Anniversaries, Showers, Birthdays and Football Games

November is almost over and we have been having a lot of fun.  

We celebrated 18 years of marriage on November 1st.  I can't believe it's almost been 20 years! We actually went out on a date and for the first time since having kids - we didn't have to get a sitter because we have an almost teenager! Loving the new life stage we are in! 

I went to a sip and see for Susan's new grand baby! She's the daughter of actual rock stars.  Her mom is the main singer of MSC and her dad is the drummer for LANY.  He just played at a sold out Forum in L.A.  And they are the nicest people you will ever meet and she is a doll baby.  

Speaking of doll babies - our baby Milli turned two on November 3rd.  We love her so much! 

Harper went to her first "drop off and go with friends" high school football game.  She went with tow of her best friends.  They are at different junior highs but they will meet back up for high school in a year and a half.  How is this possible? This was the rival game of Bentonville and Bentonville West.  

The leaves were SO pretty.  They peaked late this year and so I grabbed the kids after school and took some pictures right before they all fell off.  (The leaves - not the kids) 

WH's school had Razorback spirit day.  The hogs have had the best year in years so we are excited! 

The mascot and a few cheerleaders came and helped the kids call the hogs.  Best day ever! 

Now that I'm working all the time - I don't have time to do errands so I've been getting out alone on Saturdays to do things.  I always have to make a coffee run first! 

I went by one of my favorite stores Remedy Road.  It's owned by a friend of mine and they carry items that help people - whether it's providing jobs or wells - the purchases really make a difference. If you are shopping - use kelly20 and get 20% off at https://www.shopremedyroad.com

She has new sweatshirts and a portion of these are going to help local NWA non profits.  And they are super cute with a kind of Taylor Swift vibe.  

Hope ya'll are having a wonderful Thanksgiving week! 

 

The Rest of October

October came in and went out fast and furious.  It's one of my favorite months but it's always SO crazy busy.  I never do all the things I want to do because there isn't enough time but we tried to enjoy all that we could.  I thought I would share a few highlights.  

Laurie and I went to see Need to Breathe at the Amp.  It was SO good.  I underestimated how cool it would be so I was FREEZING but I loved the concert.  Switchfoot was also with them and it was so good! 

They had a fun night at church for 5th and 6th grade girls.  Hollis had the best time! They had worship and preaching and small group Bible Study but they also had cotton candy, a dessert bar, crafts, karaoke, and a dance party.  Friends sent me pictures of Hollis dancing and laughing and it made my heart so happy.  This is our preteen pastor and his wife.  I LOVE them.  I get to help on Wednesday nights with the 5th and 6tth graders.  Those kids can't appreciate how good it is - we have amazing worship and solid preaching/teaching plus so much fun.  

And Will Holden thinks pastor cam is his best friend.  He's got he look down! 

My friend Lyndsey came on a single trip vacation to Northwest AR from Austin.  She had it so well planned.  She spent time with lots of our NWA people.  I got to have dinner with her.  I was a tourist in my own town because we ate at Preacher's Son which I've been dying to go to and just have never made it.  

It's a real foodie place in an old church.  I LOVED it! We ordered a bunch of things and tried them.  I don't even like beets but we had this beet salad that I loved.  

We had costume night at Preteen.  

Harper at youth group with her 7th grade buddies.  What a gift this group has been! 

We carved pumpkins! 

Harper went to the Pumpkin patch with the youth group girls and had the best time.  I took this picture right before I dropped her off.  She looked like such a teenager.  We still have 2 months until she becomes a teen.  So far - I'm loving it! 

We have celebrated Halloween with the Ormon every year for the last probably 15 years.  We always go to their house and eat pizza and trick or treat.  Their neighborhood gets really into it so it's the perfect place to be.  Emily has outgrown us and soon the other girls will but I told Laurie we still have a good 6-7 years they will have to walk with us! 

If you know us - we always do a family theme.  The girls and I love it.  The girls always plan it.  This year it was their idea to do Winnie the Pooh.  But somebody has a mind of their own that couldn't be swayed.  So Christopher Robin is disguised as Spiderman.  ha! 

Also - when Harper found an idea on pinterest that basically involved ears and sweatshirts we were all sold.  :-) 

Mom and Dad like trick or treating! 

