Florida Vacation

The Reavis family and the Taylor family left very early in the morning on the 12th of Feb and headed to Florida. It was a glorious time to go to sunny FL during the dreary Feb IL winter. We had a great time and we hated to come home. In true form of Brenda, I am going to give you my top favorites of the trip, instead of writing a long drawn out research paper. So for the 3 of you who will read this.....here you go....

10: In my great wisdom I packed an overnight bag for the 2 day trip down, in it I packed 2 sweatshirts and turtlenecks. Smart choice on my part since the 2nd day we were in 70 degree weather! I bought a camo t-shirt at a gas station in Alabama that says "Homegrown" it's awesome.

9: On our 3rd day there I rolled down the van window and said to a woman "hey moron, we had the right of way" in a parking lot who pulled in front of us. and yes she heard me, and this was at Downtown Disney where you drive under a sign on the way in that says "Where all your dreams come true" and everyone that works there always tells you "have a magical day".

8: We had dinner at the really cool place called T-Rex in Downtown Disney, it is of course ridiculously expensive, but it is really cool. I highly recommend it if you go there. http://www.squidoo.com/downtown-disney-t-rex-cafe

7: We had a great time in Clearwater/Tampa at the beach and visiting places where we used to live. We also got to have dinner with some old friends. It was a great day!

6: Chris & Mike got to go to the Daytona 500. They had a great time, even though it ended a few laps early it was still a great experience. And plenty of scrappers in attendance!!

5: At Hollywood Studios during the block party they dancers pulled Caden & Noah out in the street to dance, they of course promptly returned to the steps where they were sitting at first chance. The dancers then pulled out Kerri & I. We of course were awesome. I am waiting for the call to ask me to come and be a permanent part of the show. Chris & Mike got it all on video which I am sure they would be glad to show anyone who asks :)

4: We drove 45 minutes to Plant City from Orlando to get strawberry shortcake because my dad wanted strawberry shortcake. I am glad he did. It was sooo good. Once we had it, we turned around though and went back to Orlando, long drive for strawberries..

3: We had a great week with our family and I didn't have to kill anyone and no one killed me... all in all, it worked out well..

2: My dad had the pool heated so the kids could swim. By the middle of the week it was like a big hot tub. Kalie and Sydni said "it's so hot it burns my face when I go under water". But...we could go swimming even at night when it was only 50 - 60.

1: It was a great vacation! We always ask the kids what was their favorite part of vacation....of course they said things like "going to the beach", "going to Disney", and then they asked me what was my favorite part, I told them that my favorite part was the whole thing... I just had a great time the whole week. Thanks mom & dad!!

My "homegrown" shirt bought somewhere in Alabama. Chris says it is false, I am "citygrown" and I have no business wearing it :) and Tanner for some reason is horrified whenever I where anything camo out in public. Therefore I will of course wear it often :)

Really big rocket ship in Alabama that we stopped on the way to take our picture by.

Chris & Mike go to the Daytona 500


cool picture!

Bucs stadium

Welcome to Tampa!!

Oh the beach!! the best place on earth!!

hot chicks at the beach...

Phillipe Park, Kalie and I used to go there all the time when we lived there....ohhh the life of leisure we had.....

Hollywood Studios

Toy Story Ride at Hollywood Studios

Muppet fountain

Cars guys - Caden tried to take his autograph book up there to get their autographs. I had to explain to him that they probably couldn't give him an autograph since they don't have arms. He was very disappointed.

Block party at Hollywood Studios. Kerri & I were pulled out into the street for the dance party. We were awesome. I was especially good with the YMCA song.

Caden & Noah refused to dance in the street, they would only dance on the steps.

Tanner will kill me if he sees this picture posted online. We did not attend the American Idol show, BUT.....Kalie did try out.....however, she did not make it past the tryouts. Some lady approached us during the block party and asked if anyone wanted to try out, I pushed Kalie forward and said she would, so Kalie did. It was fun.

Gatorland.....

Ohh man.....I would never do that!

On the tram to go to Magic Kingdom..

Check out Tan's shirt....it's awesome.

I love this picture. Teacups. I couldn't watch of course of I would have yak'd.

Caden driving the racer cars.

Roller coaster the kids area. Pretty fast for a kid's coaster.

