Adult Trip

Last month Paul had a work conference in Orlando so I flew down at the end of the week and met him and we did 2 days at Disney together. We had SO much fun!  (But shh...our kids don't really know that we went.)
We stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter. On day 1 we went to Magic Kingdom in the morning and then went to Hollywood Studios in the afternoon. We rode some rides at Magic Kingdom and saw a few shows and rode rides at Hollywood Studios. Paul doesn't ride roller coaster and I'm ambivalent about them so we stuck to the tame rides! We were excited to see the new Toy Story Land and because the crowds weren't bad we were able to do Toy Story Mania, Paul's favorite ride, twice in a row.
We didn't make any plans ahead of time as far as meals but we were able to snag last minute dinner reservations at 50s Prime Time Café. It was SO fun and the food was really good! We will definitely be taking the kids there next time we go!

toy story land

Mr. Potato Head sang and interacted with the crowd while you were in line for Toy Story Mania.

Frozen sing a long

Our delicious food at 50s Prime Time. I had the fried cheese appetizer and the wedge salad. Paul had roast.

The second day we went to Epcot and hit the big rides and then went to Animal Kingdom in the middle of the day and then went back to Epcot and ate around the world and watched the night show. We were at Epcot for rope drop and went straight to Test Track. We did the single rider line and walked right on the ride and then went and used our fast pass for Soarin. When we got done we realized there was only a 20 minute wait for Frozen so we went and did that before heading to Animal Kingdom. When we first got to AK we couldn't get any fast passes so we did the Bug's Life show and then I was able to grab a fast pass for the Avatar river ride for after lunch. We didn't spend too much time in Animal Kingdom, it was pretty crowded and everything had really long waits. We headed back to Epcot and I was able to grab another fast pass for Soarin and we rode Test Track again before walking around World Showcase and sampling lots of yummy food! We staked out good spots in England to watch Illuminations. We wanted to make sure and see Illuminations because it is going away this summer.

We got up Sunday morning and headed back to Columbia. We had SOOOO much fun on our trip! Disney is lots of fun with kids but its just as much fun when you go with just adults! We got really lucky with pretty low crowd levels, especially at Epcot and Hollywood Studios, and absolutely gorgeous weather!

We are so thankful for my mom coming to take care of the kids while we were gone. She was pretty brave (or crazy?) to take on 4 kids by herself! Oh, and did I mention she took on 4 kids by herself with the stomach virus going through our house? JP and Ruthie had it before I left but Ellie had it while my mom was there. Thankfully my mom and Emmie didn't get it! I'm also thankful that Paul's parents were standing by to come help in case my mom got sick. We have the best family!

Wizard of Oz breakfast

Today was the Dance Theatre of Columbia's Wizard of Oz character breakfast! We look forward to the character breakfast every year and the kids were so excited about going!
The kids had a great time eating breakfast with their friends and taking pictures with some of their favorite WOZ characters.

And the most exciting part of the breakfast for the kids...Coach Carl (our summer swim team coach) was there. The kids were SO excited. (His sister is Dorothy in WOZ)

Emmie is my only DTC dancer this year and she is SO excited! She is a munchkin and an emerald and she would love to have friends supporting her at the show on March 9th. You can buy tickets at http://www.baileyfinearts.net/dance-theatre/! We'd love to see you there!
PS. Wizard of Oz is my very favorite DTC show!

Peanut Day!

Today was a big day in our OIT journey! Today Ruthie ate a peanut! I was incedibly nervous and incredibly excited all at the same time! When you’re dosing with the solution of the powder it’s easy to not fixate on the fact that you’re feeding your child their allergen. But when you get to the peanut stage things get REAL! Today our child who would react to peanut on her skin ate an entire peanut with no issues. I am constantly amazed by OIT.

About to eat her peanut...she got all self conscious because the doctor, the med student and myself were all staring at her!

Don't mind me..just the mom in publix trying not to cry as I bought peanuts.

Our next big milestone is in 4 weeks when she eats 3 peanuts and is cleared for cross contamination. At that point we no longer have to worry about what has touched her food so we’ll only have to read labels to see if the food actually contains peanut. We’ll also be able to go to places like Baked Bear, Marble Slab, and Duck Doughnuts (and she won't be limited to just the few doughnuts they are willing to fix in the back)! The big girls have a running list of places they want to go! Ruthie will also be able to eat cake at birthday parties without having to first check where it was made.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, she thought the peanut was yummy!

And just like that we're in the final color block on our dosage chart!

Father/Daughter Dance

Tonight was the Father/Daughter dance at school. (Actually it is now a family dance but Paul and the big girls went so it was Father/Daughter for us!) It was Ellie's turn to pick the restaurant and she chose Olive Garden. The girls had a great time eating a "fancy" dinner with Paul and they had lots of fun at the dance!

While they were at the dance the littles and I had a date at CFA complete with playground time and ice cream cones!