This is a hit and run post.
Pictures from a recent quick trip to the beach.
Spent more time relaxing in these 52 hours than an entire week in Disney. Hoping to try to make it back another long weekend before summer is over.
And just to keep it real……
Someone turned 16.
16.
say it outloud.
16.
Wow.
As requested, I made a purple cake with a tiara on it.
3 sparklers on it as well.
Not such a great idea in hindsight. What a mess.
Certainly – a far cry from where I was 16 years ago.
You made me a mom. You have taught me everything I know about being a mom, and few extra things. You took a piece of my heart and carry it with you everywhere you go.
16 things about you -
1. You have taught me to be more than a mom. You taught me more about myself than I ever realized I didn’t know.
2. You love CSI, Bones, and NCIS. Pretty anything to do with dead bodies and police investigation.
3. I believe your cell phone is permanently attached to your hand.
4. You are so much the person I imagined you would be, and yet so different than I ever imagined you would be. The combination is incredible.
5. You have the hugest heart, and want to solve the world’s problems, and you take it personally when you can’t.
6. Kids love you, and you are awesome with them.
7. You are the pickiest eater. There are three food groups – macaroni and cheese, perogies, and chicken fingers. Occasionally, a turkey sandwich on toast. You beg to DQ for their chicken fingers with the gravy. You love to make chocolate cake and yoru present career of choice is pastry chef.
8. You know all the dialogue to Spaceballs.
9. You often seriously under-estimate yourself time and time again.
10. After all these years, you have finally owned your hair. And it shows off the gorgeous you.
11. You have over come so many obstacles, and have grown into such a strong young woman. I pray you will never let anything hold you down.
12. You have challenged me time and time again to find alternate ways, new paths, and learn that sometimes plans go awry and it is ok.
13. By fighting for what you need, you have taught ME to be stronger too.
14. You get along with your brother – whether you want to admit it or not!
15. You are so kind, and often put everyone else’s needs ahead of your own. This sometimes can be one of the most frustrating things for me.
16. You make me love you more and more every day. I can’t wait, well I can, I don’t want to rush it, but I can’t wait to see what the milestone holds.
I love you.
Happy Birthday Sweet Girl.
There have been quite a few things in the last six months that have tested my faith.
Gee, you thought life was all Disney and roses around here didn’t you?
Well for the most part it is.
And I do not have any right to whine or complain about a single solitary thing. My life is blessed. But with those blessings comes the tests. The last few have been considerably hard to take. Really making me sit back and wonder what the plan is in all of this. Then I saw this quote this morning.
And I saw these lovelies coming up in the garden – courtesy of the birds.
And once again – I am reminded that life, first of all , can be full of sweet little surprises is you keep yours eyes open for them. I nearly pulled these all out a few weeks ago thinking they were weeds.
And, two, life really is just a matter of perspective. I believe I have titled a few other blog posts, here, and here, oh yeah and this one with the same theme. So, even I need the reminder again and again.
Sunflowers, can not think, are not capable of decision making, and yet, they instinctively turn their faces toward the sun. Again, as is usually the case, something in nature reminds me to pause, and causes me some reflection.
Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. ~~ Proverb, Maori
We are capable of willful decision making. Yet, often times is the case, we CHOOSE to turn away from the sun. We allow the negative thought to guide our actions, when we need to be more like the sunflower, and perhaps CHOOSE to turn our faces to the sun instead of away from it.
I can not wait to see these lovelies start to open.
A bend in the road is not the end of the road... unless you fail to make the turn. ~Author Unknown
I like to think I wholly believe that God has a plan for my life and everyone I love, but there are times I wonder if I believe that as much as I say. The doubt creeps in, after weeks like these past few. But all it takes, is a moment of honest reflection to be reminded that it is all a matter of my own perspective. The bends in the road are going to be there. How I chose to approach them is entirely up to me.
If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.
~Robert Fulghum
God’s plan is all too often, vastly differing from my own plans.
I have been accused before of being a bit too much of a pollyanna – always looking for the positive in things. In fact, just the other day, the four of us were discussing something, and everyone else was pointing out this fault or that fault with the situation, and I just offered a differing angle on the situation. K says to me, Mom, do you always have something nice to say about everything?
Well – honestly, no. But, I guess years and years of facing their difficulties in school, and finding positive things to encourage them. And, situation after situation in my life, requiring a more “positive spin” on things, or I could sink into a deep despair, I guess I like to think I have trained myself to “look on the bright side” shall we say.
Plus – honestly – other than making us feel miserable, what purpose does wallowing serve? Has anything ever been accomplished with pessimism? where would all be if the great leaders of history simply threw their hands in the air, and gave up, simply because maybe things didn’t go their way the first time?
