Universal Studios Anniversary Trip

It’s hard to believe I actually kept up with this at one point. Life happens.

We just celebrated our 10th anniversary! Since we’ve never spent more than I think 2 nights without the kids, we wanted to do something fun and just for us. So after several revisions of any kind of plan, we ended up going to Universal Studios in Florida, mainly so I could visit Harry Potter World. It was AWESOME!! We left on a Tuesday, while the kids were st school, spent 3 days in the parks, and came home Saturday morning. Without boring anyone with all the details, here’s a condensed version of the trip with pictures.
We stayed at the Cabana Bay resort. I wanted to stay at one of Universal's hotels so we could get in the parks an hour before they opened to the public. This was the view from our window. The Volcano is part of Universal's water park.

Hogsmeade at Harry Potter World!

The Hogwarts Express, but not the one you ride. This one is just for photo ops.

More Hogsmeade, I think this is when I started actually skipping from excitement.

Hogwarts Castle

Inside the castle. You go through it to get on a ride inside.

A Hippogriff while waiting for the Flight of the Hippogriff ride

Inside Ollivanders Wand Shop. The wandkeeper picked me to get my wand, so I stood up in front of the counter. It was awesome!!! Of course I had to buy the wand that picked me. They are interactive so you can go to special windows around Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley and do spells to make things happen in the windows.

Inside the Owl Post

Getting ready to ride the train!

Getting off the train in Kings Cross station

Diagon Alley! First stop: Weasley's Wizard Wheezes

Inside Gringotts Bank.

Meeting Stan from the Knight Bus. The head in the bus talks. I got a high five for being a Hufflepuff.

Frozen Butterbeer. Jason wasn't a fan, but I liked it. 

Florean Fortescues Ice Cream. It is the softest, creamest soft serve ever. I think it was Jason's favorite part of the trip. He got Orange Marmalade flavor, I got Butterbeer, of course.

 The dragon on top of the bank actually blows fire periodically

 We had a later lunch in the Three Broomsticks. The turkey leg was huge, but so good. I tried Pumpkin Juice and it was DELICIOUS!

 Inside the Three Broomsticks

 More Pumpkin Juice

 The Jurrasic Park ride was shut down for maintenance, but we stopped to see the dinos for Logan

 The boys from Durmstrang, and the girls from Beauxbatons

 The castle was really pretty at night. As soon as it got dark they did a light show on it.

We had a relaxed day for our actual anniversary. We went around and bought the souvenirs I wanted, had a giant plate of nachos for lunch, and got these milkshakes for a follow up. Jason's was Chocolate x5, and mine was of course Strawberry Cheesecake.

We had a great time and I will make it back someday. Huge thanks to Jason's parents for staying with the kids while we went and played like kids.

Preschool Graduation

Last night we had Logan's preschool graduation. The theme this year was the circus and they had different 'Acts'. Logan was an elephant. We think he got a bit of a taste to be in the spotlight. He totally hammed it up and had us laughing in our seats. After each performance he was in, he did a full swan-dive kind of bow. It was beyond cute, but unfortunately it was always after I had stopped recording. So you just have to imagine both of his arms stretched out wide and a full 90+ degree bend at the waist.  But here are the videos of all of his songs.
Walking in. His buddy, Miss Brooke has been gone the last couple of weeks and couldn't be there last night, so his second favorite, Mr. Tyler walked him out.

Days of the Week

Months of the Year

ABC

After watching that one a few extra times, I think he went more crazy because people, and most notably Sydney, were laughing. I was dying.

Elephant song. My friend shot this one because her son, one of Logan's good friends is in it too. My phone conveniently decided 5 seconds into it that there wasn't enough memory space.

Graduating!

Sydney was super happy to go because she got to see her buddy from last year. She was like a little celebrity during the refreshments after. All of the girls from last year wanted to hug her and take pictures with her and she loved every second of it.

Today was Logan's Field Day, which means they had a day to play outside parents are invited to watch. 

 His group had a hard time popping water balloons by sitting on them so they played catch. His buddy Luke was in his group. They're really bad at catch.

 Surprisingly, he was not too bad at this kind of catch. He wants some of these paddles pretty badly now.

Before it was time to go home, they made snow cones. He has one more day tomorrow and then he'll be done with his first year! We sure love this handsome little guy!

Life these days

Since I'm more than woefully behind, here's the recap of our lives these days.

Avery Marie joined us Sept. 28, 2015. She was born at 4:38 pm and was 7 lbs 2 oz, and 19.5 inches long.

She is a very happy baby, a great eater and is usually a great sleeper. We lover her to pieces!

Logan just turned 4 and will be done with his first year of preschool next week. He has learned a lot and it's been nice to have a little solo time with Avery. He will go back for more preschool next year. He LOVES dinosaurs, is very sweet and helpful. He also loves Avery and tells me often "She is our precious baby. We will keep her safe."

Sydney is 6 and finishing up her last month of Kindergarten! She has loved so much of it and has done even better than we expected. She loves learning. She has gone from just knowing letters and recognizing a couple of words to reading at a 2nd grade level!  I'm going to have to find something to keep her going this summer. 

Today she had her end of year Kindergarten program, so I thought I'd post the videos for grandparents to see. (Sorry they're shaky. I was trying to keep Logan from falling off the chair in front of me.)

Jason and I are about the same. He has the same job and is now serving in the Elder's Quorum as the 2nd Counselor at church. I was just released as the Relief Society Activity Chair and put in Young Women's as the Mia Maid Advisor. When we're not busy with that stuff, we are mostly trying to survive the kids. 

I'm going to try to keep up at least a little more. No promises with 3 kids home for the summer though :)

Rewind

I got my camera a while ago and found my Christmas pictures on them! So I'll do a quick rewind to December before I forget

We drove into Utah again. We tried going through the night, but before we got to the Texas border, we hit some pretty crazy freezing fog. So between that and how tiring it was to drive through it, we stopped and got a hotel for a few hours, putting us a bit behind our planned schedule. But we arrived safely, so it was probably worth it.

Stacy and the kids made "Elsa" cookies.

 Christmas Eve dinner was held and mom and dad's for a change. These 4 cousins probably saw each other more this trip than ever. Though it's pretty much impossible to get a picture of all 4 looking at the camera.

 Logan and Parker really hit it off.

 Logan thought it was great to feed Parker.

 I came across this picture and thought "Wow, they look a lot alike!!"

 After dinner activities included riding the inflatable bowling pins down the stairs.

 Opening the traditional Christmas Eve jammies.

 Some cousin hugs...

 that don't end and turn into choke holds. Good thing Logan is so agreeable.

 Great Grandpa's ever riveting rendition of The Night Before Christmas(a family favorite)

 See? Even the great grandkids LOVE it!

 Christmas morning!

 Sydney loves her castle piggy bank!

 When you don't know what to get parents, Nerf guns seem like the logical choice.

 Playing in a box after Christmas dinner

 The day after Christmas, we headed to the Quincy's, where we got a lot more cousin play time!

 We did our traditional Nativity with the grandkids. My kids once again wouldn't participate.

 Second Christmas morning!

 These nose aerobics were a great $4. I got them as a gag for Jason, but Logan took over and claimed them, until they got broken.

Whew! Now that that's done, I'll have to work on this spring/summer. If I'm lucky, just maybe I can get caught up before this baby comes in 7 weeks!