Kids day camp = mom's fun week

My kids went to day camp at Uncle J and aunt T's church a few weeks ago. It was 8-5 Monday thru Friday. They had such a blast. I'm hoping to get some pictures so I can post about what they did. Still working on the pictures.

But for me, I had my own plans.


Monday: my one goal for the entire week was to get the pantry all cleaned out. If I got nothing else but that done, I would be happy. I am please to report that I did get my pantry done and more besides. I got the fridge, the oven, the lazy susan, all but one cupboard, and only one drawer--all cleaned out. Very pleased. Here is the midst of the storm.

Tuesday: I had Dei Gratia in the morning and then went home and got more cleaning done.



Wednesday: After I dropped the kids off in the morning, I started shopping. I went to Menards, the mall, Kohls, Target, Kroger, and CVS. Plus I went to lunch with Daddy.




Thursday: I spent the day with Aunt T. We were supposed to be scrapbooking. We didn't get started with that until way late in the afternoon. So we didn't get much done. But we did have a very yummy lunch. Sushi from a new place right around the corner from them.

Friday: I spent the day at home again getting regular cleaning and laundry done.

I know the kids had a fun but tiring week. I could say the same for me.


(to add to all the business, C kept winning his tourney games and so had unexpected games and practices through out the week. But that's all another post)

Yummo!

We ate so good at Disney! We had the dining plan that included one snack, one quick service (fast food), and one sit down meal per person per day. We didn't have to pay anything except the gratuity (that was kinda confusing-another story).

Monday night we ate at Planet Hollywood in Downtown Disney. What a neat atmosphere and good food. I had what they called "LA lasagna" It was fried lasagna. I've had fried lasagna before but this was sooooooo good. Very rich. My mom had a very good cob salad. It was fun to see some of the movie memorabilia there. My favorite was the Herbie car hanging from the ceiling. We also saw some gold bricks from Goldfinger (James Bond-Daddy's fav) and the idol from Indiana Jones (C's fav-even though he's never seen the movies) And even better, there was no wait (amazing since I had called for many days in advance to get reservations and was told there were no openings)

Tuesday our big meal was in Hollywood Studios at the SciFi cafe. It was a drive-in-movie type theater with very old SciFi clips playing. It was a neat experience. I had a very good turkey bacon sandwich with avocado mayo on it. It was pretty yummy. My mom had ribs which were good too. That night we ate back at our hotel's food court. This was considered a quick service or "fast food" meal. But the meals were huge! My dad got a full turkey dinner! Daddy and I got a nice sized chicken Cesar salad. For a "food court" meal, the food was pretty good.

Wednesday we ate in Magic Kingdom. The restaurant was called Tony's and was based on the movie Lady and the Tramp. They had the table decorated with confetti for my birthday. I had mushroom stuffed ravioli. The kids had regular ravioli shaped like Mickey Mouse. For dessert I had pumpkin cheesecake. It was so creamy! During dinner, there was a parade down the street. The kids and I left the table and went to the porch to watch for a few minutes.

Thursday we had a character meal at 2:30 in Epcot's Akershus restaurant. It's a castle in the Norway section of the countries. The food was FABULOUS! Everyone got to start out with the buffet which had salads, shrimp, meat, cheeses and fruits. Mom and I had a salmon burger that was so yummy! While we were eating, the Princesses walked around for autographs and pictures. We met Sleeping Beauty (Aurora), Cinderella, Jasmine, and Snow White. K had gotten a small wand (in the dentist's office treasure chest no less) that she took with her to this meal. She had to show every princess that stopped at our table. It was so neat! The meal was yummy, and the billed proved it! For all 6 of us I think it was close to $200! But it was all covered on the dining plan (except for the tip). So awesome!

Friday we had another character meal at a nearby resort (so much nicer than ours). It was Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort. This was a buffet, again with very good food! They had salmon, ribs, turkey, pastas, bread, soup and a big dessert bar. I got a cupcake with a candle on top for my birthday. At one point, all the characters sang and danced for everyone's "celebrations." This bill was pretty pricey too. Friday night we had hot dogs at Casey's Corner. Good hot dogs. Daddy and I ate there way back on our honeymoon.

