Day 2-GKTW/Welcome dinner

Wednesday morning we let the boys sleep as long as possible because we knew it would probably be a late night that night.  We all woke up happy and very excited to begin our fun in Florida.  There weren't any activities planned with the Warners until late afternoon so we thought it would be fun to spend our day at Give Kids the World (GKTW).  We decided to start our day by going to have breakfast at the Gingerbread house with our friends, the Aranda family (we knew them before our trip).  It was Andrew's birthday that day so we thought it would be fun to celebrate his birthday with them.

Before we headed to the Gingerbread house I took a few pictures...

You gotta love Caleb's pose and Kyson's cheesiness just can't get any better!  He really didn't want to stop long enough for a picture so he was upset but forcing a smile so we could get going. :)


While eating they brought Andrew a yummy treat and sang happy birthday to him!


After eating we walked out and the kiddos wanted to ride the carousel.  



Once we finished the carousel we heard they were doing pony rides so we decided to head that direction.


They gave everyone who rode a horse a cowboy hat.
Very stylish!

Next we headed over to the Amberville train station to enjoy all the activities there.

The train set is awesome. There are buttons all around it that you can push to make the different trains go.

Next were the sail boats that you can steer around. Caleb just LOVED them. Every time we asked him what he wanted to do, he said he wanted to "go sail boats." It didn't matter if we were at the Disney World parks or somewhere else, he could not stop thinking about these boats! Sadly just about every time we went back to GKTW, there was lightning in the area and they pretty much shut down anything that is outside, including the boats.


After spending quite a while inside the Amberville Train Station, I convinced the boys to go goofy golfing with me. Unfortunately, the theme of the course was dinosaurs and they were all over which the boys were scared of. In fact one time if you hit the ball in the hole the dinosaur roared at you...definitely scared the daylights out of Kyson and he was NOT happy! I don't think laughing at him made the situation any better either:)
We did end with smiles on our faces, so it turned out ok!

After goofy golfing the boys really wanted to go fishing. I was a little hesitant because I wasn't sure we would catch anything, but I was surprised. In fact the first thing Jared caught was.....a turtle!

The funny thing was, Jared was not willing to hold the turtle and get the hook out of its mouth. He couldn't figure out what to do but he finally broke the line so that poor turtle has a hook stuck in his mouth!
After the excitement from the turtle we didn't catch anything for a while. I was getting bored and tried to convince the boys to go swimming with me. They were pretty determined to catch a fish though! Surprisingly Caleb was the lucky one of the day who had a fish bite his line. He refused to touch the fish so I had him point at it for the picture:)

Of course Kyson was more than willing to touch it!

Finally once the boys caught a fish they were willing to go swimming with me. While Jared took the fishing poles back, I walked around with the boys and took a couple pictures.

Caleb wanted a turn behind the camera too.

Once Jared caught up to us, I got one with all three boys.

We walked back to our villa and got our swim suits on and headed to the pool just in time to have it close. There was lightning in the area so they had to shut it down:(
At this time, Jared had to go to orientation at GKTW. Since we couldn't go swimming we went and "rented" a couple movies for the boys to watch.
Soon it was time to go to the welcome dinner with the Warners so everyone who was in our group loaded up in a bus. They took us to a conference type room close to Epcot for the dinner. It was there that most people met Kurt and his family. Of course we met them the day before, but we were still very excited. The dinner was amazing and so fun to get to know everyone. Mickey and Minnie showed up half way through so all the families got pictures taken with Kurt and Brenda, and Mickey and Minnie.
Like I mentioned before, it was Andrew's birthday and also another kid, Emmanuel's birthday. They brought them special cupcakes. I uploaded a video of them eating them. It gives you a glimpse of what it was like spending time with the Warners.

 Just before it was time for the Illuminations fireworks show at Epcot we all got prepared to go. We had people from Disney come to direct us to our special place to watch the show. They held up long light sticks to keep everyone together. Our family volunteer (the Warners provide volunteers to help with each family and since we had two kids and a baby we had a volunteer just for us:) gave our boys small light sticks so they could help too:)

Here's Kyson with Brenda watching the show.

Kurt is sporting the "Mickey" glasses they gave us. They made all the lights have mickey ears!

The fireworks show was such an amazing way to end such a spectacular day!
After having so much fun, we couldn't believe that it was only the beginning...we still had six more days that were jam packed full of more fun and exciting activities!

Make A Wish trip-Day 1

We found out that we would be going to Disneyworld with Kurt Warner only a little over a month before the trip.  Of course to our boys it seemed like FOREVER away so we made a paper chain to help them visualize how many days it was before we left.  Each day they would take turns taking one chain off.  The day we were leaving they were so excited to take the LAST chain off together. 



