at a ballgame. But we have a good water softener and drinking water system which makes it all OK. Unfortunately I don't have these luxuries while on vacation.

Even the notorious water in China didn't both me all that much compared to Orlando. I suppose I spent so much time worrying about keeping it out of my mouth that I neglected to notice how oily and weird it was otherwise. And if I did manage to swallow some by accident because I started brushing my teeth and accidentally used the water from the tap because I was keeping an eye on the giant insect crawling along the baseboard, I would spend all of breakfast seated in close proximity to the bathroom, waiting for the inevitable attack. But at least the water didn't smell...most of the time.

I guess what surprises me is that the fine folks at Disney seem to be able to control everything from robotic mice to thousands of people in a theme park to the atmospheric conditions over their parks, so why can't they fix the water down here? Perhaps old Walt liked it this way. There had to be SOMETHING which suggested that moving to a swamp like Orange County, Florida was a good idea to him.

Orlando, Orlando

Ah, vacation. We all made it down here safe and sound, and we've set up camp in a beautiful two bedroom condo. The condo complex is amazing; the condo gorgeous, and our fridge is stocked. It's a good start.

Grant has already found the two pirate themed swimming pools, and he has charmed the staff into giving him multiple gifts.

Grace is mostly concerned about a balloon that went floating off into the sky (or to Jesus, as Grant says).

We're off to the pool complex all morning, and then, we'll be off to Downtown Disney and the T-Rex (a must stop for Grant) tonight.

Here are my favorite pics of yesterday; they are a welcomed site to a mom traveling by herself with two toddlers.

Big girl

Two words: diaper free. Four words: even through the night. Five words: just in time for Disney.

Summer Cleanup

Since it hasn't rained in Indianapolis in approximately three months, I went out this weekend to examine the dusty remains of my lawn and assess whether it needed to be mowed one last time. In reality, it did not, but I needed to drain the gas out of my riding mower (plus the weather was cool and doing donuts at 5 mph on a mower seemed like it might be entertaining), so I proceeded to mow.

After I was done, I decided that I would tip the mower upright in my garage for the winter. This would save space and provide a thrilling challenge for the kids if they decided to try and get out of the way as the two ton mower came crashing towards them.

I called my father to get advice on the most dangerous possible way to store my mower, and he concurred that standing it upright would do just fine. He also informed me that I should drain the oil from the mower before doing so, lest I end up with a recreation of the Gulf of Mexico on my garage floor. (And really, who likes a greasy duckling stuck to a concrete floor?)

I decided to drain the oil while the mower was still parked in the lawn. I quickly located the drain plug, which required me to lacerate both of my hands in order to even touch it, let alone get enough torque on it for removal. After using a variety of improper tools to beat on the plug, it finally came free.

I had prepared two containers in which to catch the oil -- an oil pan (imagine!) and a milk jug (imagination!). As the oil began to flow, I tried to move the oil pan into place, only to discover that it was too tall. So I grabbed the slightly taller milk jug instead, and as oil ran into my yard and onto my Ralph Lauren fuzzy pullover, I mangled it into position such that it was catching approximately 1/3 of the oil. Another 1/3 was running down my sleeve, and the other 1/3 was forming a nice bubbly crude on my side yard.

After mopping up as much oil as possible (and grumbling about why I couldn't just park the mower over the storm drain to drain the oil...like in the olden days...) I moved the mower into the garage. In the end, Erin and I decided that we love our children, and seeing their legs sticking out from under the mower like the Wicked Witch of the West didn't seem like much of a Christmas photo op, so we parked it horizontally in the corner.

My dad informed me shortly thereafter that I hadn't needed to drain the oil to park it in this configuration. I told him in reply that there was now a lovely, shiny baby seal and several species of crane now soaking in oil in my front yard, who otherwise wouldn't have had the opportunity. Take that, Al Gore.