Minnie's house.

Buzz Lightyear ride.

You can't see them, but Chris & Caden are in one of these Dumbos.

Light parade guy giving Noah "five".

Fireworks behind Cinderella's castle.

Christmas decorating is done and Thanksgiving is over for 2008. This year for Thanksgiving our very best friends came to visit for the weekend. It was so great to spend time with them. AND.....they brought me an early birthday present. The newest addition to the Reavis family is Casper, he is a Bichon Poo. My wonderful friend, not only bought me this cute little puppy, but she spent the last couple months house training him for me. That is a good friend. It is always so great to get to spend time with them and always so hard when they leave. I still can't drive by their old house, I know, it's sad...in a pitiful way...I've been told...Good thing it's not on my way anywhere.

Lori, Kalie & I braved the crowds on Black Friday and went shopping. We did not however get up at 3am and go stand in line anywhere and wait for any stores to open. We aren't crazy....well....not that crazy.

We spent this past weekend decorating for Christmas. So far half of my outside lights have gone out. But.....the Christmas tree is till standing so that is good. Of course Casper thinks we have put that up for his benefit and has been chewing on the lights on the bottom so I don't hold out much hope for the lights. So Christmas is on it's way, and has Brenda done her Christmas shopping yet?? Not so much. I am sure over the next few weeks I will be doing what I always do since I am the queen of procrastination, and that is going to the mall or some store, every night to buy presents. I found this in an old email I had from a couple years ago (yes, I am one of those people who never cleans out their emails so I have like 8,000 emails.) This is a list of top things that happened on like the 8 consecutive night I went Christmas shopping a couple years ago.

I got "best email of the week" for this. So....thought it was worth sharing again...

1. Escalator by Dicks not working again, this time I had to go up. I was so disoriented I stepped way higher then needed for the first step.
2. Creepy guys who are at the kiosk that ask “Can I ask you a question” every time you walk by almost got a fist in the face.
3. Lori (Kettelkamp) went with me last night, she said I should probably not say to cashiers that I don’t know things like this “Man, how do you stand it in here? It’s like 98 degrees, so hot it makes me want to kill someone!”
4. We saw cousin “it” This kid had hair that completely covered his eyes, went down to his nose. I just stopped and starred at him, no way he could see, I could totally not even see his eyes.
5. Lori found a shirt in the toddler section at Macys that said “Want to come in my crib” (it was like a size 2T). Nice.
6. While standing in line at Dicks for like 45 minutes with only two people in front of us, the cashier was heard to say to the woman in front of us that he prefers to be called a “sales finalization associate” not a cashier. He would like an announcement at closing time that says “please bring all your items to the front so our sales finalization associates can help you complete your shopping”. Of course my tolerance for people like this is very high so I had nothing but positive things to say about this man.

Caden's First "Big Kid School" Show

Tonight we all went to Sandburg to watch Caden in his first musical in kindergarten. It was a patriotic musical entitled "America", yes I did say patriotic, and yes it is November.

It was awesome. Caden did a fantastic job, he has been listening to his CD for the past few weeks and knew all the songs. He sang his heart out.





















The fans were getting a little bored before the show since we had to get there an hour early to get seats. Not so hard to believe these two are related is it??

Grandma & Tanner, ohh, they are so cute.....

Grandpa & Kalie. Glad to see they were able to come up with a "non-weird" look. Oh wait.... nope, they still look weird. Oh well, only so much you can do.

Fun Weekend in Naperville

North Central VS Augustana 41 - 28

Last weekend Chris, Tanner, Caden & I went to Naperville for the weekend and attended the North Central football game. Yes, it was very cold, but we had an awesome time. The game was very exciting and the Cardinals defeated the Vikings 41 - 28.

After we thawed out from the game we went and had some fantastic Chicago pizza at Giordano's, mmmmm, so good. Then back to the hotel for some swimming.

On Sunday while Chris was at a conference for most of the day I took Tanner & Caden to the mall. Is it really fun to take boys to the mall??? I will plead the 5th on that one. Well, it was a fun weekend away, cold.....but fun.

Kalie stayed at home to attend the Illinois Christian Teen Convention at the convention center with the youth group from church. She had a good time, although I know she missed her brothers terribly bad. :)