Disney Cruise - Saturday

 

 Saturday morning we got up and met everyone (all 17 of us) at the food court at the mall (inside the airport). After breakfast, we headed down to the Disney Cruise line buses and got all checked in and loaded on a bus.  Drew and Tina had made us matching shirts for our vacation, so we all wore them the first day.  It sure made it easier to find everyone!

 Grandpa, Lindsay, Emily and Grandma 

Uncle Kevin

Charlie, Christopher, Abby and Calissa  

 Once we got there and got checked in we just had to wait around until it was time to board. 

So ... we took a few pictures.  (Like Trav's eyebrow?)

 A picture of the cousins (minus Conner) with Minnie.  

 Almost ready to board.

Fun Christmas decorations in the terminal.

Once we boarded the ship, we all went to have lunch and then Calissa headed off with her cousins to check out the kids club. Trav, Conner and I headed up to get an ice-cream and get into our room.

A "selfie" on the balcony before we set sail.

 

 After the mandatory lifeboat drill, we headed up to deck 11 for the "Sailing Away" party!

 We danced and sang along with Mickey and the gang.

  Calissa and Lindsay got right up front.

 We heard the ship's horn, the streamers flew, and off we set on our magical vacation!

 Calissa dancing along! 

Our family as we set sail!

(It was weird to not have Parker with us!)

 There is nothing quite a beautiful as the sunset on the ocean! 

Relaxing in our room before getting ready for the first show and dinner.

The first night is the "Fantasy Come True" show. Buckets and Boards performed also.  We saw them on a previous cruise and LOVED them and were really excited to see them perform again.

They also had the Tree Lighting the first night as well.

 It was fun to have the ship decorated for Christmas even though we hadn't had Thanksgiving yet.

Our first night towel art.  Our stateroom host made each of our towel art this cruise out of our blanket.  It was pretty cool!

Disney Cruise ... travel day!

 Well, somehow we ended up getting talked into going on another Disney Cruise this year.  My brothers (Drew and Kevin) were going as well as my parents.  We said no for a while and finally decided that new carpet could wait. The kids got their independent study contracts ready and signed, and off we headed to the SF airport via BART on Friday.

 Conner sat by himself across the aisle from the rest of us. I think he enjoyed the peace and quiet!  We flew to Dallas and had a quick dinner before boarding our final plane to Orlando.

 (Conner's hair was blowing around from the air thing above ... he was trying to ignore us!)

 Smile!

Calissa does a much better "fish face" than me!

We arrived in Orlando around 11:30 pm and checked into the airport hotel and went to bed so we'd be ready to meet everyone in the morning at breakfast!

Stake Conference

 Last Sunday was Stake Conference.  We are lucky to have it every six months at the Inter-Stake Center on the temple grounds.

 The kids were singing in a youth choir and needed to be there at 8:30, so Trav and I took a walk around the grounds (and on top) of the temple before conference started.

The conference was wonderful and the kids did a great job singing.  The lights went out about 45 minutes before it was supposed to be over, so we sang a couple of songs, our Stake President shouted a quick testimony, had a closing song and prayer and then headed home. It was one to remember for sure!

First place!

 Calissa played soccer again this year in the U14 division.  She moves up to U16's next year (which is kind of scary)!  She was on the Warrior's and then ended the season in 1st place!

 Travis reffed a lot of her games again this year.  (I think we're both kind of hoping that she doesn't decide to play again next year in HS so he doesn't have to keep reffing!)

She played most of the year as a defender and a mid-fielder.  She isn't afraid to go after the ball even though most of the girls are bigger than her.  She keeps improving each year!

 Here's her goofy team after the championship game!

Way to go Calissa!

Their team qualified for the Area Tournament too. They played 3 games in one day.  Here is Calissa warming up for their 2nd game.  Crazy girls!

Happy Halloween!

Calissa decided to dress up this year as a witch!  She loved dressing up for school and then she was able to go to Gracie's house for a block party and trick-or-treating.  Conner stayed home with us and we had the missionaries over for dinner and passed out candy.

Subbing ...

 I was asked to sub for about 4 weeks this month in a 3rd grade class.  I really loved being in there and teaching each day.  I was also OK when it was over too ...

 While I was there they had to create a piece of artwork for a fundraiser and the teacher didn't leave a specific project idea.

 I decided to have them draw light houses.  I loved how they turned out!  So proud of those kids!

 Also, here are a couple of funny assignments that the kids did.  This one was a Scholastic News article about if monsters are real.  The scientist they interviews said "no, they are not real and here are the reasons."  Then, the kids had to write if they thought monsters were real and their reason.  So funny and sad at the same time!

Here is another one that was homework.  The kids had to read the title, look at the picture and the vocabulary and make a prediction about what it was going to be about.  I read her prediction and thought, "oh  ... she's just trying to be funny."  Then, I looked at the picture and realized it was a good prediction based on the picture alone!  :) Silly kids!

District Choral Festival

 Last night was the district choir festival at YV with over 250 kids from the local high schools.  

It was VERY HOT! It was a nice concert and Concord represented themselves well! This is the first time in many, many years the CHS has participated.  We enjoyed it (besides the horrible heat)!