Hike For Music

Today at lunch I decided to enjoy the 70-ish degree weather and walk up to my favorite music store in town -- Luna Music. I used to be a Luna regular when they had a location on the north side of town by my old office. Every Tuesday I'd race over, drop a fortune on six or seven CDs, and then retreat to the solitude of my car for the remainder of my lunch hour, covered in cellophane and those annoying stickers that they seal CDs with across the top.

Today's journey was more about the exercise than the music, but there were some used CDs that I could have gotten excited about if found. Unfortunately, I made two disappointing discoveries on today's trip. The first was that Google Maps informed me that Luna was only about a mile from my office, yet it felt like I'd made a Forrest Gump-ian trek across America to get there. Since I started my new job, the only thing I've spent less time on than this blog is working out. Both things need to change. The second discovery was that this particular Luna no longer sells used CDs. Drats. I can't fathom why anyone spends $15.00 a pop on music anymore.

Thus, the whole trip turned into a major disappointment for me. In addition to wearing myself out with a mile long walk, I also felt as though the journey might has well have ended in a pit full of typewriters and rotary phones. A store full of physical CDs containing music just felt so...90's. It was crazy. For a guy who used to buy CDs with a far greater regularity than food and clothing, it was disheartening. It was like walking into a room full of old friends, each of whom had been informed that they had a terminal illness -- in this case, complete obsolescence.

So after lunch I returned to my office and checked Amazon's Digital Music department and iTunes for the music I so desired, in this case, a new album by The Posies and a box set by Robyn Hitchcock. I'll probably order a physical copy of the Robyn Hitchcock set, because I still value the notes that come with that kind of a set. But for the new Posies album, I'll probably just snag it from iTunes. The times, they are a-changin'...

Summer Is Winding Up

(Daddy plays "I Get Around" on the stereo which prompts much dancing from Grant and Grace.)

Grant: Daddy, is this the Beach Men?
Daddy: Yes, Grant. They are now, indeed, the Beach Men. Or perhaps even more appropriately, the Beach Geriatrics.

More End of Summer Fun

We've had a busy end to summer, and it's just getting crazier! For the sake of our own record-keeping, here are a few highlights.

We visited with Grant's birthmom and sisters. Grant looks so much like his older sister Jaidyn.


We headed to the Chinese Festival, where Grace watched with KEEN interest the dancers (all those cute Chinese girls; I could just pinch their cheeks). Grant was more interested in the food, the face painting and the jump houses.






We've been watching Grant play soccer (which has not been going well). He cries all the time. He is so incredibly jealous if anyone else kicks the ball; it's a real problem. We're working on it and praying about it (daily). Let's just say, I'm not sure team sports are in the boy's future.



Grant is busy with preschool two mornings a week, and I'm involved with a weekly Bible study that has a great (and free!) preschool program for both Grant and Grace on Tuesday mornings. Just yesterday, Grant came out of class singing a hymn. It's just so cute... and so amazing to watch their little minds eat up knowledge.

And, Grant has started back up with another round of swim lessons (even though he assures me he already knows how to swim). No crying this time... lots of smiles (despite the near frigid water conditions). He has a great kid teaching him (very energetic), which I think helps. Grace is enjoying herself more too (old shots are back in the May folder).




I'm sure that Bret will be back soon with funny thoughts, but for now, you're stuck with pics of my kids.

A Quick Conversation

Potpourri

Hold on to your blog seats...

1. Happy Birthday, Daddy. Bret joins the ranks of middle-aged today, and we want to say thank you to the best Daddy and husband ever! He is patient and loyal and supportive, and we are thankful how he tirelessly works for our family.


2. Here are a few pics from our recent zoo visit. We have a zoo pass, and we go all the time in cooler weather. But, I never seem to take my camera! Grant loves to "race the cheetahs" (a clever way to bilk parents out of money), and Grace loves the giraffes best of all. Mommy likes to be outside in cool temps.







3. Grant has long been scared of various childhood pleasures that most kids (including his younger sister) seem to enjoy. For example: tube slides. Grant has long been down right terrified of these things, but in one day, the switch flipped, and now, he's a sliding machine. He even tackles the massive indoor playground slide, which makes him look like a normal three year old; we're thankful, as we were about to get thrown out of Chic-fil-a because Grant would only go on the baby slide!