Through all the meals and snacks, I still think we ended up not using maybe one meal each. We were able to "downgrade" a few into snacks to snack on before we went to the airport. I would say the nicest thing was that I didn't have to think of the meal, cook it, or clean up!

Disclaimer: All character pictures will be featured on a later post. Stay tuned!

Picky, picky

My kids are picky eaters (some of you are saying "Duh!") For lunch we usually eat one of 3 things: hot dogs, pop corn chicken (for C; K won't touch it) or mac & chz (for K; C only eats it if he has to). C will eat left overs if they are pasta or tacos. Otherwise we are stuck in a rut. So Wednesday I tried something new. I made grilled cheese and cut the sandwiches into shapes with my cookie cutters. There were moons, stars, hearts, and another shape (an X maybe?). Plus they had a "sample" of all our chips (BBQ, Pringles, Cheetos, CheezIt, nachos) and a sample of every fruit that we had in the house. C gobbled everything down. The "trick" worked for him. K loved the samples of the chips and fruit. The sandwich--she saw right through it. She ate it, but it was still a long drawn out process. SERIOUSLY?!?!? K is on this kick right now where she likes NADA, even the things that she usually loves (mac & chz, sausage, cheese). She drives me nuts! And she is just like her Papa--if she doesn't eat, she gets very grumpy! (love you Papa!) Everyone says she'll eat when she gets hungry or when she goes through a growing spurt. Oh I did forget: she loves her tomatoes! Just like her Auntie. She will eat them until the juice runs down her arms. I'm actually trying to grow tomato plants for her (when will the tomatoes be here?) We went to a Mexican restaurant the other day. C got a taco and I asked for his tomatoes to be on the side, for K. They brought a HUGE scoop of them for her and didn't charge us any extra. So very nice. She loved it! Can a person live on tomatoes?

By the way, for those of you who care: this was a very hard post for me. I struggle EVERY TIME with spelling the following words: sandwich, tomatoes, restaurant. And these words were in this post multiple times. Thank goodness for spell check!

Foreign Chocolate

Our church is having a bus and soul winning conference this week. We have invited various churches in the area to come and are expecting around 300 guests. One of the guests came a long way to be here. He came all the way from Ireland! He is a convert of one of our church missionaries to Ireland. He has been here once before and really connected with our church.

After Sunday morning church, we stood talking to the church secretary in the lobby. He came up to ask her a few questions. We all then got involved in a conversation with this gentleman from Ireland. He's a really nice guy. He was even kidding around with my kiddies. C later commented that he had an accent. It's not really a strong accent, but just enough to be noticed.

We stood talking so long that the church had pretty much cleared out. This gentleman asked Daddy if our kiddies liked chocolate. Yes, of course. He said he had a present for them and could we wait while he went to get it? He brought back 2 boxes and a bag of candy. The bag of candy was for Daddy and I: caramels and coconut something-or-anothers. Each of my kiddies got a box of candy. It looks like a large box, but actually there wasn't much candy in it. There was a large, hallow, chocolate egg and 2 tubes of these smarties. These smarties are not like our "American" smarties. These were chocolate, covered in a fruity-like coating. Nice thing--there were no artificial colors or flavors in them. The smarties had an interesting taste, but the chocolate was very good.

It was very nice of him to give them to my kiddies and it was a fun experience to try new candy. I also tried to read the side of the box. Even the calorie section is set up very different from what we are used to. I am planning on having the kids send him a thank you note; but I want to wait til he's back home and have it sent to Ireland.

C has learned about many different countries this year in school and seemed very interested to learn about all the differences. (One of the countries he learned about was Kenya and he still asks what the temperature is there today--so Daddy checks on his iTouch) So after lunch, we got out the big world map to point out Ireland and show C where it is in relation to some of the other countries he has learned about. So despite having no school Sunday, it was a very educational day.

Here is a picture of the candy that we got. Kinda fun!