Happy New Year!

Vacation Part 3

These next few pictures were taken at Give Kids the World Village. Travis and Andrea thought this huge strawberry looked so neat and wanted their picture taken by it.

Tyler and Alex by a water fountain.

They have the most awseome chapel at the village. On Sunday before we left our family went in there and Troy read some scripture and we had prayer together thanking God for letting us all be together still. Of course I couldn't keep the tears back! Andrea was mesmerized by this beautiful stained glass and I thought this picture is priceless.

Tyler, Andrea, and Travis with "Manny".

We were able to get in on a special trip to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the Blue Angels practice for an airshow they were putting on there. After their practice the pilots came over and talked with us and signed stuff for the kids. We found out that their group is supposed to be coming to Cape next year! They are an incredible group of pilots!! There was so much to see at the space center and so little time. Troy and I decided that this is a place we would love to come back and spend a few days at !

This space guy was out by our bus so we snapped this picture really quick before we loaded up.

Every Thursday night at the Village is "Christmas"! They play Christmas music all day, serve Turkey and the works for supper and then have a huge Christmas party that night along with; Santa, presents, face painting, a parade, sugar cookie decorating and much more! Alex, Andrea and I are setting her waiting to take a carriage ride.

Lauren's masterpiece sugar cookie that she decorated!

This picture is a classic!! Take notice that the only two people who are looking at the camera are Luke and Tyler! Lauren and I got so tickled when we got to looking at this! We didn't get one picture with Travis looking...he was totally amazed at Santa and his big white beard!

Well I'm off to do school and then I'll try get some pictures uploaded. I'm going to have to get a major move on it if I get caught up by Christmas!!!

Vacation Part 2

I'm finally back. Our week isn't going to great with Andrea. She has been really sick so everything has kind of been put on the back burner around here. Thanks Brittney for sharing Picnik! I am addicted now!:) Here goes the next part of our vacation...
Andrea's main wish was to get to meet Cinderella. She got sick the first day we were able to go to the Magic Kingdom so we weren't sure how it was all going to work out. When we arrived at the princesses castle they thought Cinderella was gone for the day. By some miracle they found her and Andrea's dream came true. She was in shock and didn't know what to do or say. Andrea got to meet Belle and Sleeping Beauty as well. I don't think she will ever forget this day!




Cindrella gave Andrea a kiss on the cheek. She kept this kiss for several days without it getting washed off.

The famous tea cup ride...only those who are not weak of stomach can ride this!

This was the gazebo in the back of Minnie Mouse's house.

Andrea in Minnie's house.

Troy and the kids riding the "Barn Stormer". They rode it about 6 or 7 times in a row.

By the early afternoon Andrea had all she could take and fell sound asleep. Thankfully we had Alexs' stroller, a double stroller and a wheelchair. So Troy sat in the wheelchair and held Andrea. He was thankful for a place to rest as well!:)

At GKTW where we stayed they have a whole park that is decorated like the Candy Land game with a soft rubber base which Alex loved crawling around on! We spent one afternoon there playing around.

Tyler and Troy trying to catch their breath after a wild game of freeze tag!

This is only a few pictures of the first CD out of three that I have from our trip. I think I took around 1500 pics! Slowly but surely I'm getting them loaded on my computer. Hopefully I can finish up soon so I can move on to current events! One of these days I need to change my blog look but I have forgotten how and since Christmas is so close I am thinking about just going with the "winter" look!

Vacation Part 1

When we first found out we were going on vacation Lauren made this sign and hung it on the side of the refrigerator. It was a race every day to see who could change the number first!



The van is all packed and we are ready to go!!



The kids in front of our villa and by the welcome sign in our yard at Give Kids the World Village.



One of our favorite things to do was to ride the carosel which was open first thing in the morning until around 9 pm. It was right by the Gingerbread house resteraunt and we had to stop and ride before we could go in and eat. ~ Troy and Travis~

Me and Alex

Andrea

GKTW ( Give Kids the World) is one of the most amazing places you could ever imagine! They have it decorated just for kids. There was; the Gingerbread house which served us breakfast and supper, The Ice Cream Parlor which was open from 7:30am until 9:30pm so you could eat ice cream all day long, the Ice Cream Parlor also served sandwiches and chips for lunch, Miss Merry's pizza parlor was open from 4:30pm until 9:30pm and we could call from our villa anytime and have pizza and soda delivered to our front door, there is a castle that is a huge building with every toy and craft stuff imaginable, a chapel that would make you cry, a huge building called Amberville that had one of the biggest train sets I have ever seen, all kinds of games to play, A putt, putt golf and I could keep on going!! Our villa was right behind all of these buildings so we were able to walk anywhere we wanted to go which made it really nice!

This is the Theatre.

The kids in front of Amberville

The 2nd night we were there Ms Merry ( "Mayor Clayton's" wife ) came by and tucked all of the kids in bed. Since Lauren and Andrea were sleeping in the living room on the sofa bed, she just tucked them all in here. It was one of the things they will always remeber. She tickled them and played with them and we all had a great time laughing!
This is just the beginning but I have to leave in a few minutes to take Andrea up to St Louis for her chemo treatment. Hopefully I can work on it some more this evening. I would love to join in on the days of Christmas with some of you ....I'll have to see what I can do!