The calm before the storm

Yes this is old news, but I've started and stopped this post about a billion times over the past two months and I've decided it deserves to be finished.

So before all this finding a house, selling a house, moving, crashing a car, getting ready to have a baby stress, our family had the nicest get a way to our favorite place-- Disney World (Yes, we've been there A LOT in the last year and a half. We're not in denial-- we know we have a problem.) This trip's focus was E. After E's birthday party in Feb. I asked Br if he had fun and he said, "yeah but if you would have asked me to plan his birthday party we would have just gone to Disney World." So, even though it was a couple weeks late we still used his birthday as our excuse to celebrate. Here are some highlights and as usual, if for some reason you want to see more pics you can check out the slide show to the right.

Despite most kids his age being weirded out by meeting their full sized friends (after only knowing them as 2 inch tall cartoons characters), E loved meeting so many of his friends.

We knew E liked the more adventurous rides made for all ages, Malstrom, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the tea cups, we decided to let him try out his first roller coaster since he was finally tall enough. He had the funniest look on his face the whole time that said "I'm not scared but I don't know how I feel about going this fast." He at one point even let out a weak "Weeee?" (yes it was in the form of a question). We only rode it once.

Overall this kid was a good sport about waking up early, taking really short naps, going to bed late and standing in line but he did have a few moments where he demonstrated he's 2. This was my favorite. It was as we were waiting for out table to be called for our lunch with Pooh and friends. Yes he is on the ground, and no he wouldn't get up, and yes I was too tired to fight with him so I left him there right in the middle of the crowd.

We ate a lot while we were there. We took JoJo to one of our favorites, the SciFi drive in which is just that, and in door drive in where you eat in little cars and watch old drive in clips. E's staple while we were there was popcorn. I'm pretty sure he ate an entire box every day.

One of the biggest highlight on this particular trip was meeting up with my Aunt and cousin who live in FL. I'm so glad we connected up. We went out to the beach where we saw an actual rocket out on the launch pad, E played in the sand and chased seagulls, and down a little ways we say actual manatees in their habitat.

Another nice addition was that JoJo joined us for a few days. It was nice to have another set of adult arms (even if E demanded I be the one that held him the whole time). She was also kind enough to watch E a few nights in a row so Br and I could go on some Disney dates. One night we ate at Chefs de France at a table that overlooked the lagoon at Epcot during the fireworks show (that's as close to romantic as we get). The next night we just had a relaxed night of window shopping at Downtown Disney after eating at my favorite Sandwich place Earl of Sandwich (I have to go all the way to Orlando to get an All American now that we don't live in Houston anymore.)

A quick note about this picture. This was the beginning of E's current obsession with pirates. I'm not sure where he became familiar with pirates since the only pirate movie he's watched is Peter Pan (which ranks high on his list of favorites right now). He thought the Vikings at the Norway pavilion were pirates. I'm pretty sure if you asked him which ride was the pirate ride he'd say that one even though he did ride Pirates of the Caribbean. To be honest he thinks that any big boat or man with a beard is a pirate. When ever he sees either he repeats very loudly "Arrrr pirate, arrrrr, arrrr, arrrr, pirate". That gets a little a little embarrassing when its the latter that he identifies.

In any event I'm glad we took this nice break from reality. I'm pretty sure if we hadn't I would have kept my sanity this long. Thanks Br for the good idea.