Epcot Center

We made it! Ready for another fun day.

SO STRONG :-)

Who's that Greek God that holds the world on his shoulders... ATLAS!!

Jonah is already asleep and it's only the first line of the day!
But he woke up just in time to see all the characters. First up... MICKEY!!
Jack was on cloud 9!

All the characters in one room... Brilliant :-)

My boys are pretty cute, but I wish you could see the awesome fish in the background.

They had a HUGE aquarium after you exit the Nemo ride. It was unbelievable. We saw ray, sharks, all kinds of fish and coral, and dolphins...

Many of you might know our good friend from Finding Nemo?"Hello! My name's BRUCE!"

Eating our lunch on the bus ride home and staying PLENTY hydrated!
Sweet baby is getting sleepy :-)

Like father like son!! Out like a light.
Back for round 2. John went on the ride "Sourin" while I watched the boys. I decided it would be fun to get a picture with just then and the "Epcot Ball". Jonah was of course an angel. He's such a happy baby and will pretty much smile at anything that pays attention to him!

Jack however, is a different story. This was me:

"Jack, will you please come over here so I can take a picture of you?... Jack can you hear me? I'm talking to you... Jack, listen to your mommy"

"How bout we play a game and see how fast you can run to mommy!..." (or how fast you can run away from mommy)
"Jack just hold still and smile for me... Oh no, it was blurry and this time just do a gentle smile..."
"OK now, put your arm down..."
"I guess that will do!"Welcome to MEXICO!!

Of course we had to try on the hats :-)

Drums in MOROCCO!

ITALIAN Gelato!Jonah was just fine eating his toes!

Silly daddy is a horse in JAPAN!

The gardens of FRANCE!

The fireworks show over the lake was i.n.c.r.e.d.i.b.l.e and a perfect way to end the night.

Tomorrow... back to Magic Kingdom!

John's trip to Utah

I went to Utah the 4th week of October. It was wonderful to return to the mountain west, see family and of course attend the BYU/TCU game. I actually went to recruit students from BYU and Utah to attend Duke Law. On Tuesday I was in Salt Lake at the U's law fair and met a lot of great people. My family made it down from Burley and we had a good time hanging out at Temple Square and then going out to Cafe Rio.

My family on the pedestal near the office building with the temple in the background.

Kyerin and Madisyn at the reflecting pool.

My family at the Christus in the Visitor Center.

On Wednesday I headed down to Provo for the Law fair. It was so busy, I had no time to even eat lunch. It was great to see some of the missionaries I had taught and even some friends who are still around. I handed out a crazy amount of viewbooks and generally had a fantastic time talking to everyone at Duke. After the fair was over I went over and met up with the beautiful man, Scotty Zwick. Being with Scotty always makes me happy, he is such an enthusiastic guy and we had a head-bangin good time. Scotty has actually learned some new moves since Mel and I left Provo. He now sticks out his tounge and closes his eyes and was literally rocking my rental car. It was awesome. We hit the malt shop downtown. I then went back to SLC and had dinner with my aunt Shannon and Ron at the OG. Kyerin was our server. It was a great time.

John got to spend some time with Scotty, the beautiful man!!

During my stay in Provo I stayed with Joe my best friend of many years and his wife Sarah. It was great to spend time with him, it was almost like we were Freshmen again at BYU. Crazy story: Thursday morning Joe and I were headed to the library to study but decided to stop by "The Armada," a group of houses where Joe's bothers live. There I met a kid named Robby, he was really nice and it was great to get to know him. Later that evening I found out that he had gone longboarding with Sam and Tom (Joe's brothers) in Pleasant Grove. On a particularly steep hill he had lost control and crashed. He was pronounced dead on Friday. It was almost surreal. It reminded me how truly fragile life is and how in a second it can be over. I attended a bonfire Friday night in his honor and it was great to see so much love for the kid. He had touched a lot of lives. Saturday morning it was off to GameDay!

