Orlando - Last Post I Swear

So, it is snowing outside.  Again.  It has snowed buckets for days and days and will January ever ever end?  We are trying to make the best of it, of course, and made snowmen today (no pictures...I can't seem to locate the charger for my camera battery, so no pictures since the trip...another reason I have nothing else to blog about).  But seriously, who is ready for spring? 

Let's go back to Florida, at least in blog-world.  I soooo promise this will be the lastest Orlando blog.  Soooo...where was I.  Ah, yes.  Friday.  Animal Kingdom!  Home of the Happiest Tigers on Earth!  See how they smile?

(seriously, I don't know how my sister got this shot of the smiling tiger, but it is awesome.  Cheese!).  Animal Kingdom is also home to some amazing looking cupcakes that we couldn't resist. 

We rode rides, we looked at animals, Kohl and Cora bonded.  We rode Everest (except Cora), and Arden said it was her favorite ride she went on all day, but no, she doesn't want to go on it again. 

We put on bug 3D glasses and watched another show.  Cora is very fun to watch 3D shows with because she is always trying to grab whatever 3D effect is floating in front of her.  Cute little bug.

We watched the Lion King show, we played in Dinoland, and took Dax on the "Dinosaur" ride, which he loved, and was again just super excited to see a great big carnivore up close instead of being afraid that said giant meat-eater was going to eat him.  Maybe he hasn't figured out that he is made of meat.  It was a fun day!  all of these birds were bedding down for the night while we walked out of the park.  There were hundreds of them. 

We were lucky Animal Kingdom closed early, because the next morning was the race!  Me, my dad, my sister Val, my sister Amanda and her husband Matt, my brother Dan and his wife Lori had all signed up for it.  Aaahh!  And do you know what time this thing started?  We were supposed to be at the starting line and in our corrals by 5:00 A.M.  WHAT?  They also mentioned it would take about 20 minutes to walk from the parking lot to the starting line, and we needed to plan time to use the restrooms and all that jazz, so needless to say, we got up in the middle of the night for this thing.  The traffic was less than we thought it would be, so we were there in plenty of time and made our way to the porta potty lines and still got to the starting line on time, along with about 25,000 of our friends.  It was CROWDED.  We stretched out, got our iPods and GPS watches arranged, and at 5:30 the first corral (elite athletes) got to start, amidst fireworks and music.  About 10 minutes later the second corral got to start.  Finally, we got to go after that, around 5:50 a.m.  Yay! 

 

I had been planning on trying to do the race in less than 2 hours.  It was humid, but nice and cool so when I started out I thought that maybe I could do it.  I started dodging around people trying to find a place to run, but there wasn't one.  The road we were on was nice and wide, but there were just wall to wall people.  I ended up running up the side of the road on the soggy grass most of the time, but still had to dodge others doing the same.  By the time I reached the 1mile marker, I had already run an extra 10th of a mile and I was 30 seconds off the pace I needed to do to make it in under 2 hours.  The crowd wasn't thinning out at all yet, so I gave up and decided to just run and enjoy myself and not try and stress about the 2 hour goal.  It was kind of a bummer, but there were just too many bodies in the way.  Oh well. 

 

The race itself was really fun!  There were lots of things to look at along the way, and characters were there every so often to cheer us on.  There were bands playing, and even a choir or two.  There was plenty of water, and the course was pretty flat (except for some very mean overpasses we had to run over near the end of the race).  It was really fun running through the Magic Kingdom in the dark, the castle was all lit up and we got to run right down main street and then through the middle of the castle.  Awesome.  We ran back over to Epcot after that, and I started getting hungry around mile 7.  It had been a while since my banana and bagel, so I was happy to see the Gu stop around mile 8 or 9.  That stuff is seriously gross, but at least it is food--or as close as I was going to get.  Not to thrilled that the water stop was like a mile after the Gu stop (that stuff is STICKY), but I survived.  I actually felt pretty good throughout the race.  It was fun to see the costumes that some of the other runners were wearing.  There were lots of Tinkerbells and Minnie Mouses, and there was even a guy in a full-body Stitch costume who I didn't pass until mile 10.  The sun came up around mile 11 and so by the end of the race it was starting to warm up, but wasn't hot yet.  We ran through Epcot at the end, so that was fun too.  The finish line was pretty fun, and Mickey was there to give me a high-five!  My official time was 2:06:53, which was well off what I was aiming for, but still respectable.   I was wearing a GPS watch, and according to it I ran about an extra quarter of a mile trying to dodge people, so I ran 13.45 miles instead of the 13.1 I was supposed to do.  Here I am, right after the race, in all my sweaty, no-makeup glory:

