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Quick Trip to the Land of Magic Kingdom

December 18, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Last Wednesday, Brian had meetings in Orlando and St. Augustine. I was supposed to go down with him alone and do the two nights…you know a little get-away. Right at the last minute, I did the classic mom thing and said….”Let’s take two kids!”

I had already spent Sunday and Monday in North Carolina at the Biltmore, and I was just feeling like one day alone was all I could take….I have to be surrounded by children! Crazy I know! But when he is working and I am alone…I much rather have the kids with me. Odd since I haven’t had a day off in ages.

I can’t resist Magic Kingdom during low season even if it is for one day! And Elizabeth will still be 100 years old and love her Pooh Bear!

Brian scooted off to work and joined us in between meetings in Orlando and St. Augustine. We hit the new Fantasyland rides and walked on to many of the rides with a 10 minute or less wait.

The crazy thing about Florida last week is although the weather boasted a 74 degrees on paper, in reality it was 57 degrees and we were sorely unprepared. It wasn’t really snowing there, Disney just flies fake snow for the Christmas celebration.

We even had to go back to our hotel to gather the sweatshirts and pants for the kids.

We enjoyed watching Cinderella’s castle light up in a million lights.

Let me tell you what, going to Disney parks for one day is financially bad deal. Unless you go for more than three days you are simply breaking the bank. Disney is only a value when you have bought multiple day tickets. If not you are full price and there is no getting out of it!

I try not to think about it in financial terms and focus just on the magic of the park. We only have a couple of years left and then the magic, well….just won’t be as magical.

Also, I wonder what our family would be like if we didn’t have two boys and two girls? It is like we have an older family and a younger family.

What a great day with my little peeps in the land of Micky.

Filed Under: Angela, Disney, Elizabeth, Florida, Noah

Life is always Magical

July 3, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

We left the beautiful Casa Monica and headed straight to Orlando. Brian took the day off and we ventured to the land of high price and ridiculous spending- Magic Kingdom.

95 degrees in Florida is only hot when you are at Magic Kingdom surrounded by 10,000 of your closest friends. I wasn’t complaining because I heard my Northern friends were in a pressure cooker hitting temps well above 100 from Virginia up to Yankee territory.

Elizabeth has a been a die hard Winnie The Pooh fan since birth and the fascination hasn’t stopped. She selected Magic Kingdom for the sole purpose of meeting up with him once again.

Both parents agreed that it was clearly worth ninety dollars to book the character lunch with the Pooh characters not just to meet them, but to get some reprieve from the heat in an air conditioned room. Money well spent.

I realized at that point I will be decorating a nursery at my home for her children in Pooh decor. Where most kids were younger at the lunch, Liz was full on mesmerized with the chance to meet her favorite characters for the umpteen time.

I have to admit it was a tad bit odd to be there only just with her. We kept saying “What would life be like with one child?” It was perfect being able to have just one on one time but realized that she quickly missed being surrounded with the usual brood from home who spoil her rotten. Each of the kids have their own unique relationship with her. Her and Noah are simply best friends and I think she missed the friendship that they share being close in age.

We loved spoiling her rotten.

We also found that we weren’t so rushed around the park having to hit every single ride since she wasn’t so concerned about the teen rides so to speak. Plus the heat just zapped everything out of you.

By nine o clock, she was trashed and we found that we were talking her into staying to watch the electrical light parade etc.

All a sudden Brian and I hit a second a wind and we were headed to Peter Pan, she was begging us to leave while 100,000 people watched the fireworks in the park, we quietly floated to the parking lot.

What a perfect day with our youngest daughter. I hope there are many more one on one adventures with her.

I am not sure how Walt did it or continues to do it? But I am a big pushover for anything Disney. I love the magic of Disneyworld on every level.

We listed off all of the experiences we have had at Disney with our children and just marveled about how fast the time has past.

I think these memories will always stay with us. Time is moving so quickly and you simply can’t slow it down. Life is so magical on every level!

Filed Under: Angela, Brian, Disney, Elizabeth, Florida, St. Augustine, Travel

Behold Historic Homes- St. Augustine…Eye Candy

July 2, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

After our walk on the beach in St. Augustine, we experienced my favorite part of the day!

We toured the historic district by car, wish we would have done it by feet, but Elizabeth was drop dead, nearly asleep in the back seat of the vehicle.

Most of the houses here were fantastic, built near cobblestone streets and infused with elements of architecture that you don’t get much of anymore.

The whole 20 minutes reminded me of how much I love architecture and design. Simply one of my favorite college classes at BYU that I ever took.

In that class, we studied all of the prominent types of architecture showcasing different houses from all over America, and I swear, one by one, I have stumbled upon those American houses we studied. Many of them to be found in Salem, MA, Charleston, SC and Newport Rhode Island and I checked off another this weekend.

The first home in America, so they say, was in this Spanish colony. This is the Gonzalze-Alvaraez home. It has been occupied since the 1600′s.

(Photo Source: http://st-augustine-historic-home.com/historic-st-augustine.htm)

This is my new favorite door of all times- definitely adding it to my door collection, that may soon become a new photo book.

I simply fell in love with this house. I wish I would have had my real camera. Whaaaa! But really the iPhone gave it the rustic, weather beaten look that I craved.

Turn the corner and look who the neighbors are- they aren’t living to shabby in this classic home.

But then surprise one street over, you get this spanish influenced home.

The whole 20 minutes was a treat for the eyes and thrilled the soul. I have all the more reason to visit St. Augustine, Florida again and there are plenty more historic homes to photograph and behold. I love keeping my options open.

