Mandy's Journal: Fun, fun and more fun

My very very favorite quote from our very fun filled weekend, is brought to you from the still somewhat polka dotted and sporadically medicated Mandy, "This wasn't just
fun, this was FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!

After Mandy's little adventure into the wonderful world of nasty allergic reactions on Thursday we were not sure if we would still be able to follow through on this weekend's fun plans, but thanks to her "I am still a party girl, darn it all" attitude and the maker's of Benadryl, the plans went off just as we had hoped.

After Alannah's marathon day of rehearsal's and auditions on Saturday we headed over to Orlando. Our first stop, was the Give Kids the World Village. We rode the carousel, played Putt putt golf, ate dinner, ate ice cream and had a ball!
Mandy loving the carousel for the 90 billionth go around

Alannah kicking her Daddy's butt at air hockey

Zachary trying his best to turn golf into a contact sport

Then, one of the few perks(other than a paycheck and health insurance) of Ronnie having to travel all the time is the points earned at hotels and airlines. We used some of those points to score a room in Orlando for the night. The kids swam in the hotel pool for a little while and then hit the hay early as we had a big, huge, awesome day in store for today!

Fore the Children had been incredibly kind and generous and given us tickets to Discovery Cove! The kids were crawling out of their skin excited!! Mandy had made a list on Friday of what to pack and was up first on Saturday and got straight to packing! So cute!

So, early this morning, we were headed over to swim with dolphins and rays and fish, oh my! (Break for a moment so I can sing a few "Wizard of Oz" tunes!)We had an amazing time!

Zachary kissing Scarlett, the dolphin(Alannah and I LOVED her name!)

You should have seen the size of this birds poop! Zachary was so impressed!Boys!

Alannah and I have long given "dolphin rides" in our pool. But, we suck compared to how cool this was!

Note to the advertising staff for Discovery Cove, Mandy and Zachary have a new tag line for you, it is only somewhat of a slap to Alannah's version of a dolphin ride. "Discovery Cove...more fun than your sister!" Discovery Cove, have your people call my people and we can set something up for you to have the copyrights to that one.

We are home and exhausted and thrilled as it was an absolute BLAST! It was great to get away as a family and just let everything go and have fun. Thank you Dana and Mark at Fore the Children! It was the chance of a lifetime and will never be forgotten!

I leave you with this. My husband is the love of my life, the father of my children, the squisher of bugs, the fixer of computers, the Xanex to my soul when I need calming, the comedian to our children when they need a laugh, the one who makes up stupid songs and stories daily(ask the kids to sing you his Canada song sometime), a provider, a comforter, crazy, scary intelligent, can always make me laugh and chief executive officer in charge of listening to me be neurotic. I can not imagine this journey without his strength and love. He was home this weekend for less than 72 hours. He leaves again tomorrow and will be home for about 12 hours total over the three weeks. As hard as it is for us that he is gone so much, it is just as hard for him to have to leave. He is incredibly good at what he does and we are so lucky that he takes such good care of us. The folks at his office have always been so kind and supportive. For all of that we are very grateful. My husband was not taught how to swim as a kid and generally speaking doesn't much care for most things involving water. But, because he is a rockstar of a dad and husband he spent his day in the water with a zillion sea creatures. Baby, we love you and are so lucky to have you as a dad and a husband. Happy Father's Day and safe travels. We will always be here waiting.
Only the very best non-swimming, non-water liking, "I prefer my sea creatures with tarter sauce thankyouverymuch" dads would do this for his kids.