After an early breakfast, we set out for the beach which is only a couple of blocks from the beach house. 

Click HERE or on any of the pictures to launch a slide show.

Here’s a shot of Nathan running down the beach. I had to look twice when I opened this picture up on the computer.  Is it just me or does Nathan suddenly seem much taller?

And a shot of Ian….well I’m not sure what he’s doing, but that’s the beauty of the beach.  Just mindless fun in the sun, although you’d think he’d be board of the sun with as much as we get in Seattle. 

And finally, here’s one of Cole and Grandpa enjoying the surf.  I think in this picture Cole is educating Grandpa on the finer points of beach preservation.

 After lunch, we packed it in and headed over to Steve’s house for Stevie’s graduation party.  I think the highlight was the batting cage that they set up in their backyard.  I was never much of a ball player in school.  I think the fastest ball I hit was only going 50 some mph. 

After breakfast at Ohana’s, we set out to drive the 6 1/2 hours from Orlando to Destin, home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.  Erin’s entire family was converging on Destin where Mom and Dad were visiting Erin’s brother Steve and his family. 

The plan was to show up at Steve’s beach house at 6PM while mom and dad were at the restaurant.  They planned to have dessert back at the beach house with Matt, Sarah, Steve, Cindy and the kids.  She didn’t know that Bekah, Phil, Erin, me and our respective families have flown/drove in to be with her on her birthday. 

Everything went off without a hitch and kicked off what would be another fantastic week in paradise!

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Our gracious hosts Steve and Cindy. 

What an amazing trip to Disney!  BTW, a big part of the reason we had such a great time at Disney is because of all of the great work that our travel agent, Joann McGarvey with MouseEarVacation.com, did behind the scenes.  Erin and I didn’t have the faintest idea where to start when planning our vacation and Joann took care of just about everything for us, including getting our rental car set up so that it was a breeze leaving the hotel for our six hour car ride to Destin.  If you are going to Disney, you should contact her.

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Joann had scheduled breakfast with Lilo, Stitch and friends at Ohana’s for our last morning which worked out great.  I took a shuttle to pick up the rental car just before breakfast while Erin finished packing.

Over breakfast, we told the kids about our next adventure, to visit their cousins in Destin and to surprise grandma on her 65th birthday.  This is definitely the way to go.  Since the kids didn’t know that they were going to see their cousins while they were in Disney, the nagging was reduced to almost zero.  I’m sold on making all future vacations surprises.  It takes so much stress out of the equation.

After breakfast we took some last pictures to remember our trip before departing to Destin for mom’s surprise party. As you can see, Cole was finished cooperating

We spent the last day back at Magic Kingdom.  It gave us the chance to go back to some of the kids favorite rides and hit the ones that we weren’t able to see on our first day. 

Here’s a shot of us in front of the castle because you can’t have too many of those

Click here or on any of the pictures to launch a slide show!

 Erin and I would often have to take turns watching Cole while the others went on some of the bigger rides, but it gave both of us ample opportunities to photograph Cole.  I especially like this one…

We capped off the day with a Thanksgiving feast served family style at the Liberty Tree Tavern where the kids were again treated to a number of Disney characters at the table. 

Ian was especially happy because he wanted to see Chip and Dale again and had been talking about it all week.

We had breakfast reservations at 8:15 at the Animal Kingdom which meant getting up by 6AM so that we could catch a bus by just after 7AM.  We arrived to an empty park, but they let people with reservations in early. 

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After breakfast we to checked out the African Safari which was great except for the fact I wanted to get some shots and the driver doesn’t like to stop, so you are constantly being jostled about, so the pics aren’t that great and there aren’t a huge number of them :-( 

Nathan and Ian loved the Himalayan roller coaster.  As you walk through the line there are a bunch of exhibits on the Yedi which is the Himalayan equivelant of our big foot. 

The tree of life was also pretty neat.  It’s not real, but they created a sculpture that looks like a tree with hundreds of animals carved into it.

The Animal Kingdom isn’t that big of a park and add in high temps and humidity and we were ready to head back to the hotel for a swim just after lunch.   

We took advantage of the extended hours at Epcot to arrive early before the Park officially opened at 9AM.  It was so convenient to be able to simply walk upstairs in the hotel and jump onto the monorail to travel to Epcot. 

Despite all of the rides and attractions, I think the highlight for the kids was various fountains that they found to cool themselves off in.  Click any of the pictures to see a slideshow of all of the pictures we took at Epcot.

Erin and I enjoyed Epcot the most.  They have an International walk that wraps around a lake and gives you the chance to sample the foods and cultures of countries around the world.  Erin especially loved the fact that Epcot is saturated with flowers and gardens, so she was able to snap lot’s of pictures to use for future inspiration in our backyard.

Look for more commentary on our day in the slideshow and watch for our next post that covers Day 4 at the Animal Kingdom.

Well I’m still having issues with my blog, so I’ve included a link to the post I wrote covering Day 2 at MGM studios.

Day 2 at MGM Studios

This morning at 1:00 AM, we walked in the door from a two week Florida vacation that included Disney World + a visit to the ZImmermann clan in Destin. I posted pictures and a longer post here, but have had issues posting the same entry to this blog and I’m too tired to try and fix it tonight, so you’ll have to click the link above to find out about our trip (the first day anyway).

If you want to skip the commentary and go right to the slideshow, click here.

Nathan’s 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Smith, came to watch his game today and she brought along her new golden retriever puppy. 

How cool is that?  It kind of speaks to the type of teacher she is.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much benefit Nathan has received from having Mrs. Smith as a teacher. 

Erin was in charge of the camera this weekend, so I decided to post a rare picture of myself that she took.  These will be far and few between; I prefer to be behind the camera

And we had a little scare with Ian this week (although you’d never know it from this picture).  He had a little tussle with Nathan and he abraded his cornea :-(  He woke us up Wednesday night crying and the optometrist told us the next day that it was lucky that we brought him in because it was a pretty bad abrasion and it could have been infected.  He’s doing better this weekend and is letting mommy put the drops in his eyes. 

In just two weeks, Nathan and his team have improved leaps and bounds.  The overall game time was cut down by 45 minutes today and on several occasions, the inning changed because they forced three outs vs giving up 5 runs (the rule for this age group). 

Nathan earned a couple of hits today and had the chance to play 1st base for an inning. 

And as the title suggests, today is sunny and warm!  Tonight Erin and I are going out with friends and going to enjoy some adult company and a winery or two in Woodinville.  Gotta love Springtime!