other stuff from the day 2

diana and i standing in front of the really creepy troll type thing in the gift shop connected to the maelstrom (the maelstrom!!!).

a fountain in epcot. at first when i saw it i though, oh thats nice. and then i realized that it wasnt a waterfall, but in fact the water is going up the falls! what?!? its not water falling, but rather its a fountain shooting up! cool!

diana wanted to have a tiara so she could feel like a princess, well, i found myself a crown so i could feel like the king!

the soft underbelly of the epcot ball...

other stuff from the day 1

just a silly picture of me looking at the castle. diana took this one with my phone so that i could send it to a few friends on a text message that said 'guess where i am!' i guess i had forgotten to tell a few of the guys, because they were pretty surprised!

a view of some of the cool buildings in fantasyland in the magic kingdom.

walking through the magic kingdom, liberty square is up ahead.

another area in fantasyland in the magic kingdom. this is actually the front of the 'its a small world' ride.

the future, today!

this picture actually gives a good idea of how some of the places in disney were not busy at all!

this is a ride designed by walt disney himself, it shows scenes from different decades as an anamatronic guy talks about whats going on in the world. then the seats move to the next scene. the guy next to me was snoring about halfway through it. cant say i blame him...

this is the entrance into tomorrowland. the area was kind of a let down, but then again we didnt have the chance to go on space mountain. we will have to come back again to do that!

taking it easy in disney

diana and i took a walk on the boardwalk in frontierland. we stopped for a minute to take this cute picture!

one of the perks of going to disney in january: the lines were really short the whole time we were there, but the bad part was that splash mountain was closed for repairs.

we briefly stopped into the hall of presidents in liberty square, but werent really interested enough to watch the show...

one of the ride that is a must when ever going to disney is this one: the haunted mansion! sure, its not really even remotely scary, but its fun none the less!

liberty fish

the restaurant had an old shipyard theme, and there was some pretty cool stuff on the walls. diana was entranced by the plaque next to our table that had old pirate gold pieces in it and a little bit of info about each one.

a great view from our second floor table. you can see the line forming for the haunted mansion ride.

this cracked me up! while waiting in line to order, there was this old woman in the next line over. please note the mickey ears she is wearing...

a day of magic 3

here are a couple pics that only the sidestreet guys will understand: hey dusty, i went back to that same spot, and i found one thats even hotter!

adam, no random lady rocking on the chairs this time!

a day of magic 2

ah, the castle at the center of magic kingdom! it was under construction, so we couldnt actually go in it. boo.

our first stop in the magic kingdom was the swiss family treehouse. it was pretty cool, but since i had never seen the 'swiss family robinson' movie, it wasnt that special.

hmm, i probably should have told diana that i was going to take a picture, huh?

a pretty princess with a tiara! diana really wanted to wear one while she was at disney, but all we found in the magic kingdom were lame themed ones for kids. we will keep looking, and maybe we will find a good one later... (foreshadowing)

a day of magic 1

as we came in on the monorail, this was our first view of the magic kingdom!

when we first walked into the park, as if on cue, a parade started! what a great way to start our disney fun!

all kinds of floats went by, with everyone singing and dancing, it was a fun site to see.

miranda and levi

diana making work of miranda's hair- she cut it, bleached it, and colored it (with two colors!).

diana took advantage of having miranda round and had her color diana's hair as well! (dont worry, it didn't end up purple- it just looks like it while it was being dyed!)

gifts and such

nick, barbara, and poco enjoying mom and david's tree.

diana and miranda warming up on the sofa as david walks by.

ha! this one explains itself!

playing games

david made sure we were well fed while we were there!

miranda and diana enjoying the afternoon catching up!

diana deals the cards while nick gets his things in order.

at dinner time we had some ham, which poco desperately wanted!

goodbye oh nine

diana wanted to show poco off, so she pulled out his coat (which poco hates!)

jessica thought it was funny, but poor poco is not very happy about the situation...

jenn checks a few things online while diana looks along.

closing time

in the morning, before we woke up, ben grabbed my camera and took this pic of faber!

since jeffry lee and keith arrived after we did some shooting the night before, they wanted to spend some time making things go boom too! jeffry lee got to fire off his deer hunting rifle for the first time!

jake sully, you did a great job this year as our official mascot!

everyone's got their stuff packed up in the cars, aarons got his security blanky, and now its time to head back home.

cabin fever

rex spent most of the night in this chair. he didn't even get out while we were playing games- he just sat here and watched it all happen!

during one of our games, keith sat out and climbed up to the ledge on the balcony of the cabin. quite a view, i'm sure.

i've got no comment on this one...

sporty's

keith and aaron enjoying the amazing sporty's experience.

rex appears to be angry about something, and keith is obviously thrilled with his first sporty's experience...

dusty just chillin out. behind him you can see how the place was really bustling with other customers...

of course, we didnt go anywhere with out our favorite mascot jake sully! he was certainly digging the fries!

get lost!

walking around with guns as dusk sets in.

aaron makes for a pretty scary bandito with that gun!

i'm trying to look tough, but i dont think it works very well...

the ol 'hunting' trip

the guys stake out the corner booth of the bk.

all four of us trying to squeeze into the picture. please notice at the bottom right corner of the photo that this year we have a cabin mascot: avatar jake sully!

