Our first day in VA

On day one we had "snow" much fun! (Yes, it's late and I'm tired...that's when my creative or cheesy side comes out). Anyway, we spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon playing in the snow. It wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be, we managed to stay pretty warm actually. I'm not saying we didn't come in and have coffee and hot cocoa afterwards but we were able to stay out for many hours, so we haven't become FL wimps afterall. Yeah! The kids had a snowball fight, built snowmen all over the place, went sledding and just had a great time playing in the snow. Of course Matthew was rolling all in the snow...I'm not sure how he stayed warm to be honest. Thankfully I had him bundled pretty good.

Our discovery

We discovered that even though Dria and Hunter are miles apart, they still have so much in common. First thing in the morning each of them are the first to get dressed and they both go off to the bathroom and slick down their hair without even knowing the other has done it. What a pair, those two! I know Hunter typically slicks his hair this way because he knows that if it's in his eyes it means time for a hair cut and he's not a fan of that...so this is his way of getting out of a hair cut.

We survived the cold...

We had such a great time in VA and I'd like to start by thanking our wonderful hosts for taking such good care of us! The Cosgrove family really made us feel right at home during our stay...maybe a little too much actually and I'm sure they won't be ready for us to come back anytime soon but we sure hope to! Our trip started off with a slight delay due to the weather up North...the snow and ice didn't hold off as I had hoped and anyone who knows me would have probably guessed that, because I seem to have either the worst luck or worst timing of anyone in history. But we were only delayed by about an hour so I won't complain because it could have been much worse. AND, it was so worth it because we were all hoping for snow while we were there for our visit...maybe not the ice and 15 degree temperatures but the snow was good. ha!

So Ted was there to pick us up at the airport and drove us safely in the ice to the house. It was so nice to see everyone and despite all the excitement we all still managed to get in bed at a reasonable hour.

Getting a taste of winter...

Well, we're off to VA tomorrow for our first real taste of winter this year. I mean they call this winter here today in FL where it's in the 50's but I'll think that's a heat wave when we walk outside Washington Dulles tomorrow I'm sure. As I watch the weather page, it just keeps changing and I just hope all the snow and sleet hold off long enough for us to land...not thinking that I want to go skidding across a runway in bad weather anytime soon. So wish us luck, hopefully we'll survive our first visit back to cold since our move here 6 months ago. It's really funny how fast you adjust to the heat because I swore I'd never become a FL wimp and I'm afraid my 4 day visit back to VA will prove that I have indeed become a FL wimp. ha!

I'll be posting pictures of our trip after our return and we've fully recovered from hypothermia. Until my next post...

Matthew jumped rope to save a heart

Matthew was so excited when he came home from school on Tuesday because apparently he was the hit of his class. They awarded him with prizes of all kinds because he raised the most money for the American Heart Association with the Jump Rope for a Heart Project. He was so determined to raise a lot of money for this cause and dedicated his efforts to my Uncle Roger who was lucky enough to survive a heart attack. We sent e-mail to many of our friends and I want to thank all of you who participated, it really paid off. Matthew won a t-shirt that says "I saved a life today" and he will wear it proud. Hopefully we made a difference and really did save a life!

These boots were made for playin...

I came home from work and Hunter was so kind as to help me pull my boots off...I thought he was being helpful, as it turns out he just wanted to wear them. Ha! He's such a little clown and always keeps us laughing, you just never know what he might say or do next. He was trying to walk around the house in these boots and his feet were twisting every which way. It was all fun and games until I busted out the camcorder...the boots came off immediately! He doesn't mind being silly but he sure doesn't want proof of it...he did at least let me sneak some pictures though, he's not camera shy by no means. I think when he saw the camera he forgot for just a moment that he was wearing the boots....

Just another day at Disney...