I was the first one of our group to get done, but before long I found Val, and then the others showed up one after another.  We all finished!  After some much needed showers, we headed over to Downtown Disney to eat lunch at T-Rex, a restaurant that had big animatronic dinosaurs roaring at you.  I give you three guesses who we chose that restaurant for. 

After lunch, Dan and his family had to start their drive back home, and it was sad to see them go.  The rest of the runners headed back to the hotel for naps, but Preston (who had watched all the kids all morning with my mom and BJ) was ready to go play, so off to Magic Kingdom we went.  We had our 3 kids with us, and luckily my mom tagged along so we had a kid each.  We did mostly kid stuff...Winnie the Pooh, the Ariel ride again, Buzz Lightyear, more teacups, Laugh Factory, Peoplemovers, etc.  It was fun, and I wore my medal all day to show how cool I am (someone thought I had won the race since I had a medal...funny!  No, 3,000 people or so beat me.  My one knee was a little stiff, and I was just TIRED from being up so long, so we stayed until dark and then headed home, watching the fireworks as we walked to the car.  

The next morning we had to pack up all our stuff (boo!).  After we got that out of the way, we headed to Epcot for our last day.  The FULL marathon was going on, so it took longer to get into the park than usual.  I felt bad for those marathoners, because it was HOT and humid.  It was above 80 and jst sticky.  We rode Spaceship Earth and the ride got stuck a few times, so it took quite a while.  When we finally got free, we rode some more rides, ate some yummy lunch in France, and then watched Off Kilter perform in Canada.  They were pretty entertaining, and played "Johnny B. Good' on the bagpipes.  Awesome. 

 

Before we knew it, it was time to head out to the airport.  We luckily had just enough cash to pay the tolls, and got on the plane right on time.  The kids all slept at least a little on the plane, and when we got back it was a lovely 3 degrees and had snowed about a foot the day before.  Welcome back to winter!  (Luckily we have an awesome friend who picked us up in his nice heated car and had even shoveled our driveway for us.  Nate, you are AWESOME, my friend!)  And there you have it!  Now I really need to plan another trip so I can have something to look forward to to help me survive the rest of this even-more-brutal-than-usual winter. 

Orlando 2013 - Part 3

Is she STILL blogging about her vacation?  Doesn't she have anything ELSE going on? 

No.  Not really.  Ever since I got home it has been F-to-the-REEZING and I can actually feel the air particles as I breathe in and out so needless to say we have been stuck inside doing NOT a lot of exciting stuff. 

So....back to the trip.

Next up was Epcot.  We weren't sure the kids would be entertained all day but we all had a great time.  They all liked the Nemo ride and had a great time looking at the seahorses and sharks (in separate tanks of course).

Unfortunately, Arden got too close to one of the sharks and it ate her.  They both seem happy about it:

After that we did some more big fun rides...Test Track and Mission Space!  It was my first time on both of these rides, and they were pretty fun.  I made everyone go on the "less intense" (less vomit) side of Mission Space.  Have you been on that ride?  Thre are four people in a spaceship simulator, each one is assigned a task.  I got assigned to be the Engineer.  I immediately started practicing.  "SHE CANNA TAKE MUCH MORE A THIS CIPTIN!"  I yelled to my sister Val, who had somehow been assigned as Commander instead of me. "I CANNA CHANGE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS!" I got a couple of eye rolls from the commander, who clearly doesn't know what is funny.

