Surprising Zoey!

Back in November we surprised Zoey with a trip to Disney World!  We started planning it back in February.  It was hard and fun at the same time to keep the secret from her.  There was times when I wanted to tell her so we could do a countdown, but then I knew I wanted that element of surprise when we told her.

As soon as we decided we were going last year, I started working on her autograph book for meeting the characters.  Thankfully we do not use our dining room that much nor does she go in there because that came my station of mess for creating the book! I got the book done with a week to spare. :)  That's pretty good for me!  My sister helped me embellish it once I had all the character cut out and put together.

We left Sunday morning early to head to the airport.  Our flight left around 10:30 am from Memphis.  We got up early and told Zoey we were heading to get donuts.  Thankfully she cannot read yet! :)  She had no idea what her shirt said.  After getting donuts, she realized, hey wait a second.  We are not headed back to the house, she started asking to go back home. So we told her where we going instead.  I was hoping we might could get to the airport before we told her, but she wanted to go home.  I got it all on video! I love my sweet girl!

Zoey learning we are going to Disney World!

Thanksgiving 2013

While I know Thanksgiving was six months ago, I do want to share what we did.  This year my parents decided to rent a beach house in Gulf Shores for the week.  My parents and my sister and her family went down the Saturday before Thanksgiving, while Brian, Zoey, and I went down late Monday night. 

This was our first long (ie over 3 hours) car ride with Zoey.  Yes, I know, she was almost 2 years old and we still hadn’t gone more than 3 hours in a car with her.  She was not the best car rider at that point.  We decided to see if leaving around her bedtime and driving through the night would make it a easier drive.  Zoey finally went to sleep around 10:30PM.  The drive couldn't have been worse, weather wise.  It POURED almost the whole way down.  I tried to stay awake as long as I could to help Brian stay awake, but I faded.  We finally arrived to the house around 1:30AM.  Another first happened.  We ended up putting Zoey in bed with us.  She freaked out when we put her in the bed in the room with the girls, then she wouldn’t go back to sleep in the pack-n-play.  Only saving grace of the night was the fact we had a king size bed.  She WOULD NOT lay still nor really go to sleep.  The next day was a LONG day.  Zoey had another first that week, she sleep in a bed (aka not a crib) all week.  All three girls shared a room and she loved it!  She thought she was a big girl!

Zoey right before she finally went to sleep in the car.

This was Zoey’s first trip to the beach.  While it was FREEZING, very out of the normal code, she LOVED the sand.  I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

The Dole Planation–Hawaii Part 2

We headed up to the North Shore one day to go to the Dole Planation and visit the North Shore.  Sadly it rained most of the day while we were here and didn’t get to enjoy the North Shore beaches. 
Let me tell you, pineapple in Hawaii is NOTHING like what is imported here.  I  am not a fan of pineapple at all, but dang it’s the best in Hawaii!  I really wish I had bought some to ship home like everyone else, but I had no idea that you are not able to get the product of Hawaii here; instead it’s the product of Honduras.  I mean, really we can’t even ship and purchase food made in the US!  We tried the maze, one of the largest in the States, but couldn't even find it to the first point.