Universal Studios: MIB

Some parts of me felt bad.  Most of the themes and movies the kids hadn't seen.  So they didn't fully grasp just how cool these things were.  Like random aliens in the coffee break room.

Or being admitted to the MIB headquarters.

Look at all those super cool fancy gun thingys!

They even had hubby's favorite: A noisy cricket!

The thing they DID understand was spending money to buy cool things they could buy much cheaper at any regular Wal-mart....  

Because, things from a theme park are just so much greater!

Universal Studios: Dinosaurs!!!

Universal Studios has a portion of their park dedicated to dinosaurs.  The children have not seen Jurassic Park (any of them), but they thought the dinosaurs were cool!

And, of course, scary!

They have this whole museum type thing where they kids stayed and played for almost an hour.

It was a little bit of fact and fiction.  There were several fact and fossil type things all over the place that the kids could learn from.

But when they started hatching baby dinos.....  I started to think there might be some movie magic going on.

Then there were some hands on incubators that the kids could scan "eggs" and learn facts about individual dinosaur.

This is where you could see from the perspective of a dinosaur.  You looked through the optical part, and you could see what it was like to be super tall!

Rawr!  Who wants to be a dinosaur!

Universal Studios: Day 2!

After we spent an entire day geeking out with Harry Potter and all his friends, we spent the next day doing the rest of Universal Studios.  Please don't judge my parenting skills, how much fun the kids had, or, well, anything based on Kelsey's face.  I have no idea what she is doing.

We took pictures in things the kids thought were cool.  But had no idea what they were from :)

The other kids wanted a turn to drive too :)

Dylan, who by chance was wearing his super cool Spiderman sweatshirt, got visited by a character from the Spiderman stories....  I don't remember what his name is, and Dylan had no idea who it was, but he thought he looked pretty cool.

We borrowed a stroller from a friend.  I thought it might occasionally be helpful for Kelsey, but it ended up being useful for ALL of them.  And for our junk too.  It was nice to have a place for that.

Some days we didn't eat full on meals in the park.  But if there were yummy snacks around, that would get us through the day.

Everybody needs a picture on a flying broom!

Isn't this the way everyone feels after a vacation?

Seriously, I'm tired just thinking about all the walking we did :)

Universal Studios: Harry Potter, Grimmauld Place

According to the pictures that I have uploaded, we are still deep in my Florida trip.  Which is crazy considering all the things that have happened since then.  But I feel like I gotta finish this before I can move on, so...  here you go!

We enjoyed stopping through Grimmauld place while we went on to look at other things.  I liked how they made it look so different from the other buildings standing on either side.  And I am pretty sure that we could see it because the secret keeper told us about it :)  Look at that poor muggle sitting there on the right hand side.  She has no idea!

If you looked closely, Kreacher would occasionally poke his head out of the window to see who was sitting on his doorstep.  Do you see him?

Kelsey sometimes had a hard time.  She was pretty exhausted by this point and sometimes would put up quite the fuss to do something, even though she didn't understand why.  So, here she is.  With her very own picture in front of #13 Grimmauld Place, which she didn't even know existed until we took pictures of it.

I wanted one picture of the house as I can see it in my imagination (no kids).  I loved it!

Wouldn't it be perfectly miserable to live in the dreary old place, and not be able to see or talk to anyone?  It would be simply ghastly!

Break My Heart

Life has been...  Busy...  Difficult... Crazy....  Insane!

We finally moved into our new house!  We weren't sure it was going to go through because we were unhappy with somethings we wanted fixed.  It came down to the wire man.  But we did it!  We are in.  And then, of course, there was the actual moving part.  The laborious lugging of box after box after box to its designated room.  And then the opening and putting away of box after box after box in each designated room.  Its tiring y'all.  And while hubby could take time off work, the kids still had school and I still had classes.  And, because we are a technology dependent people,  it took a week to get internet.

So I may be able to be slightly more regular in posting.  But I am going to school, trying to be a mom/wife, and I have a new calling as the Relief Society President (I'm now in charge of the women's and welfare organization in my church).  So, I may not be all that regular in posting.  There is never a dull moment.

But I had to post something that makes me feel good and wonderful at the same time that it makes me hate people and wish that the world was a completely different place.

Kari came home from school on the bus today.  And with tears in her eyes, she asked if I could put primary songs (church youth songs) on her MP3 player so she could listen to it on the bus.  She said that the 30 minutes on the bus is full of nothing but swearing and bad conversations and it makes her feel bad inside.  But she knew that no longer having to pick up kids from school was much more convenient for me, so she wanted to try this before she asked to not ride the bus anymore.

And you guys, it broke my heart.  It broke my heart that she feels so bad inside because of other people.  It broke my heart that she thought about me in that instance instead of trying to make herself feel better.  It breaks my heart that there are people in this world who use those words and have those conversations because they think it makes them sound more grown up.  It breaks my heart that they have been exposed to those kinds of things in the first place.

But it also broke my heart that my daughter recognized the horrible feeling inside as something she didn't want to get used to, or make due with.  And it broke my heart that she knew how to combat those feelings with thoughts of her Brother and Savior.  With music and with joy.

She isn't a little kid anymore.  And she is making some pretty wonderful, grown up decisions.  Good for you kiddo.  May you stay as you are: Aware, but not part of.  Smart AND spiritual.  Righteous and wonderful!  Good for you!