Festival of Legends!

Jennifer, Zach and I headed out to Chapel Hill this afternoon to meet up with Lisa, Liam and Lucas at the Festival of Legends.  It was basically a Renaissance Fair and people were dressed in all sorts of crazy looking costumes!  There were fairies, knights, elves, princesses and general weirdness ... Zach was a little scared at first but we ended up having a really fun afternoon!  The kiddos got to joust, try out a bow and arrow, meet a dragon, get their faces painted, watch fairies put on a performance, and catch a sword fight.  Lisa and I got to try mead and had a blast people watching! 

Jennifer and Liam checking out the crazy puppets!

Fairy face paint!

Some sword fighting action - one of the things Zach actually liked!

The kiddos had fun with the hoola hoops that were laying around everywhere and we caught part of the show where that guy in the background balanced himself on a one-sided ladder while juggling ... when he pulled out a chainsaw to balance on his forehead while balancing on the ladder we decided it was time to move on!

A dragon serving ice cream!  Zach had "dragon tongue" and Jen had "dragon eggs"

Checking herself out after this super nice fairy gave Jen "fairy hair" ... you can't see it in the picture but Jennifer now has sparkly pink strands of "fairy hair"

Asking the dragon all sorts of questions ... like "where do dragon eggs come from?"

A fairy and a dragon!

Taking a break in the shade

Zach was a little weirded out by all of the weirdness ... me too!

Spring Break Day 1: Marbles Kids Museum

Jennifer's preschool is on Spring Break so she, Zachary and I are on a mission to do something fun every day this week!  Today was Jen's choice and she chose to head over to Marbles for the a afternoon ... We spent three fun filled hours and had a great time!!  Wonder where we'll find ourselves tomorrow?!

Checking out the garden ... the weather was so nice I hated to be indoors all day, but we did get to spend a decent amount of time in the sunshine walking on the little path through the garden

Zach drove the ambulance while Jennifer played with the paramedic equipment

Grocery shopping!  He's a pro at this one ;)

Taking a boat ride ... Zach was sure to put on his life jacket!

Cruisin'

Lemonade stand!

Zach giving the doggies their baths ... he just had to have on those giant gloves!

Jennifer played in the pet shop and took care of all the different animals!

She loved this pizza delivery bike!

And Zach loved playing with real tools ... something we discovered today is that even the saw is real!

Working on her dead lifts for crossfit ;)

Cooking away!

Fun times in the water!

February & March re-cap

I've gotten way behind on updating the blog so I put together a re-cap of February and March ....

Snow!  And cold!  And the longest winter ever!

All the stuffed animals that this kid needs to fall asleep reminds me of my little (not so little anymore) brother

Pretending to take a nap together*

Zach taking his turn on the obstacle course during his soccer lessons

They've decided that the prefer pushing their own carts rather than riding in the race car carts ... the verdict is still out on which is worse for me.

Celebrating Angela's birthday with Uncle Jeffrey at Texas Roadhouse

Cupcake hair for Wacky Wednesday at school

He loves riding his bike and likes to wear a helmet like the big kids!

Hair cut and clip-on earrings ... this girl is 5 going on 14

Disney World! Day Three ... Epcot

We ventured over to Epcot for our third and final day at the Disney World parks.  We had 10:30am reservations at the Akershus Princess Storybook Breakfast located in the Norway pavilion.  Epcot was really cool to visit and there was a lot that we didn't have time for - I'm not sure if every Disney park is gigantic or if we just couldn't make it to everything because of a certain crazy two year old.  The Akershus Princess Storybook Breakfast was wonderful - the setting was made to look like a stone cottage and the decor inside was very medieval castle, in a "princess" sort of way.  Right as we walked in, Princess Belle was waiting to greet us and take pictures ... Jennifer was so excited and Scott didn't hesitate to jump in for a pic with the princess either.  Zach, again, couldn't have cared less and didn't really want anything to do with Belle.  After the photos and hugs, we were seated and not long after we visited the buffet the princesses began making rounds and visiting every table ... It was so great they way the take time to visit and personally chat with all the kids at the table, and they're always ready to pose for pictures.  Jennifer got to meet Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel and Snow White over the course of our breakfast.  As breakfast is coming to an end, the princesses invite all the kids to join them in a parade around the "castle" (restaurant) ... Cinderella happened to be near our table when they made the announcement so she took Jennifer's hand for the parade and Jennifer got to walk with her!  It was really well done, and the food was great.
Zach fell asleep not long after breakfast so we opted to stay at the park and just carry him around rather than head back to the room for a nap time break.  Jennifer got to meet Mulan in China, got her face painted in Africa, had gelato in Italy, and tried a cool peach soda in Japan.  We got about half way around and then decided to take the ferry boat back to the front of the park to ride some of the rides.  We rode The Seas with Nemo and Friends and did Turtle Talk with Crush.  Both were great!  There are a lot of exploration/play areas for kids, I felt like we could have easily done two days at Epoct as well because of all of the hands on areas for the kiddos.  After a couple rides we decided to jet through Canada over to the UK and had dinner at an English pub.  It was wonderful!  Then we went back to ride Soarin' and it was probably one of the best rides ... Jennifer got to go twice and really loved it!  Whenever anyone asks what her favorite ride was she always answers with "Soarin!"  Phil, Scott and I got to see CaptainEO, which was just as amazing as I remember from when I was six!
We all had a really great time visiting Epcot and we were sad to see our vacation come to an end!  We did have one last character breakfast scheduled at our resort before heading back to NC, which was nice to get to look forward to something on the day that we had to check out.

Dancing at Epcot!

Meeting Sleeping Beauty at Akershus

Meeting Ariel at Akershus

Cinderella!

Cinderella and Jennifer leading the parade

Jennifer with a kitty face and Zach being crazy

Waiting for Turtle Talk with Crush

Back at the room relaxing

Jennifer and Stitch!

They were so exhausted every night!

Mulan!

Family photo op

In the shark's mouth after the Seas with Nemo and Friends

Disney World! Day Two ... More Magic Kingdom*

Our second day at Disney World was spent at the Magic Kingdom again ... there was so much to do and see, we were really glad that we planned two days to do everything!  We got there early again and were able to basically walk onto some of the really popular rides like Pirates of the Caribbean and the new Undersea Journey of the Little Mermaid!  Zachary wasn't a big fan of the rides but he tolerated them well ... His favorites were the Magic Carpets of Aladdin and the Astro Orbiter ... and, of course, the carousel!  Jennifer's favorite was Stitch's Great Escape, but she really didn't ride anything that she didn't enjoy ... except for the Jungle Cruise!  It was another long but super fun day!

Jennifer and me in the new part of Fantasyland - this was in front of Gaston's Tavern from Beauty and the Beast

Jennifer with Cinderella's evil step-mother!

Phil and Zach and Scott and Jennifer driving race cars!

We really enjoyed staying at The Polynesian resort - hopefully we can stay there again next trip!

Zachary and Phil checking out an afternoon parade from Main Street

This picture is actually from our first day, after going on the Jungle Cruise ... I remembered liking the Jungle Cruise when I was little, but it scared Jennifer!  She couldn't stop talking about the guy wanting to trade one of our heads for three shrunken heads ... she really did not like that!

Zach had been waiting and waiting to take a ride on the train ... we finally made it!

At the entrance to the Swiss Family Robinson TreeHouse ... Jen loved being our tour guide!

Our final ride on the Magic Carpets of Aladdin

The Incredible's Dance Party was soooo fun!