Gary Sinise helpfully explained to us via video monitor that we each had two very important buttons to push to make our missions successful.  I got to push the button to put us into hypersleep on our way to Mars, and then I got to push the button for I forget what else.  Thanks, Gary Sinise.

We loaded up into our simulator, pulled down our shoulder harnesses, and looked for our buttons.  There were actually lots of switches and buttons, but the two "important" buttons were clearly labelled.  I immediately noticed the air sick bags and verified with the pilot that we were in the non-vomit version of the ride.

I also immediately noticed a huge air vent blowing a 70 mph wind directly into my face.  My arms were under a shoulder harness and I couldn't block this hurricane-force wind from hitting me.  I started madly pushing buttons and switching switches but still the wind blew.  I was getting fairly annoyed when Gary Sinise popped up on my monitor to announce it was time for takeoff.  I commented to him that it was way to windy in the spaceship for me to be able to fulfill my duties.  He completely ignored me!  The spaceship took off without my concerns being addressed.  My forehead was being ripped from my skull the wind was so strong.  I yelled at Mr. Sinise that if ground control did NOT do something about the air vent that I was going on strike and no one was going to make it to hypersleep or whatever my other button was supposed to do either.  Still, the wind raged.

The other three people in the craft dutifully were pushing their buttons to fire thrusters and what not, and the commander was yelling for me to stay focused.  Stay focused?  My eyes are watering too much from all the wind for me to focus on anything!  Soon that doofus Gary is telling me to hit the hypersleep button.  I loudly told him that I refused to do so since my working conditions were unacceptable, and also pointed out that he never even got to GO to space in Apollo 13, so what the heck does he know?  Commander Val was threatening to relieve me of duty, but I stood my ground and still refused to push any buttons.  Val used her freakishly long and flexible arms to push my button for me.  Rude.  Soon we got to Mars and flew around nearly crashing into things.  I was supposed to push another button for some reason, but since I was getting brain freeze from the wind I again refused.  Maybe that button was important, because we ended up hanging on the edge of a Martian cliff while Val shrieked that she was going to throw me in the brig.  Gary Sinise told us all not to move a muscle or we might fall over the cliff to our deaths.  At this point, I didn't care if I lived or died, as long as the wind stopped blowing on my face so I began frantically throwing my body against my restraints.  Gary Sinise can't tell me what to do!  Somehow, we didn't fall and our mission ended safely.  Finally I was able to get out of that stupid wind tunnel. I happily skipped down the exit when everyone on my "team," (and I use the term loosely) informed me that I was the crappiest engineer in the history of engineering.  In the history of crappiness.  In the history of history.  Whatever.  Fun ride!

We headed around the world next, picking up our Phineas and Ferb spy phones along the way.  These phones let the kids do little spy missions in the various countries to keep them entertained since the World Showcase is not exactly aimed at little kids.  First stop:  England!

Cora had no idea what this box even was.  A telephone booth?  Completely irrelevant in today's iPhone world.  (by the way, where does Superman change his clothes now that there are no more phone booths?)  See?  Here are Arden and Brynn hiding behind a garbage can so Dr. Doofenschmirtz won't see them getting a secret message using their secret spy cell phones:

The kids had a great time running from place to place finding clues, but the adults got a little bored watching them scamper back and forth and stare at their cells phones.  Oh well, we are here for the kids, right?  (riiiiight)  We watched some shows in England but then headed out of the world showcase, ate some lunch, made a mandatory Captain EO stop (Hee hee!), and then sampled some soda from around the world:

I liked the watermelon soda from China.  The stuff from Italy was pretty nasty.  While we were there, they were playing music, and they played the Electric Slide.  All the employees started doing it so we joined in...ahh, it brought me right back to junior high.  Ick.  The sun started setting:

And so we set off on a journey back around to world.  I tried to take a turn holding Daxton's hand.  He was letting me get away with it, but when I tried to get a picture he wasn't too pleased:

We did another Phineas and Ferb mission in Mexico, and then saw some Uh-MAZE-ing acrobats in China.  We headed over to a pub by the water back in the UK for dinner, and watched the fireworks show from there.  Awesome!

