Super Vacation – Day 3 – Universal Studios

We went to regular Universal Studios and were a little underwhelmed.  It was sooo slooow we wondered how they were able to keep it open (luckily they own Islands of Adventure with Harry Potter World).  We did purposefully go at a slow time of year, note to others the week before Thanksgiving is awesome for theme park visiting!

A few highlights included…

Dora and Diego, recent netflix favorites of Paul.

A longtime favorite, George.  I just barely got a picture of them together as we had separated to do different things with the kids.  I think Luke would have been happier if I hadn’t gotten this picture, but Paul likes it and thats all that matters!

A picture in from of the Universal earth.  Who left their stroller there?  Us, oops!

Favorites here were the Simpsons Ride, Men In Black Ride, and ET.

Super Vacation – Day 2 – This is Why we Came!

Harry Potter World here we came!
Hogwarts train.

Singing toads.

We loved everything about Harry Potter World. The three broomsticks was AMAZING, the food was just seriously awesome! Good butter beer (we like frozen), good fish & chips, good ribs, good chicken, interesting meat pastries and shepherd’s pie (the seasoning was a little weird to us muggles). The castle was AMAZING! The wand shop show was fun, the Harry Potter and the forbidden journey ride was excellent, and the little shows in the street were cute too.

I should mention we did other things while we were at Islands of Adventure this day, the Spiderman ride was a favorite, Seuss Landing was enjoyed by all the kids, and Luke did a few roller coasters all by his lonesome.

Super Vacation Day 1 – Sea World

We called our vacation to Orlando a couple weeks ago a “super vacation” cause we got to go to so many theme parks.  Certainly not typical, but we got some good discounts on lodging (afvclub.com for military folks), free Sea World passes (again military), slightly discounted Universal Orlando tickets, and buy 1 get 1 free Legoland tickets.  Whew!

Sea World was pretty fun though and we are glad we went.  I didn’t take many photos for some reason, maybe cause we were mostly watching shows?  Anyhow, one of the highlights was the Polar Express ride/experience which wasn’t even supposed to start until the 25th or something.  Anyhow, the big kids and Luke got to ride, but guess what Paul did?

Oh, well, he did at least get to look at the train earlier that day.

Halloween

Not quite a month late yet!

Before any candy, group shot!  We had a couple friends join us this year (Bumblebee’s mom was off trying to have a baby and the rocket, Joseph is our good friend from down the street and church)!

And we’re off!

   

And, we’re back home!

What to wear for family photos

I mainly needed a place to put these pictures of our clothes for our photography friend Stephany to look at, though I’d also love if cousin Kara had any opinions also!

My clothes, grey jersey blazer (with some fun jersey loops to somehow put around my neck, would probably wear with navy tee under), off white jersey cardi, and olive green cardi.  I’d love to wear the off white one with some kind of solid shirt, but not sure that would go with anything of anyone else’s.

Boys and husbands clothes I originally bought for the shoot.  Boys would have white/navy long sleeve tees under their shirts since it will be chilly.  I think Luke would really like to wear his shirt below, and honestly, John doesn’t really have anything else (his tees are really graphic and not my fave).

Two photos below are Paul’s clothes.  He loves the monkey jacket, so maybe in a photo of just him we’ll have to throw it on.  Otherwise I think he could possibly wear the grey shirt below with the mustard and navy stripe (and perhaps Luke and John could wear the shirts above?)  Or Paul could wear the navy and red stripe sweater?

John’s shirts, see nothing fabulous.

Luke’s shirts I thought were possibilities, see a few of his tees in the background too.  He also has white and navy tee shirts for wearing under something to layer.

Ruthanne’s clothes, brown and purple 3/4 sleeves.  Below short sleeve navy dress and shirt with possible denim shirt layer for on top.  Oh, she also has a navy cardi that maybe we could layer over the denim shirt?  Oh, and a pair of grey tights!

Gosh, we really don’t have many nice clothes.  Well, we do have church clothes, but I guess the problem is we don’t generally try to coordinate so that we look good all together!

Cousin Fun

We decided to invite ourselves over to Matt & Jaime’s house last Saturday (nice of us, huh?).  Anyhow, here is some of the family fun that ensued.

