Disney Recap - Part One

A great time was had by all last week at the Happiest Place on Earth. We arrived last Saturday (6/18) in Orlando without a hitch. It was a fairly decent flight.

The 4 kiddos - Brooklyn, Jack, Emmy, and Tyler

We did have two extra kiddos with us, so that made it a bit more interesting, but fun. My niece and nephew flew down with us so they didn't have to do the whole drive with my sister and brother-in-law.

Sunday morning, bright and early, the boys skipped on over to Blizzard Beach to enjoy a day at the waterpark.

(Getting ready for the Snow White ride)

Brooklyn and I spent the day at Magic Kingdom.

Brian and Carrie and Brooklyn (Emmy and Tyler are behind that person's head) on Aladdin's Magic Carpet.

Autographs from Goofy - Tyler, Emmy, and Brooklyn

Autographs from Stitch - Tyler, Brooklyn, and Emmy

That evening, we all met up (all 15 of us - one grandma, one aunt, one uncle, 2 cousins, one mom, one dad, one sister, one brother-in-law, the two of us, and 4 kiddos...and, yes, we are one of "those" families that wear matching t-shirts) at Magic Kingdom for their new dessert buffet.

Sporting the family T-shirt - TCNP - Trent, Chatterton, Newman, and Pardieck family vacation 2009

The buffet was sickening - I've never seen so much sugar in my life - we loved it! It also included a great view of the fireworks show over Cinderella's Castle, except that it was a bit cloudy. No worries...we still enjoyed it all.

Monday morning...another early start to our day at Disney Hollywood Studios (or MGM for all of you that didn't know they changed the name - which I found very annoying, so I still call it MGM). This was actually our only day of rain - and it wasn't even a hard rain. We definitely lucked out with the weather. Besides the obscene heat, it was really pleasant. We all watched the Lights, Motor, Action Stunt Show,

Lights, Motor, Action Stunt Show Set

got some autographs from the High School Musical 3 crew, and went on the Backlot tour.

Oh, look. A truck!

Oh, no. A fire!

Whew. Good thing there was that huge gush of water!

You feel like your right there with us, don't you?

Jack stayed with the "roller coaster riders" and tackled Rockin' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror, again. We went back with everyone else and hit the pool. Monday evening, we all met up to eat at Boma - the African buffet at Animal Kingdom Lodge. What a neat place.

This is Zac...after dinner.

The food was surprisingly good (I'm a really picky eater) and we were able to take a walk after dinner and see all of the animals that live right there in the middle of the resort. After dinner, we went over to Epcot to try to catch the Illuminations fireworks show. This is where the entertainment begins. Picture this...we are packed in like sardines trying to get the best view of the show. It begins. My mom comes over and says she found the perfect spot where no one is standing. We all trek over to "the perfect spot" and realize no one is there because there is a huge tree blocking the entire sky. Apparently, she missed that factor. So, we head back over to our original spot. Fireworks are booming, lights are flashing. Pure beauty. Then, all of a sudden, Brooklyn starts screaming. Her glow bracelet exploded and she, along with all those standing around her, are glowing. Literally glowing. She's still screaming so Zac takes her back to the hotel, as the rest of us miss the remainder of the show because we are laughing hysterically. Anyway, probably one of those "you had to be there" moments, but entertaining nonetheless.

This picture really doesn't do it justice, but this is my uncle's leg...glowing.

I think it would be fair to say the my cousin Christy was the highlight of the vacation for the kids. Not much of a vacation for her, but the kids loved hanging out with her, hanging on her, etc... We were continually giving the kids "time-outs" from Cousin Christy.

Stay tuned for Part Two!

Home!

Well, so much for blogging while on vacation. We had an awesome time. It was HOT and HUMID, but I'm not complaining. It was a much needed, somewhat relaxing, family surrounding, lots of eating vacation. Stay tuned for details and pictures...

Playdates!

We've been having way too much fun lately. I love living in an area that has so much to offer. I haven't, however, been very good at taking pictures. I got a lot on our first adventure, only a few from our second, and none from the last (because I wasn't there;)

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Fondulac Farm Park in E. Peoria. I hadn't been there since I was a kid. We met one of Olivia's former nurses, turned family friend, and her fam there for the day. The kids had a blast.

On Monday, we road-tripped, with the same company, to Bloomington and hit Miller Park Zoo, the spray park,

and the Children's Museum. Big day. Big fun.

Wednesday night, Zac took the kids bowling. It was an absolutely beautiful day outside, and they wanted to go bowling. It sounded like there were some technical difficulties, which left Brooklyn the winner, and Jack the sore, sore second placer. We're going to take a break from competitive activities for a while.

I've been getting tons of stuff done around the house, which has been nice. It's been hard, too. My main focus has been "Olivia's room," and I've come across some things I hadn't noticed before. I'll save that for another post. We leave for Disney on Saturday. I'm hoping to blog during the trip, but we'll have to see if time allows! Until then...

Disney or bust...

Mixed feelings.

