Thanksgiving at Hoover's!!

Lest you think it is a typo, have no fear... That's the slogan on the server's shirts at the location of our Thanksgiving meal. We had about a million options for Thanksgiving this year, but when it came right down to it, we opted for the no-cooking-no-cleaning option. Well, I did make a cheeseball that we quickly devoured after Eric's Turkey bowl (you should have seen his AMAZING diving lunging catch for a touchdown!)

But after that, we loaded into the car,

Drove up into this beautiful canyon...

Right past Big Rock Candy Mountain...

To this quaint little restaurant...

That's right, Hoover's.

We were all very excited.

Especially with our view of the game!

And our good company (I tried to capture the essence of Hoover's regulars with this shot. It's all good recreational, ATVer, huntin', cowboy hat wearing type good-uns.)

They had an all-you-can-eat buffet. Turkey, ham, salmon, potatoes, 12 pies, veggies, salads, and on and on. Viana returned with this plate teeming with goodness.

I then turned to take a picture of Eric's loaded plate...and it was already HALF GONE! Now that's good eats!

And hey, Ram was there too!!

And the best news of the day...while we were talking about possible pie options that we could make at home Viana kept saying that apple pie was her favorite, but I did not think apple pie was in our foreseeable cooking escapades. But good fortune, they had apple pie at Hoover's!!

What a great thanksgiving. And this is what I was the very most thankful for! :)

Disneyworld: Epcot

Epcot is such a great park...sadly we spent the least amount of time there. But we had two huge events at Epcot: Date Night, and Brayden's birthday celebration. While we were there during the day we were in high spirits though!Well, as long as we weren't being eaten by a shark!Date night was SO GREAT. (have you noticed through out our journey that Eric and I have had either matching or complimentary shirts? Aren't we cute??) The 4 brothers and their dates got to leave 10 kids with Grandma (Ram trucked along with us...although we could have left him, he just slept the WHOLE time on our date!)We went to Morocco in the world showcase portion of Epcot for dinner at Restaurant Marrakesh. It was some good eats!!Then we had general galavanting about the world showcase, and hit up Test Track right before the park closed. (Jen and I rode this ride with 2 drunk guys(not our husbands..they stayed with Ram) in our car...so it was a pretty entertaining and hilarious ride.)I really like this picture taken in Mexico.Norweigian troll and huns :)Germany :) Japan :)
The day after date night we went back to Epcot for Brayden's dinner...which he's not in this picture, but Happy Birthday Brayden!

Next time I go to Disneyworld I will remember how AWESOME Epcot is and remember to schedule more time at that park!!

Up next=The Magic Kingdom...

Disneyworld: The Polynesian Resort

Thanks to Eric's brother Nick, who is JAG, we got a sweet military discount and were blessed to stay at the BEAUTIFUL Polynesian Resort. It was so tropical. It even had lush plants that took Eric right back to his mission. Each building was named for an island...though we didn't stay in Fiji, we got a great picture!It's right across the lagoon from the Magic Kingdom, so not only was it beautiful it was convenient! There was a monorail stop at the hotel, and the transportation center was a stone's throw from our lanai door.
We loved how even though it was a culturally Pacific in decor, they just couldn't keep the Disney magic out. Hidden Mickey's were all over. Here's an easy one to start with, can you find the rest?In the carpets...On the desk...Even the bed spread...And this one was by far our favorite!We had a delicious Luau at the resort. It was so good. And the live entertainment was great!
This is Viana re-enacting the dancing.What a great dream come true for Eric, who has always wanted to stay here!! Thanks Nick for the discount!!!

Up Next=Epcot...

Disneyworld: Disney's Hollywood Studios

This is the re-named MGM park...perhaps you'll recognize it by the Mickey's Sorcerer hat :) See this princess of ours posing with The Princess and the Frog poster? We had a little chat that morning about being happy and smiley in pictures even though we may be feeling tired and sick :)

Thank you Walt, for creating such a great empire!

