Vacation- Part 1 (Traveling, Spring Hill, Big Cypress and First Night at Grandmas)

We made it home!  21 nights.  1 day in Spring Hill.  4 days at Grandmas.  5 days at Disney.  5 National Parks/ Jr. Ranger Badges.  And a couple of fun rest stops thrown in.  We had an amazing vacation and hundreds of pictures to prove it!  You all will have to bear with me as it will take me a few days (and posts) to share our pictures with everyone!

Kenzie thinks traveling is hard and we'd barely started, haha!

It was getting warmer!

Kaitlyn loved this swing so much she ate her sandwich on it while swinging!

Kenzie loved the water feature in the lobby of the Embassy Suites in Brunswick, GA.

 

On Sunday, we finally made it to Spring Hill!  I hadn't been back for  a visit since Kaitlyn was only 2 or 3 years old.  I'd wanted to visit as much family as I could while I was in town, and my awesome family planned a really fun get together.  I saw some of my cousins who I hadn't seen since before I went to college, got to meet my cousins-in-law and the cousins' kids for the first time! 

Kaitlyn loved jumping on the trampoline and so did Kenzie, bouncing in Aunt Marybeth's lap!  Kenzie also approved of Aunt Marybeth's Oreo dessert, announcing that she "love that"!  Afterwards, Kaitlyn told me she was best friends with her cousin,Talen, now. 

The cousins...

Most of the cousins' kids...

There were a couple of a shy ones that would only cooperate if Mommy was with them.  I'm having flashbacks to my flower girl days at Aunt Bev's wedding now, haha.

  

Thank you Oma and Opa for the talking Sorting Hat.  It only "accidentally" went off once in the car, haha.

Too soon it was time to continue heading South.  We spent the night in Fort Myers so we could hit up Big Cypress National Preserve before making the final push to Grandma's house.

Kevin liked the"Panther Crossing" signs.  Only a little different from our usual moose, deer, and bear crossing signs.

 Kenzie really got into the touch table.  Her favorite was the alligator skin.

Listening to the sounds on the Preserve while working on her Jr. Ranger badge...

 

 

We didn't see any live alligators until we got to the second visitor center.  Both girls were really excited to see them!

 

I was pretty impressed to get Kenzie looking, kind of smiling AND the alligator all in one photo!

 

 

She earned her Jr. Ranger badge... time to head to Grandma's!

 

Grandma's house with Grandma, Loren, and Aunt Bev!

Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!

It was 32 degrees this morning, but we "ran" Kaitlyn's Girls on the Run 5K this morning.  Kaitlyn got some temporary purple color in her hair at the Happy Hair station.  It was pretty rough going though...  hilly trails and we've had a lot of rain recently.  We had to do some careful walking around huge mud puddles and patches of ice.  We survived though!

Kaitlyn loved all of her presents.  She was definitely spoiled this year!

Kaitlyn requested spinach tortellini and garlic bread for her birthday dinner.  She also picked out her cake flavor and selected the colors she wanted.  It was pretty yummy!

 

Happy Halloween

We hope everyone had a Happy Halloween filled with lots of Reese Peanut Butter Cups!  We had a great time trick-or-treating.  The LEND student that was assigned to our family, Audrey, came with us.  Kenzie really enjoyed the houses that were decorated and pointed them all out to us.  By the end of the night she was waving at everyone after they answered the door!  Everyone is tired today, so the girls went to bed a bit early (Kaitlyn particularly was cranky).

We wanted to share with you our annual Fall and Halloween pictures.  Miss Tracey worked her magic again.  She loved that Kaitlyn was dressed as Hermione, and she got out some of her Harry Potter props.  The wand is Kaitlyn's from Universal.  Little Miss Kenzie was a stinker and refused to wear the cute antennas from her ladybug costume.