Ladies' morning out

While in Florida, we took advantage of the sisters being together, ditched the boys, and went for a little ladies' Supercalifragilistic breakfast with Marry Poppins and friends.We walked around enjoying the ambiance of the hotel lobby while we waited for our table to be ready. We checked out the biggest gingerbread house we'll probably ever see. Rode up and down in the glass elevator. Checked out the ginormous Christmas tree.And had a little photoshoot. The excitement continued once we got into the dining room. Miss A was so excited to see that we would be dining with some of her best friends. Miss M got a little star struck meeting all the "celebrities".
We posed with Tigger,played pick-a-boo with Pooh,Tried to be practically perfect for Mary Poppins,Forgot to break out the camera for Alice, and weirded out (borderline sexually harassed) the Mad Hatter.Oh yeah, and we stuffed our faces with scrumptious food.

If you want free stuff...

...travel with these guys (especially the older one).

If you don't count the free cookies and hot chocolate (really just built into the price of the Christmas party) Animal Kingdom was the start of the count of free things our family accumulated at the parks. Almost all the things were given to my very personable bro-in-law Ch. Item 1- Uncle Ch jokingly harassed the ladies serving lunch about how cups at Animal Kingdom don't come with lids and so they gave him a cupcake to make him feel better about it.

Then after lunch, he was ready to get his churro fix. Turns out that because it was such a slow day they'd closed the only place to get one. He must have asked the cast member about it in just the right way, with the right twinkle in his eye or something because she followed the bad news with, "wait right here, I'll see what I can do". Fast forward a little to the nice girls emerging from somewhere with an entire tray of churros. As Ch brought the bounteous churro harvest to the rest of the group we actually ended up getting people coming up to him thinking he was just passing them out. You've never seen such as sad face as someone being denied a churro.

We all enjoyed free international soda at Epcot, but everyone gets that so it doesn't really count. And I'm not going to count the buttons we got from one of the info ladies because she was just too excited about trying to come up with reasons to give us buttons. And I'm going to try to forget about the complimentary roasted chestnuts the cast members were handing out at one of the resorts we went to eat at because they were gross. So I guess our free stuff count continues when Br clued Ch in on the fact that we'd just gotten a free little cup of popcorn just by asking if we could split the popcorn we'd just purchased into two boxes. Hearing this, Ch's, of course, worked his magic and got a little popcorn for himself compliments of the mouse. He also went to buy a popsicle at the right time and right place because after he made his purchase, the guy selling them pulled a broken one out and just gave it to him because he wouldn't be able to sell it.

Towards the end of the trip, a little of Ch's mojo must have worn off on E. While dressed as "Yee-haw," E was talking to two cast members excitedly all about the show. The girls were so amused by him they asked if they could give him some cake. They left for a second and then reappeared with two little cakes--one for E and one for the four other kids to wrestle over. You can tell that A probably got a little more than her fair share.

The Goodson's didn't go away empty handed either. While their kids were posing for a sketch, the girl right next to them that did silhouettes couldn't pass up making one of a two-year-old with a mohawk. She made one for her portfolio and one for them to have.

I'm sure I'm forgetting about more things Ch and the rest of the fam managed to acquire. It's amazing how getting something for nothing makes a good day even better.

Finally

I don't have cakes to make this week and E's party is over so I'm going to ignore the huge pile of dishes in the sink and pretend that my house isn't a wreck and do a few blog posts! Putting off housework is the kind of sacrifice I'm willing to make for anyone who still reads this.

I was tempted to blog about other topics but have decided that a few family members might give up on me if I don't post about our Christmas trip soon. (I know people, I realize it is already February and I'm just now getting to Christmas.-- I swear I'll do better at keeping up). This year my sisters and their families all met up with us in Florida to spend Christmas together. Yes I know, the Meltons do Disney A LOT, but surprisingly we'd never done it at Christmas time and never with my family. E especially loved having his "friends" there to share the fun with. I mean even standing in line isn't all that bad when you are with fabulous people. (fun fact, at this moment, and for a little over a week after, this these kids are ages 5,4,3,2, and 1)

At the beginning of the trip, the Melton's and the Shepherds gorged themselves on sugar cookies and hot chocolate at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party. Cinderella's castle is gorgeous all lit up for the holidays. We danced with Woody (the love of A's life) and his friends and watched some shows, fireworks, and a parade. We didn't really take pictures.

