our parade

Steve calls these guys "the little band that did" because we did make it to state and then we did come in 7th amongst 55 others in our class and now because we did make it to Epcot to march in a parade. The are now honorary Disney cast members....and they got swag for their efforts. A cool bag that can only be gotten if you perform there, an "oscar" featuring Mickey, and a pin for their lanyards or to put on their bag--a nice pin, too. We are so proud of them and all that they accomplished this year.

beauty and the beast

I do believe that this was my favorite Disney activity (besides the band, of course!). The costuming was beautiful and the music was great. I love live productions, and this one, while short, did not disappoint!

more of day 1 Disney

I had planned to post everyday while there, but then our laptop decided that the hard drive wanted to crash sooooooooooooo, here's the rest of day 1! We had a great time.....

This is where we stayed....All-Star Music Resort

one of MANY speeches we were forced to endure

yeah! we finally escaped the many speeches

Kendall.......her "duh" face

Kevin is having a blast, dontcha' think?

three of our favorite girls....Kassie, Kendall and Kayla

one of the few pics Luke let us take!

Is Robin praying that the Pirates ride won't be too scary?

Disney: Day 1

cruisin'

Yep, that's right.............we've been cruisin'. I cannot wait to show the pictures and tell you all about this experience.

We knew that we had to go to Orlando to see Steve's parents who most of you know are not really healthy...mentally or physically. I actually felt like his mom looked worse than his dad (who is actually the sick one), but if you know anything at all about being the caregiver for someone ill, then you know what a toll it takes. So, how did we go from seeing his parents to cruising? Well, let me tell ya.

Originally at Christmas, we told our three kids that presents were going to be slim because we wanted to take a trip and create memories instead of buying stuff that they'd quickly forget about (can you say Band Hero--or whatever it's called--even I can't remember it). As they get older, it's harder to buy for them, and really we just want to cherish our time with them. So, we told them we would take some kind of trip.

However, as is always the case, we couldn't decide where we wanted to go or what we wanted to do. Luke wanted to go to Disney, Stevie wanted to go to the mountains, Shea couldn't get off work to go, and Steve and I wanted to do something relaxing. Well, we got a call that my brother and his family were going to be vacationing at Disney over the President's Day weekend so we thought, okay...we'll just kill two birds with one stone and see all of the family at the same time. But, Disney being Disney (read excessively expensive) it was going to cost me a ton of money just to buy tickets. So, off we went to AAA to see Sam, the travel expert, to see if he could help us out. AND help us out he did!!

He found us a cruise to the Bahamas for significantly cheaper than the Disney tickets! This meant that we had to sacrifice seeing the nephews, but we could still do our trip and see the in-laws in one fell swoop. So, that's what we did.

The first night on the ship was kinda boring except for Luke who got to go to Circle C and be with kids his own age.....which he loved. We went to the show, and it was well..........not so good. Kinda like being at the American Idol auditions, and I don't mean the good ones! Seriously, this is the best you can do, Carnival? I'm happy to say that it got better!!

Check back in a little while because I should have the pictures posted with descriptions and interesting tidbits about Nassau.