Fabulous Army Life

My boys opted for a basketball camp over this Spring Break and had a great time at Mark Vincent's camp in Springfield.  They both feel like they learned a lot and improved their game.  The camp was a nice balance of fun drills, competition, and play.  The highlight for them seemed to be the high school players who came to run drills and demonstrations for them.  They were especially excited to meet Ishmail Wainwright who, after receiving 35 Division I offers for scholarships, chose BAYLOR as his university.  We all look forward to seeing him play with the Baylor Men next season.

Happy Spring Break, Northern Virginia! We woke up to 3-4" of snow on the first day of Spring Break, delaying the first day of basketball camp by an hour. The boys took advantage of the delay with a good, old-fashioned snowball fight. Although Joshua declared that snow days are not nearly as much fun when it's not a school day they're missing, they still had a great time.

Day Four of our Spring Break trip was spent at Disney's EPCOT Center. We were at near-exhaustion from three full days of previous fun, but still managed to have a super day.  We watched The Seas with Nemo and Friends , spent some time in the Imagination! Pavilion, and experienced three of our all-time favorite rides here.  The first was Mission: SPACE , a motion simulator ride that is as close as you can get to blasting off into space without leaving Earth. It realistically mimics what an astronaut might experience during a space flight to Mars.  Each member of our astronaut team had a role in a daring cosmic mission dodging meteors and navigating nebulae.  After the attraction, we visited the Mission: SPACE Advanced Training Lab, an interactive play space where we competed in Mission: SPACE Race, an arcade-style game. Our second favorite ride was Soarin' , a multisensory attraction that simulates a peaceful hang-gliding flight over California, in free flight f...

Cooks and Corsons, together again. The very best part of our day was meeting up with some wonderful friends at Animal Kingdom!  The Corsons were our next-door neighbors at Fort Hood for a couple of years and we survived a deployment together, complete with sharing meals, kids, frustrations, joys, and time.  In the Army, your neighbors are not just the people you nod to as you get into your car in the mornings, they become family. In our time together, Catty watched my kids, listened to my woes, and took care of everything from shoe-tying to diaper-changing for my kids when I sprained my wrist while our husbands were gone.  In return, her kids were always welcome in my home and spent more than one Friday night eating pizza and watching movies with us.  When my water pipes burst that deployment winter, she was there with me, fighting the raging fountain of water, clad in our pajamas.  On the first day of school, we shared a traditional school bus cake (her ...

Day Three was another fabulous experience in Orlando. Since both of my boys are nature/science/animal lovers, this park was a no-brainer for us. Entering Animal Kingdom First Stop:  The Boneyard The boys loved The Boneyard! Trey was thrilled to be chosen as the volunteer in "Birds of Wonder." Birdwatching with Dad

On Day Two, we headed over to Universal Studios Orlando for another fun-packed day in Orlando. We loved Shrek in 4D and Cat in the Hat story ride but our all-time favorite of the day was E.T. Adventure where we got to experience E.T. including riding our bikes over the town with E.T.! It was a lot of fun. Trey and Nate enjoyed Jaws and Twister: Ride It Out and we all had fun in Men In Black: Alien Attack. We watched Beetlejuice's Graveyard Review and went to the Blues Brothers Chicago-Style street party. We all enjoyed the Animal Actors show, meeting some famouse animal actors. Interestingly, the boys' favorite area was Fievel's Playground where all the toys were huge and oversized (giving us a mouse's perspective). There were no lines and the boys could just run and play freely. I'm sure there's an object lesson in there somewhere, but there is no time to ponder now. Off to more fun ... Nate and boys at Universal Studios Orlando. Yes, Trey did...

Trey and I were very excited to ride the Forbidden Journey. Joshua was not convinced it was for him, so he and Nate went to the "Flight of the Hippogriff" while Trey and I forged on to the Hogwarts Castle.  I love the way Universal Orlando has such an entertaining wait line ... there was no stand-in-the-sun-and-suck-it-up here!  The line leads into Hogwarts Castle by way of Mrs. Sprout's Herbology classroom complete with Mandrakes and other magical plants.  From here, we entered the castle and experienced all kind of cool features ... the house points, Dumbledore's office (and a guest appearance by Dumbledore himself!), talking portraits, the Mirror or Erised, the Defense against the Dark Arts classrom, and an appearance by our movie-heroes, Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Entering the Herbology classroom Mandrakes!  Entrance to Albus Dumbledore's Office My iPhone camera was clearly no match for the dark corridors of Hogwarts Castle, but it was an amazing ...

This Spring Break we decided to go all-out and take a trip to Disney in Florida. This is our first full-fledged Disney vacation and we were all very excited. The boys (and I!) were very excited about the new "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" section of Universal Studios and planned this for our first day in Orlando. Trey has read the entire Harry Potter book series three times and has seen all of the movies. I've read the series (just once) and watched the movies with him. Joshua has read the first three books and seen the first three movies. Trey and I went on a Mom/Son date to see HP7 when it came out and have another date planned when the final movie comes out this summer. Nate has no interest in the books or movies but loves us so he was happy to spend some time in Hogsmeade with us! Our hotel had a package that included an early admission to the Harry Potter park so we were able to get into all of our favorite shops and see the town before the crazy-packed-crowds...