Lubbock

 Mike is holding down the fort again with the boys -- I'm in West Texas for a girls' weekend.  :)  (The big glasses are at the Buddy Holly Center.)

Seattle

 I was at a conference in Seattle this weekend (despite United's best efforts to keep me from getting there and getting home), which was wonderful.  It's such a neat city, and it was fantastic to see Jeff and Yvonne and the girls.  I can't wait to go back with the whole family, although we don't know when that might be!

Preschool Graduation

 Hard to believe this day is here!  We'll miss the boys' teachers and the preschool community.

They had a nice little ceremony with songs from the kids and then handed out their alphabet books, which they've been making pages for all year.  James's class also did photos and had three words to describe each of the children -- Jamesie's words were "bright, kind, and puzzler".  (As he was going up, he said, "Puzzler?  That's silly!")

Mattie's Beach Day

Mattie's class had Beach Day today -- and he gets to do it again tomorrow with Jamesie's class!  It's his favorite day of the preschool year!  (Not picture --pizza and popsicles!)

Happy Birthday, Mike!

Mike's birthday coincided with the preschool picnic, so we celebrated there (and at lunch with friends).

And a Few More

 We spent our last morning at Epcot, because Mattie told us that his favorite ride was Spaceship Earth, and he wanted to go on it again.  Jamesie got to take pictures with the Disney characters while Mattie was on the race car ride (Test Track) with Mike.  And then we had time for a very brief swim at the hotel (James's favorite thing!) before catching the bus back to the airport.

(Disney buses take you back to the airport well in advance, which turned out to be a good thing, because the line to get through airport security was immense!  I guess I've gotten spoiled by the recent short waits at RDU.)

More from Disney

 We had a great time at Disney and are back to "real life" now.  Before we went, this was going to be "a once in a lifetime trip" -- and now Mike is already planning for when we can return!  :)

Disney Birthday

 The boys are having a great time at Disney!  Everything went smoothly with our trip -- we didn't have to wait long for the bus to the resort, a check-in specialist met us at the door so that we didn't have to stand in line to check in (and our room was ready right away), and another family who was leaving gave us a bag of bottled water and bananas that they didn't need.

Of course the boys wanted to try out the pool right away, so we had some lunch and then went for a swim.  They loved it!

Then we went over to Epcot, where they were having the Flower and Garden festival (including topiaries of Disney characters, and most importantly for the boys, some temporary playgrounds!)  We also rode Spaceship Earth, which Mike and Matthew really enjoyed.

On the way out we had amazingly delicious lemon scones from one of the F & G festival booths. Yum!

Yesterday morning we went to the Magic Kingdom.  It was very hot and the boys were a bit tired, so it felt a bit like we were dragging them around (although Mike got to go on Space Mountain and the boys enjoyed the Astro Orbiter rockets -- and of course we took a ride on the PeopleMover!)  We had a well-timed lunch (indoors just as the torrential rains fell) and then did a couple more things (Buzz Lightyear and Monsters Inc Laugh Floor) before heading back to the hotel to recharge.

Even though they didn't nap, the boys instantly perked up as soon as we were back in the room , and played for a while while the parents rested (hilariously, they were playing a game about "recharging batteries")!  We headed back to the parks around suppertime, since the forecast was for rain all afternoon today.  It was great!  We went on Haunted Mansion (which Mattie had been asking for ever since Mike told him it was like a Scooby Doo episode), Pirates of the Carribbean (Mattie's favorite), Magic Carpets (James's favorite), Thunder Mountain (only Mike), and wrapped up with the fireworks, which both boys loved. 

Number 43

 We took a road trip this weekend to the Richard Petty museum.  Matthew was wondering on the way whether there would be a Lightning McQueen there (from the movie Cars), and we told him probably not -- little did we know that they'd have an exhibit of Cars cars there (since the Pettys did the voices for "The King and Mrs. The King").  Mattie was excited to see that!  (Mattie was also very pleased that the car when we first came in was orange and blue.  "They must be a Gator fan!")

The museum is nice, but it isn't all that big, and it's kind of one-track (ha!), and so the boys got bored kind of quickly. But it was fun to see all the different cars. (And Matthew was also very excited to get to pick something out at the gift shop -- a Hot Wheels version of Number 43.)  I fear that Mattie's current love of gift shops does not bode well for us at Disney. :)