Happy Halloween 2017!

October has been a fun month! I'm doing well at school; I sing lots of songs to myself as I play and sometimes I recite prayers too. Gotta know my prayers! The weather has been beautiful for lots of fun outings, especially in the afternoons with Mommy. One afternoon we took a hike to the big park, another we walked over to see the broken road, we walked around the neighborhood looking at decorations (blowups are my favorite) and another afternoon we went on a hike to my favorite suspension (I say aspension) bridge and flew a kite when we got back to the windy park.

This past weekend we took a family day trip to Pilot Mountain State Park. It was this mountain that just came up in the middle of flat ground. We drove to the top and when we got there we had a picnic. I must have said in 50 different ways, "Why are we having a picnic lunch on top of a mountain?"  Once I got used to the fact that we were on a mountain, I enjoyed the hike we took around the rocky top. At first I was unsteady on all the rocky steps and roots across the trail, and I held on tight to Daddy's hand, but by the end I would say I hiked it pretty well. It was a fun trip!
Later that weekend, we prepared for Halloween by carving our pumpkins. (Another quote: "It's my carvin' pumpkin" meaning it's my carved pumpkin). I had fun watching Mommy cut open my white pumpkin and clean it out (I WAS NOT doing that!). After she carved a ghost face into my pumpkin I had fun pulling the top on and off over and over and over again. With our pumpkins carved we were ready for Halloween. Mommy and I spent most of the day outside because it was a beautiful day hanging out by the pond watching the heron (his name is Blue Bird by the way) and before I knew it, we were ready to eat dinner and do some trick or treating!!

Back to Business

Ever since our amazing vacation, it's been back to school and routine. Each week, there has been something exciting happening at school though. The week I got back, Cora came to my class at the end of one day to read a book to us. I was so proud of her. I stood next to her as she read the book and sometimes while she showed the pictures in the book about colors, I would add commentary such as: "This is exploring the color green." I am lucky that she is a really good reader because if she is in the mood, she will read to me! The next week at school, my class performed a song in front of the parents. Although I didn't sing very loudly, Mommy knew that I could sing the songs because I would practice them at home. "St Francis Was a Good Man" was fun to sing, but I really loved "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" because the actions that go along with the words are fun.
Last week we had our Fun Run at school. I was scared to do the Fun Run mainly because Mommy told me not to run or else I would slip in the parking lot, which many kids did. So, I ran for about 50 feet, stopped, folded my arms across my chest and started crying until my teacher came to find me. Mommy was not too impressed by that, but I was just confused by the whole thing. At the end, Cora came to my rescue and held my hand to run the last 100 feet, but that was the extent of my Fun Run. Luckily, the same day we had our fun run, the firemen came to visit us with their truck to celebrate Fire Safety Week. I enjoyed climbing on the truck and hearing the siren.

After we dried out from hurricane Matthew we finally had our field trip to Vollmer Farm! Instead of going to school, Mommy and I drove out to the farm. We learned about bees, cows, chickens, took a hayride, we made butter and got to visit some farm animals. After that, the fun began. I loved jumping on the orange inflatable pillow! I jumped on it with my friends for almost an hour. It was so much fun I didn't want to stop to eat lunch. When I finally had enough jumping, Mommy and I took a walk through a corn maze, tested my skills using a sling shot and then went down a really fast slide! Mommy went twice with me, and finally I got enough courage to go down by myself with some of m friends. I went down the slide like 10 times! It was a beautiful fall day for an exciting farm field trip!

"Shake, shake butter we will make, churn churn now it's your turn!"

A Magical Ending!

It’s good that we had a day of relaxation at the resort because we were up and at it early on Thursday morning at Epcot again. The very first things we did were our favorite rides from the first day at Epcot. My favorite was Soarin’ so Daddy took me on it again! (Test Track was a little too fast for me.) We then did a few more rides in Future World then we headed over to the World Showcase, another section of the park where we walked through different countries. My favorite country was Mexico because we went inside a big Mayan ruin to get to a boat ride. My favorite thing to see was the model trains in Germany. There were trains traveling on different tracks and little people and houses as if the trains were passing through villages. In Morocco we met Aladdin and Jasmine. When we got to Norway we got to see Anna and Elsa! I get shy and embarrassed around the pretty princesses even after we have met so many of them. In Norway we also saw a Stave Church, which Mommy says maybe we can see a real one sometime if we go visit her family in Norway. We walked back to the World Showcase to visit Joy and Sadness in headquarters. We went back to Norway and  we dashed into the Stave church during a short rain shower before going on another ride. It was the Frozen ride! It was really cool especially because the boat went backwards at one point. Cora was singing along the entire time and while I had a good time I think she had an even better time! 

