"Rest", Trip Day 3

We didn't have a park planned for our third day of our Disney trip so our plan was just to have a relaxing day. After a few days of getting up early to be at the parks when they opened we decided that sleeping in would be nice. Michael, Sophia and I all slept until about 9, which was really nice after the early mornings. We ate breakfast and since everyone else was already around the pool area we decided that we would join them. The resort had a special area for kids, a baby pool and a fountain area that kids could run through. It was cold, but Sophia and Cooper loved it. Poor Soph was shivering but she kept running right through the water as it shot up right by her head! A couple of times it was getting her right in the face and she would just laugh. Sometimes Cooper would be a good helper and drag her out of it, haha. My sister and I took her in the baby pool and she had fun in there too. She face planted in the water a few times, but she choked it off and didn't seem to mind too much. I guess we need to get her some swimming lessons soon!!
We took showers and good naps and then went for a really good Italian dinner at a cute place we had found a couple years ago. After that, some of the group went back and just my little family and my sister's little family went to the Disney village. It was pretty crowded. We just went in the Lego store and the big Disney store and got a few things. Sophia loved the loud music that was playing outside the stores. Dillon even found someone to hang out with (see picture below, hahahaha).
Even though it was supposed to be a restful day, I felt like I was still pretty tired from being in the sun and around the crowds at the village....but it was still definitely a fun day for sure. :-)

Breaking News!

I must interrupt these riveting posts about our Disney trip (yeah, right...I am sure they aren't that exciting) to give you some even more fabulous news....I do not have to buy a dress for Michael's Christmas party this year!!
I am sure you just fell off your chair with the utter shock and excitement of that statement.
I feel pretty certain that I have blogged in the past of my hatred of shopping for a dress for this particular event (and I am too lazy to look back to confirm this for sure). It always costs a ridiculous amount (dress, shoes, proper foundation garments) and then I am never quite comfortable with my choice in the end. And not to mention, starting last year, I had a baby in tow for the shopping "fun". At least last year she was super tiny and would stay in the stroller and my friend Jennifer came along to help me out. This year, as a toddler, I can only imagine how horrific the shopping trip would be, friendly help or not. Not to mention that it is a week from this Saturday, so I don't have a lot of time to find something.
So you can imagine my surprise when I peeked into the darkest depths of my closet (trust me, if you have seen my closet, there are definitely some dark depths) and found a dress that I really loved that I wore from a Christmas party of my Dad's the year that Michael and I were engaged (Dec of 2008). I did not have high hopes that the dress would actually fit me. There was a single digit on the label after all. But, oh, the thought of not having to brave the mall with a one year old who would surely not want to be there as I tried on dress after dress made me hope and pray just a little more that it would somehow magically work out. I tried it on....but could not get the zipper up. I did not despair at first. It seemed a little snug in the chest region (but when I wore it the first time it was loose in that region....let's face it, the second I got pregnant nothing was ever loose in that region again. So annoying.) and I couldn't contort myself enough to see if it would zip all the way or was just too tight altogether. I would have to just wait (an agonizing number of hours) until Michael got home from work so he could help me hopefully zip it all the way up.
And when he finally was able to help me......IT ZIPPED ALL THE WAY UP!!!!!! Like I said, much more snug in the chest area than when I first wore it. But nothing was going to pop out for sure. No fat hanging over the arm holes (a serious pet peeve of mine when I look at myself in a dress, yuck). And it has a nice bottom part that covers the less than perfect parts without me even having to wear any uncomfortable undergarments (like Spanx...which I hate). Oh, did I mention that the last time I wore this dress was when MICHAEL AND I WERE ENGAGED??!!! I guess my recent work out plan of walk a million miles a Disney and my weight regiment of alternately hold a 22 pound baby and unknown pound heavy backpack paid off.
The best part is that I have shoes that will look perfect with it (ok, so I wore them last year but I am sure that so many people were looking at how fat I looked in my unflattering dress that they didn't even notice my shoes) and won't have to set foot into the mall or spend one penny for this Christmas party!! Nah, the best part is definitely the size of the dress and that I fit into it and that it actually looks decent. Plus, I do have to spend something to have it dry cleaned....I got some deodorant on it as I was contorting to try and zip it myself, haha.
Now back to the regularly scheduled blog posts of Disney adventures.....but pictures of the Christmas party to come for sure, as I am actually somewhat excited for it this year for a change!!

