I Need Help! :)

I have a confession to make....I've been eating a lot of sugar!  :)  I usually allow myself to have a little (or big) treat here or there, but it's becoming a daily thing where I crave sugar!  Pretty much in chocolate form.  You already saw my Disney desserts.

What I didn't add, is that I also finished Davis's Mickey ears.  It's because we had to sit and wait for our bus ride home and they were sitting right in front of me....for too long.  :)

And, if you've been reading my blog long, you know of my pretzel M&M obsession.

Tonight, I planned to just have 1 or 2, and it turned into finishing off the bag.  OOPS!

 

So, this is where I need help.  I do best when I go cold turkey with things, and I need a break from sugar!  I don't "want" a break, but I "need" a break.  :)

 

I almost texted a few friends to see if anyone wanted to do it with me and help keep me accountable, but then I felt bad that I might make someone miss out on sugar that really wants some.  :)

 

I'm going to start off with a very small, attainable goal.  I plan to give up sugar for a week.  Hopefully that will help reset my taste buds into not thinking I need chocolate at the end of every meal.  :)

 

I'm not going to be checking labels on things, but just using common sense, which for me, means basically staying away from desserts.

 

So if anyone out there reading this would like to do this with me, I would love a partner or partners to be accountable with!  If you don't want to give up sugar, but just want to be my conscience, that's fine too.  :)  Just text me or leave me a message in the comments.

 

I'm hesitating to push publish, because I know this weekend I'll want my weekend M&M's, but being sick to my stomach right now from all those M&M's I just ate is helping me to do it.  So here I go.....

Anna and Elsa say Hi! (Disney Part 2)

So after the adventure of getting Davis's shoe back, we decided that the best thing for our group would be to head to the Magic Kingdom.  We were paired with another family with 2 little girls, which was nice since all of the kids had similar interests in what they wanted to see and do.

We had our tour guide until 3:30, so when we arrived at the Magic Kingdom we were off and running.  We went straight for Fantasy Land and rode Dumbo, Goofy's Barnstormer, and the Little Mermaid.

Just arrived at the Magic Kingdom and we are ready for some fun!

 



DUMBO!

 

Knox was doing an excellent job controlling our Dumbo! :)

 

Since Drew is such a big boy now, he was able to ride several rides alone.

 

 

A little blurry, but here we are enjoying the Little Mermaid.

 

Davis covers his eyes a lot lately.  I'm not sure if he was scared, or just not wanting his picture. :)

 

After this, the kids went and road the new Dwarf roller coaster.  I sat out with Davis, but Andy said it was fun!

 

At this point it was almost 1:00 and we had not allowed anyone to stop for lunch.  We have done this trip enough times that we just get on a roll and go, go, go!  After stopping, I felt bad for the other family, because they were probably starving at this point!  I did notice that they stopped for some yummy snacks when we first arrived at least.  : )  We ate at the restaurant next to "It's a Small World", which is Davis's favorite ride.  We were sitting at a table across from a window overlooking the ride.  A girl sitting at a table by the window saw how much Davis kept looking at the ride so she asked if we wanted to switch tables so that we would be right by the window.  Davis was really excited!  This sweet girl turned out to be a college girl from FSU celebrating her birthday with her mom.

 

 

Davis barely ate any of his lunch, because most of the time was spent with him looking through the slats at the boats passing by.

 

 

Here's Davis pointing up to the window where we ate lunch.

The window on the far right is the one we sat at for lunch.

 



I think I watched Davis more on this ride, than I did the attraction.  I love to see his eyes light up with excitement!

 



 

The two little girls we were with only had 1 request, and that was to meet Anna and Elsa.  Our guide made an appointment for us, so after Davis's ride we went to meet them.

 

I'm not sure anyone in our group was overly excited to be meeting them, but I was!  It's so neat how much they are trained to stay in character.  They were really sweet and so good at engaging the boys in conversation.

 

 

After this we hung out in the Frozen gift shop while some rain passed and then hopped back into our van to return to our hotel.

 

We said good-bye to our wonderful tour guide Mr. Tommy,

 

 

and then got a little rest.

 

 

We decided to skip out on that night's work event so that we could hang out with our good friends in Orlando.

 

After our rest, we headed to their house and ordered pizza and bar-b-que and had a wonderful time hanging out!  The kids played and had so much fun!

 

 

While the kids were having fun, we were having just as much fun talking and catching up.  This is a friend with whom I'm sure I could talk with for days and never run out of things to talk about.  We end up going on so many tangents with our conversations, half the time I forget what we were originally talking about!  We don't get to see one another near enough, so I try to take advantage of any opportunity we get to see them.

 

Sunday morning, we got off to a slow start, which was nice, and headed back to Ocala to pick up Ellis and hang out with my family.

 

My brother, sister-in-law and nephew also came over.  After a weekend of Knox and Davis fighting over daddy, I was overjoyed when I arrived at my parents and Ellis pushed past everyone trying to get to me saying "Mommy, mommy, mommy..."  It was so good to see her.  :)

 

After a delicious lunch, the kids (and my mom) swam in the pool for a little while before we headed home.

 

Here's Mimi and Papa with all of their grandchildren.

 

They sure are loved!  (and I'm not just talking about the kids.)

