Brinley's Preschool Field Trip

Brinley started in preschool earlier this year and she absolutely loves it! They had a fall field trip where they went to the pumpkin patch, Bi-Water Farms. Jennifer had worked the night before so we let her sleep and I took both kids on the field trip. The weather turned out to be great and we all had a lot of fun! Here are the pictures from our adventures.

Brinley loves preschool and was so happy to be going on her 1st ever field trip.

Brinley with the rest of her classmates getting ready for the hayride.

Landon and I on the hayride. Brinley left us to sit with her friends.

We had just finished the corn maze when we arrived in the pumpkin patch. Here is the pumpkin that she picked out.

Landon with his pumpkin too!

Daddy and kids selfie out in the pumpkin patch.

Brinley and her classmates right before they headed into the spook house.

Most of her class decided to call it quits for the day, but my kids were just getting started. Brinley was riding on the large blue rocking horse.

The kids walking in the huge pipe.

Brinley learning how to use the bouncy ball.

Brinley enjoyed a few trips down the huge slide.

Landon riding down the big slide too.

The kids riding the Bi-Water Train.

We even spotted a big dragon too.

Brinley was just barely big enough to ride the big tricycles.

One last picture before leaving the farm. We had a ton of fun and we will definitely be back in the future. Neither kid was ready to go, but I was worn out.

If you ever get a chance to visit Bi-Water Farm then I would highly recommend it. There were some things that Landon wasn't big enough to do so I would recommend waiting until your children are a little bit older. It was a great field trip and I can't wait to go on many more with my little girl. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Hiking with Landon

My little man only goes to school right now on Tuesday and Thursday so that gives me 3 days a week to spend some time with just Landon. We decided that a few weeks ago we would go for a hike at Raven Run. I knew that we were on a time restraint because Brinley is only in school for 3 hours and I had to factor in driving to and from the school. So we decided to take about a hour and a half hike. I was so proud of Landon! He walked for about the first 20 minutes all by himself. I couldn't believe that he made it that far. 

He was so happy to eat his snacks when we got to the overlook. Just a few minutes before we got to the overlook we spotted a couple of whitetail deer. I didn't get my phone out quick enough to get a picture though.

Our view from the overlook. It is so peaceful there and you can even spot fish out in the river. On this trip we even spotted a turtle.

Look at the smile on my little man! I really enjoy our one on one time.

Another picture where he isn't cheesing and he just has his regular smile.

Being silly and Landon won't smile for a picture.

On the return trip back to the car Landon got a little tired and he just wasn't feeling it for a selfie.

One of Landon's favorite resting spots is up on my shoulders. He looks pretty relaxed up there. I am not sure how many more years he will like riding on my shoulders, but I'll try to do it until I can no longer lift the little man up there.

These times with just the two of us guys are so precious to me. I hope that I am always able to spend some time with just him. I know that he won't always want to hang out with his dad, but I want him to know that I will always be there for him if he needs something from his old man. Thanks for reading and God bless!

On the Move Art Studio and Crank & Boom

There is a pretty cool non-profit organization called On the Move Art Studio. Every month they do an event around Lexington and we just so happened to make it out to their September one at Crank & Boom Ice Cream. You just have to show up and kids can do an arts and craft activity and then get a nice treat of ice cream of their choice. It also happened to be their 1st anniversary so they also had cake and other party favors.

Brinley painting with her party hat on. 

Landon also doing a painting with his favorite colors which are blue and green.

The kids with their final artwork and ice cream. Both kids picked out strawberry ice cream for their treat. I think they both did well with their art. Landon's is a little more abstract.

Crank & Boom has a selfie room with all kinds of props. The kids really love taking pictures and adding props just makes it that much more fun. Landon had on a leprechaun hat and Brinley was the cat from Cat in the Hat.

We were in a little bit of a Christmas mood so Brinley wore a Santa hat, Landon had on a moose hat (which he called a reindeer), and I was a little elf. They can be so silly sometimes.

The couple of times that we have been able to make it out to the On the Move Art Studio events we have had a lot of fun. My kids would highly recommend it! Who wouldn't love arts and crafts and ice cream all for free. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Mickey's Not So Halloween Party and Disney Trip #3

The second week of September we made our 3rd trip to Disney with our season passes. I had some awesome co-workers that allowed me to get off work a few hours early so that we could start our journey sooner. So, Sunday night we started off toward the happiest place on Earth, Disney World. We arrived at the hotel at 5 am and we went to check in. They just so happened to have a room ready for us so we went ahead and unpacked all of our things before heading to the Animal Kingdom. We usually choose to go to the Animal Kingdom first because they have extra magic hours. That way we can go do some of the more popular attractions with little to no wait. That way we can use our fast pass selections later in the day at a different park.

Family picture and some of the many animals that you can see around the park and on the safari. The Animal Kingdom is literally like a combination of a zoo and amusement park.

Landon recently got a new pair of shoes and the large soles just happened to put him over the height requirement of 38 inches which allowed him to ride a few new rides including Kali River Rapids. Landon loved it and wanted to ride it again. Unfortunately, the second time around Landon and I got completely soaked! The little guy still loved it.

We also took a little time to play at the Bone Yard Playground. They had some huge slides and some rope bridges that all of us played on.

We then packed up the kids and headed over to Hollywood Studios where they happened to have an open spot for the Trials of the Temple Jedi Training. Brinley told them that she was brave enough to fight the dark side. She was so brave and learned the ways of the Jedi and then fought the Seventh Sister.

Tuesday we relaxed and just took it easy to start our day. We spent a few hours at the swimming pool and tried to make the kids tired in hopes that they would take a nap because we knew that we were going to have a pretty long night. We were set to go to Mickey's Not so Scary Halloween Party and it was scheduled from 7 pm to midnight. Unfortunately the kids didn't take a nap so we just put on our Halloween costumes and headed on over to the Magic Kingdom for the big party.

