Tylers Reading

It's a little out of date (August 2015) but I found this on my phone and realised it had to be added to our family blog along with our other Magical memories. 

It's been a while

As you can see everyone is growing up real quick!

School year and sports teams come and go and i've got really bad about not updating the blog, something I'm hoping to change.

Looking back on the older posts on here I realized that I really have got to keep this going, facebook is OK but here everything is I order giving us a great reference on happy memories for the family.

So a few things that I've not added (but should have) that have happened since the last blog post.

Dawn continues to work at as a senior teacher at Central high.  I've recently changed jobs to be a security officer.

Rayna continues to shine playing for her school soccer team (i'm the head coach now).  Hannah continues in her school studies and is getting ready to try out for the volley ball team.  Tyler has recently started Judo and absolutely loves it, and Reese, well he's not the cute little puppy that he was.  We're sure he's been cross bred with a horse as he has got so big.

More New Wheels

The Toyota picked a fight with an 18 wheeler last month and unfortunately is no longer driveable.  However that does mean we now have a new car.

Football Season

This weekend was super busy in the Wilmott household.  Both Tyler and Rayna's soccer teams had their first games.   Tylers team played at 10am, they play 4 a side with no goal keepers, unlimited substitutions and plenty of water breaks (90F+ temperatures).

Tyler battled hard all game and helped his team win 5-2 (we think).  As he gets more used to it and learns more of the rules we're sure he's going to get better and better.

 Raynas team (The Lady strikers) have struggled to be able to train as the rain has been keeping them away.  So with just two training sessions under the belt they took to the field.   

With a fantastic effort they won the game 7-0 with Rayna scoring the teams first ever goal!!  Something that made us all super proud.

They were all completely exhausted after the game as it was the first time they played on the full size pitch.  they discovered there was a lot of running to be done making it doubly hard in the midday sun.

 Although she thoroughly enjoyed it she wasn't so impressed with how her legs ached on Sunday morning.

To add to the super busy day we were offerd some tickets to the first home game for LSU's football team (American Football).  Dawn and Hannah didn't feel like going so Rayna and Martin went and had a great time.

 

Summer in England

It's been a long time since we updated the blog and a lot has happened.  For a start everyone has grown, the girls and Tyler have got bigger Martin and Dawn have got older.   We spent an amazing two weeks in England and saw so many things it was hard to keep up.  Below are a few photographs of some of the thinghs we got up to.

 

 

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