We've been talking a lot about our feelings around here lately. That's a good thing, obviously, but we all seem to be having a lot of mixed emotions lately.
We are so excited to go to Florida this weekend, but we are so sad to be going without Olivia. We are flying down. We had originally planned to drive because of Olivia's medical equipment, so we are feeling a sense of guilt that we are flying. It sounds silly, but a feeling nonetheless.
We've been doing so many fun things lately - going to the zoo, museums, bowling, etc..., and I feel bad that things seem so "easy" now. I never once felt burdened because of Olivia, but yet another feeling. I think we've just had a lot more time to miss Olivia lately.
I had a talk with her at the cemetery tonight. I told her how much we are missing her and how we feel her presence every day in everything that we do. Jack and Brooklyn still pray for her every night and say how sorry they are that she is in Heaven. We have to remind them that Olivia is the lucky one. That's hard to explain to kids, and it's something that we have to constantly remind ourselves of, too.

Issues.

Don't worry...if you made a greatly appreciated donation to St. Jude online, we did get it! I was apparently having some issues when setting it all up and put the wrong paypal account. Oops. Luckily, with a little help from a friend, I think we figured it out this morning. At least I found some money! So a huge thank you to those of you that have donated so far! I had to set up a new Paypal account and I haven't gotten it "verified" yet. As soon as I do, it will hopefully start showing up in the right places!

Update: Yeah! It's working! Thanks to all those who have donated online and via mail! We so appreciate it!

St. Jude Runs!

Zac is, once again, running the St. Jude Macomb to Peoria run on Saturday, August 1st. This year is obviously a bit more meaningful for us. We became very close to all of the doctors and nurses here at the St. Jude Midwest Affiliate in Peoria. We had even prepared ourselves at one point to head down to Memphis for treatments. Although Olivia was never healthy enough to receive her chemotherapy treatments, we felt very fortunate to become a part of the St. Jude family.

We thank you in advance for any donation you wish to make to help support all of the children of St. Jude. To make things easier, we've added a button to the side of the blog. It's through a site called "ChipIn" and allows you to pay through PayPal. I think you have to have a PayPal account to do so. If you would rather donate by mail, leave a comment or pop us an email and I'll send you an envelope! Also, your donation may not appear right away on the "ChipIn" button, but should show up within 24 hours. If there are any problems at all, please let me know!

I'm going to try to get letters out this year, but I don't know if I will get around to it in a timely manner, so I thought the blog would reach just as many, if not more people!

Thanks so much!

The Sale.

Tomorrow is the big garage sale.
The biggest garage sale ever.
(for us, at least)
My mom is selling some things and using it as a fundraiser for the St. Jude Dunlap to Peoria run that she is doing next month. (Isn't she good?)
The kids are selling water and lemonade and giving the proceeds to Zac for his Macomb to Peoria St. Jude run (Aren't they good?)
My sister and I are selling things so we are able to feed our families when we go to Florida next week (That's sort of good, too. Right? I mean, we have to eat.)
It's going to be an interesting sale, however. We are selling almost all of Olivia's things. Toys, clothes, more toys, crib, dresser, etc... I obviously pulled out things that have sentimental value, but as I've said before, I don't get too attached to "things." Besides, it's good to know that her things are going to many different people and they will, unknowingly, be a little part of Olivia's life, too! So, I'm not anticipating any emotional breakdowns while I'm checking people out tomorrow. Anyone who needs any little girl things, or even just some lemonade, feel free to come on out...we'll be at my parent's house in Dunlap.

Vegas Vacation...revisited.

Now that we've been back for a whole week and a half, I figured it was finally time to blog about the Vegas trip. As most of you know, we won a whopping $140...on the plane. We should have just gotten a return flight right then and called it a win, but we ended up taking the gamble of staying for a few more days. That was the end of our lucky streak, but not the end of the fun, by far!



Zac and I finally went to see Jersey Boys on Sunday night. It was awesome.



On Monday, my best friend Nicole and her hubby, Ben flew in. This was their 10-year anniversary trip, and they kindly invited us along, never thinking

we would take them up on it! We spent lots of time by the pool,



of time by "our" machines,



lots of time walking, and lots and lots of time eating.

I did win a little bit of money (something like 279 nickels), but I got greedy and then lost it all.

It was a much needed trip and came at the perfect time.
Next up...11 days until Disney World. Imagine this...fifteen family members in matching t-shirts, 2 adjoining rooms, 5 days, 4 kids age 7 and under, hot weather, lack of sleep, etc... Tell me that's not going to make for some good blogging material?!?

Fourth of July weekend!

Alright. So, I've had a few complaints about my lack of posting...but we've been busy doing lots of fun stuff!

The deck is coming along nicely (and largely). I don't know why Zac always has to do everything so big. Some of you may know the story about the "clubhouse." in Macomb. It was larger than our bedroom and the kids' bedrooms put together - more like an addition to the house. This is comparable, but on a bigger scale. No pictures of the deck project today...consider yourself lucky ;)

Friday night, the kids and I headed on over to Morton to watch fireworks with my sister and fam. We had a great time. Then back to Morton on Saturday for the fourth...

Smiles...

Sand Scramble... and Snakes, oh my!

Sunday was the annual Doran (Zac's mom's side of the fam) reunion! This year we went to Mathissen State Park in Utica, which we just loooove. We had a blast. The kids had a blast. It was a beautiful day.

All in all, a great Fourth of July weekend! Now I just have to backtrack and get our Vegas vacation and a playdate on here! Bear with me - I'm trying to get back into it!