The next morning Joe and I woke up at 4am and headed down to ESPN game day. Unfortunately we were waiting right by the edge of the orange barriers when the crew came and told us we had to go get in line. It felt like so many people had jumped us in line Joe decided to go home and sleep. I just decided to stay since I had already come all the way from North Carolina. I ended up on the fourth row. It was like a Weezer concert (minus the music), everyone was pushing up toward the front, it was fun once but I probably won't go again. At least not that early.

By this point I was like on the second row.

Joe and John ready for the big Homecoming game! We were still excited at this point--the game hadn't begun.

Oh what a painful game!! I hate TCU. Bob and Bronco coached terribly and Max played a pretty bad game. Nothing really went right.

After the game I went out to eat with melanie's family. It was, as always, a lot of fun. Melanie was very jealous because she was home in Durham taking care of our sweet, sick, cranky, kids!

Overall it was a great trip. I enjoyed connecting with old friends and seeing family. I missed my beautiful wife and sweet kids. I was very excited to come home!

First stop... Magic Kingdom

We woke up early Monday morning and left Flagler beach and drove 1 1/2 hours to Orlando. We stopped at our hotel (making sure they got our reservation) and Jack saw this race car in front of our hotel.

He was convinced it was "Lightening McQueen" (from CARS). We could have driven home right then and he would have been happy! But, we came all this way to go to Disney, so here we go!...

We made it! Jack was so excited.

In line for our first ride... of course... DUMBO!

I love that we all fit in one Dumbo!

Funny story: We sat on the carousel and it was Jack, John and Jonah, then me. Well, I got off my carousel horse (because the ride was taking a long time to start) and I was taking pictures of the boys on the horses when this lady came and sat down in the horse right next to John. I snapped a few more wondering if she maybe didnt' see me, or didnt' know we were together... or mabye she didnt' think I was going to sit down, or maybe she just had a crush on my husband!! But I came over to sit on a horse next to John and she didnt' say a word, just SMILED REALLY BIG! I said, "How are you?" She just nodded and smiled bigger and turned to me and said, "no speak english!" You can't really tell, but John is trying SO hard not to laugh in this picture because the entire time we were on the ride I was trying to reach around her and take pictures and she was just sitting smiling on her horse. Every once in a while she would turn and say "Fun" "Fun." It was hilarious. But then that lady got off, and we rode it again because we were laughing too hard to get off! I finally got my good "horsey" picture!
Jack: "I don't get it...Why do you want me to pull on this? It's stuck!?"

I went to snap a pic of Jonah and just as I snapped... it went straight to the mouth! I about died at how dirty that sword must be!

My buff husband :-)
We watched Mickey's "Philharmagic" 3D movie. Jack loved it!

Finally, mommy lets me sleep!

Race car drivers

Looks like daddy needs a nap too-

click to enlarge. Jack's face is priceless! I showed him this picture today and he said, "Mom, I really liked that ride, didn't I?!"
it was SO hot that day

We found them :-) Jack was literally jumping up and down he was so excited!

Giving kisses!

"Casey Jr.'s coming down the track..."
"ummm... I have a question. Can we get outta here so I can sleep in my bed?"

We watched the "celebrate" parade and saw all the characters. Jack was in heaven and we wer all sweating bullets. Thank goodness Jack had this umbrella!

Buzz Lightyear ride... Jack was a little concerned about the evil emperor ZURG!

I love the castle's reflection in this cute little pond.

You can't go to Disney World and NOT got to slash mountain!! Jack wasnt' tall enough so we took turns going on the rides by ourselves. At first it felt kind of funny, but it was so worth it! It was record breaking heat the week we were there... around 92 degrees and 100% humidity. It was horrible

One of the workers at one of the rides gave him this, "Prince for the Day" sticker

Magic Carpet ride :-) It truly is a "whole new world" with Jack driving your carpet... it was a little bumpy!

Dreams really do come true :-)

Tomorrow... EPCOT Center!!!