New Glasses

I took E for her four year check up in July. They do a vision screening then, and she flunked miserably. So when the boys had their eyes checked in August, I made an appointment for her, as well. However in true E fashion, she was completely unco-operative, and we had to forgo the exam. I re-scheduled it for last week in the hopes that if I made the appointment with the female optometrist in the office, rather than the male doctor we always use, I might have better luck getting her to sit still. Well, I was partly right. She sat through about half of the exam, enough to know that she has a moderate astigmatism in both eyes. She didn't get through the part of the exam to measure near-sightedness, which she has. We just don't know how bad. So we have to go back again in a couple of months to determine what else she needs to correct her vision. Baby steps...Baby steps....

But doesn't she look SOOO cute?

First Day of School

The Bus Stop

More Vacation

The visit to this park was the perfect topper to an already very wet vacation. We were parka experts by this Saturday. However, the rain held off until the parade started at 4pm. Below, pics of the 3 kids while it was dry; E during the torrential downpour, it was too bad to even walk back to the tram, so we just kind of huddled under the canopy of a gift shop. Finally, a picture of the quickest parade in Disney history. Mickey is soaked, and a security guard near us said the record for the parade is 7 minutes in inclement weather. I think they did ours in 6 !

Dinner with Cinderella....

Disney Character breakfasts are a big deal. Not only are they expensive, they are very difficult to get a reservation for. I found out about 2 months before the trip that to have Breakfast or Lunch with Cinderella in her castle requires that you call the reservation hotline 180 DAYS before you desired day. I was able to find 1 reservation at the Grand Floridian resort with Cinderella. The reservation was for 3 people at 8:30 at night, but by golly, I was determined we were going. I was sooooo wrong to insist on this.......


You can see how much she loved Prince Charming....he was nice enough to come to our talbe 3 time to get a picture, and this was the best we could get.. doesn't she look happy to see him?

And this is my favorite picture of her with Cinderella... again, the joy on her face is priceless, and don't I look like the most patient mother in the world?


Here we finally figured out that if the characters snuck up behind her, she would get her picture taken and not know that they were there. So in both of these, the step sisters ( who were hysterical, by the way. ) were kind enough to very quietly pose behind her, and she was clueless. But the picture turned out great!







And just because I think this is funny!

Belated Vacation Pics

So we've been back for almost 2 weeks and I've neglected to post. It's taken that long to recoup from vacation, get the kids back into a schedule for school. I'm going to try and post some pics in chronological order from our trip, but no promises!



We met my old college roomate, Shae, her husband Matt, and 3 girls on the way down. We stayed in Chattanooga and they were kind enough to drive down from Murfreesboro to meet us for dinner. I hadn't seen her in about 7 years, and had lost touch for a while, so this was one of the highlights of the trip for me!

Here we are at a TGIF Friday's in Kissimmee...due to Tropical Storm Fay, we spent a lot of time indoors killing time. It's us 5, plus Howie's dad, Dan, and Step-mom Judy.





All 3 kids getting ice cream at Hollywood studios.... we were very hot, wet and tired by this time, it was the last thing we did at this park..