Monday, September 7, 2009

From Above..


Rented a 4oft towable boom, for staining the barn...but who says you can't have fun with it first!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Monday, July 6, 2009

Bella's 6th Birthday Party - Peter Pan Theme


Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the long break in the blog, summery craziness is firmly in place.

Last weekend, we had Bella's 6th birthday party at Art & Soul, it was a Peter Pan theme! Jack was the cutest pirate, and bella was...of course...Peter Pan. We got a shirt that said 'Never grow up' on the front, w a pic of Peter, and let her friends sign the back. Everyone had a great time!







Thursday, May 14, 2009



Sunday, March 8, 2009

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Art School Show

Isabella Slyman's opening night Art Show was a huge success! Ok, it was actually during the day, and it was her Art Class, but it was still 'her' show.











Monday, March 2, 2009

Snow!

Finally! We get some real snow, never too late in the season to build snowmen, go sledding and drink hot chocolate. Work? what is that;-)




More pics later today.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Disney 2009

Feeling a bit like Clark Griswold in 'Vacation' we packed up the kids, arranged for a pet sitter and headed to Disney last week. We were worried about Jack for the plane ride, but he did great. We got a very early start (probably too early) for our flight, and were pretty worn out by the time we got to our hotel at Wilderness Lodge. However we got VERY lucky, and got upgraded to the 'club level' on the 7th floor! Free food/drinks/snacks 24/7 on the 7th floor! Including beer and wine - it was GREAT. We ate breakfast there everyday, and had awesome snacks when we would come back from a long day at the park.

Day 1: Animal Kingdom - After the early morning flight, and taxi ride to the hotel (didn't want to wait for the 'magical express' bus, that is not really an express to anywhere but waiting in long lines). We took the disney bus to Animal Kingdom. Ginny had mapped out all the things we should do at the parks, and it paid off big-time. We ALSO got extremely lucky and were given free passes for the animal safari and Expedition Everest, when we checked in at will call. After grabbing a quick lunch, we headed to the Safari. It was great, we saw lots of animals - it
was almost like they were waiting for us. We then hit 'Dinoland' for kids rides, and Ginny/I took turns riding the 'Dinosaur' ride - The Cardinals/Eagles game was being played the entire time, but i tried not to check my BB too often for scores;-). We let the kids play in the Dino park, then had some awesome homemade milkshakes (jack had most of it). We then strolled around through the various countries, walked through another safari area in Africa, and let bella get her face painted.


Day 2 - Magic Kingdom and Epcot

We got up bright and early on day 2, grabbed a quick breakfast ub the club area kitchen - and headed to magic kingdom. We took the ferry boat that drops you right at the gate of MK, it was great. We got there right in the middle of the introduction/song/dance routine the characters all do..very cool. In we went, dashing right for Fantasyland, and the Peter Pan ride (Bella's favorite) and Winnie the Pooh ride (Jacks favorite, we figured). There were NO lines at all, we went on the rides multiple times! I went with Jack on the Winnie ride, he loved it - then after the 2nd time - we saw a small crowd gathered, that meant characters! It was Tigger and Winnie, Jack was sooo excited. He was very patient in line (as much as 2 year old boy at Disney can be) - then literally ran up and hugged both characters. I decided to let Bella try Splash Mountain, figuring she would have fun....we'll, a few tears later it didn't quiet work out that way. However, luckily we had our Dollar Store ponchos on, and didn't get too wet!

About mid-day, after meeting Peter Pan & Captain Hook (Bella was too shy to go up to her favorite character, Peter Pan). Ginny put Bella's Mary Poppins dress on, and we started making our way to Epcot. Well it was the bella show, or should i say the mini-Mary Poppins show from that point forward. People were stopping us every 30 ft, asking where we got that dress of Mary for Bella - apparently, nobody else has one of these things. The kids were pretty tired by the time we took the monorail from MK, to the ticketing center, to Epcot (why they don't have a direct line, i have no idea). After hitting some rides, we had lunch at Akershush in Norway where we met all the Princess...except for Mary Poppins. Mary was supposed to be there, but somehow she wasn't...so we had to track her down. We finally found her, in England (ok, we stalked Mary Poppins - you gotta problem with that?)

Well, Mary was amazed to see Bella dressed as her! Probably a pretty rare occurrence - she spent SOO much time with Bella, even though there was a long line of other kids waiting to see her. Even AFTER we were walking away, and getting ready to go somewhere else, she came back to Bella and asked to autograph something for her! We are going to send this picture to her, at Disney world.

Day 3 - Magic Kingdom & Epcot

Day 3 dawned VERY cold, we shivered on the little pier as we waited for our ferry boat - it seemed like forever. We wore just about everything we brought, but it was still cold - about 40 degrees! Still, we whisked off to the MK and hit Fantasyland again! Peter Pan ride, Winnie the Pooh, Small World and then let the kids play in the Winnie the Pooh play area for awhile. We headed over to Toon town next, and met Mickey Mouse and Minnie!


We met Ginny's parents around noon for lunch, then Ginny and I escaped off to Epcot (kid free!). We sat in the front of the monorail (with the 'driver') pretty cool. We strolled around the countries, checked out China (and the interesting replica of the over 2,000 soldiers that guarded a tomb). Had a nice late afternoon lunch in Japan (sushi) - then headed back to meet up with everyone in MK. It was getting VERY cold by the time we got back, so we had a quick dinner and headed home.

We had a great time in Disney World. At Ginny's parents place, it stayed fairly chilly - but we had one day where we hit the beach in the morning - picking seashells. We packed alot into 3 days at Disney World (and my feet still hurt), but the kids loved it and so did we!