"Snow"pocalypse 2012

Last week the Seattle area had a snow storm.  Now for some areas of the country 8-12" of snow is not much to write home about, but around here it means the world stops for a week.  We got the first batch of snow on the weekend just a couple inches but enough to have school 2 hours late on tuesday (No school on Monday for MLK day)  Tuesday night, after several severe weather warnings from the news, we got about 10 inches.  The kids had a great day playing in the snow.

Niko looks on while Billy flings Noah down the hill.

Even Mercedes came out to play!

Noah loving the snow!

Lucy, always ready for a picture.

So, I ended up with way more pictures of Brooklyn, even though she was only outside half as long because she had slept in, but how could I resist taking pictures of that ADORABLE smile!  To say she loved the snow would be an understatement.  The first time she rode the board down the hill she squealed like a little girl (so that's where that saying comes from) and then got up and said, "That was Awesome! That was Awesome! THAT WAS TOTALLY WICKED-AWESOME!!!!"  and she said that every time she she came down the hill.  Before we went in we even strapped the snowboard on and she loved that too, and she didn't even fall down!  

That night, the freezing rain and ice came and things weren't quite as fun.  We lost power for 2 days and everything had a thick layer of ice on it.  Several trees were broken or completely fell down.  Several roads were closed and there were a ton of car accidents in the Seattle area.  But we survived, Billy cooked for us on his camp stove out on the deck and we had our fireplace to help keep us warm and our hot water tank runs on gas so we could still take showers.  We played some games and read some books and the kids actually played with some toys instead of the wii or computer.  It was definitely a week to remember!

The thick layer of ice that was on our tree.  Luckily both our trees survived without losing any branches.

Even though it caused a lot of damage, the ice covered world was very pretty to look at.

This was pretty funny, Lucy practicing piano in the dark with a head lamp on. 

continued. . . and concluded!

Day 9 (Pack up and Hollywood Studios)

On Monday, we had to get everything packed up and cleaned up before we headed to the park for one last day of fun.  Before we all left we got one last picture all together.  

After we all said our good byes, we headed to Hollywood Studios to finish out our Disney World adventure.  We had a great day!  One of my favorite moments of the whole week came when I got to ride Tower of Terror with my Sister in Law, Jessica.  There had been talk all week of how fun she is to go on rides with because of the way she screams.  Lets just say, she didn't disappoint.  I was laughing so hard that I couldn't scream.  Even the complete strangers who were on the ride with us said that the best part of the ride was listening to us.  It was awesome.  Thanks Jessica!  We also had fun on the new Star Tours ride.  They have completely redone the movie and there are 3 sections that are randomized, creating over (I think) 50 different combinations.  We went on it twice and it was completely different both times.  Billy was even pointed out as the Rebel Spy.  We also enjoyed Rockin' Roller Coaster.  Brooklyn and I enjoyed the Little Mermaid Show.  We all liked the One Man's Dream attraction which takes you through the life of Walt Disney.  Billy got called up to be in the Indiana Jones Stunt show and last but not least, we watched Fantasmic, the night time show for Hollywood Studios.  It was really cool.  It was after that, that our vacation started to go down hill. . . 

I LOVE this picture of Billy and Brooklyn!

Here is a video of Billy in the Indiana Jones show.  Sorry the quality isn't that great, I only had my phone to video with.

Day 9.75-10 (Traveling Home)

