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....

From Memorial day to Labor Day (part 1)

I can't believe the kids are back in school already!  We had a lot of fun this summer as usual.  This is the first summer in a LONG time that Billy hasn't been working 2 jobs.  Because he works a night shift at the hospital, he works 7 straight days and then gets 7 off.  It was really nice to spend that time as a family.  He did spend 2 of those weeks at Scout Camp and our stake Trek but he loves spending time with the youth of our church and I know he LOVED both of those weeks so even though I missed him, I was happy he got to go.  Let's get to the pictures shall we....  

JUNE

One of the moms in Brooklyn's playgroup put together a little graduation for the girls, it was really cute!

Lucy's Ballet Performance, she really loves to dance and get on stage, and I love to watch her!

Lucy in her Hip Hop number, (that's her doing the fancy move, she was so proud to do this cool move that no one else got to do.)  

The first chance we got after the kids got out of school we went camping, this is at Rainbow Falls.  There wasn't much to the Falls, but it was still a ton of fun.

I thought this old phone booth was pretty funny out in the middle of the woods.

Frisbee Golf in the dark, not sure I recommend it unless you have a light up frisbee, fortunately we do!

We really like this game called Konexi, you have to stack the letters and make words. 

JULY

July brought a little bit of sun so we lathered up the tarp and made a slip and slide.

For Lucy's 10th birthday all she wanted was to go to Moses Lake so we gave her her wish.  She went fishing, rode her bike, rode the Jet Ski, swam in the pool and had ice cream cake.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!  I can't believe you're 10!

The new Moses Lake Frisbee Golf Team.  There is a bridge that leads from the campground to the state park where they have a real frisbee golf course.  Billy took all these kids over to play a round.  Luckily he had one other adult with him because the little ones lasted like 5 minutes.

The following weekend, my nephew Max flew up from Texas, by himself, to spend some time with his Washington relatives.  I got to pick him up from the airport and then we headed back to Moses Lake for a quick trip.  Max was really fun to have around and he was determined to try wakeboarding.

After Moses Lake we headed over to Bremerton to hang our with my parents and my visiting Grandma, she is 93 and still going strong, she loves to play cards and will beat you at anything from poker to pinochle.

Grandma Joyce and a few of her Great-Grandkids

More frisbee? (I'm sensing a theme here)

Lucy modeling the sweater my mom knit her for her birthday.

Noah and Lucy also played baseball this summer.  They both enjoyed and said they want to play again.

Billy was the coach for both teams and luckily his good friend Jesse was there to help because most of their games were at the same time.  So Billy mostly covered Noah's team and Jesse mostly covered Lucy's team.

Look at that determination, he was pretty good at hitting the ball.

This was the first year of Fastpitch for Lucy.  Her hitting really improved over the season.

And she even did quite a bit of pitching.