After riding Frozen Ever After we had a little bit of time before dinner so we took a walk back to Germany so I could see the trains again. When we went back to dinner, we were surprised to see that we would be eating in a castle filled with princesses! Before we got to our table we met Belle in her beautiful dress and after we finished dinner some more princesses came out to see us including Snow White, Ariel, Cinderella and Mulan. After dinner as we walked out of Epcot we enjoyed one last fountain performance then boarded the monorail back to our hotel for a somewhat earlier (still 9PM) bedtime so we could get up early for one last day at Magic Kingdom.

My early morning at Magic Kingdom began with Daddy riding some of my more favorite rides from our first day. The Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, the rockets and the Tomorrowland Speedway cars were my requests. Every time I went on the rockets I always pointed out the fact that you could see our hotel (which you could)! We met up with Mommy and Cora and rode the Seven Dwarves Mine Train. I was again, very apprehensive about getting on the ride just was I was with most, but I actually had a really good time riding it! If asked to do it again I probably would have. Too bad the wait was like 100 minutes! That’s a long time! We had fun riding some other rides such as Peter Pan’s Flight and its’ a small world, Mickey’s Philharmonic and Dumbo before it was time for lunch. I never forgot to ask before getting on a new ride what it was and if we would be going down any hills. I ate a big lunch! All this walking has really given me an appetite! After lunch we went on the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Under the Sea, Enchanted Tales of Belle and we rode the train all the way around the park before catching the Festival of Fantasy parade again. This time we had a great seat to watch the parade and a couple of the characters waved or winked right at me!
After the parade we rode the rockets and saw the Carousel of Progress before it was time for an early dinner. We had dinner at Be Our Guest, inside the castle of the Beast! We ate in the grande ballroom where Belle and Beast had their first dance! Mommy took me around to see the other rooms in the castle including the Enchanted Rose Room in the West Wing. It was really cool and I enjoyed eating dinner there. After dinner we got to meet Beast, the host of our wonderful dinner. I went with Daddy to do the People Mover and The Space Ranger Spin one more time before it was time to leave the park and go back to our hotel.

Our fun day wasn’t over yet though. We put on our bathing suits and enjoyed a night swim at the pool before it was time for bed. We got showers and pjs and right before we went to bed we enjoyed a fireworks display from our room over the Magic Kingdom. It was amazing and a perfect ending to an amazing Disney Adventure!

Epcot Time

I had no problem sleeping in the following morning. We woke up late and got ready for brunch with some more characters. We rode the monorail over to the Grand Floridian where we met Winnie the Pooh and Tigger in addition to Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter (I had no idea who he was, but he was funny so I liked him). Mary Poppins was fun to meet, even though I don't care for the movie. She was so nice, she brought pins for us to wear that said we were celebrating our 1st Visit to Disney. I filled up on Mikey waffles with fruit and all sorts of yummy brunch food and I really liked the special passion fruit, orange, guava juice that was served with it. Now we were ready for a day at Epcot!

When we got to Epcot, we started off with a cool ride called Test Track! The truck I designed before the ride was cool, and most of the ride was fun, but I could have done without the part where the car went REALLY fast! Mommy and I took pictures with the truck I designed while Daddy took Cora on another ride. After that, we  headed over to The Seas where we saw sea life of all kinds. I enjoyed the Finding Nemo ride which took us through a tour of the aquarium guided by Marlin and Nemo. After that we saw Turtle Talk with Crush followed by some attractions at The Land exhibit. A short rainstorm passed by and on our way to get dinner, a magical rainbow appeared over Epcot! It was so cool, the first rainbow I've ever seen! We had some dinner, then found a spot where we could watch the IllumiNations show! It was a great show of fireworks, lights, fountains and music. Mommy brought more glow sticks tonight which I played with while we waited for the fireworks show. We were going to leave the park right after the fireworks but we decided to stay and do one more ride. It was a great way to end the day. The ride, called Soarin' was so awesome! My favorite so far. We were hanging up in the air like we were in a hang glider flying through all sorts of places around the world. I screamed with excitement as we flew over some beautiful "aromatic" landscapes. Thankfully Daddy held onto my leg as we flew. Luckily as we left the park, we got to take a silver colored monorail. The color of the monorail is extremely important to me. We were pooped by the end of the day and I'm glad our next day was a day of rest at the resort.

Our resort day was good. We had breakfast at the hotel, then headed over to the swimming pool where I got to go down the small slide, practice my scooping, jump into the water a few dozen times, play some games and do some crafts poolside. We ate some snacks while enjoying the Lion King in our hotel room to relax a bit in the afternoon before we went to Disney Springs. Disney Springs is like a big outdoor mall but one of the best parts was the Lego Store and the massive Disney store where we got to pick out some souvenirs for our trip. After shopping, we had dinner at this really cool restaurant with dinosaurs everywhere! My favorite dinosaur was one that I couldn't pronounce and the best part was dessert when it came out on a plate with fog cascading off of it! Even though this was a day for relaxation it was still a fun time!! I've even started to lose my voice I'm having such a good time!