Scott loves Halloween and he actually really likes dressing up with us - but I think part of his costume is he always tries to look as mean as possible in the picture.  Can you sense a pattern? It cracks me up.  

Well that is our October and here it is the middle of November! 

 

Universal Part Two

We got four day park hopper tickets.  So On our third day we broke things up by going to the water park Volcano Bay.  I did not take ONE picture.  But we had a great time.  It was a nice relaxing break from the crazy of the other parks.  It's a very nice water park.  The wave pool is huge and has a sandy beach.  There are a zillion chairs everywhere.  We worried about not getting chairs but that was crazy because there a ton and we never actually sat.  The men and the girls did a lot of the slides.  I hung with Will Holden a lot in the kid splash park area.  I love that because he played forever and I sat in a chair.  They have two lazy rivers that are fun - one is normal and one has waves.  

Every night we ate on the City Walk.  This is an area of restaurants and stores right outside the parks.  Honestly this part was easier than Disney because it's all together.  

I called and made reservations for each night.  They have a number you can call (or you can do it online) and a lady helped me get all our reservations.  Since we had 9 - I couldn't do it online.  We ended up making reservations for tables of 4 and 5 at the same time for each place.  But every single night they gave us a table for 9 so it worked great! But I HIGHLY recommend making reservations.  It was almost impossible just to walk up and get in.  

We just ate lunch in the park each day - nothing to write home about.  I wanted to eat in one of the Harry Potter restaurants but we have picky eaters who weren't excited about them.  The taco truck in Simpsons was good.  We ate there twice.  And the water park actually had decent food - I got a veggie wrap and it was super fresh and good.  

I got this fanny pack before we went and it was perfect.  I never had to take it off (I might have had to if I rode Hulk or velocicoaster) and it fit great on the rides with me.  They have lockers that you have to put bags in for most rides and it seemed like a huge hassle to me.  We got away with not carrying much.  

Our tees came from Target and Jane.com.  

The last day we were there was a Saturday and it was SOOOOO hot and extremely crowded.  We did not get express passes that day and we really regretted it.  We went to Universal early that morning and did as many rides as we could before people got there.  

Once we started having to wait in lines - and it was SO hot - we were over it.  

We rode what we could and we left in the early afternoon and went back and let the kids swim.  It was a nice break.  Then we showered and got ready to go eat.  

Love this group of kids.  Poor Will Holden and all the girls.  They are so sweet to him.  

Mom and Dad going to dinner! 

It was Laurie and Steve's anniversary that night.  Their anniversary always falls on Fall break and so they almost always spend it with us on vacation somewhere.  ha! 

The last night we ate at Big Fire.  We would all say that was our best meal.  The food was really good! 

The kids got table side S'mores and they loved it.  

We adults got other desserts.  And they were all good.  

We ate at Mythos the first night.  It is in Universal.  It's Mediterrenean food.  I really liked it.  I'm not sure anyone else liked it as much as me.  Emily and I shared some hummus that was REALLY good.  

The second night we ate at Toothsome - this big chocolate factory.  I would say it's like a cheesecake factory as far as menu goes.  We didn't have reservations until 8:30 that night.  We were EXHAUSTED by the time we ate and it was super slow.  So we were eating dinner at like 10 and nearly falling asleep in our plates.  But I will say that Laurie and I both got flourless chocolate cake that I'm still dreaming about.  They are famous for milkshakes and the rest of our families got that.  

The third night we ate at Cow fish which has burgers and sushi.  It was really good and we had the best service.  We all either like burgers or sushi so we liked it a lot.  

Sunday morning we were up early and headed back to the airport.  We had no trouble getting an uber - it came right away.  We got home by noon which I loved because I had the rest of the day to unpack, do laundry and grocery shop before a busy work week.  

We really liked Universal - hopefully we can go again sometime! 

 

Universal Orlando Part One

We have made two fall break trips to Disney in the past and we LOVE Disney.  So we planned a 8 day trip for this Fall break.  But then I got a job and didn't have many vacation days to take and also we are not anti mask but I have NO DESIRE to wear a mask indoors or on rides when it's 100 degrees outside and especially paying all that money to be miserable.  I know people are doing it but we just didn't want to.  So since masks were optional at Universal AND we had wanted to try Universal at some point - we decided this was the year to do it.  Plus we made a quick 4 day trip.  So we saved time and money.  