 

The next day we went to the beach.  The weather was supposed to be warm, and it was!  Yay!  I went for a run that morning and it was about 75 degrees and 100 percent humidity.  I ran pretty well but was dying from sweat, and started to get a little worried about the race that was only a couple of days away.  I was looking forward to hitting the beach and jumping in the nice cool water.  We headed to the closest beach, Cocoa Beach.  Unfortunately, by the time we drove to the coast, it was pretty cloudy.  Boo!  Oh well.  High-70's temps and some clouds sounds pretty good, doesn't it? 

It wasn't as nice as Siesta Key beach, but in January, a beach is a beach, right?  The water was a little cold, but some of us (not me, but Dan and Kohl) were brave and ventured out pretty deep.  They even rented boogie boards later on.

A couple of times it started to sprinkle a little bit of rain on us, but we got a little bit of rainbow to make up for it:

There was lots of splashing, a little swimming, lots of bird chasing (the seagulls there were aggressive!), and some sandcastle building:

I can't believe I still didn't finish blogging this trip, but I am giving up again.  Someday I will be done....  

Orlando 2013 - Part 2

The next day we headed off to the Magic Kingdom!  They opened a new section of Fantasyland there recently, so we went to investigate that.  There was the new Little Mermaid ride that we hadn't been on, and it was really cute (AND, Cora got to ride on it which made it superfun.  She is so short that there are kind of a limited number of rides she can actually get on). 

I rode with Cora and she was so excited during the whole ride.  She waved her little hand as hard as she could at Ariel, Sebastian, even Ursula!  Also in the new Fantasyland there was also a new Beauty and the Beast restaurant, but there was a long line to get in and there were enough lines to wait in without adding another one.  They did have the Beast's castle up on the hill above Gaston's pub:

The new section looked really nice, and we saw where they are building a new roller coaster that looks like mine carts from the seven dwarfs' mine.  They also had Rapunzel's tower and another building they were working on.  We theorize that it may turn out to be a ride or a restaurant called the "Snuggly Duckling."  We will have to wait and see I guess.

After that we hit all the highlights...Space Mountain (while the little kids did the peoplemovers), Buzz Lightyear (I am really bad at shooting the targets in that ride), Thunder Mountain (while me and Cora took pictures),

etc. etc.  We did Pirates of the Caribbean, and even the Haunted Mansion! The kids all survived and said they weren't even scared. I am a little bit doubtful of that last part based on how big their eyes were every time I looked at them during the ride, but once they were outside they could at least pretend it was true.

Dax started out the day in his usual place, at Grandpa's side:

In the afternoon, after many rides and much fun was had, it started raining pretty seriously.  It rained because we didn't bring our ponchos.  The previous day at Hollywood Studios, the forecast had called for rain and so we carried around a bunch of big heavy ponchos all day in the bright sunshine.  ON this day they said the chance for rain was even less, so we left the ponchos in the car.  So, of course it is raining buckets.  We had a few ponchos and a little umbrella:

My dad volunteered to go to the car to fetch the big ponchos.  We tried to talk him out of it, but he was getting pretty wet, so off he went on his journey.  He had to walk out of the park, through the gates, go across the lake on the ferry boat, wait for to the parking shuttle, walk out the car and then do it all again in reverse.  Needless to say he was gone for a while.  (I have always thought it was dumb to make us take a boat or the monorail to even get to the GATES of the Magic Kingdom, unless of course, you are staying at a Disney resort and can take the buses that park right next to the very same gates.  Obviously there is a road to the gates, so why can't the parking shuttle just shuttle you on that road? Anyway....), While Grandpa was gone, Dax had to branch out and latched on his cousin Chase:

Chase was a great sport and let Dax follow him around pretty much for the rest of the trip.  Chase is 7 and Dax is 4, but they were great buddies.  Soon Arden latched on to Brynn as well, and even though she is quite a bit older, she was sweet and hung out with Arden quite a bit. 