4. Bunk beds! Yep, that's right. We moved Grace and Grant in to the same room about a week ago. We expected this to be a tough transition (both in Grace obeying and in getting them on the same schedule), but it has been the best. Grace, after one evening of disobedience, now stays in her bed at all times (that's our rule: no getting out). And, Grant and Grace have miraculously moved their divergent sleep schedules in to one! It's magnificent. I only miss crawling into bed with Grant to read books (top bunk=no thank you). We purchased our beds off Craigslist, and they are near 50 years old! Now, we have a nursery that's empty... hmm... that's got me thinkin'.

5. Outdoor fun. I have had a serious hate relationship with this summer (hottest EVER). So, now we are thankful that we can spend sometime outside. Here are some pics of playing outdoors. I do have to post a naked booty pic below. We've been trying to teach Grant to pee standing up, and we've been practicing outside. Of course, Grace has to try it too! When we aren't peeing into bushes, we play in the playhouse, feed the ducks, herons and fish and play with (or eat) the sand in the sandbox. Thankfully, Grant and Grace are becoming better friends who enjoy playing together.

Adoption

This week, we learned that friends of ours were in the middle of a terribly painful adoption experience. These experiences are rare, but they are often what people who are unfamiliar with adoption think of as the norm. Our hearts were extremely heavy for our friends all week long.

And, their experience got me to thinking of our two adoptions. I thought of seeing Grant for the first time in the hospital, a baby who was about an hour old. And, I thought of Grace, so scared and so skinny. I'm so thankful that their adoptions were so easy.

But, while the processes that brought us Grant and Grace were easy, it doesn't mean that raising adopted children is always smooth. There are hard discussions to be had, hard realities to face. Just this week, Grace said, "I miss my birthmom." Grace has no concept of what a "birthmom" is, but Grant does, and he says this phrase often. We have daily conversations about Grant's birth family, and he talks frequently about missing them. I know that most of the reason that Grant misses his birthmom is because he loves playing with his birth sisters and loves the gifts he gets. But, I can't also shove under the rug the reality that Grant, as much as his three-year-old self is capable of understanding, is processing his own adoption. We often hear things like "I want to be adopted again," or "why is adoption forever?" Many people think that having contact with Grant's birthmom must be tricky or hard, but it is the opposite. It is the best thing for her, the best thing for us, and most certainly, the best thing for Grant. I just finished watching a very interesting documentary called Off and Running, a story of an African American teen who tries to find her identity after being adopted and growing up in a trans-racial home. I was so thankful after watching the film that Grant has access to a loving and a smart birthmom who is ready and is willing to walk him through all the questions he will have.

And, that is why Grace's comment about her birthmom killed me. I know she was just parroting Grant, but in that moment, my heart sank. Grace will never know her birth parents. She will have no access to the nagging questions of her heart. She does have 70,000 plus other kids who have been adopted from China who are in the same boat, but when her heart aches to know the answers, I have very few to give her.

But, what I do know is that both Grant and Grace's birth mothers loved them very much, were very brave, and were able to make the hardest, most selfless decision imaginable. And, what I know is that I am thankful.

Make it 110!

How many times...

I counted today how many times Grace mentioned to me (or anyone who would listen) that she was going to visit Mickey Mouse. One hundred and nine times. No joke. I kept track.

Grant, sadly, has moved well past the characters (the magic is gone), and now, it's all about the rides, namely Thunder Mountain Railroad which he talks about just as much as Grace talks about Mickey.

We don't leave for 30 days. It's going to be a long month.

Month in Review

Sorry that it has been so slow. With the start of the school year and Bret's new job, we've been super busy.

We promise to do better soon.

Here are some August pics until then.

Grant's first day of preschool. Mommy could cry.

Grant playing soccer.


Having fun at home.

Some Holiday World pics. Grant's addicted to rollercoasters, and he talks about riding Thunder Mountain (at Disneyworld) every single day (we're heading to Florida in October).