So about a month ago we made a trip to Universal and I thought I would give a recap! I'm going to have to do it in two parts.  

We flew out on a Friday afternoon.  We were on different flights but left around the same time.  

We got into Orlando around 9:30.  We got an Uber to take us to our hotel.  That was super easy and only about $30 for an Uber XL.  The Ormons reserved some kind of shuttle bus that not only was like 3 times the price but also they had to wait around for nearly an hour at the airport and got to the hotel so much later than us.  Take the Uber! 

We stayed at Dockside hotel.  The premiere hotels offer free express passes and it makes it worth it.  But when we were booking - they were all booked.  So Dockside was much cheaper but we paid fo the express passes.  Dockside is new and we really liked it.  They had a suite that had 2 bedrooms so it gave us a little more space.  

The one downside to going at fall break is that Universal does Halloween Horror nights (which I HATE all that scary gory stuff) AND Univerasal closes at 5.  Islands of Adventure stayed open until 8 but I still feel like we lost some time we could have had in the parks if they were both open later.  We had early admission to Universal but the only thing we didn't have express passes for was the Hagrid's ride so it made more sense to rope drop IOA and get on that first.  

Laurie does not do rides that have any kind of drop.  We all tricked her into riding Hagrid's first thing.  And honestly I don't like roller coasters either.  I had watched a you tube video and thought I could do it but I was NOT prepared.  It was too much for me.  And we think Laurie passed out.  This is her face when we were done.  She was so mad at us.  Everyone else loved it.  

Here we are outside the Harry Potter castle ride.  It was my very favorite.  I rode it a ton of times! 

We all came to love the Butter Beer.  It's a butterscotch like drink.  We had iced first but once we had frozen we became obsessed.  I've heard the hot is good but it was too hot for that when we were there.  

None of us are big Harry Potter fans (except Harper) but we loved the whole area and all the rides.  

If you get the park hopper - you can ride the Hogwarts train between the two parks.  It's really fun.  It can be a long line.  So we rode it both ways and then just walked after that.  

We bought the unlimited express pass for two days.  It's crazy expensive but we all agreed it was worth every penny (or stay in the premiere hotels and it will be included).  We just walked on to every ride for those two days and it was glorious.  Especially if you are just going to go for one day on a Disney trip - you can ride everything with the express passes! 

Will Holden honestly loves the characters of Universal more than Disney - transformers and Spiderman! We actually all loved both of these rides! They are very similar.  There are a lot of virtual reality rides in Universal which I love.  

We got Voodoo donuts the first night.  They honsestly weren't all that great.  Just too much and then by the 2nd day - they were just kind of a gross clumpy mess in the box.  ha! 

But we still had fun getting them! 

Scott was excited! 

 

One of the best parts of our hotel was it had a starbucks.  So we got drinks and breakfast every morning before we left for the parks.  

I was very impressed with Dockside's shuttle service.  At Disney you can wait a long time on busses but we never waited.  There was always a bus available.  And the parks are very close so it didn't take long to get there every morning.  

On our second day - we did a lot of just re riding our favorites.  

These four were going to ride the velocicoaster but the girls (THANKFULLY) chickened out.  The guys rode it and said it was the most intense ride they have been on.  

It was SO hot while we were there.  You think October would be cool but it's always in the 90's.  And it was pretty crowded.  

I got us all cute universal shirts off etsy.  We loved this one that said Friends and had the HP characters.  

It was just a LITTLE crowded.  

We did have a great time together.  

These three rode the Hulk twice.  You couldn't pay the rest of us to ride.  

I also loved the Gringots ride.  We tricked Laurie on that one and she was so mad.  I totally forgot it had a drop.  We also loved the Mummy ride.  

I WISH it was as cool as the snow capped buildings looked! 

Overall - we had a great time.  The rides are probably more fun at Universal.  We still love Disney the most.  Universal was not as magical but I would say with older kids it's a lot of fun.  There is not a ton for little kids.  My next post I will talk about the water park and where we ate.  And if you have any questions I will answer those.  

Also tip - I bought lanyards off amazon before we went because you have to show your ticket and express pass and have to have a way to show it.