The Mormon Miracle Pageant (The Marmons Gather in Manti)

Eric and I have been to the Mormon Manti Temple Pageant many times but this would be our first adventure with the little kids. I would say for any of you who lack wisdom in the area of dragging your little, tired children to a very crowded small town in the middle of Utah in the 95 degree weather and attempt to keep them quiet and reverent during a production of this nature: If your going to do it, sit out on the street with the anti's where they don't mind that your toddler is creaming "I'm poopy!" and your baby is screaming hysterically because he is being eaten alive by mosquitos. Oh and bring a leash.

I have always loved attending the Manti Temple Pageant. My first experience there was when I was 11 years old and my brave Grandmother trekked from California to Utah with 5 granddaughters to visit family here and decided to give us the Manti Pageant Experience. I remember it rained and we ended sitting under chairs in puddles so that we could still try to see it. I still recall that I loved it and my absolute favorite part is the Heavenly Choir at the end.

This is the Manti Temple at first sight when driving into Manti. It really is one of the most gorgeous temples I have been in. So majestic being up on that hill.

Those are the Ephraim cows. There are lots of them.

Cameron is finally sitting up well enough that we take him out of the infant seat and put him into the stroller. He is so happy to be "free" of the seat.

Like my shadow down in the corner? Skill.

So I will admit that even more than the Pageant, I love funnel cakes. OK I guess its really just a perk but its really not the same experience unless we get a funnel cake with strawberries and powdered sugar!

I thought I would throw these in just because my kids are cute. When Braiden is away I can always catch Paige playing in his bed. Cameron will just sit in his crib and watch Paige on the bed and bust up when she bounces. They are so cute when they play together.

One of my favorite things

So this is a little random compared to my regular posts but today I was searching for the perfect wall art for Paige's bedroom and I found these darling prints by illustrator Alison Jay . Most of her work is in children's Books but I thought that these were so cute.
I had to get on Amazon and look for her books and I ended up buying Alice in Wonderland for Paige. It is so cute.







As a side note: I did not buy all or any of them for that matter. I just thought these were great. I still have not found the right picture for Paige's room that I would like to do in a fun circus theme. Any suggestions?

Days 6 & 7 in Orlando: More Magic and the long journey home!

So on Monday we decided to take it easy and sleep in, go to the pool and then later in the day go back to Magic Kingdom for Fireworks and parades. So since the boys thought the girls were party-poopers, they left at 1 pm so that we could meet them later.

My mom, Whitney and I decided to go for a walk to find food and we passed this little pond with this sign. Seriously?
Later that evening we met the boys at the Magic Kingdom and scoped out a perfect seat for the Mickey and Friends show that happens right in from of the Castle.
This is me in front of the Walt and Mickey statue. Self portrait, in case you were wondering.
My little animals in front of the castle.

This was pretty much Braiden's demeanor anytime we were doing anything that had to do with Princesses or Pooh or Mickey. If it was Pirates or Roller Coasters, then he is his other personality. What a boy.

This was a very cool show and I highly recommend you don't miss it if you go to The Magic Kingdom. All the favorite Disney characters and Princesses as well as Peter Pan were there.

The group watching the show.

So the next day, we packed up, made one more stop at the pool and headed off to the airport for the long flights home. Again everyone did alright but Paige was not feeling very well. She was running a fever and it turns out she has an ear infection. Surprise, surprise! Thank goodness it was the last day of the vacation.

Home at last. We love Salt Lake and its DRY climate. We all had a great trip but we are so glad to be home and in our own beds. Cameron was so happy to see us. I swear he got longer and smarter while we were gone. He started doing this little army crawl over the last seven days. He is no longer stationary. YIKES!!

Welcome Home kids!

Day 5 in Orlando: Sea Worldliness

Its been a couple of days since my last post and the truth is that I am now happily home in my dry climate recovering from the long flights home. I have a couple days of catching up to do so I figured I better do it while all my memories are still somewhat fresh.

Day 5 was begun at 3am with a loud "konk" and scream of "ou-ee" from Paige when she fell out of the hotel bed and hit her face on the hotel nightstand. At the time I didn't realize she had hurt herself because it was dark and I could not see her eye swelling up. I got her calmed down and put her back in bed and in the morning Eric awoke to the huge shiner on her left eye. Poor thing. She was happy nonetheless but I could tell it was sore for her. You know when people see your kid looking like they got beat up that's exactly what they are thinking, right? That you beat up your kid. Not the case people. Not this time anyway. Ha ha, just kidding.

So this day was for the World of Sea. Also known as Sea World. It has been years since I have been to Sea World so I thought that for sure this was something that could not be missed. Well I guess my Orlando Travel tip of the day for you is this: Your kids really can't tell the diff between Sea World and the fish section at Wal-Mart. So seriously, save yourself the $60 per person.

Honestly though, my kids had a blast but for me it was really just a reminder that everything seems cooler and cheaper when you are little.

The first stop was of course, the Shamu show. I didn't want to tell my kids though that Shamu is dead and this is his Great-Great-Grandson. Don't crush the illusion mom.

The show was neat and was I ever glad that I was not sitting in the lower section. It was hot but in Florida weather, if you get wet, you stay wet. All day. The air is so full of moisture that you can't dry off and you get chafed. Braiden learned that the hard way.

We learned that the only place to find real snow in Florida is in the Arctic Exhibit. It was like 50 degrees in there for the animals but remember what I said about Braiden being wet? He was shivering after hugging that ice wall.

In case you were wondering, these whales are not real.

This is the weirdest thing I have ever seen. Its called a Leafy Sea Dragon. Google it. Very cool. Its in the Seahorse family and I thought it was amazing. This was the coolest thing I saw at Sea World.

This was the coolest thing Paige did at Sea World. Oh, to be a little one again and run around in nothing but a diaper and pigtails. She was so hot that I let her undress an play in this little water park for like an hour. She was so happy. I had to drag her out.

Aren't my kids cute? Like the black eye?

Um, those whales aren't real either. But don't tell Paige.

By the end of the day we were all a little tired. We took a cab right from Sea World to Downtown Disney where we ate at Hollywood Planet (the loudest restaurant in the world) and walked some more fighting through more crowds and then took the bus back tot hotel.

This did us in as you can see. That explains why I did not post that night.


Good night.

Day 4: Magic in the Magic Kingdom

Its a little late so today I will mostly just let the pictures speak for themselves. We spent the day in the Magic Kingdom which is like the Disneyland we know and love but a little different. We started the day with a character breakfast with Pooh and Friends. We did the Jungle Cruise, The Enchanted Tiki Room, The Haunted Mansion, Its a small World, Peter Pan, Snow White, Dumbo, etc.




The little cafe we ate lunch at was right overlooking the launching area for Its a Small World. Paige was staning there waving to people and it was so hilarious that people were totally waving back at her and getting a huge kick out of it. Some people even took pictures of her which I was not too crazy about but what do you do? She is quite a ham.

Tomorrow? Sea World, here we come.