So, as I said after Fantasmic our vacation took a turn down hill.  As soon as the lights came up, Lucy just started puking. . . A LOT!  Luckily we were pretty much done.  She seemed ok once she stopped throwing up, so Niko and I decided to hit Tower of Terror and Rockin' Roller Coaster one last time as the park was closing.  I guess she wasn't ok because she threw up a few more times while we were in line. (Sorry, Billy)  We made it out of the park and headed to the air port, out flight left at 6am so we had decided we would just head straight there instead of getting a hotel for 4 hours.  All the kids fell asleep on the drive there.  Once we got there we tried to get a little rest before we checked into our flight.  Luckily Lucy was able to sleep a little.  Once we got up though, the puking started up again, the poor girl could barely walk, if we stopped for even a second she would sit down on the floor.  I will forever remember her crawling on her knees through security while puking into a ziplock bag. (oh yeah, good times!)  She has a hard time on flights anyway so the entire trip home she was pretty miserable.  She did manage to sleep for most of the longer flight, unfortunately she was using my arm as a pillow so I didn't get to move my arm for about 3 hrs.  We did make it home safe and sound.  Lucy stayed home for a few extra days.  Noah, who was still sick from the start of the trip, stayed home the whole week and only made it about half days of the next week.  I am happy to say that as of right now, (2 weeks since we've been home) everyone seems to be healthy.  Now if I can just get back into a routine that would be good.  

Overall, it was an amazing trip!  I am so thankful to the people who made it possible to go, especially my parents, for everything they did for us, and my sister Annie who let us borrow their van, while they squished their three kids into their little car, so we wouldn't have to rent a car for the week.  I'm so grateful I was blessed with such a fun, amazing family, and I can't wait for us all to be together again, even if it isn't in Disney World or anywhere "cool."  Its magical no matter where we are!

continued. . . a little more

Day 7 (Cocoa Beach and New Years Eve)

On Saturday, we headed to Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic Ocean.  Many of us had never been to the Atlantic Ocean before so it was really fun.  We rented some boogie boards and a surf board and had a great time playing in the waves and sand or just relaxing in the nice warm sun.  We headed back to Orlando at about 5:00 p.m so we could ring in the new year playing games and just hanging out.

Happy New Year!!!

Day 8 (Epcot again)

On Sunday, we decided to go back to Epcot so we could see the rest of the world show case.  While Billy, Niko, and Noah visited the countries and looked through the shops, Lucy, Brooklyn, and I tried to save the world from dastardly villains in the Kim Possible Adventure Missions.  You get a cell phone and it sends you messages to go to certain places in the different countries and do the given task.  If you complete the task, then something cool happens like smoke coming out of a chimney or a statue rising out of a pond.  It was pretty fun and the girls liked using the cell phone.  We ended our world tour at about 4:00 and headed back to the houses for dinner and to start packing up for the trip home.

continued. . . again

Day 6 (EPCOT)

On Friday, EVERYBODY went to Epcot.  We wanted to get a big group shot at one of the parks and it just worked out that it was Epcot.  My family spent the morning at "The Seas" with Nemo.  There is a Nemo ride and then a fun little aquarium where we saw dolphins, sea turtles and all kinds of other fish.  We also did "Turtle Talk with Crush" which was really fun, Noah actually got to talk to crush and ask him a question, he asked Crush how he swims so fast.  It was a really fun interactive show.  Then we went and met up with everyone for a picture.  Disney does this thing called a Photo Pass and they have photographers, all over, at all the parks.  They take pictures and then save them to a card which you can then enter onto their website and view all the pictures.  It's a great system, especially when you want a picture of the WHOLE family.  After the family picture we went and did a few more rides.  My family really enjoyed Epcot because there is a lot of things to interact with.  By 5:00 we really hadn't even made it past the front third of the park.  My sister offered to take Brooklyn and Noah home so the rest of us tried to make it around the rest of the park by the time it closed at 9.  The back half of the park is a World Show Case with 11 different countries to walk through and visit.  We only made it to 3 before it was time for "Illuminations" the night time fireworks show.  So we wondered through the other countries in the dark but everything was closed.  I'm sure Billy could spend a whole week at Epcot, he loves that kind of thing.  Anyways, enough words, here are some pictures.

Lot's of fun at Epcot

On a side note, we got several comments on our t-shirts, Billy was wishing we had cards to pass out since we, well mostly me, designed and printed them.  

