Our Trip to Dallas

I know it's been a while since I've posted. Things have been pretty busy around here. After Charity Ball we had Thanksgiving (which was at our house) and then we had to get ready for our trip to Dallas for our friends Keith & Stacey's wedding (Jason was the best man, Zachary was the ring bearer, Addison was the flower girl, and I was a nervous wreck). More on that later. We decided to go up to Dallas a few days early and meet my parents at the Great Wolf Lodge. If you've never been you really should find the closest one to you and go. They have an indoor water park and is the coolest hotel we've ever stayed at. I'm so happy that my parents came down to share this experience with us. I hardly ever get to see them so it was really nice spending time together. I was very nervous for the drive. Zach is so easy in the car now but I remember how he was at Addison's age. Despite a rocky start (after driving for 35 minutes I realized that I forgot Addison's flower girl dress - as well as her blanky that she doesn't like to sleep without - needless to say we had to turn around) the drive could have been a lot worse. Addie fussed here and there but really did pretty good. Thanks to a lot of DVDs, toys and snacks. She only napped for 20 minutes so she really did well. Here she is on the drive there (happy she has her blanky)...

Zachary is at such a good age. He's so much fun and understands reason. He did so well on the drive there.

When we got to the hotel the kids were obviously VERY happy to be out of the car. When we got to our room Zachary was running around like a crazy man. Here he is celebrating on the couch.
They have the neatest rooms at this hotel. Zachary got his own little bunk bed room. He was so happy. He rubbed the wall and said, "Oh I love this hotel."He had his own TV!On Thursday Grandma and Grandpa Lilly weren't schedule to arrive till later in the morning. Since Addison got up at the crack of dawn (which meant we all got up at the crack of dawn since we were all sleeping in the same room) we had some time to kill before the water park opened at nine. It just so happened to be Zachary's 5th birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY Z!!! We let him open up the presents we brought. As you can see in the bottom of the picture Addison is eyeing the present that is wrapped in Elmo wrapping paper (she loves Elmo).

She tried running away from Zachary with the present but Daddy caught her.
I asked Zach to smile and this is what I got.

Finally it was 9am so we got on our swimsuits. Giving Daddy a big hug before we head out.

Addie had to give big brother a hug too.

And here it is! It is such a neat water park. The big bucket up top fills with water and dumps it out when it gets to the top. Wish I had a picture of the water coming out.

Unfortunately my photography skills aren't all that great yet. I couldn't figure out how to get a better picture of this area. The sun was coming in from the windows and messed up the flash. This is the toddler area. In the back there are small water slides that Addison had a ball going down herself. Zachary went down them too but they were a bit slow for him.

Here is the wave pool. Jason was unfortunate to see a child go under, come back up and then throw up from swallowing too much water. He immediately picked up Addie and got out of there.
This is a side view of that first picture. You have to walk up all these steps to get up to the top to slide down. That is nothing compared to the adult slide stairs.
Here is the adult slides. Of course older kids can go on them too but unfortunately Zach wasn't quite tall enough. Jason and I went on them first. There is one that is called the Howlin' Tornado. You can see pictures of the water slides here. It was a lot of fun but kind of scary. You have to have at least two people on the raft (maximum four at a time). Thankfully Jason went down backwards the first time we went. You go through this dark tunnel and then suddenly drop almost straight down and then go into this 6 story funnel that swishes you up like 30 feet from side to side before going back into the tunnel and out into the pool. We went on that a couple of times and then I went on it with my dad. He had tried to get my mom to go on it and afterwards said he was thankful she didn't! But I ended up going down backwards that time with him and I literally thought we were going to tip over. We were basically vertical when we went down that drop. Very scary.
This is another fun one that they call the toilet bowl. It's actually called the Cannon bowl but it's like going into a toilet bowl.

After we got done swimming we decided to open Christmas gifts. Here are Addie and Grandma having a tea party.

Zachary playing with his rocket ship.

I walked around and took some pictures of the hotel. Well really just the lobby and the Ice Cream parlor. The lobby was beautiful.

Here is the Ice Cream parlor where they had ice cream (of course) and lot of other treats. My favorite was the giant no bake cookies.

