Such an exciting adventure....

More time has passed since my last post than I would like.  This is going to require me to mentally travel back and do my best to recall all the exciting adventures we've been on.

Let me begin by announcing that we've found two different vacation homes to rent that will get us through the end of the year.  The first we will be moving into this Sunday afternoon and will be moving out August 28th.  Here is a link:

House #1 available 8/14 - 8/28 (14 nights):
http://www.vacationhomebid.com/HomeDetail.asp?HouseID=708

The second we will move into on August 28 and stay until we come home sometime in December.  Here is the link for this one:

House #2 available 8/28 - 12/31 (About 4 months).
http://www.vacationhomebid.com/HomeDetail.asp?HouseID=843

You will notice both of these homes allow for family and friends to come and relax with us.  (hint, hint)  I have also been able to open a PO Box and forward our mail, so slowly but surely we are getting everything in line.

Our next really spectacular news is that we splurged and got our Premium Passport Passes to Disney!  This means we have access to all of the following parks:

In California:
 Disneyland Park
 Disney California Adventure Park
In Florida:
 Magic Kingdom theme park
 Epcot theme park
 Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park
 Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park
 Disney's Blizzard Beach water park
 Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park
 DisneyQuest Indoor Interactive Theme Park
 ESPN Wide World of Sports® Complex
 Disney's Oak Trail Golf Course

The girls and I took one of the hotel shuttle buses over to The Magic Kingdom on Friday to purchase our passes and I'm really glad that we did because it took a good two hours once we arrived, took the monorail over, waited in line at Guest Relations and finally got them.  Of course, while we were there we had to go in and go on at least one ride.  We agreed on seeing the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor show and then ride Pirates of the Caribbean. (Disneyland Pirates is a better ride).  Then it was off to the Transportation Center so that we could catch the shuttle bus back to the hotel.

 

On Saturday, it was off to Blizzard Beach with Daddy!  This is a super fun water park.  We only explored about half the park, but two of the girls went down the second biggest water slide there - Slush Gusher.  I was so proud of them.

We enjoyed slowly floating around their lazy river.

 

We even had a quick meeting with Goofy, himself that thrilled Sarah.

The characters are always willing to pose for a quick picture, and really how can they resist these bathing beauties?

Sarah attempted to cross an "icy" path to get to the water slide on the other side.












 




Possibly even more exciting than the water park was Isabelle losing her first tooth!  It easily popped out Saturday night and she immediately began calling all the grandparents to tell them the big news. 

Sunday, after getting ready for church, we headed down to the lobby for breakfast.  We were greeted by the hotel's friendly clown.  He entertained the girls with magic tricks and balloon animals while they ate their breakfasts.  He even gave Isabelle an invisible magic coin that she keeps in her nightstand drawer here at the hotel.  I hope I don't forget to pack it when we go seeing as how it's INVISIBLE!

So that wraps up the weekend, but because everyday we do something new and different, I'm going to bring you right to the present.

Because Mike has a coworker staying here at the hotel that he can carpool with the first few days of this week, I was able to use the car!  So we spent Monday running around and getting a bunch of errands done.  We opened a PO Box, bought some new swimming suits, grocery shopped, and ran into the bank all while a nice thunder storm brought bucket loads of rain down on us.  It was actually really great to get out and around.




 

Can you guess where we went on Tuesday?  Yep, Epcot.  We barely even dented this park.  I didn't really know much about Epcot before we went, and I can say I still know very little, but one thing I did learn was that this park is enormous.  It has many "educational" areas, but since it's summer we were diligent in avoiding those places.  We headed straight for the best rides in the park: Test Track, Soarin' (over California), Nemo and Spaceship Earth (which can almost be counted as educational, but how can one visit Epcot and not go into the giant golf ball icon?) 

This is the Saving Nemo ride and a jellyfish that Isabelle got a shot of while waiting to go to Turtle Talk with Crush.  "Dude"

The girls measuring up to a crash test dummy at Test Track.  This ride was a big hit and we were fortunate in that the weather cleared up just long enough for us to take advantage of our fast passes and sail past the 70 minute wait!

That brings you up to speed.  Below are some random photos that I wanted to post, but didn't want to bore you with every detail in their capture. 

Who can help but nab a picture of a four year old walking to dinner holding her Daddy's hand on one side and her Princess Poohy's hand on the other.  Too sweet.

Every Wednesday in the lobby of our hotel is Happy Hour.  Here the girls are enjoying popcorn, Sprite and some live music by the hotel clown.

This is a shot out of our hotel window.  When we got home from Epcot on Tuesday, the rest of the afternoon was spent watching the rain come and go.  This shows a waterfall and puddle at the bottom due to the great amount of rain that comes down in such a short time.

While eating out this week, the girls got yet another round of balloon animals and the fruit of the week was watermelon. 

We will leave you here because we are having a relaxing day just laying around watching movies in bed.  Our summer is almost over so we must take advantage of it as much as possible.  We miss you all and can't wait to talk to you soon.