Islands of Adventure, Trip Day 2

On our second day, we got away from the Disney theme a little bit and headed over to the Islands of Adventure Universal park. We had to go really early so that the Harry Potter nerds (which consisted mostly of my sister) could ride some Potter ride that I wasn't at all interested in, but this park has Jurassic Park and Dr. Seuss, which I am interested in, so this was ok with me. While they waited about an hour and a half to ride said HP ride (super geeks, seriously. I know that all three of my readers will probably take this opportunity to write mean comments about how I am the dork for not liking Harry Potter....I just cannot get into it. Nor Twilight. Nor Lord of the Rings. If fantasy is the theme, you can't get me interested, sorry), me and my parents took the kids to the Jurassic Park play area. Coop and I had so much fun with some squirting dinosaurs and Sophia liked stepping on these big paw prints that made dinosaur noises in the bushes (which scared Coop so much he jumped up into my arms!!). Then Coop and I rode a fun ride that I was surprised he even wanted to ride and he loved it. By then the HP dweebs were done with their ride and we moved on. Other than Seuss world, there wasn't much else for Sophia to do. She didn't really like the merry go round, once it started to go round. Michael said she clung more to him with each time it went around. And the Seuss character she met, well, let's just say he didn't get a very warm reception. Haha. She liked the Cat in the Hat ride a lot. We watch that show sometimes on PBS, so she was familiar with the kids and the fish and the Cat and pointed to them a lot on the ride. I think she liked to watch the crowds and see the other kids and just all the general ruckus going on in the park. It started to rain a bit in the afternoon so once everyone had done what they wanted to do we left. Again, I didn't do the greatest with the picture taking, but got at least a few good shots. :-)

Epcot, Trip Day 1

Our first day of Disney adventures started out in Epcot with just the three of us, my sister and her family and my brother. Originally we wanted to start the day in MGM (I guess it is called Hollywood Studios now...I will forever call it MGM!!) and then park hop to Epcot for the second half of the day. My Dad convinced us that this would be too hard on the kids so we nixed MGM altogether and elected to make Epcot our only park of the day, with a break in the middle of the day for a nap back at the condo. It turned out to be a great idea.
We weren't sure how Sophia would do with the rides and shows but she actually did really well. When the ride got very dark or very loud, she would be a bit clingy and if she seemed a little scared she would whine a little bit but usually she would get over that very quickly and be laughing or clapping or pointing at something before the ride was over and appearing to really enjoy herself. After each ride we would ask her if she liked it and she would nod her little head yes, so there you have it, she must've enjoyed it! :-)
There were actually a lot of rides that she could ride. And when she couldn't, we were able to ride swap her so that Michael and I could both ride the ones that we liked. We didn't have to wait in any ridiculously long lines (with the help of some fast passes....a very good thing with two little ones) and the park didn't seem as crowded as it has been on past visits. After we rode a good number of rides, we headed back to the condo for a couple hours to take naps (yes, I took one too) and then returned to the park to ride some more and visit the countries. We didn't get to do as many of them as I would've liked, but we did have a very good dinner in China. After that, we rode the boat rides in Mexico and Norway and then watched the fireworks show. Sophia was not a fan of how loud they were at all. But she seemed to enjoy the music and clapped a lot when they were over. I think if they used only silent fireworks she would be a fan for life. :-)
I didn't take quite as many pictures during our first day as I thought I did. Here are some of the good ones. I don't think we took any video that first day at all. Over the whole week though I took about 400 pictures, so there will be plenty more to come!!

