Corey's Birthday

We always go to PF Changs for dinner on Corey's birthday. Now they give you these sticky sticks to make stuff out of for the kids. They gave each of us one. I got to work right away and made our family. Aren't we cute.

I got Corey a new pair of boots. It seemed like he needed a new pair, since he only had one. He seemed to like them. IT was a nice dinner with the family.

Martha at Epcot

Martha, Martha, Martha... she is so fun. She had to do the game show, and let me tell you, you'd think they were paying her to do it. She was getting the small crowd going, and was more enthusiastic than anyone there. I think she won.

My crazy BFF.

Epcot

It was a beautiful day. The weather was in the upper 70's. Here we are at the front of the park. Caitlin wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom and we wanted to see Epcot, so we went here and they went there. It was a nice day to relax and have fun. Martha doesn't like rides and I'm not super big on them either, so Epcot was perfect. For those of you who don't know about Epcot, it is a park about the different countries around the world. Each country has history, historic artifacts, a film, some have rides, a formal restaurant, and cafe. They each have many shopping stores, and the people who run the country are actually from that country. It was cool.

The whole park is placed around a large lake in the center.

Here is Madison going on her very first park ride. We went on a boat tour of Norway. She clung to me like a little ape. Soo Cute!! But she had fun, she got excited and never cried.

Here we are in Morocco. We had our sit down meal here. It was very good.

This is Madison's first meet and greet with a Disney character, Mary Poppins.

The reason we're in FL

The 3rd guy to the right is Chris, who I taught for a short time. He is the son that is going pro. He was in 6th place that day, however he started 9th. This was his first pro race. It was crazy to see the wipe outs. I teared up for the first one. Too much for me.

Here is Pat holding Maddy inside of their bus at the track.

This is one side of the lavish air plane we took to FL.

Here is the other side of the plane. Maddy is looking at Chris as Dee (the Mom) is holding her. Let me tell you, I've never done 1st class, but I can say this must be 10x better. It was so cool!!

Kennedy Space Center

We are watching a video that was on Apollo 13. We saw the actual control room (below).

The is the back end of a space ship

Here is Madison eating her first french fry. She also nearly choked to death because she bit off too much at once. (oops!)

Here is the bathroom accommodations on a space ship. Nice isn't it?

Our Daytona Florida Trip

Tuesday (our real official first day there) we took our student out to see a historical lighthouse. However, we were hungry so we went to this restaurant first. Huge mistake. The food was good but the service was horrible. It took us two hours to get out of there, and then we only had 1/2 hr to do the tour of the lighthouse. We were not pleased. The lighthouse was still cool.

Here, Martha, Madison, and I had our first bites of alligator. It tasted light chewy chicken. Not bad, I'd get it again.

Here is Madison eating her first bites of crab. She is so spoiled at 10 months.

Here we are on one of the buses at the Kennedy Space Center. That was so much fun. We hop around onto different buses that takes you around the center. We got to see the launch pads and control centers.

The space center is in the middle of a wildlife preserve. So in this picture, if you look towards the basin, there is an alligator. They were everywhere. We also saw armadillo's. They have to make their fences end in a curve so that when the alligators climb the fence, they fall back to the ground.

The bus driver told us a story of when an alligator got into the cafeteria during the night shift, and they had to call animal control to get him out. The night shift also have to check under the cars with flash lights because they tend to rest under the cars. Crazy.

Miscellaneous Madison

Here is Madison and I at the Hoover Dam. Already the baby has been to see some National Landmarks and she doesn't even know it. Martha, Madison, and I took our student to see the Hoover Dam. We had to go three times because we wanted to see a particular tour, and it wasn't possible the first two times we went. Long story... so by the third time, we finally got to go into the tunnels and inside of the walls of the dam. It was cool.
I think Daddy took this picture of his daughter being cute. Lately, she likes to tilt her head and look at you cute.

Daddy took this picture as well. He was feeding her, and I guess she was in a good mood, since she was smiling a lot.

Here is the family during super bowl. My Mom and I made a ton of food, we relaxed, watched a good game.

Here is Madison traveling better than first class. Look to the next posting for more info.