Catching up, Halloween and November

Hey all! Sorry it's been forever. I have had lots of "reminders" that I am way behind on posting so I will catch up now since it's almost Christmas and I am sure we will have lots of fun holiday stuff to post about. 

So, October we went to the pumpkin patch on a feild trip with Wesley's class (see his blog). On Halloween he had a class party where we tried to get him to wear his chicken costume. It was a bit too short, I tried to alter it so he could wear it, but he was having none of that. So he ended up being a farmer instead. He was so cute with his boots and hat and overalls. We went trick or treating around the neighborhood while Christopher stayed home and passed out candy. We carved two pumpkins, one big one for the family and Wesley's little one that he got at the pumpkin patch. He was so excited about that pumpkin-he did NOT want to leave it outside in the cold. We baked pumpkin seeds and when we got home Wesley and Christopher sorted out his candy while we watched Are you Afraid of the Dark? reruns. 

Jack came to visit us the second weekend in November. The weather was really nice while he was here. We went downtown and ate at Mellow Mushroom. The rest of the time we just hung out and talked and some wine and just enjoyed each other's company. Wesley was very excited to have "Uncle Jack" visit us. 

Christopher also took command of his company on November 13th. It was a nice ceremony, and we are all excited to be part of the Echo Company family now.  We also attended the Division Birthday Ball, so we got to have a night out, all dressed up! 

We installed a new sink in our kitchen, it's nice to have something so deep! We go the sink on sale for $59, we were glad we waited and shopped around, it was originally about $200! 

Thanksgiving was a busy week. Wesley had a Thanksgiving party at school, we had turkey and he made a really cute turkey hat that he wore Thanksgiving Day. Luckily there were fake feathers on there because we found out when Grandmom made a paper bag turkey with him and she tried to put "real" feather son it that Wesley is VERY scared of feathers ("No Mommy! FEathers get me! I scared! I scared!"). It was hard not to laugh at him, it was so darn cute! He is absolutely terrified of the turkey they made and we had to hide it (and the rest of the bag of feather s) away where he couldn't see them. Maybe next year it won't be so terrifying. 

We had several friends over in addition to Mom and Matt for Thanksgiving dinner. Becky, Ben, and Sarah all joined us and we played Cranium after dinner. Next year we are SO going to the DFAC for dinner if we don't go home to Maryland. Two days of cooking is way too much work every year. ;)  Mom and I braved the shopping crowds for Black Friday and got some awesome deals. Always a good thing. Mom also made a gingerbread house with Wesley. He is, by the way,  NOT terrified of gingerbread or gumdrops. :) He has been happily eating the house whenever he gets the chance. 

We also got our Christmas tree put up. Early I know, but it's nice to have it up and to be able to enjoy it, and all our Christmas decorations.  

Orlando Vacation-Day Six

Animal Kingdom Day! This was our last day and the only day it rained. It felt good to cool off a bit though! Wesley felt much better and we had a really good day at the park. The Tree of Life in the middle of the park is really cool. We first went to DinoLand USA, where we saw lots of Dinosaurs and Christopher and Wesley played on the dino land playground while I went on the scary dinosaur ride back in time. Then Wesley and I flew in the flying dinosaurs (didn't know triceratops could fly!) while Christopher went on it. We then moved onto "Asia" where we met up with the Yeti on an AWESOME roller coaster (I went 3 times!). That was fun. We wanted to do the rapids ride but Wesley was too small so we went to Africa instead and went on the African Safari they have there. That was really cool because they have live animals just wandering about, but they also have a scripted adventure with poachers and the rescue of a baby elephant (not real, but fun). We then went on another train ride to Rafiki's Planet watch That is when it started to rain so we went back to the main part of the park to wait it out. We were going to leave about 3 times but kept getting stopped. We ended up going to see the Bug's Life 3-D/4-D show (very cool except for the "bugs" leaving under your seats at the end!)  and when we went to the bathrooms we got stuck where we came out and got front row seats for the afternoon parade. That turned out to be really cool because a lot of the characters came right up to us and would shake hands with Wesley and say hi. After that we decided to go back to the hotel to pack up and get ready to leave the next day. It was a great day, a great week and great vacation. Even though Christopher and I have to get used to approaching different ways of going on vacation(I am NOT a vacation nazi! I just like to fit everything in and get my money's worth!). We can't wait to go back in a few years (or sooner) and do it all again. Maybe Wesley will be 6 inches taller and able to go on all the rides by then. :) 

So, I have a ton more pictures-it's hard to choose just a few to post on here! 