We wanted to wear themed costumes this year so after much deliberation we decided that we would all be characters from Landon's favorite movie, Wreck it Ralph. Jennifer had been working on our costumes for a couple months in her spare time. It would have made more sense for me to be Ralph because he is a large guy who is bigger that all the other characters. However, Landon really wanted to be Ralph so I had to be the other main male character, Fix-it Felix. Brinley was Vanellope Von Schweetz who is the main race car driver and Jennifer was another one of the racers, Taffyta Muttonfudge.

Here are the pictures of the characters that Jennifer modeled our outfits after. I think that Jennifer did a pretty awesome job and our outfits were a huge success! A lot of people recognized us and called us by our character names, including the real Ralph and Vanellope in the night time parade. 

I thought these pumpkin lights were pretty cool. They were on all the lamp posts throughout main street.

We rode a few rides before heading to the back of the park to get in line early to meet one of the specialty characters that were going to be out for the party. One of the most popular meet and greets at the park for the Halloween party are the Seven Dwarfs. This is one of the few times that you are able to meet all of them and get a picture with them so we wanted to be sure and meet them. We got a spot in line underneath a tent and then the weather took a turn for the worst. It started lightning and thundering and we were informed by the Disney employees that the dwarfs were not able to come out in the bad weather. So, we patiently waited for our chance to meet them. The problem was that the weather didn't cooperate and the dwarfs didn't come out to start meeting guests for another 2 and a half hours. This was a huge disappointment for us, but we decided to stick it out because we were informed that all the other characters would not be out meeting people either. We didn't want to get out of line and lose our spot.

After 2 and a half hours waiting we were so excited to meet and greet with all seven of the dwarfs.

We ran around like mad people and tried to see as many characters as possible, but unfortunately we ran out of time before we were able to see everyone that we wanted.

We were so excited about the Boo To You Parade! However, due to the weather the first one was cancelled and they had to have a slightly modified parade. The part of the parade that I was sad that we didn't get to see was the headless horseman that runs through the park at the beginning. 

The highlight of the parade was seeing Wreck It Ralph. He looked over at Landon and jumped up and down in excitement to see someone dressed up like Ralph.

Brinley even got to see the character that she was dressed up like. Vanelope gave her a big wave and even blew her a kiss!

They also had a special fireworks show that was themed more towards the villians. Landon happened to fall asleep prior to the fireworks starting so I woke him up and that ended up being a huge mistake! He cried through almost the entire fireworks show. I didn't want to ruin the experience for everyone else so I wondered around as much as I could so that no group of people had to listen to Landon's cries for an extended period of time.

The fireworks show was really neat, but I just wish that I could have heard the music better if Landon hadn't been crying in my ear.

After spending the whole night running around we got one last picture with Cinderella's Castle. This was taken well past midnight and Brinley was out, but Landon caught a second wind.

Heading back to the hotel with a wide awake Landon and a sleepy Brinley.

The kids with their candy that they collected at the Halloween Party. There were 13 trick or treat stations and this is the candy from just the 3 stations that we visited. I can't imagine how much candy we would have got if we went to all of them.

The next day we made a return trip back to Hollywood Studios and we went around and met all the Star Wars characters including Kylo Ren, Chewy, Jawa, and the Stormtroopers.

Landon sat and watched his sister participate in the Jedi Training and he loved every second of it. I knew that he would love to do it, but unfortunately you have to be 4 years old to participate. Not one of my best decisions as a father, but I told Landon if he told the people that he was 4 then he could fight the bad guys. He was so excited when they said he could do it! Afterwards we had to have a talk and I told him that we were just pretending and that he was really only 3 years old.

Brinley fighting Darth Vadar and Landon fighting the Seventh Sister. Both kids were so excited to be fighting the bad guys.

Landon standing in line and then riding his first BIG roller coaster, the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. This little man has no fear at all!

There was a dance party out in front of Cinderella's Castle. The kids didn't really want to dance, but it was pretty cool to see Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps from the movie Zootopia.

I just love it when the kids wear their Mickey ears. They were a lot more excited about it this trip than they were in past trips. I really like the shadow picture of Landon with his ears on and up on my shoulders.

One of the last things we did before leaving to come home was to watch the new show that they perform at the front of the castle. It was good and it was neat to see more current characters involved in the show. The only bad part is that there is no shade in front of the castle and I began to sweat profusely during the show.

Landon just got to be tall enough to ride the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and he absolutely loved it! So now this is both of the kids favorite ride.

We usually only wait in lines that are really short for character meet and greets unless the kids really want to meet someone. We met Olaf twice and Anna and Elsa are always big hits.

We also had to met a few favorite Disney Junior characters. We also had a few friends photo shopped into the picture. The longest line we waited in was the line to meet Joy and Sadness at Epcot. Jennifer waited about 45 minutes while I took the kids around to ride a few rides.

Everybody with their favorite treats. The kids would eat just about anything that was Mickey shaped and my absolute favorite Disney World treat is the Dole Whip. It is so delicious and I would highly recommend it to anyone!

Brinley had her own little photography sessions on Main Street.

We decided to get a few pictures as we were on our way out of the park and Landon was not feeling it. He had such a little pout face and the photographer was trying so hard to make him smile. Nothing was working so he told us all to look sad and Brinley couldn't stop smiling. This is normal life for us! We have trouble sometimes getting both children on the same page.

It was a really great trip and in the past couple of weeks since we got home both kids have been asking when we were going back to Disney. I have a feeling that when our season passes expire the kids are going to be really upset. It has been so much fun going to Disney and seeing it different times of the year. Thanks for reading and God bless!