rest day

after all of our excitement, we needed a day to just hang out and have fun in orlando. we started out by visiting the temple.

i wish i could say it was a reverent, special experience, but these kids were wild and out of control. you win some, you lose some. hopefully we chalked up a few points for trying.

after that we went to airheads trampoline gym.

jack, charlie and chris loved loved loved it.

ellie- not so much.

this is what she looked like after 5 minutes:

and those of you that have been blessed with the opportunity to bring children into this world know exactly why i decided to opt out of the painful and torturous feeling that your bladder is going to blow and your insides fall out  fun, and take pictures.

we then went to downtown disney where charlie fell out of his stroller in front of a group of people. two bloody knees and a ton of crying later, he was just fine :)
(no he wasnt strapped in and yes we felt bad... but he had been riding around in that thing for three days without being strapped in and never once tried to jump out of it while we were walking. ok, i'll stop justifying now)

while there we visited the lego store.

the only toy/treat that we paid for on the trip was a small box of legos for each jack and ellie. other than that they paid for their own keepsake at disney and their treats during the parade with money they had saved up.

and found a big dino excavating play area

and visited with buzz

 we ended our last night by visiting bubbalou's bodacious bbq. 

it was lip-smackin' tasty!

all in all it was a great family vacation and we made memories that the kids will be able to look back on for a long, long time!

magic kingdom

magic kingdom was phenomenal!

except for all of the "can i PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get that" whines and the "that's my slushy, not yours!" fights and the humidity and the crowds and everything else that happens when traveling with three little people. 

but it really was a great day and by the time we left during the fireworks show at 10:30, we were utterly pooped!

charlie has a new love for mickey mouse. we immediately bought a mickey toy that he held the entire day and continues to love on. totally worth the $20. 

i was surprised at how much i enjoyed watching ellie meet the princesses. each one spends quite a bit of time with each little girl and talks with her and twirls her and gives hugs. it was very sweet. i hope those gals get paid enough...

pineapple dole whip ice cream while jack and daddy rode the big coasters. yum!

we waited in line at Pirates of the Caribbean for what felt like an eternity. then right as we were getting ready to board, they had to shut down for some technical difficulties. we decided to stay in line and wait. while we did, there was a group of asian tourists in front of us that took quite a liking to our kids and ended up taking pictures of them on their hello kitty covered phones and patting them on the head and laughing while speaking some other language. it was rather interesting.

this picture is excellent-

jack is loving every second of it and the family in front of him is clearly not!

jack screamed like a little girl :)

meeting merida was tons of fun. they had a bunch of stuff for the kids to do while we waited in line. we were the last ones in line before she took a break and she ended up spending a good amount of time with ellie and charlie. she played hide and seek with charlie all around her stage. then she told ellie a funny story about one time when cinderella tried to do her hair and the brush broke and got tangled up and lost in her hair. it was pretty cute.

TEA CUPS!

we loved the tea cups and rode them a few times

ellie and i rode front row on a little kid roller coaster. it was probably the funniest minute of the trip...

this video was so awesome that we took a couple still shots from it and 

they. are. priceless.

if only she would open her mouth that wide when we are trying to floss.

charlie enjoyed his first coaster ride too!

the weather at animal kingdom was perfect. it was overcast and even though it rained in the afternoon, it stayed relatively cool. but magic kingdom was a scorcher! so grateful for the splash park

 we told the kids they could each buy a candy at the sweet shop while we waited for the electric parade and they could hardly stand waiting all day long for that candy!

each character waved at charlie and pretended to suck on their fingers just like he was during the parade, which made him smile.

13 1/2 hours at a theme park makes for one long day and a ton of fantastic memories!

i think we have started to realize why there are so many "dis-nerds" out there :) too bad it costs so stinkin' much to visit or else we would go back in a heartbeat... after a long nap of course :)

orlando

we decided we better take a trip this summer before school starts (in a week and half- holy smokes, how did that creep up so fast?!). chris took a break from work last week and we headed up to orlando. we started off our partying with a visit to the orlando science center. it was awesome! very kid-oriented and hands-on. we loved it.

charlie carried this skull around for quite awhile. what a weirdo.

i think our favorite part of the visit was the hurricane simulator. unfortunately blogger isnt letting me post any videos, but we caught a few funny clips of these guys getting blown around.

on tuesday we made our way to disney world's Animal Kingdom!

it was so awesome.... and packed!!!

 we kicked off the morning with a safari ride and saw a ton of animals. and if there is one thing that all three brower kids like (not to touch... but look at) it's animals!

this silver back gorilla was pretty darn close and stared everyone in the eyes. a little creepy. after staring down each person he turned around to walk away and little charlie burst out laughing and yelled "fuzzy BUM!"

speaking of charlie, how cute is he?!

we did get rained on, but luckily it didnt last too long. charlie wasnt so sure about the poncho, but we kept on truckin' despite the rain.

jack and ellie had never been on a roller coaster before, but chris and i thought they might as well go big or go home. so they rode expedition everest and this picture says it all:

jack was in love, ellie was scared beyond all reason, and chris was, well, chris.

(and no, that is not me in the polka dot shirt!)

these kids were troopers. they walked the whole time and hardly ever fought over the stroller. even the following day when we were at magic kingdom. charlie even walked for most of it because he has to be like the big kids.

even the tram is fun at disney world!

jack and i rode on everest again and even managed to snag the front seats... he's a roller coaster junkie now. im not sure where he gets it... :)

the kids were a little disappointed that animal kingdom didnt have more rides, even though i tried to tell them that before we went, but all in all, our first day at disney world was a great success!