 

 

Mickey says Hi! :)

We had a wonderful weekend!  Although it's always nice to be home, this was a perfect little getaway as a family. 

On the way to Orlando Friday, we made a quick stop at my parents to drop off Ellis.  Ellis has gone to Disney before, and we have also taken a 2 year old before.  We knew that since this was a work trip that would involve some later nights, and a busy schedule, that she would enjoy time with Mimi and Papa as much as Disney, if not more.  The reports I was getting from my parents throughout the weekend let me know we made a good decision.  When I called to check in one time, Ellis was unable to come to the phone because she was having her fingernails painted.  I think she enjoyed being the center of attention!

After dropping Ellis off, we headed to the Animal Kingdom Lodge to check in.  It's a great property and the boys loved it because there was a bunk bed for them to sleep in.  We had adjoining rooms, which Andy and I thought would be a special treat.  It would almost be like we were having a little getaway by putting the boys in one room and Andy in I in the other.  Well, the kids got wind of it and got so excited because they couldn't wait to "pick a room mate"!  So Andy got to sleep with Davis and Knox and I got to share a room with Drew.  Maybe next time....

   
                              

 

 

That night we were eating at the Animal Kingdom, so we got ready and headed down to meet our bus.

 

 

 The dinner was really good!  There was pasta, mashed potatoes, several different meats, etc.  I tried to stick with making a huge salad because we sat by the dessert bar and I made a plan to end my meal with this.  You can see that I took a bite of the chocolate cake before I thought to take a picture.  :)

The kids enjoyed the dessert, too.  :)

 

After dinner they brought out some characters.  Knox is not a fan of any of these dressed up characters.  In fact, in the past, if we have seen a character in the park, we will turn around and Knox will have shot off to find the closest hiding spot.

 

Here are Davis and Drew with the characters.

 

 

And here's where Knox was.

Nice and safe.

 

At one point, Knox needed to use the restroom, which meant he was going to have to pass through the hallway where the characters were.  Disney workers are so in tune to what's going on.  So the worker helping the characters saw what was happening and had the characters head into another room as Knox went by.  It was so nice. :)

 

By the time we returned to the hotel we were ready for bed, so that we would be ready for our adventure the next day.

 

We met our bus to head to breakfast.  We knew we were eating at Epcot, but didn't know where.  It turned out really cool.  We ate in the American Experience.  For those familiar with that area, it's where the American singers perform.  As a child, it was one of my favorite things to do at Epcot.  For our event, they had set up tables and a yummy breakfast.  It was a great place to start our day.

 

 

After breakfast we were split into groups to be led by a Disney Tour Guide.  We have always had wonderful guides, and this trip was no exception.  We ended up with Tommy, who by the end of the day felt like an old friend.  He was so nice and so great with the kids.  The way the tour guides work, is that basically they take you into the fast pass lane on rides, they escort you to the park(s) you desire to go to in a van, and help you with things like finding a table at lunch, etc.  Every time we have had the opportunity to join Andy on a trip like this, we try to make it work out, because we know what a special treat this is.

 

Since we were at Epcot we wanted to make sure we did our two favorite rides before leaving, Soarin and Test Track.

 

I was planning to sit out with Davis on Soarin, but when we got the entrance his head just touched the stick for the height requirement, so we decided he should try it.

 

Here we are right before getting on.  In the first picture, he forgot how excited he was.  ;)

 

 

There we go.  He's ready!

 

So.....he wasn't a huge fan, but I was proud of him for trying.

 

After this we headed to Test Track.  The boys were a little disappointed that I was voted to join them, but Andy had promised Davis that he would join him on Nemo.  This is the ride they were doing while waiting on us.  Test Track is a great ride!  You get to design your own car, and see how it performs on the "Test Track". 

 

The Palmer car was scored high on speed, and low on environmentally friendly.  The boys told me that would happen ahead of time.  They know from past experience.  :)

 

After this ride, we headed to meet the rest of our group at our meet up spot.  Here came one of our biggest adventures of the day.  Davis was standing on this fence, overlooking the water, and accidentally kicked his shoe into the water.

 

This is Knox and another friend from our group looking into the water that held Davis's shoe captive.

 

 

Here is our wonderful guide Tommy doing his best to fish Davis's croc out of the water.  But, it wasn't happening.  So, we tried to bend down and reach through the fence with our hands, but it was just too far down.

 

 

Light bulb!

 

At the same moment, a grandma in our group and I came up with the idea of holding one of our children over the side by their ankles to grab it.  We tried to talk Drew and Knox into it, but to no avail, so before Davis knew what was happening he was being hoisted over the side and down to his shoe.  I planned to take pictures or a video, but I was too busy helping to guide him over.  Oh, and before we did this, we told Tommy to walk away in case this was against Disney policy.  We also started to gather a crowd since we were putting on such an exciting show.  :)  Apparently Davis did NOT like his upside down acrobatic move and as soon as he put his shoe down he kicked it, to make sure everyone watching knew his displeasure with this idea.

 

 But, at least he had his shoe back!

Time for the Magic Kingdom!  I'll save that for my next post.  I'm ready for bed.

 

I hope that all of you had a wonderful weekend too!