Orlando Vacation-Day Five

Day five: Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM). This place is very cool, it's got the feel of vintage Hollywood. We went to "New York" and "San Francisco". We saw Darth Vader, and a bunch of Star Wars stuff. We played in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground area-Wesley had a lot of fun there, especially going down the slides. Before lunch we went on the Backlot tour and saw the planes from Pearl Harbor, the cages from Pirates, the bikes from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the plane Walt Disney flew on to find the perfect location for Disney World. After lunch we went to see the Lights, Motor Action show which was really cool, you got to see how they do all kinds of car and motorcycle stunts. Christopher went on the Tower of Terror then we caught the Block Party Bash parade where we say Woody, the guys from Monster's Inc, and Toy Story, and the Incredibles. Then we went to get in line to see....Lightning McQueen and Mater (Ka-chow!). If you know how much Wesley LOVES the movie Cars, then you will understand why we waited over 40 minutes in line to meet them. Of course, when we got to the front of the line Wesley said "No Mommy! Don't want to go!". Ha ha ha-yeah right kid, we're going and you are going to like it.  I think (I know) I was more excited than he was (especially since he was not feeling well that day). But we got some pictures of us with them, and now if you talk to him about it he will tell you how we say McQueen and Mater and how we got to touch McQueen. :) We ended up leaving the park around 5, to go back to the room and relax, especially since we wanted Wesley to feel better when we went to the park the next day. 

Orlando Vacation-Day Four

Day four, Monday, we went to Sea World. All the Anhieser Busch theme parks offer free admission to military families once per year (one park a year). We went to Sea World to see Shamu! Wesley really liked seeing the dolphins, "bish" (fish), sharks, rays, manatees, and penguins. They had an awesome tunnel you walked through to see the sharks. Christopher and I also went on the Journey to Atlantis ride, the flume ride there. It was a lot of fun, with a big surprise at the end (no spoilers here!). Wesley cooled down in the water play area they have there. He was having a great time. I got sprayed all down my back with water by some punk kid. Turns out it didn't really matter because Christopher sat us in the fourth row for the Shamu show. Let me tell you, Shamu is a HUGE whale, and he doesn't mess around when he splashes you. We got hit three times by a wall of water off that guy's flipper. Wesley was pretty much in shock, then cried a little since he hates getting water in his face. Luckily we had the foresight to buy a towel and it was wrapped in plastic so we could dry off. That water was salty and yucky as it dried. So we went back to SOG where we washed up and had dinner and decided we were having such a good time that we would stay two extra days. We talked to the front desk, where they even extended our R&R package for us. We bought two more tickets for Disney and prepared to enjoy the extra two days of our vacation. 

Orlando Vacation-Day Three

So, day three, still beautiful and sunny. We went back to the Magic Kingdom for Space Mountain and rode some more rides again, like Pirates, then we took the train ride around the park. That afternoon we took the monorail to Epcot. We went on the ride in the big ball there. We got in our cart and there is a screen in front of you where you choose the language you want to hear the ride in. Well, I was trying to get settled in with Wesley, who decided to touch the screen and ended up choosing chinese as our language. So I had to listen to the whole ride in chinese. Then, the little guy fell asleep on the ride! Afterwards we wandered around several different countries-Mexico, Norway, China, Germany (where Christopher got lunch), Spain (where Christopher serenaded me), Morocco ( where I got lunch), France (where we had champagne) and England. We saw lots of characters there-Snow White, dopey, Alice, Sleeping Beauty, Mary Poppins, "That cat from Pinnochio", and the big guy himself, Mickey Mouse! Wesley got his ice cream cone that he begged for after seeing some girl eating one. We also went on the Nemo ride (we helped find Nemo, very cool how at the end you see the animated fish in a real fish tank!). We looked at the dolphins and fish and saw the shark exhibit there. We staying until late that night to catch the fireworks show, Illuminations. It was beautiful, Wesley LOVED the fireworks, all the colors and water show they do. He kept saying "Ooooh! cool! More again Mommy!" It was well worth waiting out the day there to see it. I can't believe Wesley lasted so long. 

In the pictures: metting the characters, Christopher reuniting with a camel (ha), Wesley and I at a fountain, Wesley and Christopher sticking their feet into the fountain in France, Wesley enjoying his ice cream cone, the three of us in Morocco (didn't know we got around so much, huh? lol)