We did a bunch of rides where we wouldn't get too wet...Jungle Cruise (in covered boats), the Tiki Room (inside a house) and stuff like that.  The rain soon slowed down and stopped and so we headed back outside to the Barnstormer roller coaster.  Cora was tall enough for this little roller coaster, but did NOT enjoy it.  "TOO FAST! TOO FAST!" she kept yelling.  So, we headed over to more tame Dumbo. 

By this time the rain had been stopped for quite a while, and heroic Grandpa finally got back from his trek with the no-longer-needed ponchos.  Oh well.  We learned our lesson and carried the ponchos around for the next couple of days to ward off the rain.

We watched the Electrical parade (love it!) and then called it a day.

The next day we visited Universal Studios Islands of Adventure.  Mostly we were excited to visit Harry Potter land (or whatever it is called).  It looked really great:

It was fun to wander through Hogsmeade and visit Hogwarts. 

The buildings all looked really authentic, and they even had Moaning Myrtle's voice in the bathrooms there.  I was excited to get my first taste of Butterbeer while we ate lunch at the Three Broomsticks.  It was yummy!!!

We also spent a fair amount of time in Dr. Seuss land with the little kids while the big "kids" rode the big Hulk and other roller coasters.  It was pretty cute, and Cora could have ridden on the fun merry-go-round all day long.

Dax (of course) couldn't wait to get over to the Jurassic Park section.  Here he is, posing next to a Spinosaurus, which he will tell you, "Is even bigger dan a T-Wex but a T-Wex can run faster and I still like T-Wexes better." 

We went on the big Jurassic Park ride with Dax, and he LOVED it.  I am pretty sure he was disappointed that our boat went down the big hill just when the T-Rex was coming close enough for him to hug. :-)   Manda and Matt took a turn watching Cora during this one and took her to the nearby playland.  She gave them a scare when she got away from them, but we soon found her climbing to the very top of the playland with some of her new friends. 

We worked our way through the park, taking turns staying off rides with Cora.  While the others rode Spider man, Cora and I headed over to "Storm Force Acceleration," which is pretty much the teacups ride on steroids. 

I rode on this ride way too many times, after which I took my turn on the Hulk.  Wooooo! 

We headed back over to say goodbye to Seussland:

After that the park was closing so we headed home.  Well, the kids actually couldn't let us walk by the Panda Express that was between us and our car, so they ended up happily eating their beloved Orange Chicken (outside!  in the dark!  in the warminess!) and THEN we headed back to the house to take a swim in the pool and then head to bed.  By the time we got the kids in bed I was pretty tired myself.  Kind of like right now...

To be continued!

Orlando 2013 - Part 1

We went to Florida last week!  It was 80 degrees!  Now we are home, and it is single digits.  Ouch.  It was a fun trip and now I shall relive it in much more detail than you will care to read, but feel free to skim or just look at the pictures.

We left EARLY on Saturday morning (our awesome friend came to pick us up at 5:45 A.M.!  We made it to the airport in plenty of time, and this was our first time through security without our stroller since Cora refuses to sit in one.  It was kind of nice not having to fold that baby up and put it through the metal detectors, but I did miss being able to pile my crap on it.  My parents, my two sisters and BIL and my little brother all met us at the airport.  We had a layover in Atlanta, but the kids did pretty good on the 4-hour and 1.5-hour flights, and eventually we made it to Orlando. 

We picked up our rental car, but had to fold down the back seat to fit our luggage.  Consequently, the kids had to all sit right next to each other and they nearly killed each other (and us) during the 30-minute drive to the house we were renting.  I guess they were tired of sitting and no longer had us sitting between them or what, but it was a LONG drive. 

We met my brother and his family there.  They live in Missouri, so we hardly ever get to see them.  My kids have heard of their long lost "Haun cousins," but couldn't really remember playing with them the last time they were here, so it was fun to reintroduce them all.  There were a total of 17 of us in the house, but it was just about big enough.  We all got settled in and divided up the rooms, and then headed out to dinner at the exotic Orlando restaurant known as TGI Fridays.  (sad, I know, but we were hungry and it was close by!)  After that we put the kids to bed, and then I headed out for a run.  There was SO MUCH oxygen!  And SO MUCH humidity.  They kind of cancelled each other out.

