Ice Skating

Emma's school sponsored a family ice skating night. Clay and Emma went, and I stayed home to put Rebekah to bed. Emma loves ice skating. And she does pretty good. She was zooming around the rink the whole time.


Here she is with her friend Luci and then with Anya and her sister.

Check out Emma in this video. See if you can keep up with her. Clay was skating behind her and couldn't keep up.

Life with eggs!

Allergies run in my family. I was allergic to milk, eggs and peanuts when I was little. I grew out of all of them by the time I was in middle school. Looking back, I probably could have used an EpiPen for my peanut allergy. Did they even have those when we were kids?? I remember that it would (1) make my tongue, neck and throat itch, (2) I would get red "9"s around my eyes, (3) I would start to have trouble breathing, and (4) I would eventually vomit. I also had a whole slew of environmental/seasonal allergies. I remember having allergy scratch tests and allergy shots. Finally, I went to an NAET chiropractor and that seemed to make the biggest difference for me.

Naturally, with my history of allergies, and my nephew also having allergies, I was cautious with my girls in starting foods with them. Emma started having problems when I started her on solids at 6 months old. I took her in and she was allergic to milk. In a couple years it became an intolerance and by the time she started kindergarten she had outgrown it completely. Now she eats cheese and drinks milk daily!!

I waited until Rebekah was a year old to give her eggs. When I finally did she seemed to like it. Then we got in the car and she puked all over it. I took her in to confirm her allergy. About a year_later she had some croissants that had an egg wash on them. She threw up tons and later broke out in a rash all over her body. That night we entered the world of EpiPen users.

Well, here we are 3 years later and I am happy to report that Rebekah is NO LONGER allergic to eggs!! Her allergy test came back "mild" so the doctor told me to feed her some eggs in a baked good. I made molasses ginger cookies. I gave her one and waited and hour. Then I gave her another one and waited... She ended up having 5 cookies that day with no problem. After that we had an appointment for a food challenge. I brought scrambled eggs with me to the doctors office. They started with the tiniest bit of egg and over the course of 2 hours finally got her up to a heaping tablespoon, all with no reaction.

Here she is enjoying her first ever Eggo waffle for breakfast! We went out last week for some birthday ice cream and she had her first ever doughnut -pink frosting with rainbow sprinkles :)

Hollywood Studios, again

We asked the kids which park they wanted to go back to -they all said Hollywood Studios! It has Toy Story Mania and Star Tours. The kids also loved Tower of Terror, and the adults loved Rock'n'Roller Coaster.

Here's several shots of us on Toy Story Mania: Rebekah & Heidi, Carol (Oma) & Melinda, Juliette & Spencer, Juliette & Melinda.

We all took turns staying out with Juliette for different rides that she couldn't go on. When it was my turn to stay with Juliette for Star Tours was the ONE AND ONLY time Yoda came out as the messenger. Melinda and Georgia were both chosen as the Rebel Spy. Oh well. Juliette is cute and fun to play with. I loved watching for Admiral Ackbar -he reminds me of my freshmen history teacher, Mr. Earhart.

We went into the Animation area where they had some of the Oscars that were presented to Walt Disney. I don't know if they are the REAL ones or not...but this one I took a picture of for my sister-in-law, Heather. It is for Ferdinand the Bull :) While we were there we took a drawing class. We all learned how to draw Stitch. It was actually pretty cool. I'll have to see if I can add pictures of how they turned out later.

Here are a ton a pictures of our group waiting for the Lights, Motor, Action! show. Heidi & Melinda, Emma & Georgia, Oma & Hallie, Rebekah & Clay, Evan & Jeremy & Juliette & Spencer.

A new part they added was a cameo by Lightning McQueen.

Rebekah had a little money left so she bought this balloon on our way out of the park. By the way, it is STILL floating in her room 3 weeks later.

Epcot

Happy Birthday Clay!! We let Clay choose which park he wanted to go to for this birthday and he chose Epcot. We started off at Soarin' and Finding Nemo.

Mexico -for my dad who served his mission there.

Great Norwegian sweater, only $275. My mom served her mission in Norway.

Italy -for my sister, Holly, who served her mission there.