Filed Under: 20 Year Anniversary Celebrations, Angela, Brian, Florida, St. Augustine, Travel Tagged With: Architecture

St Augustine, Beaches and Feeling Like I was in Spain

June 30, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Part of this week, I could be found walking the historic city of St. Augustine, Florida with my youngest daughter, Elizabeth.

It is funny, but this is the one city that I didn’t know to much about and it is just bustling with European Influence.

All weekend long, I continued to mourn the loss of my camera, but the handy dandy iPhone was there for me.

“St. Augustine was founded in 1565 as a way to protect the investments of Spain in the New World. Spanish Admiral Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles was sent by King Phillip II to explore and colonize the Florida territory, instructing him to drive out any pirates and non-Spanish settlers.

Menendez arrived in Florida on August 28, 1565, the Feast Day of St. Augustine, and fortified a small Native American village with his 600 soldiers and settlers.

He named the village St. Augustine in honor of the revered saint of the Roman Catholic Church, and it has since become the oldest permanent European settlement in North America.”

St. Augustine accounted for my third trip to Florida this month, which has made blogging sketchy at best this summer. Being on the road so much has not allowed the down time to plug in and get updated on all of the memories I want to capture.

Brian has all types of the things in the works down here right now business related, so in order to keep the family unit in tack, we have been arranging all types of get togethers.

We stayed at the Historic Casa Monica, which for me was the highlight of the day.

“In 1887, Henry Flagler sold a parcel of land to Bostonian architect Franklin W. Smith on which Smith built the Casa Monica Hotel, naming the hotel after St. Monica, the mother of revered St. Augustine and namesake of the city.

The hotel opened on January 1, 1888 with only three guests registered and was later sold to Henry Flagler a few short months later. Flagler renamed the property to Hotel Cordova and caused it to thrive, filling the hotel with many return guests and grand affairs.”

This Spanish-European property spoiled me and was a treat for me to stay at. I thought I was in Madrid, no lie.

This trip was a one on one trip for Lizzy and epic, since she has rarely had any time alone with us being at the bottom of the totem pole-age wise.

Historically, this is the week of our Little Kids Trip, which we usually do when my two oldest are at EFY camp. Their date was switched this year, landing smack dab in the middle of All Star Baseball for Noah, which he can’t even miss one night, so it is yet to be determined whether or not that will happen this year.

A coaches family graciously offered to house him, so we could take Liz still on a get-away-sort of. We cancelled our trip to Illinois to vista Chicago and Nauvoo- where the older kids were and we tagged on Brian’s business trip to St. Augustine with a surprise stop to Magic Kingdom.

We stayed right next to Flagler College which was the former Hotel Ponce de Leon Hotel.
built by Henry Flagler.

“The arrival of Henry Flagler in 1885 marked the beginning of a golden era for St. Augustine that extended through 1914. Enticed by the city’s temperate climate and unique ambiance, Flagler saw great potential for St. Augustine as a popular winter resort and playground for wealthy Northerners.

It was so blasted hot, 95 to be exact, that we spent most of our time at the pool until it cooled down. The whole east coast was reaching record breaking temps, so maybe 95 was a blessing.

She and I swam and drank cool drinks by the poolside, so much darn fun to be had.

When Brian was done at the hospital that afternoon, we ventured out to the lighthouse and the white sand beaches for some family time until it was dark.

It was absolutely delightful and relaxing. Man alive, I love being married to this guy and having a house full of children with him.

My favorite part of the evening was my little historic house drive that we did right before dusk.

Saving that for the next post!

Source: http://www.casamonica.com/history/history.asp

Filed Under: 20 Year Anniversary Celebrations, Angela, Elizabeth, Florida, St. Augustine, Travel

Sarasota, FL, The Ritz, Steak and Loving my Guy

June 1, 2012 By admin 1 Comment

This year is our 20th wedding anniversary. There is no way we could sneak away for week to some exotic local this summer, so we made a plan to do 20 things we wanted to do together.

Some of them included things Brian had to do for work including this week one to Sarasota, Florida for an orthopedics meeting that I was invited to attend. The two of us went for two nights to the luscious Ritz Carlton in Sarasota that boasted this fabulous view of the water front from our balcony.

Walking one morning, we said that this idea of doing 20 things is the best gift we have given to ourselves. Imagine 20 different things that you want to do all year together versus one big gift. For us, it has been perfect. We made a list at the beginning of the year when we thought about what we could realistically do and we can’t wait for each of the ideas to come to past.

As you know from the past 5 years blogging, we rarely have travelled alone…and I mean rarely.

The plans don’t all include travel either. Some are simple like tennis and beach time locally. The idea is simple 20 dates and some are overnighters or short trips, some ideas are combined with his work affairs. Sure we would have loved to go to Europe on some dream trip, but lack of domestic help prevents us from doing so.

Next year, I won’t be so lucky as my dream daughter, Hillary will be off to China and no longer able to help me with the younger kids and Chase will be more in a school schedule that will lock me down, ball and chain! Arghhhh!

In Sarasota, I ate my third steak of the year (The last one I had was in San Francisco in February). We ate at the succulent Hyde Park
with a couple of his clients. I love meeting people he works with.

It keeps me more in the loop with what he is doing and gives us plenty of conversation pieces.

I am glad I have essentially cut out most red meat except an occasional steak or roast beef on Sundays in the crock pot. I can’t go back to eating like this, although it was good, I am glad I have gone more to fish.

The best part is just spending time together. I am so thankful he switched companies, I just feel like changing jobs has made such a huge difference in our life and the quality of our relationship. Even though he travels a lot now, I feel like we are so much closer.

The daily grind of his past job of being in surgery every morning was such a killer. Now, I feel like he is so much more relaxed and motivated. He spends more time with the kids. (Although, he has always been so good at that).

Of course, Brian had to partake of some of his favorite nonalcoholic drinks in the Florida sun.