Pizza Planet

One of our favorite parts of "DHS" is Pizza Planet! I mean seriously, could you imagine a happier meal for the Carters? Though it's not quite like Pizza Planet in Toy Story (one day I'm convinced they'll install alien slime machines) it is still a magical place. So magical in fact that an employee gave us two free souvenir cups upon seeing our darling princesses!

Muppet-Vision 3D

This is a great 3D show, and I think it is the gaggiest one of the many I've seen. Plus, how can you not love the muppets? It's always fun to get the 3D glasses too. And Brooke was very enchanted by Kermit the Frog, she really liked him a lot.

Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular

This is such a cool show. The best part about it is that they ask for audience participation. And, we beat the system this year. Ron's girlfriend Nicole was walking in to save seats for the rest of us as we parked our strollers and they called her out of the audience...since they did that, we ended up sitting on the opposite of the arena, and so Eric also got picked to come down and participate! So we had TWO people to cheer for. They got to dress up like Egyptian market people and watch as the stunt Indie did his awesome tricks. It was so cool! Eric is in the red and Nicole is to his right.

Oh, and they have the American Idol Experience at DHS...a one day mock AI show. Eric tried out (this is the proof) He sang the Street Rat Reprise from Aladdin. They told him, "We've heard all we need to hear" and sent him on his way :)

And I am SO MAD that this is the only cute picture we have of Eric and Ram in their ADORABLE matching Cars shirts that my mom made them. It had to be cold that day, so we were mostly covered with coats and hats. Grr. I would fly back just to get a cuter picture of them by the life-size Mater and Lightning McQueen that are like 50 feet from this picture.

Rockin' Roller Coaster

This is one of the highlights from the trip for us. This is a roller coaster that blasts you from 0-60 in 2 seconds. And it has Aerosmith blaring in your ears the whole time, as you are rushed down the alleyways of LA to make it to the backstage of their concert. Pretty much Amazing.

(we had a lot of fun in the line too!)

(Pretty much amazing picture, this is a mirror in the ceiling, it's a record, we're in it, cool huh?)

Toy Story Mania

Um, duh, Carter's favorite ride ever. And Nicole, who has been to Emeryville and the real Pixar studios said this little entrance looks just like the real deal! We were obsessed, and the queue for Toy Story Mania was AWESOME (good thing since the line was forever long...but all worth it of course).

Cute cousins above! Cute monkey below! This shot cracked me up, there was Brooke picking at Eric's hair like a monkey, with all those monkeys hanging in the background. Tee hee hee.Hooray for an outstanding day at DHS!

Up next=The Polynesian Resort...

Disneyworld: Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom is a huge Eric and CJ favorite of all the Disney Parks. It's unique, it's exciting and we love it in so many ways and on so many levels. Throw into that equation two new attractions--one Pixar in nature and the other a roller coaster--and this Carter family was pretty excited about hitting up the Animal Kingdom. Dinosaur...and other dinosaurs
These next pictures are from the epic; oh yeah, I just said "epic"; ride at the Animal Kingdom called Dinosaur. It's in an area of the Animal Kingdom called Dinoland and there are other dinosaur rides, etc. outside of the epic Dinosaur. What is so epic about Dinosaur you may be wondering...well, I'll tell you. You are joining a research facility that travels back in time to the dinosaur area for a tour...or so you thought (the ... really does make it more dramatic, don't ya think?). One of the scientists thinks that you can bring a dinosaur back and that becomes your mission. However, the time when the scientist wants to send you back is just before the huge meteor shower that most believe destroyed the majority of the dinosaur population. So you ride in a jeep...It's bumpy!...It's fast!...It's dark! And of course the meteor shower starts while you're there and you get chased by a ginormous Carnotaur. CJ admits that she has never been able to keep her eyes open through it. Viana got to ride for the first time, but she also was mataboko (eyes closed) the whole time. {This was taken before the ride started :) }

The Safari

This is a classic, incredible, amazing safari through an African preserve, with real animals, not the audio animatronics seen in other classics like the Jungle Cruise. Pretty sure it's CJ's favorite. This turn on it was especially cool because two very large white rhinos came running down the road right behind us--I was only scared for a little bit.

