Family Time

The true highlight in any reunion is being around family.  4 of my 5 siblings came with all of their family and we stayed in a house outside of Orlando, Florida for 4 days.  Each room had its own theme.  Little Lady and Mel stayed up late into the night talking and giggling every night we were there.  I actually had to go in there one night, because they were loudly laughing around midnight.  The boys were all in the Star Wars room.  They went to bed easily but they were always up at the crack of dawn.

It was our first time meeting Cousin Gabi and Cousin Nicolas. 

We spent an evening with Grandpa and Grandma telling everyone their story of how they met, and the grand kids wanted to know all about the birth stories of their parents. 

The kids had a ton of fun making memories together!

Cousin Time in Legoland

 We started the vacation out at Legoland with cousins.  They mixed and matched groups all day. 

 The best part of Legoland is definitely everything being made out of Legos.  The kiddos were in awe of all the life-sized Legos. 

Little Lady was so excited to see all of her favorite Friend Legos.  The girls wanted pictures with each of them!

 The adults split up and took different groups of kiddos to different areas of the park.  Little Guy got to go with Aunt Angie and Aunt Stina to the Duplo Town with Alice and Joshie while the older kids rode some roller coasters.

Having so many adults was helpful.  At one point they had Joel and I run to the Ninjago ride to get in line while the kids rode with Roberto and Angie on the Safari Ride.  The line was so short we got to ride it once on our own.  It was like a mini-20 minute date.  You got to enjoy what you can get!

Meanwhile, the yellow shirts were quite handy, because the kids were easy to spot all day long. 

It rained off and on all afternoon, but that didn't stop the kiddos from having fun.

In fact, all of them chose to get sopping wet before leaving.  The 3 littles played in the splash pad in their clothing and then went home at about 4:30pm.  I was impressed they lasted that long since they all missed their nap and played the whole time.

The big kids went on the boat ride multiple times before finally giving in and going home at about 6:30pm.  BB shot water at them the first time and then joined them on the boat the second time.

 They ended the night by visiting with Emmet and singing, "Everything is Awesome!"

Little Man was more than ready to go home and we had to drag BB and Little Lady out of the park.

Heading South

The day after Christmas we packed up the car and started our road trip to Florida.  We enjoyed unseasonably warm temperatures.  Our first stop was the St. Basilica is St. Louis.  It was absolutely beautiful!  It reminds me of the cathedrals in Spain.

 I loved the nativity and the Christmas decorations inside of the Basilica.  Our final stop of the evening was in Nashville.  We drove around the State Capital and then enjoyed dinner in German-town.  Monell's is a family-style restaurant where you sit around large tables with other people and you pass around the food as you would with your family.  Their motto is "Enter as strangers.  Leave as friends."  We sat with a family from Albany, Georgia who was visiting family in Nashville for the holidays.  It was a lot of fun and it was also good Southern comfort food.

I don't have any pictures of day 2 in the car, because it was long and rather painful.  We hit really ugly traffic in Atlanta that added 3 hours to our travel time.  We canceled our sightseeing plans in favor of just trying to get out of the city.  We experienced heavy traffic all through Florida as well, so we were thrilled when we finally arrived late that night.