One Big Crazy Family!

continued. . . some more

Day 5 (Universal Studios - Islands of Adventure/Harry Potter World)

The kids were super excited to go see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Apparently they weren't the only ones, the crowds were unbelievable.  At one point, you literally could not walk because there were so many people.  And lets just say that Universal is not quite up to par with Disney as far as managing large crowds.  For one, they don't have fast passes (unless you want to pay an extra $100 per person) and the walkways are smaller, and there is really only one way to get from one area to another.  We were still able to have a good time, it just took a little longer.  We rode the Hulk roller coaster (after a 2 hr. wait) which was awesome, then we headed to Harry Potter.  It was really fun to feel like you were in the world of Harry Potter.  I wish that there hadn't been so many people so we could've actually looked in all the shops and stuff.  The good news was that the "Dueling Dragons" roller coasters had no line, and they were totally fun.  We also rode "Flight of the Hippogriff" and then waited 100 minutes or so to go on "Forbidden Journey."  Once we were done with that we headed back out into the rest of the park and rode "Jurassic Park" a couple of times (no line) and then another log flume ride (also no line).  We got to see a cool X-games type stunt show on the way out and that was Brooklyn's favorite thing.  Overall it was another fun day.

Continued...Continued

Day 4 (Family Day)

On Wednesday, we took a break from the parks and had a family day at the houses, we swam, played games, and had a lot of fun just being one big crazy family.

It always cracked me up that my kids were just as excited to swim as they were to go to the parks.  Both the houses we stayed in had pools and the kids had a blast whenever we were home long enough to use them.

My Mom and Wendy were in charge of organizing some games for our family day.
They did a great job.  The teams were drawn out of a hat by the 4 team captains,
Brooklyn, Elaine, Kaymbri, and MacKenzie.

The games included a family version of BINGO, and then some minute-to-win-it type games. 

Dustin even made a score board on the TV so we could all see who was in the lead.
Team Kaymbri ended up as the winners, but we all had a good time.

After the games we went outside to try and get some family pictures.  Lets just say trying to get 33 people to all smile and look at the camera at the same time is pretty much impossible.  Especially when 16 of those people are 10 or younger.  But at least we have proof that we were all there!

Here we are, all 33 of us.

My Parents with their 20 grandkids

The Wells' Family

We tried to get a picture with the spouses but this was the best one we got because, right after this shot. . .

. . .was this shot because. . .

. . . of this.  Elaine had an accident and decided she needed to RUN to find a bathroom.  Unfortunately, she ran in the complete opposite direction of us and the houses, and she is very fast!

After pictures, we sent all the kids to one house and the adults stayed at the other so we could play more games and have some kid-free fun. Another GREAT day!

We had a lot of fun playing pool, but lets just say that as a whole the Wells' are no pool sharks!

Continued...

  Day 3 (Magic Kingdom)

It turns out I didn't take a lot of pictures this day.  We had a ton of fun riding rides, watching parades, and meeting characters.  We did get rained on this day, for about an hour it dumped on us.  A lot of people ran for cover but we figured, "Hey, we're from Seattle, we can handle a little rain."  We were completely drenched after about 5 minutes.  We got in line for "small world" and by the time we got out the rain was done, but we were pretty wet and cold the rest of the day.  

This is just as you enter Magic Kingdom

Brooklyn waving to the characters in the parade.

After dancing with Goofy, Lucy and I snagged a picture.

Brooklyn was a great driver, We won the race!

Brooklyn was the most excited to ride the tea cups, judging by this face, I don't think she was disappointed.

