New Wheels

Dawn collecting our new Vehicle

So the Ford Escape that Dawn had owned started to get a little unreliable, for no reason it would just cut out for a couple of seconds and die.  Annoyingly it was an intermediate fault that only occurred every couple of weeks but normally at the wrong time (as you were attempting to pull out etc).  So it was time for a change of vehicle.

Our new car is a Dodge Journey and we now have the facility to have seven passengers (although when the seats are up there's not much boot, trunk space).  It fits our needs perfectly so now when people visit we can all go out in one car.

Butter Wouldn't Melt

Suprising as it may seem sometimes the girls don't get along.  In fact a lot of the time we are expected to referee their arguements.  One of the parents tools we sometimes use is to send them to their room and not let them out to play..... They don't like this much.

Here's a video Dawn received when we were on our way home from the shops one day, it made us smile.

A new family member

Reese as he was a few days after we got him

So a while back just after we got back from Disney we took a drive to Petsmart in Dednham Springs.  While we were there the local dog rescue centre had puppies for adoption.  There were a bunch of dogs all named after chocolate bars, after much deliberation, (and promises from the girls to walk and clean up after him) Dawn decided that the one we would adopt was Reese.  So we now have a new family member.

Reese loves going for a drive (normally to petsmart)

Sometimes he needs a little help to get over things

Loving a long walk in the grass

 He loves being the centre of attention and enjoys going in the car.  He also loves to play with Tyler (although he can be a little rough at times). But his favourite thing is to go for a walk around the pond near our house.

Tyler walking Reese around Petsmart (his fav shop)

Oh and one more thing, he seems to like watching England play football (soccer), no idea where he gets it from .....

Florida Holiday - The rest

We did so much in Florida the whole blog would be taken over if we even tried to mention half of it.  So I've put together some pictures of a few of the highlights of the magical trip.

The famous Epcot Golf Ball

Grandad, Martin and the kids enjoying one of the water rides

Tyler dong his best to remove Excalibur from the stone to be crowned king

Unfortunately we saw our fair share of rain during the holiday

Watching the Blues Brothers perform at Universal Studios

Tyler meets his hero he watches every morning

Mickey and Pluto made special time to meet Nan and Grandad

Hannah getting Alice in Wonderlands autograph

Dawn, Nan and the kids at Universal Studios (Hogwarts in the background)

As you can see we had an amazing fun time, not all the things that we did are covered it was so much fun.  As you can see from the video below at the end of the day it was a little tiring.

 

Orlando Holiday - Animal KIngdom

The kids signing up to be animal adventurers

 The day we chose to visit the Animal Kingdom was probably the most humid day we had in the time we were at Disney.  It's not just the heat (we're from Louisiana we're used to hot) but the humidity makes a real difference.

A Disney Ranger ensures a task is complete

The day we went the park was staring a new scheme for the kids where they joined the wilderness adventurers, they were then set tasks and given a book to record their findings.  An excellent fun and educational task that kept our three hunting for clues and then the "Rangers" who signed their books to agree they had completed their tasks.

Of course as well as the adventure tasks their was also all the normal magical Disney things to see and do.  Probably the favourite was the bugs life 3D movie in the base of the tree of life, which had some fun and, in Tylers case, a little bit frightening parts (he really didn't like the spiders).

Of course there was always the occasional Disney character to sign autographs.

More signatures added to their books

Orlando Holiday - Sea World

The family settling in to watch the dolphin show

Having spent a couple of days at Disney Parks we took a break and decided to go to Sea World.  Sea World is a great change and a fun place to see some amazing animals.

Part of the Dolphin show

Grandad and the kids watching the dolphins in the underwater viewing area

One of the really cool things at Sea World is the underwater viewing platform where you can watch the dolphins swim and do their thing (its also air conditioned).  We spent a good time under the water watching whilst Nan and Grandad joined the queue so we could feed the dolphins, another act of kindness from loving grand parents.  

Feeding the dolphins

So all in all Sea World is a highly recommended place to go visit especially for those days when you may be feeling a little Disneyed out.

Orlando Holiday - Hollywood Studios

The start of the autograph collection

The second Disney park we visited was Hollywood Studios, probably a favourite.  It was also were the kids started their autograph collection.  As you can see there's a lot of signatures to get, sometimes there are large long lines but if you're lucky sometimes you time it just right as the character arrives.

Hannah on the speedbike

One of our favourite rides at Hollywood Studios was the Star Wars ride.  We rode it several times and happily there was never much of a wait.  It seemed every time we rode it it was slightly different which was another reason the ride was so fun.   Outside there was a speeder bike that the kids could play on, not that they needed much encouragement .
 

Nan and Tyler playing

It was the day we visited Holywood studios that we encountered what was to become an all to regular downpour of rain.  When it rains in Florida it really rains, and afterwards it feels muggy.  We're used to humidity living in the south but not like that.  Of course there's normally somewhere undercover (Indiana Jones Stunt Show) or air conditioned 3d move or live show to enjoy in the air conditioning.

Disney kids show Jake and the Never Land Pirates

Orlando Holiday - Magic Kingdom

Dawn and the Kids dancing with the parade

 So the trip we've all been looking forward to since Christmas finally arrived.  We took a couple of days to drive to Orlando (1 on the way back) and arrived in our hotel (Disneys All Sports complex) about 3 o'clock.  The kids Martin and Grandad had a swim in the hotel pool whilst Nan and Dawn stayed in the rooms and unpacked.