The next day was our first day at Disney World!  We went to Hollywood Studios!  Here we are on our very first ride, the parking tram!

We started out at Star Tours (run, Beej!  There is one of those big walking robot things behind you!),

Arden and Dax LOVED it since we had recently had our New Years Eve Star Wars marathon.  Unfortunately Cora was too short for the ride, so me and her took a ride on the flying things through the forest.

Arden and Dax took a ride too.

We rode on the studio backlot tour, but the kids were kind of bored except for this part:

We rode the Toy Story ride (I am pretty good, but my dad still kicked my TRASH!), and saw the Indiana Jones stunt show, which Arden LOVED.  I am not sure why, but I think it was one of her most favorite things we did.  She hasn't actually seen any Indiana Jones movies, but she kept asking over and over (and over) to go back and see that show.  We had reservations for lunch at a restaurant there which was set up to look like a house from the 50s.  The waitresses and waiters acted like your aunt or your dad and told us to eat our vegetables and keep our elbows off the table and that if we didn't clean our plates we couldn't have dessert.  The food was all meat loaf and pot pie and fried chicken and stuff like that.  It was funny (and yummy).

After that we headed to Preston's favorite show, where cars race and spin and there are explosions and people catch on fire.  It is a fun show!

After that we headed over to the "big kid rides" that we had accumulated fast passes for while Grandma and Grandpa offered to watch the kids for us.  We rode Rockin' Rollercoaster and the Tower of Terror (love it!) while my awesome parents took the kids to "Disney Jr. Live on Stage!"  My dad sent me a text that said something like..."I am trapped in here!  Help.....me.....please."   He survived and then we went and saw a little Pirates of the Caribbean show that was kind of fun.  We had been waiting all day to see the Christmas lights (lucky for us we caught the last night) and they were amazing!  They danced to the music and if I wasn't so lazy I would post you a video.  (I am sure you can find one on You Tube if you try hard.)

 

After a while we tore ourselves away from the lights (and the official end of Christmas) and headed home with some tired kids and adults.  Day one down...day two to come...later when I am not so tired!

Sledding in the New Year

Happy 2013 everyone! 

 

It started snowing the day after Christmas and didn't stop for 3 days, and since then it has been deeply and painfully COLD.  When the temps drop into the teens, my need to leave the house disappears.  If I absolutely cannot avoid it, I will venture out for food, but only if it is a serious need...like if we are completely out of milk or bread or Diet Coke. 

 

Due to my lack of motivation to go anywhere, our New Years celebrations were low-key, (which it seems like is the usual for us for the last six years or so).  We continued our tradition of fancy, sophisticated Chinese take-out for our celebratory New Years dinner.  During 2012, the kids discovered and fell in love with "orange chicken," and were actually excited about the Chinese food after we promised that the beloved citrus-y poultry would be included.  We also had sparkling cider...aren't we fancy!

 

The kids couldn't decide whether the New Years party should be a pajama party or a fancy dress up party, so we ended up with a combination of both.  Cora's "Happy New Year" hat just wouldn't stay on her teeny little head!

 

After dinner, we played games, games and more games.  After that, we actually ended up doing an impromptu Star Wars marathon (and by "marathon," we mean a movie and a half).  The kids had never seen the movies before, and Arden stared watching "Return of the Jedi" about halfway through earlier in the day and was really interested in it.  However, you can't start watching Star Wars for the very first time halfway through Return of the Jedi, so we started at Episode IV, which was wildly successful (which means Arden watched it pretty much the whole time, Dax stopped running around in circles when there were light saber battles, and Cora looked up from her coloring occasionally).  It was only about 8:30 when that movie ended, so we had the kids get out their sleeping bags, snuggled down, and put in "The Empire Strikes Back."  Dax, who had finally stopped moving, promptly fell asleep.  Cora and Arden watched for a while, but it was clear they weren't going to make it to the end of the show.  We decided to have a countdown to New Years--Eastern Time!  We had to do it quietly, since Dax was snoozing away...and Arden and Cora didn't really understand what we were counting down to, but oh well!  Go to sleep.