amazingly, there isnt that much snow up here! i thought there might be a couple feet of snow, but there is only a few inches. that is very helpful, because if there were a ton, we were going to have to walk the whole mile driveway with our hands full of our gear! surprisingly, the saturn and talon are not built for huge amounts of snow...

christmas leftovers 2

papa and poco, new best friends!

when diana and i would go to sleep for the night, diana needed a place to put her ring that she knew would be safe. my suggestion: the cigar indian on top of papa's humidor. he kept it safe all week!

as diana was cutting aunt becky's hair, barbara was chilling out infront of the computer. i dont fault her for that, i was hoping to do the same!

christmas leftovers

another shot of aves rocking out with her mic and stand- giving us even more renditions of 'jesus loves me' with her own homespun lyrics!

for christmas bubba got a new set of pajamas which featured this awesome character on his belly! i loved it so much i had to take a picture of it!

tweets rocking and rolling with the mic!

bubba and i both enjoying jake sully, the toy papa got me for christmas!

an open fire

mom and david live on a lake, which is really beautiful in the winter! in order to show their christmas cheer, david even put a christmas tree out on the end of their dock!

the christmas tree on the end of the dock is strewn with lights- a beautiful sight at night!

family gifts

on one of diana's gifts was a nice ribbon, once she tore it off i promptly put it on her head. well, i sure thought it was cute!

barbara opens one of her gifts from dad. diana, still ribboned, seems entranced by her ring...

poco makes his way over to dad to get some petting!

the beautiful winter scene barbara created at her house using her grandma's holiday decorations.

the white elephant in the room

after being introduced, the family grabbed some food and hung out for a while chatting.

diana's dad opens up his 'gift', its a hand painted coconut with a lovely scene of a vacation paradise. truly breathtaking...

the whole family gathers with grandma for the annual photo. the spouses joined in for a photo too.

one of our gifts from jill for christmas was a nice bound book of many of our wedding photos. diana and i both loved it and wanted to bring it to the allens so they could check it out too! some of them werent able to attend the wedding this past spring, so this was their first look at the beautiful bride!

heaven thankful walking too video 2

both aves and tweets belt out a tune this time. we even get a little mugging from bubba!

heaven thankful walking too video 1

aves shares with us her stirring rendition of 'jesus loves me'. we laughed for hours!

a fur real kitty

aves was so overjoyed that she immediately ran over to mema for a thank you hug!

after mema, she ran over to papa to thank him as well!

here she is, beaming with joy, over her new pet kitty!

the gift parade 2

at bubba's school they had a day where they went through a 'gift store' and they could buy gifts for their families. bubba went through and picked out different things for each member of the family, and wouldnt you know it, he did a great job! each of the gifts he got were perfect for who they were given to. to mema he gave a lipstick case with a mirror, cause he knows how much she checks her make-up, for papa he got a keychain that said 'worlds best grandpa' and even included a drawing on the back that he did himself, for diana he got some shampoo stuff, because he knows she does hair, and i got a hat from cabella's because he remembered the last time they came down we went to the cabella's near our house! what a thoughtful little guy, huh? i wish i had been that bright when i was his age! thanks for the great gifts, bubba!

diana receives her thoughtful gift from bubba and thanks him so much!

everyone gathers around as a gift is unwrapped.

tweets and aves got new sets of pajamas, which they wanted to show off by hiking the pants up as high as they would go!

the gift parade 1

tweets and papa just hanging out.

aves and diana waiting for gift time to start.

timmy opening one of his gifts as the kids look on.

tweets got a long sweater (im sure there is a special name for this article of clothing, i just dont know it) from mema, they had been shopping weeks ago and tweets really really wanted it. mema was sneaky and went back to get it for her- tweets was very pleased!

a call from abroad

one of the fondest memories i have of christmas growing up is my brother's gift wrapping skills. he always wrapped the gifts he got for everyone himself. the thing is though, he did not subscribe to the 'traditional' form of wrapping gifts, he seemed to create some sort of alternate style of wrapping. some may call it 'bad', or 'incompetent', but no- his form of wrapping was almost beautiful in its lack of logic. he would never want anyone to be able to guess what they got, so he would put the gifts in boxes, as well as any other object that might be strewn about, such as cans of corn, laundry detergent, dish rags. you name it, he would stuff it in the box with the gift just to throw us off. it often worked too! as for the wrapping? well, it was something to behold. not necessarily something good, but certainly something to behold...

since chad wasnt there to wrap his gifts to all of us, mom took it upon herself to keep chad's wrapping 'style' alive by recreating his method for gift giving. he obviously had a ton of fun doing it! here are some of her works in the style of chad!

i dont think tweets quite understood what was going on as she looked at the gift from chad...

one of the gifts chad gave was a sledding board for bubba! he was very excited to try it out. they have a hill in their backyard, so he was excited to try it out just as soon as they got home!

christmas dinner

deviled eggs!!! my favorite!!!

you might be able to tell from the picture just how excited i was! dont worry, i didnt eat all of them, tweets had one...

presents await!

aves got some legos for christmas (girl legos, that means they are pink and stuff...) and showed aunt diana how to play with them.

each of the kids opening their first gift of the day!

bubba got a big set of lego spaceships, he immediately went to work building them!