NYC bound

On Friday we're beginning our adventure into NYC for New Years Eve. Earlier this week the trip became a reality for Danny & I when Christmas was over and we had to start making plans for getting up there. At one point, we both agreed that this was crazy and maybe we shouldn't have planned it. Some of you may not know this, but I have a little bit of city phobia. Great...right? There is absolutely no way I could ever drive up there. I would totally freak out. Danny offered to drive, but after lots of thought, we decided to take a bus from Philly. We can visit my brother & his family, spend the night, get up early, and head into town. Plus, it's cheap and takes us two blocks from our hotel!

This New Year's Eve will definitely be different from years past! Phobia or not...New York & Phish...here we come! (oh and yes...that is a giant flying hotdog with the band members in it from last year's show)

Calvin's First Christmas

The girls are wondering if Santa will bring Calvin presents this year. He sure is a good boy when it comes to wearing a Santa hat or reindeer antlers. He also doesn't mind when we prance him around the neighbors in this attire while everyone giggles and calls him Max. Maybe Santa will bring him something!

Core Value Kid

I completely forgot to post Sadie receiving her Core Value Award at school. They choose one student per class for each month. The woman reading the teacher's comments about Sadie is the school's new principal Mrs Cooper.
We are so proud of you, Sadie!

I like this~

Our preschool is doing a Random Acts of Kindness bulletin board for January and is encouraging everyone to do just one nice thing for someone else each day. That's easy enough...right?

Victorian Christmas at Maymont

Anabelle's girl scout troop took at trip to Christmas at Maymont today and I took all of the girls along. It was such a great time! We took a carriage ride and a tour through the Dooley mansion. The inside was decorated for Christmas and was absolutely amazing! My friend gave me a Victorian book a few years ago and I love flipping through to see what neat activities & decorations they did for each holiday. Seeing the inside of the house they way it was in 1890 was just fascinating. I keep thinking about this Tiffany stained glass window that had the sun shining through in the stairway that had every color in the rainbow. I desperately wanted to snap pictures, but it wasn't allowed. I was a little unsure about the tour holding the girls' interest, but they were all enthralled. On the grounds outside, they had people dressed in period clothing, horse drawn carriages, Christmas music, and beautiful greens with big red bows. As the ladies and gentlemen told us today..."Happy Christmas!"

Sadie Loses Her First Tooth

I completely forgot to post this...it's from a month ago, but I got Sadie pulling out her first tooth. She was VERY excited! I just love the look on her face~

What am I thankful for?

I'm feeling very thankful today~ The breeze is blowing over the pond in my backyard and through the open windows into my well stocked kitchen while I cook yummy food that we can afford. My loving husband is healthy and hard at work at a good job that can support our family. My smart, beautiful, and also healthy children are playing with their friends in their rooms that are filled with toys and treasures. Tomorrow we will drive our reliable car to see family members that are excited to see us and love us for who we are. I have an email box full of messages from friends and a December calendar full of activities. We have doctors to see if we are sick, money to fix something if it breaks, and a church community, school community, and neighborhood community that would help us if we needed it. We are amazingly blessed in so many ways that it's a bit overwhelming to compile a list. I know that all of these things are blessings from our Heavenly Father who loves us and will never leave us. I have to admit though that underneath my grateful heart, there sometimes lies anger and bitterness for things that are challenging, painful, or at times just overwhelming. We all have that...don't we? Sometimes it's easy to forget all that we have and complain. In these moments, I take comfort in knowing that, "...in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28 and that we must give thanks in all circumstances whether it be good or seemingly bad. "Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Thessalonians 5:18.

I hope you & yours have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving!

Happy 10th Birthday Anabelle!!

I really can't believe she's 10! It seems like just a few years ago I was preparing to become a mom. In the past 10 years, Anabelle has brought us so much joy and we are so grateful that she's a part of our family. Anabelle has a great sense of humor and is one of the most creative people I know. I'm excited to watch her grow into a young woman and see what she'll become. Happy Birthday Anabelle...you are truly my sunshine :0).

