Five Years Ago and Today

I like doing side by side comparison shots of the kids every once in awhile so I put some together yesterday from 2016 and today!

 

Tournament and 1/2 Birthday!

While recital week was happening, Owen was keeping super busy too! He had a soccer tournament and since he's rostered for JV and Varsity that means he was in attendance for 10 or 11 games over three days! He played pretty much every minute for the JV games and then even got to go in a little bit for a couple of the Varsity games. It was an exhausting weekend. His 1/2 birthday was Saturday and normally we'd start the day with some sprinkle pancakes but we didn't manage to fit it in until 10 pm that night!

 

Recital

Ok, now that the studio has had their yearly recital, we can officially retire all of these costumes and dances! Recital weekend is always a whirlwind but this year was a little less so. Paige attended two rehearsals and was in 3 recitals. She consistently said Move It was her favorite dance this year and I loved that one too! She had so many I liked though! Now we get a little break from the stress and quick changes of competitions and recitals that we complain about but secretly love:) 

Paige and Miley both have braces now!

Paige, Mikayla and Maya

Some of the Pop Drop and Roll group

Paige, Maeve and Olivia

Recreating a picture from their first competition of the year. You can find it in this post.

I got in a picture!

Owen and Pat with our favorite dancer

The whole fan club!

 

Blueberries

We fit in some blueberry picking right at the end of the season! By the time we went, the bushes seemed pretty picked over but we still managed to bring home plenty. Now we just have to decide what to make with them!

 

Vacation Day 6 and 7 and Going Home

We had one more day of Disney to do and it was just the four of us at Hollywood Studios! I wasn't as excited for this park as I was for the others but it turned out to be great! I thought I wouldn't like it as much because I don't know much about Star Wars but as usual, Disney does such a good job of immersing you into the fantasy that it doesn't matter! We were so excited to get on the Rise of the Resistance because you only had two chances to get tickets for it and we missed the morning opportunity! We got the tickets while we were in line at Tower of Terror, the scariest ride we went on! 

Our last full day was spent visiting with family and doing a lot of swimming. I think the kids fit in swimming every day but one, even if it was just for an hour after spending the day at a park. We had an incredible time!

 

Vacation Day 5

Our second Disney day in a row and we got to meet up with friends at Epcot! We were so excited to have our vacation overlap with some good friends and made plans to do a Disney day with them since they go every day they're there. We'd never done Epcot with Owen and Paige before and I hadn't been there since 9th grade so it was fun to see all the changes, I barely remembered it! We had a rainy hour or two during the day but then it cooled off and we were able to enjoy the rest of the day. We rode all the rides we had on our list and ate dinner at a hibachi restaurant called Teppen Edo that everyone agreed was delicious.

Playing after the Figment ride

The squares corresponded with different instruments that would make sound when you stepped on them

Doughnut break!

The girls at the restaurant

The boys

Kids table

Adult table

Ice cream break

All of the kids

Good night Epcot!

 

Vacation Day 4

Day 4 was our first Disney day! We spent the day at Animal Kingdom with Pat's family. It opened at 8 so we left pretty early and arrived around 7:30 to find out that they were already letting people inside. We headed straight to Pandora's Flight of Passage to make sure we fit in our favorite ride first! All of the parks had shorter hours than they would be operating at in a normal year. I think Animal Kingdom closed around 7 so we rode rides and walked around and then ended with a quick meal at the Nomad Lounge. By then we were all exhausted and a little crabby but eating good food lifted our spirits! 

Pictures in no particular order-

Selfie

Pat and I 

Family picture

In front of the giant Animal Kingdom tree

On the safari ride

Everybody!

Yummy ice cream treats. Orange Dole whip/vanilla swirl

Nomad Lounge

Owen on the safari ride

Paige and I with our Minnie ears

 

Vacation Day 3

Day three was spent mostly at Cocoa Beach. We drove about 1.5 hours to get there which wasn't too bad. I'm not a big beach person so I'll keep my opinion out of it but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves! Next time I think we'd rent an umbrella because the sand was so hot but if you stayed in the water it didn't matter. Pat ended up getting really sunburned too! 

When we got back to the hotel guess what the kids wanted to do! We hopped right back into the pool to swim in the lazy river and it was super refreshing after being at the beach with the sand and salt! Then we finished out the night with trying some treats from Gideon's cookies that Pat's mom had picked up for us at Disney Springs!