Disney Trip Photos

At the beginning of this month, we took a trip to Disney World with my family. It was an amazing trip, and we're so glad we went! (Justin wasn't able to go, but he was happy for us to be able to go without him.) Elias did AMAZING with all the break from routine, and we were not surprised to learn that he LOVES roller coasters! Here are some of my favorite pics from the trip.

Our first day, we went to Star Wars Weekend at Hollywood Studios. We got to take pictures with Ewok Chip-n-Dale, and Chewbacca too!

Elias was excited to visit the Magic Kingdom and see all the characters and Cinderella's Castle!

Sweet family moment in the Magic Kingdom.

Riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad with Grandma. He LOVED this one! A roller coaster that's also a train... How could it get any better??

We had breakfast at Chef Mickey's. Elias liked meeting the characters and eating Mickey-shaped waffles, but his favorite part was dancing and twirling his napkin to the Celebrate music!

In Epcot, we loved this musical group called the Jammitors!

Elias watched Monsters, Inc. for the first time in the car on the way to Florida, and he LOVED it! (We watched it twice!) So we were pleased to find Mike & Sully every where. We also visited the Monsters, Inc Laugh Floor in the Magic Kingdom, which he loved! (Did that twice too.)

This model railroad in Epcot was fun.

Sweet cousin moment at the Garden Grill in Epcot. Pay no attention to the chicken leg that Azlan hadn't quite finished with yet. :)

We saw characters all over the place, and Elias was never too sure about them. The closest he would get to them was a high-five. However, by our fourth day, he had warmed up a little, and he actually gave Dale a hug at the Garden Grill!

Family hug in front of Spaceship Earth.

It was Elias' idea to do the Chicken Dance while we waited in line for the Safari at Animal Kingdom. The whole line was entertained!

Everybody enjoyed some Mickey ice cream!

Animal Kingdom was our last day, and by then Elias was riding the big coasters like the Primeval Whirl!

This was the official photo from the Dinosaur ride (which was way too scary for kids, IMO). But the picture is classic!

The Festival of the Lion King in Animal Kingdom may have been my favorite part of the entire trip. It was AWESOME!

For our fancy dinner on our last night, we ate at Narcoossee's at the Grand Floridian. The boys were all stylin' in their Warrior Poet shirts.

As a souvenir, Elias bought a stuffed Mike & Sully, which were good entertainment on the way home!

Trip to Chattanooga

Earlier this month, we took a trip to Chattanooga that was so special! We stayed at the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel, and then we went to a Day Out With Thomas! Elias was in little-boy heaven! :) As his souvenir of the trip, he chose a Day Out With Thomas photo album, and then I made a little story of our trip with the photos we took. So rather than typing out the tale of our trip into a blog post, I thought I'd just show the story pictures we put into his album.
If you're having trouble viewing the photo story or want to see larger pictures, try clicking here to view it in Photobucket.

Atlanta Trip 9: Wrapping Up

Can you believe I had 9 posts worth of pictures from this week-long trip?!  It was so much fun, though, and I'm so thankful for that time with my family!  If you're still hanging in there in this long series, here are a few pictures that didn't fit anywhere else:

The kids' table at our Sunday afternoon cookout.

Grandpa bought Elias a ride on the train at the mall!  He was beyond thrilled!!!  Notice the blue tickets he's holding - he still has his souvenir train ticket!

Jessica has an app on her iPad that is an adorable version of The Monster At The End of This Book - a book we used to read when we were kids!  Elias absolutely stinkin' LOVED it!  He would just laugh and laugh - scream laughing!  We definitely bought that one for our own iPad.  This picture is Grandma showing it to them before bed one night.  Many thanks to Patriot & Azlan for putting up with his craziness while reading this one!

So that was our visit!  Our return home was also an adventure, since Atlanta traffic caused us to miss our morning flight.  However, there was another flight 2.5 hours later that they put us on for no charge, and it was really no inconvenience to us at all to get home a little later than originally planned.  So, we enjoyed a long car and train ride with my sis to get to the airport, then extra hangout time waiting for the next flight!  Score!  So it was a fantastic trip - all that I had hoped it would be - and I'm so thankful for how good Elias was to travel alone with!  What blessings God has given me in my family!!!!!

Atlanta Trip 8: More Celebrating

Patriot and Azlan's birthdays are only a couple weeks apart, so we had a family celebration for both boys, since we wouldn't be able to come back for Azlan's party.  Also, Patriot and Azlan are both in karate classes, and while we were there, they passed their tests to move up to orange belt level!  Way to go, boys!  (We went to watch their testing, and Elias LOVED seeing all the kids doing their karate!  He sat still on my lap for the entire hour just in awe of all the kicking and movements and shouting.  He still walks around going "A-ya!" like the kids did.  Maybe martial arts are in Elias' future too?!)  So we had a lot to celebrate that day!

And when you have a lot to celebrate, where else do you go but Chuck E. Cheese's?!  It had been more than 2 years since Elias went to Chuck E Cheese's (with the same crowd actually!), so it was definitely more fun for all of us this time!