And, another plus about the Safari, it's right by the Kali River Rapids...Viana's first wet ride!The Festival of the Lion King

Engaging and interactive and just downright entertaining we again loved this show. Gymnastics, ballet, singing, fire dancing...the list goes on and we loved every minute of the performances set to the beloved music of the Lion King.

Finding Nemo the Musical

This is one of the new attractions that we were super stoked about. And we were not disappointed. I was worried that turning it into a musical would have felt too forced, but I thought it worked really well and a lot of the songs are still in my head!

Expedition Everest

And this is the new roller coaster. It's a journey into Mt. Everest that includes an encounter with a Yeti. It is SUPER intense. The pictures will do the talking.

The Animal Kingdom also provided for some great cousin time for the kids.It was just awesome all around!!

...Up Next= Disney's Hollywood Studios

Disneyworld: Take 1

Here's the scoop. We took 66o pictures at Disneyworld. Most of them are GREAT! SO, rather than try and choose 10 for one post, we're gonna make as many posts as we need till we feel like our trip will be sufficiently documented for our family history. So if you just was one re-cap, come back in a week when we will have hopefully posted all we'll ever want to about our trip!

Basically we went everywhere. We decided after our 4 day trip that you definitely need more time to enjoy Disneyworld! We had a blast going on all these rides...

Mostly we had a blast because we were with all of these people.That's a nice round 20. Eric's parents and all his brothers and their families. Viana LOVED spending time with her cousins!

As far as how the 5 of us digested the trip...I think these 2 pictures are pretty accurate. As mentioned earlier, Viana was recovering from a little illness of some sort, so she was in one of her less pleasant moods, until, of course, the last day. So we have lots of pictures of the back of her head as she was less than cooperative. And Brooke's blanky that means the world to her was lost in a pile-up of trays at the conveyor belt at airport security screening. That's right, 10 minutes into our 5 day trip and the blanket gets lost. And I had left the back-up blanket in the car, thinking if we lost one, I'd want the other when we got home. I wished then I had packed both! But Eric pointed out that then we may have lost 2 instead of just one. So, she was comfortless and sleepless. Without the blanket there were no naps and no early sleeps for her. Until the last day when she finally decided to adopt a new blanket that Grandma bought for her. And Eric, he can now benchpress 500000 lbs because he pretty much carried these two girls all over Disneyworld. We had strollers, but, with sleepy cranky children, they mostly just want their Daddy.This is not to say that we had a bad trip...it really was GREAT! Viana and Brooke just weren't themselves...until the last day. On Saturday I said to Eric, "I'm ready fort he vacation to start now." Oh well, the good news is Ram was PERFECT. He was so easy and so good and so transportable!! This sling was wonderful!! So for a newborn momma at Disneyworld, I was happy!! (As opposed to the last time I went to Disneyworld with a 3 week newborn...I was a little more miserable.) Who takes 3 kids 3 and under to Disneyworld anyway??? A CARTER that's who!!Here's just a little proof that we had a blast. The girls loved every single ride they went on...except for Tower of Terror...Viana didn't like the "ups and downs" on that one :)We will keep the good times a-rollin'...up next, the Animal Kingdom!

A Preview

Do you want to know some of the things that have been going on in our family in the last 10 days?
Viana got sick. 102 degree fever.
Brooke lost her "two bay-bay", aka her Linus blankie. Her world nearly ended.
Ram had his first real live bout of giggles. We caught some of it on film.
Our family finished the Book of Mormon. Our third time!
Brooke started potty-training. And self-declared stopped.
Ram met 4 more of his cousins. He liked them.
We actually listened to Christmas music. And we didn't mind it.

Oh. And we went to Disneyworld. :)

2 months!

So technically yesterday Ram turned 2 months, but today he had his 2 month check-up. When he was born he weighed 7lb 15oz and was 20 inches. Today he was 10lb 12oz and 22.5 inches! He's growing up so fast, and he is just so darn cute. I am pretty much the luckiest person in the world to spend 24/7 with this little bug.
I caught him mid-sneeze on this one.

Can you just tell he looks like Eric??

I can't get over his dimple!!