Category Archives: Abby

Camping at Disney World

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We got back from our big camping trip at Disney World yesterday. All the girls did great sleeping in a tent for three nights. We arrived on Thursday afternoon and setup our camp. Once we got to the campground, it became evident quickly that we were going to have to rent one of the electric carts to get around the property. Everything was so spread out and there was no way we were going to be riding the bus everywhere. I swear that it’s planned that way. How can Disney squeeze every dime out of their visitors. That night, we then went to Mikey’s Bar-B-Q, which was on the campground property. Abby and Emily had fun dancing around with the Disney characters, but the food was pretty crappy. It was just hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, and ribs.

The next day, we got up early and headed out to the Magic Kingdom. It’s just a boat ride away from the campground. We rode several of the rides until lunch and got back on the boat to ride to our camp to eat and then for Emily and Isabelle to take a nap. After that, we went back to the theme park and rode more rides and watched the fireworks show, which was amazing. All the fireworks are timed to the music that is playing. Once we got back to the camp site, the kids were wiped out and went right to sleep.

On Saturday, we mainly just stayed around the campground, but in the morning we got back on the boat and went to one of the other resorts to have “Breakfast with the Characters”. Abby and Emily got to have breakfast with Mikey, Minnie, Goofy, Chip, and Dale. They had fun, but Emily was scared to have her picture taken with the characters. She would just cower in her seat when you asked her to pose with them. When we got back to the campground, we went to the pool for a little bit where I got to seem Abby and Emily’s new swimming skills. Both of them did really good, although Emily needs to work on it some more.

Sunday, we packed up camp and headed home. One thing that’s nice about camping at Disney was that we were only forty-five minutes from home. That allowed us to rest and recover from the trip for the remainder of the day.

Halloween Adventures

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Yesterday was Halloween and Abby and Emily were ready to head out the door right when it started getting dark. This year Abby was a princess (which I’m pretty sure she was a princess last year) and Emily was a puppy. Emily likes to imitate a puppy, so we thought it would be cute to have her dress up like one. Well, when it comes to getting candy from neighbors, puppy beats princess 2 : 1. I should have weighed their bags when they got back, but Emily had way more candy than Abby did.

Today Jennifer went out shopping with Abby and left me with Emily and Isabelle for most of the day. Wasn’t too much going on. Emily played in the back yard with Austin while I watched Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (which came out today) and took care of Isabelle. I’m amazed how well Emily will just go in the back yard and play all by herself. Abby will go out and be back within five minutes.

Fall Festival

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Today was the annual Fall Festival at our church. You purchase tickets and then you use the tickets to do different sorts of rides and activities. This is the third time we’ve gone since moving to Orlando and Abby and Emily love going. They did the bounce house, rode a train, and Abby bought a giant tube of colored sugar to eat.

The Longhorns were victorious once again this time against the Oklahoma State Cowboys. I was biting my fingernails during the first quarter. Actually, it was more like yelling at the television screen. But, the Longhorns regrouped after half time and ended up crushing the Cowboys 47-28.

Pumpkin Hunting

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Today I found out that it’s pretty nice just having Abby in school. When Emily isn’t around Abby, she’s a very good girl. She will go in the back yard and play by herself for hours. It’s only when you get Abby and Emily together do they become a unstoppable force.

We went to a pumpkin patch to pick out the pumpkins we were going to carve up for Halloween. I also climbed up into the attic to retrieve all of our Halloween decorations and we spent the afternoon putting them out in the yard.

Abby and Emily Free Day

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Yesterday was the first time I got to experience what it was like to have both Abby and Emily in school. It was great. The house was so quite. Me and Jennifer (with Isabelle) went out to lunch to Logan’s and it was great being able to sit there and actually eat. I went ahead and extended my vacation one extra day and I’m glad I did so I get to experience one more Abby and Emily Free Day.