The next day we headed to the Magic Kingdom nice and early, although in hindsight we caught large ques (lines if your American) and would probably benefited by being an hour or so later.  Another thing that was surprising was the heat, living in Louisiana we're very used to the heat but in Orlando it was so humid.  Luckily many of the attractions are inside air conditioned theatres.

 

Belle meets the children

One of our favourite things in the Magic Kingdom was one of the new attractions where you go inside Belles fathers house and are then magicaly transported to the Beasts castle where you get to meet Belle.

Bringing cartoon characters to life

It's really impressive the way the imagineers at Disney have taken cartoon characters and brought them to life.  The cupboard and 'Lumierre' the candelabra looked like real 3d cartoons, very impressive. 

To do the Magic Kingdom in one day is a hard task especially as it's probably the most popular of the four Disney parks.  On some rides the waiting times can be long, anything over 40 minutes and we normally didn't bother.  Surprisingly on some attraction there's little or no waiting time at all.

At every turn there's a bunch of photographers willing to take your picture that you can look at online (and of course purchase).  Handy if you wanted the whole family in a pic.

Needless to say after all the build up and excitement the kids (and adults) were all exhausted and ready for bed.

getting ready to put on a play for Belle

As night falls the castle is lit

Nan and Rayna walking back to catch the monorail

A School Visit

We Love Skype, Its a fantastic way that we communicate with family and friends in the UK while we're here in Louisiana.  As you can see when Nan and Grandad were with us they regularly skyped with Deb, Kelly and the rest of the family back in the UK (who ever was there at the time).

 

 Another thing that Nan and Grandad did whilst they were here was to have lunch at Hannah and Raynas school.  It was also the same day as the talent show and Rayna was performing the cup song (from pitch perfect).  As you can see from the video she did a great job and came second in her category, which made us all proud.

Birthday Party

It's time to do some catching up with the fun we've been having this summer.   For a start Nan and Grandad flew in to spend a magical six weeks with us all from England and one of the first thing they did was join us at Hannah, Rayna and Tylers birthday party.  

The birthday party had a lot of people come to have fun including Dawns dad, and Marjie as well as lots of friends and Dawns mum.  We held it at home this year and we hired a large blow up water slide which the kids played on from the second it was blown up till we put it down.  Well worth the money.

 

The Call of the Stage

For the last few months Rayna has been working very hard and practising for her play "The Wizard of OZ".  Rayna played a munchkin and really enjoyed being on the stage.  On the final night we all went along to watch and were joined by papa Bobby and Marti.  The play was great and as expected Rayna did really well and made us all very proud.

 It appears that Raynas isn't the only member of the family that feels the draw of the stage.  Tyler was recently chosen to play the part of Mr. Muffett in his school play "Mother Goose Rocks".   As you can see from the video below, he was a star and performed fantasticly. 

It's Baseball Season

So it's baseball season and both Tyler and Rayna have decided they wanted to be in teams this year, Hannah decided against it.  Rayna plays for the Pretty Pink Panthers and Tyler plays for the Gators.

 Watching the games can be quite fun especially Tylers team who at the start of the season struggled to understand the rules, on hitting the ball and being told to run they would, in any direction they thought was good.  Also when fielding they would flock to the ball ending up with a scrimmage of kids all fighting to get the ball (more often than not Tyler would come up with it).

To help Rayna with her batting we went to a batting cage a week or so ago and her sister came along to try out to, you can see the video below of them hitting the balls.

Although we paid for an hour the nice man in charge allowed us at least an hour and a half.  After a few minutes both girls got the hang of it and really started hitting the ball well.

So far both Tylers and Raynas teams have only won one game each but they've been close in several games and are having good fun with their friends.

 

Hannah the Photographer

Hannah lines up another shot

 This weekend we had a senior shoot in Baton Rouge.  Rayna stayed at a friends house and Tyler was with his dad.  Hannah however decided to stay with us and come on the shoot.  It turned out to be a good choice as she had her own fun with a mini photo shoot with the girls who were happy to pose for her, inbetween shoots and her mum.

One of Hannahs shots of her mum

Here's one of Hannahs shot of her mum, I'm loving the action and the angle chosen to make the photography more dynamic and interesting.  I think we have a new photographer in the family.  

Hannah poses for her mum

 When we had finished the shoot the first thing she said was, when can I have a camera like this? Encouraging signs that she's really finding something she may enjoy and I'm guessing it won't be too long before she gets that camera she's been wanting.

A second set of wheels + Tyler plays in a mud puddle

Yay we now are officially a two car family so now one of us doesn't have to be house bound whilst the other is at work.  Oh thats another thing that has happened since we last updated, Martin finally got his permission to work in the US through.  Things are finally starting to get a little easier.

Our new wheels are a 97 Toyota Corolla, it doesn't have many bells and whistles but its exactly what was needed at this moment.

 On another note, we've had a lot of rain lately which has left us with quite a few very damp areas on the lawns and several mud puddles.  Of course just because its wet out unlike England it doesn't necessarily have to be cold, a perfect combination of a warm sunny day and mud puddles is something Tyler loves, not much of a favourite for his mum though :0).

Tylers School Trip to Baton Rouge Zoo

Waiting to be let into the zoo

Just before the Christmas break Tylers school organised a trip to the Baton Rouge Zoo.  It had been scheduled for a few weeks earlier but due to bad weather it had to be postponed. 

There were lots of animals to see, including birds, gators and several different types of monkey.  All too soon it was time to go home, but the children seemed to have had a good time and were all exhausted for the bus ride back.