Florida vacation (part 1)

 After our trip to Savannah, we all got in the van and drove down to Orlando for a vacation (Savannah wasn't a vacation because David was working). When we got there we first checked in to our hotel. We found a Ramada on the Main gate West side, that was a "family fun suite" it had a room with bunk beds and a tv in it for the kids and a separate room for us. Well...the room was much less than desirable (the pictures online looked nothing like our room!). The kind of room you didn't want to touch anything, not even the floor.

We decided that in order to spend as little time in there as necessary, we would go to Downtown Disney and visit the LEGO store (the thing Nathan was most excited about).

 They have lots of tables with lots of Lego's for kids to build stuff. Nathan built a race car to race.

 Nathans car is in the first lane

 After the race, we spent a LOT of time inside looking at all the different Lego's and waiting for Nathan to pick out which one he was going to buy. He settled on a Lego Monster Fighters figurine set.

That night, when we got  back to the hotel and put the boys to bed, David set out to find a new hotel, we checked out in the morning!

 On Monday we headed off to Sea World to see the whales (and everything else).

 Nathan went right up to Shamu and gave him a hug, Anderson was much more cautious. In fact when we all got together to have our picture taken with him AJ just cried. He did not want to be that close. 

After debating at the car which camera to bring with us, I settled on my small pocket one because I didn't want my nice one to get wet and ruined. The battery on the small pocket one died after taking these three pictures. So the rest of the pictures are taken on our camera phones. Sorry they aren't so great.

AJ is so confused

Waiting for the Shamu show to begin
For some reason ( I have no idea why) these pictures have grouped themselves together. The top one is the shark tank, the one next to that is Nate and I after the Shamu show. Below that one is Nathan (less than happy about) meeting Franklin. After the pictures, he was happy though.

Nathan dancing to the music

Watching the Orca's was one of the coolest things I have seen. They can do amazing tricks for such massive animals.

This one was "break dancing" (spinning in circles)

I love the look on Nate's face, he was so amazed.

Anderson loved it! He would clap for the whales after every trick.

He kept hitting daddy and pointing like, "Daddy, are you seeing this?!"

Viewing the Orca's after the show

After all the excitement from the whales, AJ was exhausted.

We went and saw the sea lions and Nathan even got to feed them "little fishes".

Good thing daddy was willing to help him, because mommy was not going to touch the fishes.

"Get ready sea lions"

A successful catch!

Then off to the dolphins, which was Nathans favorite animal of the day.

They did some pretty neat tricks for us to see, almost as neat as the whales.

At the end of the day we stopped by the gift shop. Nathan picked out a dolphin and Anderson would have picked out a pink whale, but we convinced to to go with the black one. They both love their new friends! Sea world was awesome!

Savannah

 Nathan thought the really big steps were pretty neat.

 David had to work in Savannah the week of St. Patrick's day, so on we drove down to spend some time with him. Here are some pictures from that adventure.

 One of the days, daddy was working at one of the fire stations. We got to go visit him and see the cool fire trucks. As a side note, right now Nathan wants to be a firefighter when he gets big (he also has plans to marry his mommy when he turns 16) so he really enjoyed seeing the trucks. He did however get shy when a firefighter said hi to him.

 This ladder truck was actually in the St. Patrick's Day parade the next day.

 Some of our friends from church were also in Savannah the same week, so we met up with them and had a play date at the Jeppsen Art Museum. They had a little kids section with blocks and other things to do.

(AJ, Nathan, Thatcher, Jane K. (Granny-mom) & Porter)

 This picture REALLY captures Anderson's personality. He is such a happy, sweet little guy!

 Nathan in complete concentration

 Playing with the "vine" hoses. Nathan decided that they were a spider web instead.

We had a fun trip to Savannah, now it is off to Orlando.

Nathan's chore money

A few weeks ago Nathan told me he wanted to get a job at the supermarket. I asked him why and he told me, so he could earn money to buy the Lego Star Wars video game. I told him that was a good idea, but he couldn't work at a supermarket. He suggested he could do chores here at home to earn money, I jumped on that idea. He has been helping me everyday with different things around the house. He has helped put the silverware away from the dishwasher, watered my plants, vacuumed the couch, set the table, sweep the floor, dusted and others. He is a pretty good helper. We pay him $.25/chore and most days he wants to do two or three chores. Some days he will even wake up and ask what chores he can do. Although, he has changed what he wants to buy with his money, now he wants to buy Lego Monster Fighters- Lord Vampires Castle ($120.00). He has $11.25 in his bank so far, it might take a while but we are very proud of him!