 

The next day, we decided to celebrate the New Year by sledding somewhere other than our yard!  We headed up the hill a little to the golf course, where the sledding runs are bigger and steeper!  Arden was so excited to be there and jumped on her sled for the first run of the day.  I asked if she wanted me to come with her, but she said no.  Off she went!  She made it about halfway down the hill, got a little scared because she was going so fast, put down her feet, sprayed herself in the face with snow, got turned around backwards, and fell off her sled.  DOH!  Her sled continued on down the hill without her.  Here she is, chasing after it: 

 It was quite a hike for her back to the top of the hill.  After that first run, Arden wasn't too excited about the whole sledding-down-the-big-hill thing, so we walked back a little to where the hill wasn't quite so long.  Dax announced he had to go to the bathroom.  C'mon Dax!  We have only been here 5 minutes!  We thought about finding him a tree, but then pictured us trying to get through the 27 layers of clothes and snow gear the boy was wearing, and Preston volunteered to run him back home.  Cora and me had a good time going up and down the hill a few times, but Arden was still a little hesitant to try again.  Here is Cora, cheesing it up!

We finally talked Arden into coming down with us on the big sled, so we did a couple of runs that way.  Then I took turns going down with Cora and Arden, but I didn't like leaving Cora alone at the top of the hill.  So, we did some more walking and found a little shorter hill that Arden was willing to do solo.  After a few runs down that hill, Preston and Dax FINALLY returned.  Dax hadn't quite made it all the way home, so apparently it took them a while to peel off 27 layers of clothes and snowgear and re-apply said layers.  (I kind of think they stopped and ate a snack and maybe watched an episode of Ben 10 (which Preston FORCES himself to watch, you know..."for the kids,") but I have no proof. 

We all sledded together for a while.  Here is me and Cora, ready for another run:

Cora is the funnest one to take down the hill, because she giggles the WHOLE time, getting louder and gigglier until we come to a stop.  It was so fun with Cora, I even shared her with Preston a little:

Dax had fun too, but he had a hard time keeping his feet on the sled since his legs are getting so long, and if his feet came off the sled, snow would fly up into his face, which he was NOT the biggest fan of.  After a few times down the hill, he started going down with his shark hat pulled down over his face.  Oh well.  Even if Dax wasn't the best at going down the hill, he was the best one at going back UP the hill, and pretty much RAN up every time.  Arden kind of walked/sulked up the hill, and Cora would gamely walk for a while, but then would start slipping when it got steep (I kind of think it was on purpose) and would generally ended up getting carried up 70% of the hill.  So, actually, maybe Cora was the best at going up the hill, since she got carried??  Anyway...

It wasn't long before Cora announced to me...you guessed it...she "hadda go potty."  Seriously?  We made you all go we left!  Oh well.  It was my turn, so off Corbster and I went to the car.  We sped back home, did our potty thing, and sped back up the hill, but by the time we got there and started back over to where we were sledding, we met up with the rest of the fam coming the other way.  Preston had decided that they were done :-)   We went home and had hot chocolate, and everyone was happy (well, except when they were comparing how many marshmallows they had in their hot chocolate to how many marshmallows everyone else had...somehow each kid had less marshmallows than the other two.  Impossible you say?  Try explaining that to the little people.  If you ever come over and we have hot chocolate, and you see me counting the marshmallows as I put them in mugs, you will now understand why.) 

It was a fun day and the kids were pretty worn out, so they were pretty mellow the rest of the day, as we completed our Star Wars marathon.  Now Cora is asking to watch "Star Vors" all the time, and keeps telling me her favorite "is da pwincess."  Dax likes Luke Skywalker, but he also likes the "little fuzzy guys and the big fuzzy guy," which I assume means Ewoks and Chewbacca.  Arden likes Luke Skywalker, who was my favorite when I was little too.  Somewhere in my teens my favorite changed to Han Solo :-)

May the force be with us all in 2013!