After riding splash mountain, Brooklyn and I headed to main street to look for a sweat-shirt and blanket, (yes, we were still wet from the rain).  While I was in the store I heard an announcement that they were going to start some show, I knew it wasn't the fireworks show because it was only about 7:30, but I figured I would go check it out.  It turns out it was the most amazing show I have EVER seen! Somehow they project images onto the front of Cinderella's castle, all set to music, and it looks like the castle is completely changing and moving and it really is hard to describe but amazing to watch.  I didn't even have a camera or anything to take pictures with.  And there I was with just Brooklyn and no one else to witness it.  Well we finished our shopping and headed out to claim a spot for the fireworks. Eventually, some of the various families from our reunion met up with me and I tried to describe it and I'm sure they thought I was a total raving lunatic because I was so excited about it.  Well about an hour later they announced that they were going to do the show again, so I ran into the store and made them all stop shopping so they could see it for themselves, again, I'm sure I sounded like a lunatic, but MOST of them listened, {ahem...Dustin,} and they were not disappointed. I found a video of it on youTube but it really doesn't do it justice.  Anyway, I just have to say that Magic Kingdom is truly magical at night and especially at Christmas!

After watching the fireworks we sent Brooklyn home with my parents and sister and then went and hit up a few more rides.  It was a GREAT day!

The Magic, the Memories, and You.

Here is the video I found of the show.  Just trust me when I say that seeing it in person is AMAZING!  It's about 10 minutes so, if you don't want to watch the whole thing skip forward to about minute 5 1/2.

No more playing catch up...

So, I never update this blog because I get behind and then I feel like I need to play catch up on all the stuff I missed so then I really don't want to blog because there are so many things I missed, which means I miss even more stuff and then I want to blog even less, it is a vicious cycle and I have decided to break it.  No more feeling obligated to "catch up" on months that I miss because I am too busy DOING all the things that I WANT to blog about.  So from now on I will blog when I feel like blogging and not worry if it's been a day, a month, or a year since my last post. So, with that being said, let me catch you up on a few things that have been happening around here.  (HA HA! I'm so funny!)

After years of planning, the Wells Family had their 1st official family reunion.  And we don't really do anything small so we went to ORLANDO!  We had 8 days of family, fun, and of course Disney World.  Although there were a few snags along the way, (sick kids, lost luggage, those kind of things) it was a ton of fun and hopefully the memories will last forever! Here are just a few pictures (I only took about 800)

Day 1 (Tampa/Drive to Orlando) (Christmas Day)

This is the view from our hotel when we woke up Christmas morning

The boys couldn't resist checking out the beach.

After we got our lost luggage back, we left Tampa and drove to Orlando, a little over an hour drive.

Once all the families arrived we had croissant sandwiches and then sang some Christmas songs together.

Mom and Dad presented all the families with various gifts for the reunion... a really cool hand made bag, water bottles for everyone,  a custom ornament to help us remember, t-shirts, a little puzzle thing to entertain us while we waited in lines, and little journals/autograph books that my mom put together.  I think that is everything but I might have forgotten something.

The back of the journals.  This is also the wordle that is on the back of our T-shirts.

Day 2 (Animal Kingdom and FHE)

Here we are in front of the "Tree of Life"  

We didn't really try to stay together as a big family at the parks so we always thought it was funny when we would just randomly run into each other.  It happened more than you might think.  Here is my brother Nate and his family.

Noah havin' some fun on the drums.  This poor kid was sick the whole week.  He is actually still sick after a week of being home.  He was a trooper even though I'm sure he would've been happy to just stay at the house and relax, but hey, we were on vacation, there was no time to relax... 

We loved seeing all the Animals on the safari and walk through trails.   Billy was in charge of the camera this day so all the picture credits go to him.

Here is a fun video of our trip down the Kali River Rapids Ride

Here we are in front of Expedition Everest, we are a little wet from our trip down the river.

We got to meet Tigger and his friends Eeyore and Pooh.

Brooklyn and I ready to ride the Dinos!

At about 6:00 all the families met back at the houses for Cafe Rio. (I just have to jump in here and give a shout out to my sister Annie who had the job of organizing all the food for the week, she did such a great job that I think she should be in charge of food for every reunion, she might object but I'm sure if we put it to a vote we would have a majority.) Following Cafe Rio we had Family Home Evening.

"We are a Happy Family!"

To Be Continued....