Spring 2014 Violin Recital

Sweet friends, Tori and Reagan, before their last violin recital together. We sure miss Miss Tori and wish she still lived in Kentucky! :) 

 Ms. Susie had the idea for the girls to play a duet featuring "Rocky Top" and "My Old Kentucky Home" as a farewell since this was Tori's last recital in Mrs. Watt's studio. They did such a good job playing together! So proud of both of these girls! :)

http://youtu.be/I6jRG0nnpXc

For their solos Reagan played Lully's Gavotte and Kennedy played Suzuki's Andantino. Thank you to Grammy for accompanying all three girls!

 Jackson enjoying the recital with Aunt Jen...

Grand-Dad captured this sweet picture of McKinley during the recital

 Love both of these pictures of Aunt Jen with Jackson and McKinley

After the recital and before Aunt Jen, Grammy and Grand-Dad headed back to Tennessee we caught this picture of Reagan trying out her new goggles and snorkel which Aunt Jen and Uncle Andrew gave Reagan for her birthday. This is a pretty nifty snorkel  as it has a mechanism which closes the top of the snorkel if you go under water. It has an additional mechanism which drains any water at the bottom if some does leak in. Pretty cool! Thank you Aunt Jen And Uncle Andrew for such fun gift! As a side note, we also had the opportunity to take Aunt Jen to her first trip to Culver's for dinner. We couldn't believe she'd never been before! Those butter burgers and fried cheese curds are just too yummy!!!

Thank you to Aunt Jen for spending a whole weekend with us! We had a fabulous time and just wish we were able to spend more time with both her and Uncle Andrew! We can't wait until our next visit! :)

Red River Gorge with Aunt Jen

Aunt Jen came to visit us in mid April for a weekend. We had such a fun time with her and sure wish she didn't live so far away! On Saturday of her visit we made our first trip to the Red River Gorge to see the Natural Bridge. We have heard so much about this area (and this fall we are participating in a co-op there - so excited about what I anticipate being a fabulous outdoor/homeschool learning experience) but have never managed to visit. We had a wonderful time and I'm so glad we were able to share the fun with Aunt Jen. I'm also glad Aunt Jen was there to help out with Jackson and so willingly indulged his insistence on being carried. You are truly a saint Aunt Jennifer!

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We began our day at The Rock House which is a fabulous restaurant one of our homeschool friends own. They use local produce and meat and it was amazing! Can't wait to find another excuse to go back and enjoy this fabulous place! :) Jackson enjoyed the large black bear outside the Rock House and insisted we take his picture before we could go inside to eat lunch.

McKinley and Aunt Jen having fun while waiting for lunch - love both of these big beautiful smiles! :)

  Reagan sure loves Aunt Jen and I guess Kennedy discovered a love for Ale 8 at the Rock House... lol :)

Grammy and her sweet boy

 Grand-Dad and his sweet girl 

 Grand-Dad and his girls with all the beautiful flowers they picked

 Poor Grammy threw her back out and wasn't able to join us on our hike to see the Natural Bridge. At least we have a good excuse for going back to see it again! Here's our fearless crew ready to set out on the hike. :)

 The kids had a fabulous time running back and forth over this wooden bridge

 I think this is about as good as it gets when it comes to a family pictures of us. :) 

 Kennedy and Jackson checking out a salamander in a little stream that ran next to the trail

 Jackson LOVED having Aunt Jennifer around :)

 Cute kids hanging out with a super great aunt! :)

 We naively thought we were almost there at this point, but we had quite a hike left ahead of us. While I'm so glad we made it to the top it was pretty steep and hard going towards the end.

 Here are a few of my favorite pictures that Grand-Dad took of the Natural Bridge

 Grand-Dad also captured these sweet pictures of the girls almost at the top

 After a monumental struggle and meltdown Jackson made it to the top with Aunt Jen. She seriously deserves some sort of a medal for putting up with us that afternoon. Thank you for all your patience and persistence! These next few pictures are of Jackson and Aunt Jen enjoying their time on top of the Natural Bridge.

 And miraculously we made it safely back down!

 Thought this was such a sweet sisters pictures captured by Grand-Dad

Thank you for a great day Grammy, Grand-Dad and Aunt Jen! We need to go back and do this again with Uncle Andrew!!! :)

The Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique

We enjoyed the Disney Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique experience for the first time when we returned to the ship after our day at Castaway Cay. I hadn't been planning on doing this with the girls originally, but then I realized I wasn't sure when we would do a Disney vacation again and the girls were pretty much the perfect age for absolutely loving the full princess beauty treatment!

Reagan seeing herself for the first time as Princess Minnie

I thought this picture was so sweet, both Reagan admiring herself and Kennedy peaking out at her from the porthole in the background. :)

Missy K seeing herself for the first time as Princess Ariel

Missy K enjoyed admiring herself as well :)

 Again, I love the Disney Cruises for the truly personal experiences they provide. When we came to the Boutique to schedule our appointments as soon as the beauticians heard the girl's names they were very excited and asked "Are you the Reagan and Kennedy?" They told us the princesses had their hair done here and they had all be talking about them, especially Ariel. They had been waiting and hoping we would make appointments because they wanted to meet the girls too. They had to hear the girls do their Merida quotes and were just super sweet in general getting to know the girls, helping them select their dresses etc. During our appointment, later in the week, they discovered their favorite beautician had been a Girl Scout so they all had to recite the Girl Scout pledge together. So cute and sweet! :)

After our appointment, we met up with the boys who sweetly posed with the girls. Here are their highnesses Princess Reagan and Prince Rory

and their highnesses Princess Kennedy and Prince Riley

and my sweet princesses being driven by my wild little prince!

Missy K could not stay awake another moment at dinner! :)

After her dinner nap Missy K was ready to go and see her prince charming, Mickey Mouse, one last time :)

Two beautiful Minnie Mouses!  

Two beautiful Ariels in matching dresses (and matching princess pose too!)!

Three gorgeous princesses enjoying their last "special time" visit together

As always, Disney provided us with another incredible vacation and many magical memories! This time it was all the better becuase of the family that came along. Thank you to everyone who made this vacation one of our best and most memorable! 

This and That Around the Ship

Here are a few pictures I couldn't quite decide where to put, but wanted to include. This first one was the best family picture we captured on one of the formal nights

 This is a group shot leaving Port Canaveral

 Here are the kids dancing together (and I think with Goofy) in the Oceaneer's Club

 Andy's room in the Oceaneer's Club was super cool!

 This is one of my favortie pictures from the trip - I love that Stacy crawled in and thru Slinky! lol :)

 One wiped out little girl! In the middle of seeing a princess one evening Missy K laid down on the floor and declared she couldn't go one step further. lol :)

 These are a couple of creative and beautiful shots Grand-Dad took of the ship

 Such a sweet picture of the girls with Aunt Jen and Grammy

Thank you to everyone for all the fun throughout the week! :)