After the Goodsons arrived in Florida our first stop was Animal Kingdom in the rain. Nobody was there. I mean NOBODY. I'm not saying it just wasn't crowded, I mean the place felt almost empty. The kids had fun playing boardwalk games and the adults had fun conquering Everest and getting face to face with the Yeti. The most noteworthy event of the day (aside from the churros which I'll post about later) was on the safari. The safari is cool because you drive through real animal enclosures. There were rhinos crossing the street, a lion lazily sleeping under a tree, and hippos that were doing that big jaw opening thing you only see in movies. After traveling through the Savannah our fantastic tour guide (I'm being serious-- he was one of the best ones we ever had until...) crashed our jeep. Yup. He drove it up and over some fake hot spring thing I actually felt bad for our driver and was a little upset with all of the management who came to help because not one of them apologized to us. Seriously people. And the supervisor who took over our "tour" after dislodging us from the hot springs could have at least finished the story. Instead, those of us who have been on that ride a fair share of times ended up narrating for the first time safari-goers. On the flip side, as we were leaving the park for the night, my older Sister J, E and I were straggling behind the rest of the group when a random dance party broke out. It was fun to watch E join the show. By the end, my sis and I joined in. There is nothing like ending the day with a spontaneous conga line.

Over the course of the trip we went to every park (most a couple times).
At Epcot we enjoyed yummy food. If you've never been to the little pastry shop in France you are missing out. It was actually our first time there. I can't believe it took me that long to find the napoleon. Seriously people, it is one of the tastiest desserts, if not the tastiest I've ever had-- and I eat A LOT of dessert. We also had fun "visiting" other countries, pretending to be astronauts and crash test dummies, talking to Crush under the sea and visited with Santa.
We had a good time at Hollywood Studios seeing shows, riding my favorite ride ever-- Rockin' Rollercoaster, playing games with the Toy Story crew, pretending to be shrunk in the backyard, and watching the dancing Christmas Lights. The kids spent a lot of time waiting for the adults to get done with rides. Yes, that is my daughter on the ground. I'm not sure what she is doing. I'm pretty sure Daddy was watching her when this picture was taken. E's favorite thing is the "Yee-Haw" show -- known to the rest of us as Indiana Jones. I think he thinks Indiana is a cowboy. In any event, E dressed the part to watch the show and then stayed in character the whole rest of the day. E however did not want to watch the Beauty and Beast show. He said it was too scary, although he had no problem riding Tower of Terror. (Maybe the Beast reminds him too much of his mom when she hasn't eaten--that is pretty scary). While E and I were waiting for the rest of the group to finish with the show, I turned around and realized that I was standing right next to Brad Garrett--You know the brother from Everybody Loves Raymond, voice of the blowfish in Finding Nemo, and the gym teacher in the Pacifier (admit it- you've seen it too). I desperately tried to come up with something cool and not annoying to say to him, but alas my coolness factor was at a low and all I ended up doing was snapping this picture as he walked away from me. I know, I'm lame. Oh well.

We has a nice time at the Magic Kingdom too (aside from my infuriating experience when I lost my phone on Space Mountain- but I'm not going to go into that right now). My favorite things there is of course Dole Whip which quickly became Miss A's favorite thing too.Magic Kingdom is the place to feel the real Disney Magic, ride the classic rides, see lots of characters and of course is home to lots of pirates. It's the place E can be the closest he'll ever come to being a real pirate. Misses enjoys the adventure too and doesn't even need to be dressed in a bandana.

After MANY fun days at the parks we had a nice calm Christmas morning in the hotel before we all went our separate ways. Don't the cousins all look cute in their pjs G'ma Tori made them?
Turns out Santa can find you even when you are far from home. Thank you Br and Sisters for going with my crazy dream and making the sacrifices necessary to make it happen! It was good times! Love you all!

Where we last left off

The other day Br pointed out that I'm probably 10 posts behind. I think he's wrong, it's more like 30 posts behind. My posting stall was actually initiated by some exciting news... no, I'm not pregnant...The Meltons have a video camera! Watch out world and brace yourself for posts of videos that probably only I will love. We've been talking about getting one for a long time but finally found a reason for one--E's first school performance. Our seats weren't all that great so I was nervous that we wouldn't be able to get a good video of our favorite performer. Turns out it didn't matter what seat we had in the place, we would have noticed E.

Two note about the movie, first is I love that he gives his teacher a hug just so he can look at her necklace better. Then, as soon as he is done being sweet to her, he turns around and sticks his tongue out at his friend. During the performance, his teacher suddenly pops onto the stage because apparently he was standing at the edge of the stage and she was convinced he was going to bounce right off. She wasn't necessarily trying to keep him from falling off, she was trying to save all the kids he would have taken down with him.

Excuses excuses

I know, I know. You are sick of seeing the picture of my little girl with unruly hair hunched over her tiny little book. I swear I haven't given up on this whole blog thing, I've just been a little busy with life in general and ran into a little technical trouble. I'm going to try to play catch up as quickly as possible but until I get to it... this is what the Melton's have been up to for the past few weeks ummm I mean months.

We were out of town with these people, here. Then came back and just chilled out a little until I suddenly got an influx of cake requests. And then I got a little caught up in planning this.

Well I guess that's not all that much. Looking back at it, maybe I've just been lazy. Hmmm. I guess I don't really have good excuses. In any event, I've posted again and hopefully, the next post will follow shortly.