Back in Action...Sort Of

Guess I haven't been too great about blogging lately. Must be because I was trying to pack us up for a week in the happiest place on Earth!!! Which includes ridiculous amounts of laundry, a million trips to Target to pick up things we really probably don't need but are so much better in a 'travel size', and trying to plan out what to wear in any weather situation for both myself and my child. Now that we are back, it will probably take me all week to catch up on blogging on the fun events of our trip due to ridiculous amounts of laundry, unpacking the suitcases that are still full of clothes that didn't get worn and generally getting back into our routine.
To sum up the trip, it was pretty awesome. We probably jam packed a bit much for Sophia's first trip there, but she did great. A quick break down of our week.....Sunday, Epcot. Monday, Islands of Adventure. Tuesday was a 'rest' day....we played at the pool, had a nice dinner out and went to the Disney village. Wednesday, Magic Kingdom. Thursday, Thanksgiving, we spent the morning and early afternoon at Universal. Friday, Sea World. Saturday, we left Orlando and headed to Leesburg to see Michael's family. And finally this morning, we got up super early and drove home. I am exhausted typing it out. But my legs finally stopped being sore from all the walking we did all week. And my arms and back from alternately holding Sophia and our packed-with-everything-imaginable backpack. At least Michael and I got to take turns, so the soreness was pretty evenly distributed.
Sophia also loved the condo where we stayed. Huge thanks to my parents for letting us stay in the big place. Although I think Sophia looked around when we got home and was seriously disappointed at the size of our actual home. Haha. Just kidding. Well, sort of. The place was enormous and she really loved chasing Cooper and Grammy and whoever else around. Actually thanks to my parents for the entire trip in general, they definitely know how to spoil all of us. I sure wasn't super excited about coming home after such a fun week.
Some interesting tidbits about the week. Sophia is not a fan of characters. She loves them from afar. But get close and she will cling and whine and shake her head and point in the other direction....as in, get outta here. You can tell that she is scared and wants nothing to do with them, but is conflicted as soon as she gets far enough away. We aren't sure if this holds true for the princess type characters, as we didn't get close to any of them. But Barney and Cat in the Hat and Winnie the Pooh did NOT make the cut for her.
Another weird fact....I cannot bring myself to use the bathrooms at Disney....any of the parks, really. Obviously I had to change Sophia and I went in to do this at Epcot a couple times....but just looking at what I had to lay her on made me think of all the millions of other babies that had been on there.....yuck. I found a much easier and more sanitary system in using my stroller.....I would just park it in a quiet corner and lay the seat down and quickly change her before anyone even knew what I was doing. I have no idea when I became such a germaphobe. As for my own bathroom issues.....well, thankfully I have a pretty strong bladder. I just held it. Simple solution. I did go in to one with the intentions of putting on my long sleeve shirt and maybe going....but I just changed my shirt and was out of there. Who knows what kind of damage I am doing to myself internally, but externally I am sure not causing myself any problems!! I used quite a lot of hand sanitizer over the week as well. And rubbed some into Sophia's hands too, that girl touches everything!!
We had a really good, fun and exhausting week. No matter how tired I felt at the time, I still am always sad when it is over. I already can't wait until we can bring Sophia back.
Lots and lots of posts to come with many many pictures....I will try to break it up by days so none of the posts are too long. :-)

GA Southern Homecoming Game

Yesterday was the Homecoming game for GA Southern against the Citadel. Several months ago we made a tentative plan to bring my brother down to see the game and check out GA Southern as a possible college choice for him (can't believe he is almost ready for college). Originally we were going to stay in Statesboro and make a weekend out of it but within the last few weeks we decided to just make it a day trip. We got up ridiculously early and drove straight down to where we would be tailgating. When I went to GA Southern, I worked for the recreation department, or CRI (Campus Recreation and Intramurals). Every year they throw a homecoming tailgate and this year some of my friends were going to be there so we planned on joining the group. It was so COLD!! It was sunny but the wind was brutal. We were pretty freezing. Sophia looked so cute in her hat, but sort of hated wearing it. She only tried to pull it off 458 times. The tailgate was fun. Apparently you cannot tailgate these days without the game of corn hole. When I was in college, there was no such game. And not when Michael was in college either, since he didn't really know the rules. But we decided that this must be a skill that Dillon cannot enter college without knowing so we played a few games with him to get him warmed up. :-) Sophia even tried to help her uncle out.
Once we got into the football game (which was a loooonnng walk from the tailgate), the weather totally changed. No more wind. The sun was beating down on us and it got pretty warm. Michael has a nice neck sunburn to show for it. Sophia was pretty good during the game. We fed her a lot to keep her occupied (a banana, a granola bar, various other snacks) and she rotated laps that she sat on throughout the game. GA Southern did end up winning 14-12, with the game coming down to the very last seconds, when the kicker for the other team missed a winning field goal. Awesome!
After the game, we drove around campus a bit to show Dillon the area. A lot has changed since I was there. So many new apartment complexes and buildings and amenities. Sophia, who had not napped the entire day, fell asleep within about 10 minutes of us getting into the car. So we didn't really get to get out and explore anything, but just drove around until we decided to just head home. The day had been full and fun but we were all pretty tired. Sophia (and Dillon) slept the entire way home. :-)

Sophia's First Haircut

This last Wednesday we finally broke down and took Sophia to get her first haircut. Michael and I both had to have ours done so we thought we would see how she would do. I really only wanted to get her long bangs in the front trimmed so they weren't hanging so long in her eyes....no touching the cute curls that are growing in on the back of her head! I have had the same hair dresser since I was oh, about 6 or so. She has been to both mine and my sisters' weddings and showers and all family events. So it seemed pretty obvious that we would take Sophia to her. She just works at a normal salon though so I packed my diaper bag with plenty of food and toy distractions, just in case. Turns out Sophia did pretty well. She didn't cry at all. Michael said she was clinging to him in terror though, haha. I guess she wasn't sure what exactly a pair of scissors coming at her face meant! I took a bunch of cute pictures during the cutting....and then forgot to take a picture of the finished product! We did gather up the little bit of hair though for her baby book. Now she doesn't always need a bow or pony to be able to see. So proud of my brave, adorable girl! :-)