November to Remember

November seems to have flown by but here are some highlights so far:

Fouse had their annual pancake breakfast and Ethan won a 2016 Columbus Crew signed ball!

We visited the zoo on our school day off with some of Ethan's friends!

On Veteran's Day, Emma's school had an assembly and her and her 8th grade choir sang some patriotic songs.  Luckily I work there and got to see the whole thing!

And last night Emma entered her drawing in a school district contest and she came in 2nd for her school!  So proud of her!  Next she will move onto districts to see if she placed!

Fall Fun

So I have been very busy since I started my new job in October as a Studyhall Monitor for Genoa Middle school and not have kept up with my blogging.  So here are tons of collages of our fun month.....

Fall party and a 4th grade field trip to a park!

Dancing and birthday fun

As soon as we got back from our beach vacation, Emma was off to her annual summer dance intensive!  She looks forward to this every year since the studio brings in guest professional dancers to teach a class for the week!  She learns new dances and then performs them at the end of the week to family & friends!  It was a great time!

Then Ethan turned 9 on Aug 2nd.  Since Erik was working and Emma was at dance, we spent the day together just the 2 of us!  I took him to the driving range, picked out his new Beta Fish Hazard, had lunch at DQ and then he had soccer practice in the evening!

Ethan had a friend birthday party on Saturday evening at Star Lanes.  He had a great time with his friends and I had Emma invite her friend Emily to bowl as well.  The boys and girls had a great time!

Beach fun

We took another vacation to our happy place, Hilton Head Island, SC.  We have been vacationing here since Erik and I honeymooned there over 20 years ago.  My kids ask to go every year and we go!  It was a wonderful last week of July and the weather was hot but perfect beach and pool weather!

Magical Week

We had a wonderful week in Disney from July 6-12th!  Emma's dance studio performed in Disney Springs (Downtown Disney) and even though it was HOT, they all performed beautifully!  We had a magical week!

We arrived in Orlando, FL on 7/6/16 bright and early!  Our resort room at the Port Orleans was not ready so we took the bus over to Animal Kingdom to explore.  It was over 100 degrees but we still took a safari, rode rides and shopped!  We were exhausted so we went back to the resort to hopefully see our luggage and shower!  However our luggage was in another room but they gave us a free night's stay and extra fast passes for 2 days!  Our luggage arrived a few hours later!

On the 7th, Emma had a workshop with her dance studio so it was a pool day for us!  It was wonderful since it was a beautiful but hot day!  When she was done, she changed and her and I took the bus over with other parents for a special gala dinner with her studio.  Ethan and Erik stayed at the resort and relaxed.  Emma met tons of characters and her fave princesses and ate and danced the night away at Epcot!

On the 8th Emma and her studio were performing at Disney Springs.  We took the ferry over and watched her perform.  It was extremely hot that day but these dancers kept going through 4 shows in the afternoon.  We did a little shopping and then headed back.  Emma was exhausted so we just had dinner and the food court at our resort!  Still yummy!

The following day we had planned to go to Magic Kingdom and Hollywood!  It was exhausting and hot but we did both parks in one day.  We did not get to do everything we wanted but we hit what we could.  I found out that my kiddos LOVE rollercoasters!  We also did some more shopping and snacked on some great foods at both parks.

The 10th was a pool day to relax and veg out!  We spent the entire day at the pool and headed over to Disney Springs on the bus (since it was going to storm).  Luckily we had ponchos but the storm was quick and we were able to shop and try a great burger place (very expensive gourmet burgers though).

The 11th was our last full day at Disney so we hit Epcot.  We rode almost every ride and went through the countries and tried some different foods.  We also had dinner at Coral Reef and watched the fish swim by!

If I had to do it over, I would of course maybe not go in July but not my choice AND go to the parks in late afternoon or evening during that time of year!  Emma's studio usually dances there every 4-5 years so we might be back!