We were all so very excited.  All morning Jared and I ran around getting the final things packed and everything ready to be gone for eight days while our boys asked every five minutes when we were going to leave.

A little before ten our wish granter Cindy showed up.  She sat with Kyson and asked him about his wish and what he was excited about.


Just about ten on the dot, I looked out the window to see this stopping in our driveway...


Kyson was excited to go see this super cool car:)


 Here's Kyson standing next to the Make A Wish star on the side of the limo...


Soon we got our luggage loaded up and we were on our way to the airport!




The boys loved riding in the limo!  


Here we are approaching the airport.


After riding in a super cool car, the boys were very excited to ride in an airplane!  First we had to get through the dreaded security though.  We had never attempted flying with kids so we didn't really know what to expect.  They definitely weren't thrilled about taking off their shoes and it was kind of crazy getting them to cooperate.  Jared was taking care of them while I held Brooklyn and tried to collapse her stroller one handed and get it onto the x-ray machine.  Gratefully there were people behind me in line that were helping me with the stroller and everything.  Finally we got all the way through and there, right behind us were Kurt Warner, his wife and a few of his kids!  (I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure he was the one helping me the whole time and I didn't even know it!) I leaned down to Kyson and pointed him out and he just ran up to him and gave him a big hug. :)  That was the first of many hugs that he would give to Kurt Warner over the next week.

As we walked down to our gate we talked to the Warners and enjoyed getting to know them a bit.  They stopped and got a snack and bought a candy bar for each of us.  Of course our boys picked out the biggest bag of M&M's they could find!

Once we got down to where our gate was we still had about 45 minutes so we sat and visited for a while.  Brenda asked to hold Brooklyn and she loved on her until it was time to board the airplane:)

Not long after we got settled into our seats, the flight attendant came back and asked if we were interested in flying first class.  Kurt and Brenda were willing to come back and take care of our kids so we could have their first class seats.  While the idea was intriguing, we politely declined.  I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it since I would have worried constantly how our kids were behaving for them.  I'm glad we did decline because another wish family that was on our same flight got to ride first class instead.
  
Here we are all ready to take off!


Isn't she cute?  We had an extra seat next to us on the flight to Florida.  That was really nice!  Of course I held her the whole time...just sat her here for a minute:)


Once we got there we realized there were three wish families plus the Warner's on our flight.  Together we walked to the area where we knew someone would be holding up a sign for Kyson to help us out.  Once we found them they helped us get our rental car and gave us directions to Give Kids the World.  Here's Kyson's sign...


Kyson picked out our car for the week...


All ready to go!


We got to Give Kids the World around 8:30pm.  We checked in and they took us to our villa.  We just loved our little home away from home!


When we checked in they gave Kyson this Mickey Mouse and Caleb and Brooklyn got the whales. 


Our boys were so excited to get to our villa and find all of these amazing gifts.  On the table we found...


On the couch we found bags full of things from First Things First (Kurt Warner's foundation).  The boys tore into them before I got a picture so here is everything after they went through it all:)


We ordered dinner in from Katie's Kitchen.  It was Boston Market chicken with several side dishes.  It was so yummy!  One of the side dishes was Mac N Cheese.  Kyson scarfed it down and begged for the rest of Caleb's...which thus began Kyson's week of eating Mac N Cheese for every meal we could find it on the menu (which was at least once a day!!!)

Finally the boys got tired enough to go to bed.  They grabbed all of their new stuffed animals (can you believe this was only the first days gifts and there were many, many more to come?!?) and snuggled up in their new beds!

Brooklyn's blessing

The day we gave Brooklyn a name and a blessing in church was a very special day for our family. Although she was born in March we weren't able to bless her until June 3rd because of conflicts in family members schedules. We were able to have so much family come and support us that day, it was wonderful!

Before we left for church that day we took a few quick pictures.










After church we all went to my sister, Natalie's, house to enjoy dinner together. I made pork burros Cafe Rio style for everyone. I can't remember the exact count but I know it was close to 50 people we had there to support us. It was wonderful!

After eating dinner we attempted a few more pictures. Kyson was NOT happy about it but at least he tried to put on a smile after being bribed with dessert!





After everything was over I was really wishing I had taken a few more pictures. Mostly I wish I had a picture of all the priesthood holders who were in the circle to help bless her. Unfortunately I'll just have to name names...Daddy, Great Grandpa Gunnell, Grandpa Gunnell, Grandpa Pearce, Uncle Reed, Uncle Phil, Uncle Dallas, and Uncle Zach. It truly is a blessing to have so many priesthood holders in our family!

After such a busy day, I didn't have time to get any good pictures of Brooklyn in her dress so a couple weeks later I dressed her up again and took a few. They still aren't what I envisioned but they are better than nothing!

Oh, and one tidbit I forgot to mention...my Mom made this amazingly beautiful dress. I just LOVED it!