Florida Day 1 - Animal Kingdom

Our Porter family reunion trip to Florida was absolutely amazing!! Everything was perfect and went as smoothly as possible, and most importantly everybody had a BLAST. Eventually I'll get all 8 fun-filled days blogged about. :-)

We had an early morning flight, and thankfully it was pretty empty. We were able to take up two rows and spread out. The kids did great and even took little naps.

Since we were the first ones in town, by 12+ hours, we hit the road running and went straight to Animal Kingdom. It was HOT!! Like 95 degrees and HUMID! You would sweat standing still in the shade, but it didn't slow us down.

Our first ride/show was "It's tough to be a bug" which we all got a kick out of.

The weather was gorgeous going in to that show, but dark and stormy looking when we came out. As we were standing around taking pictures and trying to figure out what to do next it started POURING!!

The closest ride happened to be the safari ride, and they said it was a covered, but open sided, jeep and that it kept running even in the rain. So we decided to do that one.

The video is actually from our second time riding because it was still raining when we got off and we enjoyed it so much the first time we hopped back on again. But trust me, it was POURING the first time.

We were all a little water logged, but weren't going to let it ruin our fun.

We bought ponchos and kept going.

K went on his first big roller coaster ride called Everest. It's that mountain behind them in the picture. Who knew my quiet K-man is a daredevil when it comes to amusement park rides?!?

We found lots to do and stayed till we were ready for dinner.

We went and checked in to our house and got first pick of bedrooms before anybody else got there.

It was a great first day!

The tooth fairy came ... twice!

K had a wiggly tooth for several weeks before he was able to wiggle it out during school. He was very excited about it! He left it at home while he and Matt went camping and was slightly disappointed that the tooth fairy didn't leave the money under his sleeping bag, but he got over it.

Just a week later when Grandma and Grandpa were in town he was showing me his other really wiggly tooth and I jokingly said "just pull it out" and he did!

Grandma and Grandpa in Town

Grandma and Grandpa came out to visit and chose the weekend that both kids had their performances so that they could see those. Besides the picture of all of us eating ice cream I don't really have any pictures of them/us as a group but I do have proof that they were here.

Grandpa is a good L tamer. Unfortunately he threw out his back on his last day here laying L down for a nap.

This is the face that I make every time Mom tries to take a picture of me, so she did it to me. Hahaha!

One of the gorgeous weather days we took a walk at the Saratoga Battlefield.

See, Mom was there!

Thanks for coming guys! We always love having you here!

Kindergarten Concert

The 3 kindergarten classes put on a show of the stuff they had been working on in music class. It was adorable. K didn't look like he was having too much fun, but we found out afterwards it was because he was "soooo hot." But they all did a great job!

 He showed us his piece of art that was on display for the art show. It is a fire-breathing dragon on top of a castle.

Ballet Recital

C had her very first ballet recital last weekend. She did FANTASTIC!

I love my little ballerina!

 And of course we had to get some ice cream afterwards!

Aunt Jo

Aunt Jodi is moving back to CO after 8 years in NJ, so she came by for one last visit before we never see her again (kidding Jo!) We just did a lot of visiting and playing together, so not too many pictures just when we went to the park.

Little boy is too big for his britches ...

A few weeks later K brought home his school writing journal and this is what he had written about the fun week we had (with translation).

Thanks for coming Jodi! We love you!

Easter 2014

(The thing that has been keeping be from Blogging lately is editing the photos, I've just been dreading it. So in an effort to preserve memories before I forget about them I'm not editing the Easter pictures. Sorry!)

As usual, the church Primary presidency put on a great Easter activity. The kids had fun playing games, hearing about Easter, decorating an Easter bag and then finding eggs.

 

 They were pretending to be chickens.

 These two girls are so cute together!

 Goofy grin. :-)

 Checking out the loot.

 K and his best buddy J, were the last two in the hot-potato game. J won!

 Got candy?!?

 Mmmmmm...

Then, Easter morning:

L checking out his Easter basket.

 C checking out her loot.

The Easter bunny knew that K likes Skylanders!

 L got yogurt covered raisins in his Easter eggs.

 For dinner we invited all of our Wilding friends and the Sister Missionaries over for dinner.

I put them to work helping the kids make some chocolate birds nest desserts. We all ate ourselves silly and had a great time.