Evers Family: May 2012

No, I haven't abandoned my blog posting...

It's been a while since I've posted, so hope to do a bit of catching up here. This post has some pix from April and May, then I'll try to get some photos of our Florida trip posted.

We took a trip to MN in April to visit my brother Jeff, and Sister-in-Law, Monica! We had a blast at the Minnesota Zoo and the Mall of America! Makayla is all ready for another visit to see Auntie Monica and Uncle Jeff!

We've had a whirlwind month of May...my last day of work was 5/1. I hit the road on 5/2 with the girls and we drove 450 miles to Michigan to visit my parents and also attend my brother, Pat's, graduation from Michigan State University. The girls did amazingly well with all the time in the car. We were home for 2 days after that trip and then we headed down to Milwaukee for our flight to Florida! We spent 3 days at Daytona Beach and then 7 days in Orlando! We are all pooped out from travel and hope to spend a relaxing Memorial weekend up at the Evers' Family cabin! On our second to last day in Florida, the girls told me they were ready to go home and play with their own toys! :)

Makayla has been nagging me to play with her slip-n-slide ever since she got it for Christmas. And then Lydia got a new sprinkler for her birthday, so Makayla has had her eye on that as well. I kept telling Makayla she had to wait until we had hot weather! After spending 10 days in Florida, she was convinced that we should play with it when we got home! (She even told me in Florida that I should have packed it in our suitcase) So I caved in and let the girls play with it the day after we got home. The weather was in the mid 70's and I even ran warm water through the hose, but they only lasted about 10 minutes! Makayla went inside, dried off, and put on long corduroy pants because she was so cold!

Here are the girls practicing their cutting. They each have a plastic knife and some watermelon! Works great and gives me time to cut up the rest of the watermelon! :)

Here are the girls wearing some princess outfits! The first pic is kind of dark, but I thought it was cute! Lydia has become much more of a Princess fan now that she saw the princesses at Disney!

Daytona Beach

We took a direct flight from Milwaukee to Orlando and then drove from Orlando to Daytona Beach. We stayed in Daytona for 3 days before heading back to Orlando. The flight there was super easy...here's me with the girls snoozing! :)

Here's our view from our room! The girls LOVED looking at the ocean from afar, but it took until the 2nd day for Makayla to go in the ocean. Lydia never did get in!

These is kinda a crazy angle, but shows some of the pools at our resort!

We were on the 15th floor of the right building...on the far right side! The girls loved the balcony!

Here we are sitting on the beach. Lydia did not like the sand on her toes and pretty much spent most of the time sitting on the towel! I got Makayla to join me in building a sand castle! She had fun once she got used to the sand! Makayla and I had fun collecting some small shells too! Lydia had fun when I carried her around and picked up shells for her! ;) She sat on the towel and played with her shells!

Chad joined in with the castle building fun!

The finished castle!

Here are Chad and Makayla getting some water for the castle's moat!

Me and Makayla out in the ocean!

Makayla loved the water slide at the pool! They let Chad catch her at the bottom, which was nice...otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to go on it!

Florida Fun

After spending 3 days in Daytona, we headed to Orlando for a week!

Below is a photo of the resort we stayed at! This photo is looking down from our room. We were on the 8th floor. There were buildings and pools that wrapped all around the lake. We didn't even get a chance to check-out all of the pools! And after an episode of carrying overly-tired and crabby/crying girls back to our room, we decided we shouldn't venture too far from our building when swimming!

Here's a view looking across at our building.

Here are Chad and the girls enjoying the view from the balcony!

The girls had an absolutely FABULOUS time swimming. We made it down to the pool every day! Lydia loved floating around with her swim ring. Makayla got adventurous and learned how to hold her breath and swim underwater and dive for rings!

Here's Chad sporting Lydia's pink goggles! :) Lydia's way of using goggles was to put one eye-piece over her mouth and then stick her mouth in the water! :)

We caught up with some of my college friends while in Orlando! Here's Bella, Olivia, Lydia, and Makayla dancing around in princess outfits! Mason had fun watching the girls play! Mike and Lisa cooked us a delicious meal and it was great catching up with them as well as Tanya, Reggie, and Cheryl!

Here are the girls playing with the outdoor checkers board at the resort!

Here's Makayla getting mad about something and stomping off to pout! ;)

Pouting is done...here are the finished towers! :)

Chillin' on the swing that overlooked the lake!

Makayla figured out how to use the camera! :)

Disney Fun

We spent 4 days at Magic Kingdom....Wed,Thurs, Fri, and Monday. In hindsight, I wish we would have hit Animal Kingdom on the Friday that we went to Magic Kingdom...it was SO crowded that day. After having such a crowded Friday, we avoided all the parks on Saturday and Sunday. It was good to just relax at the resort those days!

Taking a train ride!

The People Mover! This was a big hit with the kids and great because the line was always quick and the moving walkways entertained the kids!

Buzz Lightyear's Spaceship Ride! The kids loved this one too!

Here are the kids inside Pooh Bear's house!

Makayla loved the Pooh Ride...she liked seeing Pooh with a face full of honey at the end and she liked the thunderstorm during the ride!

The kids liked the teacups! I opted NOT to ride these!

Here is a shot from the parade!

Of course, Cinderella's Castle!

A few shots from the show at Cinderella's Castle!

Visiting with the Characters

We saw Mickey and Minnie twice. Lydia didn't want to get close to them and Makayla wasn't a huge fan. I think because they had costumed heads. Lydia wouldn't go near any character who had a costumed head. Makayla really wanted to see Mickey and Minnie's clubhouse, so she was a bit confused when we didn't see it!

The girls liked to see the princesses! We saw them twice as well! Lydia's favorite was Belle because Lydia's favorite color is yellow and Makayla's favorite was Sleeping Beauty because her favorite colors are pink and purple!