We should probably just get jobs at Disney on the weekends since we seem to spend most of our time there anyway, but I guess it wouldn't be near as much fun that way. I had an entire day of rest and relaxation planned for my Sunday and then Kenzie comes in just as I'm cleaning my house. I had already showered but my hair was still wet so that's where the vacuum came into play, needed to do something productive for the day so I did that while my hair was drying. So anyway, here comes Kenzie and starts trying to sweet talk me into taking her and Matthew to Epcot. Well, that would have been fine but I knew Hunter would want to go and then I'm not going to take the other 3 and leave Keegan behind....now here's the dilemma...no way was I going to take all 4 kids to Epcot by myself. So Kenzie worked it out that Keegan would stay home and help his dad put mulch out, she really should be a sales person when she grows up...who else could possibly talk a kid into staying home to help with mulch rather than going to Disney? So then Sean felt bad that I was going with the 3 kids alone and decided to go with us, and once he committed then I asked Keegan to come along too. So I rushed off to dry my hair and we all got ready very quick. As we were driving to the park the sky was completely black and we saw lightening...we were hoping it wasn't going to look that way over Disney, but no such luck. We got in just as it started to rain and took cover under the first spot we could find. Turns out that we were right where the character meet and greet was and we always skip it because it takes at least an hour to get though, but since it was raining so hard I figured we had the time today to do it. So we went through that, took a bathroom break, grabbed a snack and after all that the rain had let up just enough for us to make a run for it to the next building which has a couple of rides. So we went to ride Soarin' which is an awesome ride, if you ever get the chance you have to ride that one! We also rode The Land which is nice, educational...the kids really liked it. By the time we finished inside there the rain had completely stopped and it turned out to be a beautiful day. We had so much fun, we got to ride Test Track twice, of course Keegan wanted no part of it after the first ride, it went a little too fast for him or his belly I guess I should say. We rode the boat ride in Mexico and enjoyed churros, and the Viking ship in Norway....because as Matt puts it "we are Vikings after all...with our name Kaushagen". Keegan was so scared to ride that since it goes backwards for a bit but once it was over he said it was his favorite ride. I think Hunter and Matt's favorite is still Test Track and Kenzie seemed to be torn between Test Track and Soarin'. We also got to ride the ride in the "big golf ball" or as we now know is technically called the "geosphere". The kids all really liked that one too...I would see that ride as a great napping opportunity on a long day. ha! Until my next post....

Park of choice today...MGM

Okay, you know our week isn't complete without a trip to some park so today we choose MGM. We had originally started off going to Epcot today and then Matthew guilted us into skipping it because Makenzie (his cousin) had told him she's never been so he wanted to wait and go when she was with us. Of course she has been, and I knew she had been...but no way was I going to convience him otherwise. So the only way to talk Hunter out of Epcot was to promise to eat at the Sci-Fi Theatre for lunch. The food there is great, and you sit in pretend cars and it's designed to be like a drive-in movie theathre. My only problem is that the wait to get a table is forever long and it's really dark....but again, the food is so worth it. So we went at 11:20 to see if we could luck into a table and of course we had to make reservations....our reservation wasn't until 1:55 and this was on a day where the longest line was a 10 minute wait! So we just grabbed a snack and went on our way to ride. We got to ride a lot today because the lines were so short, didn't even have to get a single fast pass...that's unheard of. We rode the Star Wars ride a couple of times, the Rock 'n Roller coaster, the back lot tour, the great movie ride and caught up with a lot of new characters we haven't met yet along the way. We got to meet all the Power Rangers, except for the pink one because "that's a girl one"....they didn't realize the yellow one was a girl too. ha! We also got to meet the characters from Monster's, Inc. After all that it was finally time for lunch. We ate, watched the parade and then headed off to my sister's house to hang out with some friends and have some of Ricks BBQ....it was really good. We had a wonderful day and the weather was incredible...wish it could be this way every weekend, don't really care about the week days so much since I'm at work anyway, guess that's a little selfish huh? ha! Until my next post...

