Happy Happy Happy

Hello there. Alright SO, after our grand Disney World adventure, we made our trip back home and have spent the past couple of weeks unpacking, finishing up Evelyn's softball season, and getting ready for our trip into Houston.  :o)

So many pressed pennies!

:o)

We stopped by Mississippi's welcome center on the way back home to stretch our legs.

And made it home later that evening with plenty of time to get some rest.

Which was great, because the very next day, on Sunday, June 8th, we made a trip to St. Louis Cathedral to celebrate Daddy's Confirmation!

We couldn't take any pictures during the ceremony, but I did snap a few before and after.

:o)

Daddy with his wonderful sponsor from our church, Ms. Dolly.

Yay!  He's all holy now!   ;o)

He took a picture with the Bishop who confirmed him, the 13th Archbishop of New Orleans, Archbishop Hughes.

And then he also got a picture with the 14th, Archbishop Aymond.

Guess that makes him double-holy now!  :oD

We celebrated by visiting our favorite "tex-mex" restaurant (or as near as we can get anyways.)  ;o)

Woohoo!  We are all so excited for him!  :oD

That week, we worked on cleaning out the boys' closet.

Yeah, they still had these snazzy little outfits in there.  Guess they're a little small now, haha!

Time for another softball game!

Or another nap, whatever.  ;o)

It was our big girl's last regular game of the season, and man, did they play hard.

She looks to see if she should steal 2nd...

And she goes for it!

And she made it!

They played so well, so much better than they did early in the season, but they lost, again.  :oP

But their biggest fan didn't care.

:o)

"Go Ducks go!"  ;o)

At the end of the school year, Evelyn used all her extra Eagle Bucks and bought the game Trivial Pursuit: Family Edition.  And it's so cool!  It's got "Cards for Adults" and "Cards for Kids".  So we can all play together!

Well, while Emily is the official Dice Roller, when anyone is given a multiple choice question, she likes to try and guess the answer.

And 9 out of 10 times, she gets it right!

In this pic, Evelyn is considering her answer carefully, trying to decide if she should go with Emily's guess or her own...

And wouldn't you know it - Evie got it wrong and Emily got it right!!

Ahahahaha, it was so funny.

Lol, this game is great.  :o)

No worries, Evelyn won this game and every game that we have played together, hehe!

We celebrated Father's Day by attending Mass and then letting Daddy grill fish and chicken for us!  ;oD

A new bowl for his cereal.  :o)

Emily became quite obsessed with the bubble wrap his bowl came in.

Seriously, they've been fighting over that piece of bubble wrap for the past 2 weeks, trying to take turns on who gets to pop it and getting upset when someone pops too much!

Haha!  Only our kids man.  ;o)

Happy Father's Day!

Then it was time for cookies.  :oD

The kids all had their dentist check-ups.

Evelyn was all clear, Matthew had a small cavity, Emily's last filling was missing (guess I should stop letting her chew on peppermints!) and Joshua was referred to an Orthodontist for possible braces.  Eek!  Wish us luck!  :o)

We replenished our library supply.

And they got a new toy there too.

Then we all attended Evelyn's Playoff game!

Passing time before the game started.  :o)

My goodness, the Ducks played the best game of their lives!

They got runs in, they played great defense, and they were neck and neck the whole game!

It was so intense.

Get it girl!

Despite their incredible teamwork, they lost and finished out their season.

But after their amazing game, they were happiest girls ever.

And our girl was the happiest.

:oD

And that brings us up to now.  Evelyn's already talking about how much better of a player she is and how she can't wait for next year's softball season.  ;o)  We did a car wash this past weekend to raise money for the BCA Band, since we have so many band members now.  ;o)  And today, the kids and I visited a nearby Nursing Home with the Navy Wives Club (which I recently joined) to visit with some Veterans (Dad had to work).  It was really neat, and after they warmed up, the kids had a really great time talking to all the "old people", and the "old people" really enjoyed all the kids' company.  We all look forward to visiting them again soon.  :o)

And Boy's getting married!!  Ahhhh!!!  So yep, we are packing our bags once again and look forward to seeing everyone soon.  :o)

;oD

Laters alligators!

Disney World - Animal Kingdom & Typhoon Lagoon

Animal Kingdom & Typhoon Lagoon
Our final day at Disney, we visited the Animal Kingdom and their 2nd water park, Typhoon Lagoon.

Our first "ride" was a Safari through many acres of animal habitats.

It's a rhino!

And a gator!

Emily's favorite was the giraffes.

:o)

Elephants.

Zebras!

The Safari ride was pretty bumpy in spots, and Emily loved it.

:o)

Evelyn happily sported her new umbrella to keep the sun off.

:o)

And Joshua enjoyed taking pictures of all the different animals.

He got some great ones of the Komodo Dragon.

And some big lizard thing.

(Ew.)

The lizard really liked Matthew and kept pawing at the glass trying to get to him!

Ahhh!

Let's go see some bats.

Again, pictures by Joshua.

Wow, they're "wings" are so big.

We just kept joking, "I'm Batman" the whole time.  ;o)

The tiger was hiding, but Joshua managed to get this picture of it.

And then this one of us.

:o)

Also by Joshua.

We stopped to pose in front of the Expedition Everest ride.

Then we watched Finding Nemo: The Musical!

And if you're wondering where our other kids are, they are sitting up close in the 3rd row!  Which was just too close for us big kids.  ;o)

It was a puppet-y type show, and was really great, but the kids thought it was kinda odd.

I thought it was cute and amazing.

Emily fell asleep halfway through.  :oP

But that's alright, because up next, we rode Expedition Everest!

It goes forwards and backwards, and has an 80 foot drop!  :oO

And it was amazing.

Matthew posed in front of it (since he refused to ride, of course). ;o)

So after the kids went with me, they went with Daddy too.

And we managed to get a picture of them as they were coming down the big drop!

Zoomed in...

There they are!

Joshua and those mouse ears made them easier to spot.  Hehe.  :oD  Woohoo!

They talked to Dug (from the movie Up).  They had to bark into the interpreter and then it would tell them what they said in doggy language.

Pictures with the Tree of Life.

It has over 300 animals carved into it and was just beautiful to look at.

Picture by Matthew.

Picture by Joshua.

:o)

These were awesome.

Ahahahaha!  :oD

Later, we rode a train to the Affection Section.

And awwww, they all loved it.

We decided to leave early and the kids happily rode another Tram to the parking lot.

We headed over to Typhoon Lagoon!

Hang loose dude!

We didn't really do any big rides there, just hung out in the fantastic wave pool.

:o)

And knowing we had to get on the road early the next day, we left in time for dinner.

Which Emily was much happier about later.  ;o)

And that was it!  Our whole Disney trip!  Woohoo!
We all probably had the best vacation we have ever been on.  Seriously. I thought it would be more stressful, but nah, it was all good.  The kids keep talking about what they want to do "next time".... yeah, we're still not sure if there's going to be a "next time", but we'll see...  :o)

The next post will cover the end of Evie's softball season and some pics from Chris' Confirmation.  Hope everyone's enjoying this summer as much as we are!  :o)

Laters!