Loving the helicopter flying around in this game.

Pushing buttons on Deal or No Deal.

This was a helicopter-type ride that you pedal like a bike.  He wouldn't actually ride it, but he loved to just touch it and shake it!  He called it the Thingmajigger from The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That.

What's really funny is that even though he loved touching the games and pushing their buttons, he refused to actually play or ride any of them.  So we didn't spend one token there, which actually ends up being a lot cheaper...  So if he's happy to just run around and look at things, I guess I'm ok with that!

Looking adoringly at Chuck E.

Then he finally found the thing he loved best - seeing himself on TV with the bluescreen!!  He danced there until it was time to go.  :)

Then we went back to the house for cake, ice cream, and presents.  I for some reason didn't get any pictures of cake time...  But it was yummy!  Then it was present time, and in true Grandma fashion, she had brought one for Elias!  She said she felt bad that the other boys were getting birthday presents, but Elias wasn't getting anything.  I think that's sweet.  So all three boys were simultaneously ripping into presents!  Mayhem.

They were all very excited with their haul, and Elias didn't let go of his little Cars 2 Lightning McQueen and Fillmore characters for the next 48 hours!  (He's holding them in the pajama photo in this post!)

Atlanta Trip 7: Birthday Insanity

One of the reasons we scheduled our trip when we did was so we would be there for Patriot's 7th birthday party!  It was possibly the coolest party ever!  It was a video game-themed party, so they rented something called Rolling Video Games.

There was a very large number of very loud, very excited boys.  I've never seen such a thing!  Kinda glad my kid is only 3...  I've got some time before we're doing things like this...

It was a trailer outfitted with 4 large-screen TVs, and up to 16 people could play simultaneous video games in there!  So Patriot had 15 friends over, and they had some intense video game action in there!!!

Not being a gamer myself, Elias and I only peeked in to see the insanity, but it was hilarious!  The boys were so excited!  After the boys had turns, they let some grown-ups in to give it a try.

Birthday boy playing an intense game with Grandpa, Brother, and Daddy

Only after the truck left were the boys willing to come in and participate in the rest of the festivities: pasta, cake pops, and presents.  Jessica had ordered cake pops shaped like video game controllers - how cute were these?!

Elias sure thought it was tasty!  He gobbled his down and immediately said "More?!"

Patriot's birthday was actually the next day, and so we went to school to eat lunch with him on his special day.

It was Elias' first time in a school like this, and my first time since high school!

It was HILARIOUS how much Elias LOVED the school cafeteria food!  For Elias, I chose something that Patriot called "stuffed crust," which in my mind would be something like a pizza calzone.  When Elias was eating it, though, I saw that it was all white, so I asked Patriot what it was stuffed with.  He said fish.  HA!  Elias LOVES fish, so he actually enjoyed it way more than he would've pizza.  So there ya go. 

I chuckled at how my child is probably one of the few who would be happier about fish than pizza.

Then after school, the whole family met Patriot at the bus stop, and they even took the dog decorated with some birthday balloons to celebrate his big day!

So happy birthday, Patriot!  Can't believe you're seven already!

Atlanta Trip 6: Decorating Pumpkins

Grandma had brought with her 3 pumpkins donated to her grandsons from a friend in Kentucky, so one afternoon we decorated them!  I say "decorated" because Patriot and Azlan carved theirs, but Elias and I opted for drawing with a sharpie.  When I say "Elias and I," I mean me, because he didn't care in the slightest about the pumpkins.  But I drew a really cute cat on ours!  So there.

This is as long as Elias lasted.  You can see him already getting out of his chair to go run up and down the hill some more.

This is the really scary face that Azlan wanted to put on his pumpkin!

Then he decided he'd rather have the Red Power Ranger on his pumpkin, so Grandma printed out a picture and helped him draw the design.

Patriot using the dremmel.

Jessica is deep in concentration.

Mom used a terrifyingly large knife.

We ended up with three awesome pumpkins!

Atlanta Trip 5: Downtown

One afternoon we took the MARTA train to downtown Atlanta, which of course, thrilled Elias to the depths of his soul!

Too excited to sit still!

Grinning at Grandma

We went to Centennial Park, where the Olympics were held in 1996.

Grandma with her boys

 

The park was beautiful, and the weather was just perfect.  There were also some really great playgrounds, and the boys had a great time playing!

Azlan & Patriot "selling" Grandma some ice cream at the playground's "store."

 

 

The curly slide is always Elias' favorite!!  If you look closely, you'll see his skinned left knee - he did that on the concrete just a few minutes before this photo was taken, but he shook it off and kept playing.  There's fun to be had!

Then we tried to go to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, but the wait was too long, so we instead visited an only-in-Atlanta kind of place called Aunt Pittypat's Porch.  (Aunt Pittypat is a character from Gone With the Wind, which takes place in Atlanta.)  Good, down-home Southern food there!  :)