My first post for 2008

We spent the day at Animal Kingdom today with Sis and her family. The weather was perfect, high 70s with a few scattered clouds. The crowds were more than I had expected but not bad for Disney. We haven't taken the boys to Animal Kingdom since they were much younger so I was excited to go but it took a little bribe to talk Hunter into it. He had his heart set on going to Epcot again, that's really our favorite park but Sis' family wanted Animal Kingdom and Matthew of course could care less as long as they have rides. So I had to tell Hunter that he could visit with Pooh Bear, Tigger, and Piglet and his response was "really?" And when I assured him that they would be there then he was all set to go to that park. Those are some of the characters that he's met before but doesn't really remember it so he was really excited to go see them. We had such a fun day, exhausting but fun. I'm sure we'll all be completely dragging tomorrow since we did all that walking today and now tomorrow is our first day back to work and school after 2 full weeks of sleeping in...should be a nice, grupmy week for all of us. We rode many of the rides today though so it was so worth the week of suffering for sure! Matthew and Makenzie rode this one coaster (can't think of the name of it) over and over again. We got to go on the Safari, rode Dinosaur which I thought was a little scary but Hunter LOVED it. We had a fun day and followed it up with dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe and of course a Volcano for desert, since our gym and diets don't officially start until tomorrow, the end of our "vacation".

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention a couple of other things. Like yesterday we went to the Ale House to watch the Redskins game, I won't even speak of that game beyond saying we watched it by the way. Anyway, Hunter won this little gold boxing glove in his favorite claw machine game. I'm not sure if you noticed in any of the pictures but he has worn it since he won it in the machine, that means he even wore it to Disney today. We did finally get him to take it off at dinner and once at the park to climb on the dinosaur becuase it was too slick with the glove on. The people working at Disney got a huge kick out of it though and kept telling him not to box the characters, he's such a nut but keeps life very interesting to say the least.

Welcome 2008!

After all the illness we have been through with the kids since moving here, we welcome a new year and hope for health, continued happiness and lots of visitors. I'm not sure any of us made any true new year's resolutions but I do have a list of things that I hope to be better with this year. I hope to be better at posting to my blog, I want to try to catch up on my scrapbook pages, be better to actually mail out the birthday cards that I buy people (I've got stacks that never made it into the mail from the past several years) and I hope to finish my degree this year. With that of course we plan to diet and exercise more, me especially as Sean already does a pretty good job of it. We also hope to pay off some bills and start to vacation more this year. So with that being said I wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope to see you all soon!

New Year's Eve

We had planned to go to Carol and Patrick's neighborhood for New Year's Eve and just as we were getting ready to walk out the door it started pouring rain. Go figure we haven't had rain in months and then when we have a block party planned it rains. Lucky for us the rain in Orlando never seems to last too long and this was no different. It rained for about 30 minutes so we decided to contine on as planned once the rain passed. They had a great set up with football on for the guys, music and dancing in the cul-de-sac, tons of food, lots of kids....we really had a good time. Hunter was amused by chasing these kids on skateboards all night and running laps around the neighborhood while Matthew sat and played on his DS almost the entire time. Hunter somehow finally talked Matthe into running and playing hula hoops with him but then the rain started to come back so we decided to call it a night and head home to watch the ball drop. We had bought the kids some sparkling apple cider because they love it so much and of course I couldn't find any plastic cups last minute so they ended up with these really cool 2008 champagne glasses, the problem was they were real glass. Oh well, we just had to remind them before the toast to be gentle. We were watching and waiting for midnight and could see that Hunter was probably not going to make it so we ended up toasting at about 11:30 for him, and of course he fell asleep right after, but Matthew stayed up to watch the ball drop with us. None of us made it much later than that though. So at least we made it until midnight but we're not quite the party animals we used to be. ha!