Abby and Emily went to “Kid’s Connection” (the Wednesday night children’s activity get-together at church) in their Halloween costumes. Abby is going to be a princess (no surprise there) and Emily is a poodle puppy. I’ll have pictures of them in their costumes on Halloween. They got candy and made Halloween crafts.

Tonight was the Madden Next Gen Wrap Party. Most of the team met at a Chinese restaurant called The Crazy Buffet. We had dinner and toasted champagne to celebrate finishing the game. Unfortunately, the game is still going on. I haven’t been called in, but my boss, Brian, has taken over what I was doing in order for me to get some rest with the family.

Well, the Astros lost again, getting swept in the World Series by the White Sox. I don’t think the Astros did a bad job. It was a thrill for them to get to the World Series for the first time ever. Every game came right down to the last few innings. Hopefully they can make another run next year.

Lazy Sunday

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I didn’t have to go into work today! The phone was silent, so everything must be going fine at work. Although, it’s Sunday, if something goes wrong, it probably won’t happen until tomorrow.

We didn’t do much today. We just hung around the house. I played several games of NFL Street 2 and Abby and Jennifer went to the nail parlor and go get their nails painted. Abby came back with orange toe nails with white ghosts on them.

Isabelle is still not feeling well. We may take her into the doctor’s office tomorrow.

For those who are following the news on Hurricane Wilma. It’s going to the south of us. We will probably get some wind and a lot of rain, but that’s about it. They canceled Abby and Emily’s school for tomorrow, though. I was looking forward to finding out what it was like with a quite house.

I’ve lost the cable to my camera, so I can’t take any of the new pictures off. I’m having to post a picture which is a couple of months old. I’m going to go to Best Buy tomorrow and see if I can find a replacement cable.

The Astros lost again in the second game of the World Series. They came back and tied it in the ninth after giving up a grand slam, but they gave up a home run in the bottom of the ninth. The series goes to Houston for the next three games. The rain and the cold in Chicago has looked like miserable playing conditions. At least Minute Maid Park has a roof.

I finished The Drawing of the Three today. Even though I’m having a great time with The Dark Tower series, I decided to pick up The Da Vinci Code for my next book. A movie is currently in production and I would like to have the book read before the movie comes out. Dan Brown became popular with this book, but I read Digital Fortress and Deception Point before reading this one. I enjoyed both of these books and since this one has had so much press (both good and bad) I’m sure I will enjoy it as well.

I’m Back

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I can’t believe it’s been exactly a month since my last entry in Frenchville. It’s been a wild ride at work. A whole lot of extra hours for many days in a row. It’s been: go to work, come home for dinner (sometimes), go back to work, come home and go to sleep. It’s finally letting up. We aren’t done completely (I had to go into work for four hours today), but it’s slowed down. I don’t plan on going back in for the next two weeks unless I’m called in.

Let’s see. Month in Review…

We were having our shower re-tiled since I found water underneath the old tile. We had door problems, but that finally got resolved and we are back into the shower in our bathroom.

Abby and Emily finished up their swim lessons. They are both now “expert swimmers”. I haven’t actually taken them swimming yet, so I don’t know how well they are doing. Next week we are planning on going camping at Disney World. They have a swimming pool at the camp grounds and we will probably be swimming there.

The whole family had coughs and more recently fevers. Currently Isabelle has been sick. She’s had a pretty bad runny nose and you can tell she’s been pretty miserable.

The Texas Longhorns defeated OU and then took on Texas Tech and crushed them today. We went ahead and bought tickets to the Rose Bowl, where the National Championship is being played this year. Hopefully the Longhorns can keep up their winning streak alive. The tickets include a tour of Pasadena and tickets to the Rose Parade. Jennifer has always wanted to go see the Rose Parade and so we got the tickets as our anniversary gift to one another.

The Houston Astros have finally made it to the World Series for the first time. I remember watching them against the Mets in 86 and of coarse last year against the Cardinals and making it one game away from the Series. It’s too bad they lost tonight’s game, but hopefully they can come back and win the next four.