So, if Pollyanna fits. So be it. But I choose to turn my face to the sun.
Last two posts…..
Character pictures, other than the obvious characters that are my husband and children.
This guy was one of the actors that milled around Hollywood Studios….he was a Barney Fife type “cop” who “patroled” the main street. K loved him. After he posed with us, he exclaimed, “I got my picture took!” to everyone around.
Part of the StarWars weekend at Hollywood Studios….I had to ask the kids what this was again – Ewok. There ya go!
The kids were very choosy about who they would and would not stand in line in the heat to see. Mostly they were happy to say, “oh look it’s, so and so” and be done…but when they saw these two you would have thought Harrison Ford himself walked on the scene. I will admit, loved this movie.
More StarWars, Princess whoever I don’t remember…lol….
And Jawa – which again, I had to ask the kids….
Storm Trooper C
Couldn’t miss Chip and Dale!
Then there was Mickey’s Breakfast…in my opinion the ONLY way to meet the characters!
How quickly can we all turn into excited three year olds when we see those ears coming!
This being only our second trip to Disney, we can’t really say we are “seasoned” Disney travelers. We only really know the different levels of hotels and what each one was. Last time we went, we took the least expensive option since we were carting along two young kids that really couldn’t have cared less about the hotel room and we knew we would spend little time there. We had a great time, the room and hotel was fun and quirky and quite comfortable.
This time around, we had decided to go middle of the road, but at the last minute, J made an “executive decision” to upgrade, since with our job changes we had a bit of extra money in the bank , if you ask me we should have left it there, but I digress….he tried to surprise me, but I got the mail and realized our itinerary was wrong. So for weeks ahead, I rode him, and whined that we were spending too much money, and that we didn’t need to spend the extra money, etc etc etc…I am sure he could use a few other words to describe what I was doing….His reasoning being , it is most likely the last time we would be going to Disney with the kids, and other than a full condo that we couldn’t afford, this was one of the only resorts that offered seperate beds for the kids, and besides he felt we all deserved it.
**Disclaimer – this is only a fraction of our pictures, you want to see more, I am sure I can show you more, but the pictures also do not do the resort justice, it is something that truly needs to be experiences rather than described. I highly recommend if it is in your budget, to stay here**
Let’s just say, I shut up quick when we got there…..
This was on our bed when we arrived.
I can not say enough about the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The Lure of the animals aside, the vibe of the resort is upbeat and ethnic, and fun, yet at the same time, serene – unless you know where to look you barely notice the check in desk. I also love how Disney does attempt to staff their resorts with persons hailing from the geographical area the resort is supposed to emulate.
And even though everyone warned us that we may not see any animals, and oh they would only be out in the early morning, and oh it is so hot in the middle of the day – I think it was a good omen that these beauties greeted us day one, and every day we were there, and believe it or not usually in the middle of the day.
This guy, and yes he was a guy, even decided to camp out two nights right in front of our room. Pretty darn cool to watch a giraffe go through the motions of laying down.
This is a really neat fire place inside the hotel. I loved the pattern of the iron work…..
This was an outdoor fireplace that C insisted I take a picture of, I do not imagine it gets much use in the summer, but it has a “No smoking” sign hanging on the rail. That cracked C up.
There is a large “island” type walk out into the “savannah”, that also houses a large group of birds, pelicans included. Very different from the pelicans we see at the shore. There was also a large section of flamingos.
All of these bamboos fences look out on the birds or savannah…..this is our wild animal.
C took this, it took many many tries! :)
This is the exit to this island. On either side covered with metal work are the stairwells.
This is the view from the back of the resort, where this island is, through the lobby toward the front door, from the lower level…
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This is the view from the upper level. The level our room was located.
The view from our room…..that is our rail…to the left you can just see the end of that “island” I was just referring to.
This is also a view of that island. All over the fencing there as well are educational information on the animals you were seeing. I of course don’t really remember the names, and I kept the card from our room but am presently way to lazy to go look to tell you!
This is the view from the upper level looking down on the pool.
These interesting creatures are cattle…..the really sad thing is that the one on the bottom picture, had a permanent head tilt. Like one horn was larger than the other or something. He ate normally, walked around all day, didn’t seem to bother him. You can not remove these horns as their blood flows through them to cool their body temp, so I guess the poor guy was doomed to a life of walking with a head tilt.
Then there were zebras…..
And antelope of many types…..
So I suppose I had to eat crow and admit that it turn out to be a pretty interesting resort and made our stay even better.
And I think we have now covered all the “major” points of our trip – all that is left are my fav shots and character photos! Saved those for last.