Putt-putt and wonder works fun

We started our day off with the intentions of going to Universal for the day but when we got there and saw the line of cars waiting to get into the park, we went to lunch to come up with a plan B. We decided to spend the day playing putt-putt and going to a kids museum called Wonder Works. If you've ever seen the place you would remember, from the outside it looks like the entire building is upside down, even the Christmas tree inside was upside down. Putt-putt had a rough start since Hunter hates to lose at anything and has no patience. He just doesn't understand why he can't do things as well as anyone older than him...so his game started with lots of tears and club slinging...he looked a lot like Sean on a real course to be honest...don't know where he comes by that lack of patience at all. Ha! Anyway, he finally started playing better thank goodness, and we ended up having fun playing the entire 18 holes. Of course I think Hunter had way more fun climbing on everything on the course more than actually hitting the ball, typical 5 year old boy no doubt! All the guys got a hole in 1 but I still won of course, I just got lucky and didn't even cheat believe it or not. After golf we went to Wonder Works and I wasn't so sure we were even going to make it through the first activity. It says it turns you upside down but you have to walk over a bridge with this tube spinning around you and though you're not actually going upside down it makes you just as dizzy as if you were. I ended up just having to close my eyes to walk through and have Sean tell me when I was at the end. The rest was a breeze compared to that. We played baseball, air hockey, went into the bubble room, they had a hurricane and earth quake exhibit. Then even had a bed of nails that you could lay on. I wanted to do it but when I got in line the boys started crying so hard thinking I was going to get hurt so I thought it would not be fair to them if I did it....but I really wanted to just give it a try. Maybe next time! I'm sure they'll come a day when they're teens they'll look back and wish they had never stopped me. Ha!

Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful first Christmas here in FL, it was very different any other Christmas of ours in VA. Though we really missed all our friends and family in VA and hope to see them all sometime very soon. We spent Christmas Eve here at the house and had the family over for dinner, I made my homemade lasagna. Then after everyone left we baked Santa's favorite chocolate chip cookies and sprinkled our reindeer dust out front so that Santa would come visit us soon. The boys slept in late the next morning, only happens when we're excited for them to wake up early....without fail! So when they finally got up, we all went out to see all the gifts under our tree. Matthew tore though his all very quick, his is more about opening all of them as fast as he can. Hunter has to open each gift and analyze what's in it, and carry it around to show everyone so he was way behind and I think Matthew even had to help him out with a few. The boys got so many of the things they had asked Sant for in their letters. I think Matthew's favorite gift was his new DS games or perhaps his UB Funkeys, he's played with those a lot too. Hunter loved his new Pat Pat Rocket, his I Can Play Guitar and they they both got a new bounce house and could even jump in it outside in shorts on Christmas day....a little different than past years huh? It was so hot on Christmas day, but we cranked the AC up so it could feel like it was cold. Call me crazy but that's the one day of the year I don't mind the cold and snow is even better....guess I better give up on that here huh? We had a wonderful Christmas and of course the kids got more gifts then they can probably even play with at this point but I took off 2 full weeks so we've played with everything as much as we could in that time. I had wanted to make a trip to VA but the van was acting up and though we tried to put it in the shop...we looked for 45 minutes and finally gave up...it's terrible not knowing your way around. Hopefully we'll be able to visit VA during our spring break...that's our next attempt at it anyway.

Hope all is well and everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Building a gingerbread house

The boys and I decided to build a gingerbread house this year. We made a huge mess, had tons of fun and probably have about 5 cavities each now after all the frosting and candy we ate along the way. It was so worth it, we loved the end result after all our hard work...the kids liked eating the house better than making it but at least we got a picture before they ate the roof right off.

Hunter's new costumes

Thanks to the Hammack family, Hunter has 2 new costumes to run around in and we wanted to share pictures with you. He has been asking for the Mickey and Stitch costumes for a long time and now his wish list has been shortened...thanks so much guys for sending these costumes... Hunter has had a great time running around and playing dress up in them.

Awesome sunset

Well, I know this picture won't even come close to the real thing but this is the sunset Sean and I saw while we were out doing some Christmas shopping and luckily I had my camera along. I jumped out to snap a shot of it just before the sun went all the way down. The sunsets here are just amazing and with the palm trees we just thought it was the coolest looking sky ever...hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Downtown Orlando

Okay, so we've been here 6 months now and just finally took a visit to downtown Orlando. We actually went for a photo shoot of mine but ended up spending the day at Lake Eola. There's a great playground there, we visited the farmer's market and walked around the lake. We had so much fun exploring and it felt good to be in a city again because we really miss our visits to downtown DC. This wasn't quite the same but it was nice and we look forward to going again sometime soon...next time we hope to do the swan peddle boats...it was a little too windy to do them this time...plus, we couldn't drag the kids away from the playground to be honest.