It’s good to be home and to finally have a couple of weeks off. Now that I have more time, there will be more and more entries in Frenchville.

Searching for a Photographer

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Wow. Look at this. Two entries in Frenchville in so many days.

Today Jennifer went out to DeLand to visit a photographer, Elizabeth Carol. Ever since we left Austin, one of the things she has missed has been the photographer she really liked: Jennifer Turner. Jennifer was walking through the mall the other day and saw a photograph that reminded her of Jennifer Turner, so she did some investigation and it turns out that this photographer has a lot of the same props that Jennifer Turner did. She was really impressed and has an appointment to get Isabelle’s 3 month old pictures taken with her.

I’ve been clamoring about getting a laptop at work by making hints in several meetings. Finally today, the Executive Producer on Madden said, “If we get you a laptop, it better be attached to your hip. You will be taking notes in every meeting.” I was thinking, “mission accomplished”.

They came to install our shower door today. It was the last piece to our bathroom re-tiling. Unfortunately, there isn’t a stud behind where the shower door would go, so they couldn’t hang it up. We now have to get the tiling contractor to come back and some how shore up that wall so that the door will hang. Right now we are at a loss for what to do. We were thinking that all of our projects would finally be done today, but once again we hit another snag.

I’ve been a little behind on doing the laundry and Abby didn’t have pajama bottoms. So, she had to go to bed in a pajama top and some panties. She didn’t like that. She kept saying that someone was going to see that and laugh at her. It’s funny that lately she’s been starting to get modest. It must be something she’s picking up at school.

For the past couple of days I haven’t had time enough to shave because I’ve been busy at work. Today I decided to shave it into a goatee. When I got home from work Jennifer noticed it for the first time. Needless to say, I will be shaving tomorrow.

Back to Frenchville

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I’ve been very busy at work lately which has kept me away from Frenchville. Today I was home from work, resting up, and I thought I would stroll through the streets of Frenchville once again.

Over the past few weeks, Emily has started pre-school. She now goes two times a week. So, on Mondays and Wednesdays, Jennifer just has Isabelle at home and she’s loving every minute of it. Emily is enjoying school. Jennifer says that Emily just gives her a kiss, says “bye Mom” and goes off to playing when she drops her off. She says that’s pretty rare in her class as there’s a lot of kids that are crying when they are dropped off.

Abby and Emily have started swim lessons. They go every afternoon for 20 minutes and it’s one-on-one with an instructor. The first day Abby through a fit, but today she was doing great. Hopefully these swim lessons will stick.

Isabelle has started sleeping through the night. She goes to bed around 9:00 p.m. and has been sleeping all the way until 6:00 a.m. Jennifer has been very pleased that she hasn’t had to get up in the middle of the night anymore.

That’s about it. I will try to post more often, but we are getting into the busy time at work.

It Was Over in the Blink of an Eye

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Between sick kids, the bathroom being re-tiled, and work, it’s been a pretty busy couple of weeks. First off, Emily brought some sort of stomach flu home from Vacation Bible School a couple of weeks ago. After a few days it spread to Jennifer and a few days after that it spread to Abby. Me and Baby Belle were the only two who were spared. Unfortunately, it delayed Abby going to her first day of school this past Monday, but she was better by Wednesday and was chomping at the bit to go. She had a great time and came home telling us how she learned about bones.

Today I was called home from work early because Emily had stuck something up her nose. At first Jennifer thought it was a carpet fiber, because Emily had stuck one of those up her nose before, but looking with a flashlight I could tell it was something plastic. So, I held her down while Jennifer got some tweezers out, but Emily would have nothing of it and was squirming way too much. Finally, I coached Emily on how to blow her nose. She blew a couple of times and out flew a piece of paper and an eye ball. Not a real eye ball, but one of those plastic squiggly eyeballs that stick to paper.