Tennessee (Days 1,2,3,4)

Day 1 of our big trip:)

We started the day by getting Aubree's stitches taken out.  Again, she was a very brave girl.  And it took all of 10 minuets, score! 

Then we packed up, cleaned up...and headed to the airport.  We did have a direct flight, which was SOOO wonderful for the girls (and for us by association)

I planned a million things for them to do, so they wouldn't get bored.  And it worked really well.  Aside from landing causing Aubree's ears to hurt, there were no issues.  Our plane was pretty small.  There were only two seats per side with a TEENY TINY isle down the middle.  So Dave took Soph, and I had Aubs.  I had to take a lot of shots of them doing each activity to illustrate how many they had, and how short their attention span is.  It was a 4 hour flight...

Window stickers for them to decorate.  Sophie didn't want the window seat so she would hand them to Dave and point at where she wanted them to go.

I bought 5 new movies.  Two were revealed on the plane.  Lady and the Tramp, and Puss in Boots.  The one they chose: Puss in Boots.

Playdough

Paints

Magic coloring

Regular coloring

and tattoo's.

We arrived in Tennessee around 9:40....the first day {of traveling} was pretty much behing us.  It was bittersweet to be there knowing that we weren't moving.  If I didn't have a great spiritual experience of our answer to stay it would have been very sad.  As it was, it was just great to be in such a beautiful part of the country, with my family.  My Dad and Dave had a very nice heart to heart on the drive to their house.  Making me even more glad that we were there.  When we arrived at my parents, my mom had made us delicious crepe's.  We all stuffed our faces, and crashed.

Day 2:

We set up camp in my brother's room.  All 4 of us.  The girls did amazingly well.  Sophie, as usual, was found sleeping on the carpet.  Not on the nice soft pad, bed we made her....today was graduation day.  I was busy trying to finish designing some toppers and food labels for Ben's open house the next day. Everyone was so amazing and made sure the girls were occupied.

We all got ready and went to my little brother's graduation.  It was boring, as to be expected....but at the same time really neat. :) It was fun to watch him graduate {with honors} and walk across the stage to get his diploma.  WAY TO GO BEN!

The girls were amazingly behaved the whole time.
I think it helped that Grammi let them bring some fun polly pocket toys from her house.

Next up was dinner at Cheesecake Factory to celebrate.  Sophie totally zonked out in the car, and during the hour wait...she got a nice nap.  Day 2 of no naps caught up to her.

Day 3:
Sunday.  Being evil and selfish I told Dave we weren't going to church.  The girls needed a normal day before all the craziness picked back up again.  So the rest of the faithful family went to church while we put the girls down for a nap and stayed behind.  It was the right decision, and both girls were very happy because of it.  I went to get Sophie up and found her like this:

Apparently I had forgotten to leave a blanket for her and she ransacked the room.  She found a thin plastic Halloween tablecloth and snuggled in it!  Again on the carpet, and not her "bed".

After church was Ben's open house.  Ben and his friend Jeff....at Jeff's house. I made cupcakes with some cute toppers.

A fun banner for them...

and food labels

Sophie made something for them as well....a beautiful piece of artwork....she COLORED Jeff's dog.  With markers, while we were all occupied...thankfully they were very understanding.

The open house was fun.  My Mom made some delicious food.  I met some fun people, especially a true gem named Frances.  Every word that comes out of her mouth makes me laugh.  She is simply HILARIOUS.  It was fun seeing Ben with his friends, and saying farewell.

When we got back to the house, we all packed up...cleaned up as much as we could...and left to drive 12 hours to Orlando.  

Day 4:

Driving day.  We technically did leave on Monday.  Just after 12:00 a.m.  We decided to drive through the night since we had so many drivers to switch, and the girls would sleep better.  They were pretty excited so they didn't fall asleep for a couple of hours.  But the other 3 movies were revealed and again, I had a million activities planned to minimize the damage. (Gnomeo and Juliet, Enchanted, and a Disney Princess spin off)  Sophie slept for a good 6.5-7 hours straight. Aubree didn't do as well, but she did good considering how "easy" it is to sleep in a car.  I was SO AMAZED at how they did.  During the whole drive, they didn't fight once.  NOT ONCE.  Who took over?  We were all kind of zombies...but again, I was very surprised that the lack of sleep didn't effect their mood and attitude.  We arrived in Orlando around 1:00 ish in the afternoon.  We arrived to a Tropical storm.  Yay.  Of course there just happened to be a tropical storm blowing through the week we were there!   It was pretty crazy.  The rain would come down in sheets, hard and fast...but really warm.  Then it would be gone and sunny. 

We got to the house and set up our rooms.  We got the biggest :) but we had the biggest family to house.  We got settled, unpacked, shopped, etc...and then enjoyed the pool.  

It was really neat.  Our house backed up to a forest and it was just beautiful.  There were beautiful HUGE hawks soaring above us.  It was great to be in Orlando!