That night we hung out in the room. We were all pretty tired. It really was a fun day. I'm so happy that Zachary got to spend his 5th birthday at the Great Wolf Lodge with Grandma and Grandpa Lilly! On Friday morning Zach and Grandpa went to the water park again while Jason and I loaded up the car and Addison and went to the other hotel to get ready for the wedding rehearsal. I will post about that next.

Charity Ball '08

This past weekend we went to the Gulfport Junior Auxilary's Charity Ball. Last year was the first time we went and we had such a good time that there was no question I wanted to go. This year it was at the Beau Rivage casino (last year was at the Hard Rock). We started out the evening at one of my favorite restaurants, Jia, which is at the casino. It's a Japenese Teppanyaki restaurant. We went with our friends Melissa & Doug. The food absolutely delicious, we had a great time! The actual ball was fun. The band was awesome. We didn't do any dancing for some reason. We would come and go. Come listen to the band and then go gamble for a while. Here are a few pictures from that evening....

Happy Birthday Honey!

My handsome husband turns the big 3-5 today! Happy Birthday sweetie!! The three of us are so lucky to have such a wonderful and amazing husband/father. Jason went out to dinner last night with his brother, his cousin and some friends to the new sushi bar in town to celebrate. You only turn 35 once!! Sounds like they had a great time. Wish I could have been there to take some pictures. Here's a few from our trip to Disney World this past September and one from Charity Ball last year. Can't wait to go again this weekend!

Two peas in a pod (kind of)

Okay so it's not really a pod so much as a tunnel. Zachary has started bringing Addison in the tunnel with him so they can walk around together. It's pretty funny. I heard him say, "here take my hand." to her and he led her over to it and then put it over both of them. She loves being with her big brother so she'll do pretty much anything to play with him.

Except for the eye color I thought they look just alike in this picture.It looks like she is saying 'help!' but she is just saying 'hi!'

Cat Video

This one is worth a few moments. I couldn't figure out how to imbed it so you'll have to click on the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4eWEb0q29I

Minnie Mouse and a Fireman

This year for Halloween Addison was Minnie Mouse (we got the costume in Disney World) and Zachary was a fireman. We went over to this neighborhood (where we went last year) to go trick or treating with Chuck & Amy's church group. It's such a neat neighborhood and it only has one entrance/exit so they block it off and you can safely walk in the street. One couple graciously hosts this event every year. They have a perfect set up for parties and the kids seemed to have a really good time. Here is the one and only picture of Addie with her ears on. As you can see I had to be quick because she was already starting to take them off.

Zachary was a fireman this year. He wanted to be James again like last year but I don't know where the hat is to that costume and, I mean, you have to do something different every year don't you!? I asked him to smile and this is what I got.
Addison will say "cheese" if you ask her to but this is the expression you will get every time. I have many pictures from that night with this expression on her face.Addie LOVES putting on hats. Here she is in Hutson's pirate hat.
Zach & Hut

Last year Jason, Amy and I let Chuck talk us in to dressing up. This year he was not successful. He showed up as one of the Village People. He decided on it last minute and I told him if he would have thought about it earlier we all could have been one. Maybe we'll do that next year.
This is a ghost that the homeowners had that Addison really liked.

Here is Z and the boy who lives at this house playing with a big disc. I thought the picture turned out pretty funny. He only dragged Zach around for a little bit.

Boys play so rough don't they!?!

I was curious as to how much Addison would get into the whole trick or treating thing. She loved it. She carried her bucket the whole time and walked right up (and sometimes tried to go in the people's house) and held her bucket out.

Zachary is an old pro at this now.

Here she is pulling her hand away from Jason. She is bound and determined to do everything herself.

Here she is enjoying the one treat we let her have, M&M's.

I really wanted a picture of the two kids together. This was all I was able to get.

Here are Hutson and Zachary dancing in the kitchen. It was pretty funny.

This picture does not capture the moment at all but Addison was so wound up on the way home. She was squealing and carrying on. It was hysterical. And Zachary kept talking about how we had to go to 100 houses. "That's two 0's and a 1, Daddy Momma." It looks like Addie is just chillin' but she was going crazy!

We decided to surprise John & Sarah before we went home. Unfortunately Sophie was already in bed so we didn't get to see her in her peacock costume.

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween!!