Manatee Watching

On our last day in Florida, I took the girls to Apollo Beach to go Manatee watching. There's a power plant that has built a viewing area that's free to the public. After 5 days of Disney and beach spending, I was all about finding a free yet fun activity! This place was very impressive! They had a long walkway to the viewing area which is basically a small inlet right along the powerplant. I didn't understand exactly how the plant worked, but it creates warm waters along the plant from the production of electricity which the manatees like. When the ocean and bay areas get colder in the fall & winter months, the manatees flock to this area and you can see them by the hundreds. We came only a week after they were open, so we only saw 15 or so, but they were still really cool!! At first I thought our trip was a bust because we didn't see any for about 15 minutes. Then we noticed the water ripple in places and slowly their backs & head would surface. Once we knew what to watch for, we noticed quite a bit. We also saw lots of sand sharks and sting rays. I enjoyed it so much I didn't want to leave, but it was hot and the kids were done looking at the slow moving manatees, so we headed over to their visitor's center.

Here's Sadie smelling Manatee breath. What does it smell like you ask? Very nice actually! They're herbivores, so it smells like plants.

We also tried out the hurricane simulator!

Here's the best picture I got of the manatees. You can see the reflection of the powerplant on the water.






This is what it looked like on the other side of the bridge. Very peaceful. I didn't take a picture of the power plant...it was just big and ugly!

A Dolphin Tale at Clearwater Aquarium

On Tuesday, we drove back to Clearwater to check out their Aquarium. It's a rescue and rehabilitation aquarium, so all of the animals there have were injured or abandoned. The most famous animal there is Winter the Dolphin. She is the star of 'A Dolphin Tale'. She lost her tail in a crab trap and now lives at the aquarium. She swims great without it, but wears a prothetic tail for physical therapy sessions. The movie had many scenes shot there and has made this place extremely popular. When we first arrived, one of the volunteers let the girls hold Winter's prosthetic tail. This was #16 out of 18 tails she's owned.

The girls also got to pet sea urchins and sting rays! That was the girls' favorite activity. We hung out here two times.

Here's Winter. You can kind of see how her tail is missing. It was hard to get a picture of her since they didn't have underwater viewing.

Here's Nicolas...he washed ashore and got stuck. This poor guy suffered horrible sunburn and will forever have scars. This big guy can still splash though! He got us SOAKED!

Clearwater

I'm finally getting a chance to post about our three days in Florida after Disney. After 13 hours in Magic Kingdom, we drove to Tampa...poor Danny had to get up at 6:30 to work. Us girls went downstairs for a continental breakfast at the hotel (a favorite for the Dow girls!).

Then, after the Disney whirlwind all I wanted to do was lay around at the hotel, but we were in Florida! I had to take the kids to do something they couldn't do back in VA. So...we drove to Clearwater Beach. With hotel towels and a makeshift beach bag filled with snacks, we were off. I'm so glad we went...it was a beautiful beach day!

Here are the girls eating a snack. Just as I snapped the picture, a seagull swooped down and took Anabelle's food right out of her hand!

Ah....nothing like sweet salty air and white sand between the toes in November!

We Did It! We took the kids to Disney World!

Whoops...the pictures are backwards, but you get the idea :0). We had a great time on our two day whirlwind of Disney. On Saturday, we took the kids to Animal Kingdom after getting up at 3:30 am, stayed at the park until it closed, slept in a hotel in downtown Disney, woke up Sunday, got to Magic Kingdom right when it opened, caught the opening show before the rope drop, rode almost every ride in the park, and stayed to watch the fireworks show at closing. Then we drove an hour to our hotel in Tampa. Phew....it was exhausting, but VERY fun!!! Danny & I actually felt the magic...haha! We were so happy we could do this for our girls and we think they had a great time. Here are pictures of our trip~

Danny enjoying the 15 minutes we were stuck in the Buzz Lightyear ride. He almost got 1 million points...haha.

Castle during the day & at night~

Goofy's high five to Sadie!

My favorite show...Finding Nemo. These were puppets! Just amazing~

Elise & I rode Expedition Everest twice in a row. That's a roller coaster in Animal Kingdom.

Here's Mt Everest~

The Tree of Life. Beautiful~! Safari ride was a blast!