We stopped by this little place in Germany for some caramel popcorn. Yum.

The iconic Epcot photo.

For dinner we had a reservation for Marrakesh -Moroccan food. The room was really cool looking, but the food wasn't so great. Too bad. We had fun though.

In the middle of dinner a belly dancer came out and invited the kids to come and learn the dance with her. Rebekah jumped right up to join her (the one in the pink mouse ear hat).

Rebekah then fell asleep on Clay's shoulders while we walked out of the park.

Animal Kingdom

We started our day in the Animal Kingdom at Everest. Melinda took those who couldn't and wouldn't ride on the Safari ride. Poor Evan was just a finger's width too short. Rebekah was tall enough and loved it! If you look closely at these pictures you will see a bright green shirt in the front seat. That's Clay with Jeremy next to him.

Here's Emma a little wind blown after the ride. We walked right on 4 times in succession.

We walked through the jungle trek. There we saw the flying foxes. They give me the creeps. We saw them on our honeymoon in Australia. They were the red-faced flying foxes. There were hundreds of them hanging in each tree that we walked under in the Royal_Botanic_Gardens by the Sydney Opera House. Very scary when you see them all above you just before dusk and they are starting to stir... We also got to watch an Eld's Deer sparring with a bull.

While Animal Kingdom is my least favorite park, this trip proved to be very exciting for all of us, especially the kids (as you will see later). While at the Flights of Wonder show I got picked to come up on stage and get pictures of a great horned owl flying towards me. I took a video but the owl flew out of my line of shot. Oh well.

On to the safari. We got to see all kinds of animals. Here are two of them -a hippo and giraffe.

It was just starting to sprinkle, so we made our way to the Lion King Festival. First the kids were asked to lead the audience in a hand jive before the show started.

Then Rebekah was asked to help represent our section as a giraffe. I did not know that giraffes sounded like sheep. Nor did Rebekah.

Finally during the show the kids were asked to join in making music for one of the songs.

The kids loved all the attention. They had a great time. When the show was over it was still raining so we headed home.

That evening Jeremy, Melinda, Clay and I went out to dinner. We left the kids at the house with pizza and ice cream and Jeremy's mother. Thanks Oma!! We had dinner at the California_Grill in one of the Disney resorts. It was excellent food. We also got to watch the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom during dinner. When we ordered dessert they brought out an extra one for Clay for his birthday.

Hollywood Studios

Another day, another park. Rebekah bought this cute princess mouse ears hat as we left the Magic Kingdom yesterday. She wore it all day today! It was very useful for spotting her in a crowd. One of the kids' favorite rides was Tower of Terror. I didn't even go on it. Melinda wondered why we were sending our 5 year-olds on it, but they loved it! Me, not so much.

This is my all-time-favorite-roller-coaster-ever! Aerosmith's Rock'n'Roller coaster. I love the black light, the music, and the LA freeways. We convinced Emma (and Melinda!!) to go on with us. I think we went 4 or 5 times. So much fun!

Another fun ride was the new Star Tours! Again, we went on it about 4 or 5 times. You know, we had to see all the different destinations and scenarios. Here's Clay and Rebekah on a speederbike from Endor.

Probably the most favorite ride (my majority of our group) was Toy Story Mania. The ride operator told me that it is by far the most popular ride out of all 4 parks, and the longest wait time. As the official FFP, I ran all the way over there to get fast passes as soon as we entered the park (a few minutes before official opening time) and got a return time of 1:30! First ride of our day and it was a 20 minute wait for the stand-by line. We got in line! And when we got off, we got in line again! I never got another fast pass for Toy Story Mania because they were all gone before noon! All the other lines in the park were 5-10 minutes, but this one got up to 70 minutes when we returned with our fast passes. Here's Emma with one of the army guys.

Hollywood Studios has a really great Pixar parade! It was lively and energetic. You just wanted to get out and dance with the characters. Seeing Mr. Fredricksen from Up reminds me of my other favorite curmudgeon, Andy Rooney. I miss seeing him on 60 minutes.

The kids also liked playing on the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. Here's a short video of Rebekah on one of the slides.