Baby Talon.  So sweet, he let me just hold him for a long time!

 

Four cousins playing (where are the other two?)

 

Here they are!

Sweet Dane, mean Dane!

 

Six cousins, one Nintendo DS.

We did something crazy and the two families went to the nearby yogurt shop.  We walked in with 7 kids!  Thankfully it was about 2:00 in the afternoon and the place was pretty empty!

Bye Wilson Boys!

The Dairy Farm

Today we went to the Hickory Hill Milk Dairy Farm.  We have been buying their milk for a while now and the homeschool group had a field trip there today.  It was so much fun and the calves were sooo cute!  I even dragged my fancy camera along the way (I got a really stellar shot of Paul!) so look at the fun!

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Whole wheat bread recipe

I am frequently asked about my bread recipe. I had a more complicated recipe that I have put on the blog before, but I tend to go back to this simple but yummy recipe I got from someone who used to be a friend (yes, they decided to block me from their personal blog and facebook without any explanation, I swear I felt like I was back in high school). Oh, well, their choice.

Anyhow, I am naming it

Carla's Basic Wheat Bread

Into your bread maker put the following in this order (you can also usebasic bread techniques in a mixer if you don't have a breadmaker, you just need tomake sure to knead it for a long time):

10 oz warm water
1/4 cup honey
1.5 tsp salt
1/2 - 1 tbsp vital wheat gluten (if its too gummy use less you may have to experiment based on your humidity)
1.5 tbsp oil
3.5-4 cups fresh ground white wheat (if using store bought you may need less, i just keep an eye on the breadmaker for a few minutes and add flour as needed till its no longer too sticky)
2 tsp instant yeast

Turn your bread maker on to the dough setting. It will go through kneading and some rise cycles. When its done pull it out and knead it into a loaf shape and throw it into a greased loaf pan. Let it rise covered for another 25 minutes, then take a knife and cut a 1/2 inch deep gash along the length of the loaf to allow for more expansion. Put the loaf into a cold oven, then turn the oven on to 350 and set the timer to 28-30 minutes. When the loaf is nice and golden pull it out then let it cool on a wire rack.

I made a full on dinner last night!

Man, that’s hard work and should be reserved for a weekend!  It was super good though and I want to start keeping track of my recipes here a little more and share the love!

Southern Baked Yellow Squash – click for the link – very yummy, I made it exactly as written but I did not put the butter on top with the bread crumbs, saved a few calories maybe!

Marinated Baked Pork Chops – I’m not sure why they are called marinated, cause they aren’t!  I guess you could, but probably not necessary.  I tripled all the sauce ingredients (except the oil, and next time I will probably omit altogether) and it was really yummy!  My chops were done at probably 40 minutes, it just depends on how big your chops are.

The last part of the meal was just mashed potatoes, no recipe just boiled then mashed taters, drained and add butter, milk, and sour cream to your liking.

Way to go John!

John had a couple breakthroughs this week.

Breakthrough #1 – completed Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons.  He can read!  Seriously even a month ago if you asked him to read something other than his reading lesson he would tear up and say he couldn’t (but yet he could read a whole page of a story in the reading lesson).  Makes complete sense, right?  Not!  Anyhow, now that he officially finished the reading lesson book, he says he can read and will even pick up a book himself and read it!  Yay, progress!  Below are a few photos of his last reading lesson (from that book anyways).

  

Breakthrough #2 – he can really ride his bike!  So, remember he got a real bike (two wheeler no training wheels for his birthday) to ride instead of the balance bike?  Well, he could ride it but needed help getting started (the bike was a little too tall perhaps).  Anyhow, asking him to ride that new bike caused tears every time!  Well, yesterday we had some lovely cool (cold, really) weather and went outside, Luke got out the horrid bike and said lets ride this, John teared up, and I said just ride it for a while I’ll give you a dollar.  So, Luke helped him get it started a few times and then John just went off and did it on his own!  Yay!  He even told me today that Paul now has two bikes, the tricycle and the balance bike!  He loves the two wheeler bike now!  If only we could get Ruthanne riding a bike…

The only other good photo of the week: