Short Videos from Disney

Disney World

We stayed at a beautiful Marriott resort in Orlando, Florida thanks to my parents' timeshares. It was a two bedroom, full kitchen and living room, with a washer and dryer and a patio that sat right behind the pool. Couldn't have asked for a better place. There were at least 10 different pools with the highlight being this pool with a big sandbox in the middle of it.

We bought tubes while we were there and they were a hit. I'm hoping my summer pool will allow them in so they weren't a total waste of money!

Justin lounging in the tube.

The water was so warm that Hans could last almost an hour before having to get out. With not an ounce of body fat he doesn't last long in the cold:)

Ashley is a great swimmer and a great help with Mia as I wasn't able to get into the pool this year. Mia loves her goggles and is very brave in the water. She loves swimming. And so does Ashley. Ashley gets to start swim team again in June. I love watching her progress.

Katelyn is my independent girl. She loved that she was tall enough for the water slides since she's not tall enough at our Colorado pool. Disney is all about how tall you are and she was thrilled to measure up this year.

Downtime with the phones on the patio. My kids would play media all day if I allowed it. Some days I wonder why I just don't give in completely! What are your media rules?

Katelyn is a master at Boggle already on my phone. It's impressive.

Justin is a doodle jump man.

Ashley is a doodle jump and cut the rope girl.

I love my people.

She got even more freckles in Florida and her perpetual scab that lives under her lip healed thanks to the humidity. I LOVE humidity. I miss it the second we get off the plane in CO.

There were miniature frogs everywhere. They were easy to catch and fun to play with.

Mia with Lena, her souvenir from Disney World. I let my kids each pick out 1 souvenir and they do it the first day so we don't have to agonize for the rest of the trip. Mia loves her baby elephant.

Mia and I spent a lot of time together waiting for the other 4 to do rides. This ice cream cone we bought on our last day at Animal Kingdom. Best ice cream ever, despite it costing like 40$ or close to it! I have the cutest video of this falling apart all over her and then she and I fighting over who got to eat the mess.

They loved the playground type places scattered throughout the different parks.

Not the best pictures from my phone, but you get the point. It was a blurry, nauseating ride in the tea cups. It takes me hours to recover from that ride.


Driving the cars was Justin's favorite rides. Katelyn came along for the ride while I pushed the pedal and Justin drove. He was in heaven. We rode this ride at least a dozen times.

I love that my kids all like the same rides and that the carousel still has appeal.


Our last day at Animal Kingdom I thought we'd get there right when it opened at 8 am. Turns out it didn't open until 9 am, but the kids had a great time running around and making obstacle courses for Hans while we waited.

Self-portrait of Mia and I watching the bird show while the others were doing the river rapids. She loved the Parrot singing songs. My favorite part of Animal Kingdom are the shows. The Nemo show is so great, as well as the 3D bug's life, and the bird show. I was grateful to have a place to just sit down in the air conditioning.

The girls LOVED space mountain. I got to ride it 3 times in a row with them. I didn't really recover from that one. It's intense. Notice them holding hands. They are great friends. I'm grateful they have each other.

The Buzz lightyear ride is always a hit.

We had such a great time at Disney. The flights were fun, the hotel was fun, swimming was fun, and of course Animal Kingdom, Hollywood studios, and Magic Kingdom were fun. We were fortunate enough to do Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom twice so we could hit all our favorite rides multiple times. It was so great to spend this time as a family and create a lot of memories. I love leaving CO this time of year since it snowed and hailed while we were enjoying 90 degree sunshine with humidity. I'm not sure when we will go back, but I know we will at some point in the next 5 years. It's my favorite vacation right now.

Easter Fun

Thanks to Melanie we enjoyed this beautiful place out in Monument for an Easter Egg hunt and activities the Saturday before Easter. The kids had a blast despite the freezing cold weather and snow. They staggered the egg hunts based on ages. I got to go with Justin and Mia. They were so so excited. I love their enthusiasm.

Here are the big kids getting ready to go. Ashley, Sienna, Elizabeth, Anna, and Katelyn. I'm so grateful to have Morrills and Conleys living close to us. A little piece of my heart dies as we get closer to July when Conleys are moving. Ugh.

Here we are. This place is so beautiful. I want to move into the black forest some day. I had already washed and put away all the winter gear so we had to be creative with what we wore to the hunt:) I keep forgetting that the snow stuff can't really be washed and put away until June. In fact, it's snowing right now outside!

We are driving home. Lots of laughter and excitement on the drive. I love these 4 people.

He can be very focused when candy is at stake.

Here we are inside the barn where they had free lunch and a ton of activities for kids. The highlight activity was where they all won stuffed animal octopuses (octopi?) that had a baby octopus inside it's belly. At this stage I was still pregnant so the kids thought it was SO cool, but it also inspired a lot of questions about how my baby was going to come out of my tummy.

Justin can't help singing out with joy.

Dyeing Easter Eggs. It was fun, can you tell?

They take this task very seriously.



Mia loves yellow.

For Family Home Evening, which is now Tuesday nights thanks to a long gym practice for Kate on Mondays we dyed our eggs, had an Easter FHE where they searched for hidden eggs that shared the account of Jesus' last week before the Resurrection. I'm so grateful for the knowledge of the Gospel that I've been blessed with. I love that I can testify to my kids that Jesus lives and that we can be together as a family forever since we've been sealed. I love the hope the Resurrection offers. My kids got it this year and I'm so grateful for that too!

Update

We have had a very busy past couple of months. This time of year always seems to pass me by before I even know it. We've crammed in a lot of fun activities and trips and some heartache along the way. Sounds like life.

Ashley is doing great in 3rd grade. She is happy for it to end and for summer to start. She's had a great year with Mrs. Clark and making new friends in her classroom. She's been on fun field trips to the Denver Science museum and to see the Wizard of Oz in Denver as well. She is still quite shy, but has learned to raise her hand in class and to contribute to conversations. She is empathetic, kind, and an amazing help to me. She is a natural at the piano and is playing stuff just beyond my sight reading level already. She has a great relationship with her teacher and practices diligently with mild complaining. She recently started gymnastics and had her first (and most likely last) private lesson. She loved it. She passed off her front and back handsprings, a cartwheel on the beam, a front limber and front walkover, and almost has her vertical handstand. She has a lot of room for improvement in her strength. She loved it all. I told her I would buy her a new leo if she would talk to her coach about what she is capable of doing and let her know what her goals are. This frightens her. She is not one to let her needs be known...she just cries and mopes. So I'm hoping she does it. I am constantly reminding Ashley that what we think can effect how we feel so that if she chooses to think happy things then she will feel happy. A life lesson for us all, but especially important for her. She is a wonderful girl. I feel blessed to have her.

Katelyn is doing great in 1st grade with Mrs. Hawkes. She's had a great year. She went from reading at a basic level to reading at a 3rd grade level. She excels at math and has overcome some of her shyness. All of the girls like her and want to be her friend, but she's a bit too shy and says she'd rather do the monkey bars back and forth at recess then play. She's lost a lot of teeth. She has spent a lot of time at gym and is doing amazingly well. She is dying for me to let her do a private since Ashley got one, but I feel like 7 hours a week at the gym is enough. She is the planner of our house and is constantly organizing games. She loves to make forts, obstacle courses, and design rides from Disney World. She loves games and is a natural at them. It always amazes us when she wins Settlers over and over again. She makes me smile.

Justin has more or less enjoyed his last year of pre-school. He says it's just boring work and no fun. He can't be bothered to write his whole name on worksheets and will just draw a big J randomly over the page. I'm a little worried he's going to hate kindergarten, but it'll be good for him. He spends his life looking for friends to play with. He never looks very long. He is a good friend. He is doing soccer right now and really loves it, which surprises me. He missed all of my need to win and be the best and is content to just smile and run around and maybe kick the ball once or twice. I hope he stays that way. He loves everything about Hans and I love hearing them talk together about things. He wants to drive airplanes when he grows up.

Mia is Mia. She's had a great year and has grown up so much. She will now go to pre-school and playgroup and with bribes will go to gym childcare without crying. She starts "real" pre-school next year and is excited to be big. She has loved gymnastics although she is done with that now and can't wait to start again. She follows me around all day and I'm grateful for her. She makes me laugh and scream practically all in the same moment. Today at church she asked me if it was time to leave and I told her there was one more speaker to which she said, "Is Jesus going to be the speaker? I've never seen Jesus." She has immense faith.

Hans is doing well at the office. He sold some of his old x-ray sensors he hated on ebay for a lot of money and is so happy about it since he'd already replaced them with better ones. He's keeping busy and the practice is growing. He says he needs to find some hobbies so he has more to talk about then just dentistry, but I think he has more hobbies then he thinks. He's been hiking the incline with friends, which makes me happy. He is good to me. I appreciate him.

I have been stressed out. I was feeling a ridiculous amount of guilt over leaving Villa since everytime I saw my boss she was so nice to me and gave me a raise that I had to quit sooner then I wanted to. I decided to move over to teaching at Life Time since they hired Melanie and Laurie and Kim changed as well. I'm glad I did, but it's been so busy. There have been hours and hours of trainings and now it is just barely settling down. I teach my first class there tomorrow and I'm excited. I feel a little rusty since I haven't taught in 2 1/2 weeks, but I'm sure it'll be awesome:) So many friends and neighbors have joined so I'm happy about the switch. In the middle of all this I discovered I was pregnant, to my great happiness and excitement, and then miscarried 2 1/2 weeks later while we were in Disney World. It's been an awful, tough time. I've had a lot of support and love, but I've learned that I am a terrible coper (a word?). I am just now starting to feel better. It's been a great mother's day. I'm so grateful to be a mother and to have Hans' support of me in this role. I get frustrated sometimes that it's not as fulfulling as I want it to be, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

And I think that about covers it.

More to come about Disney World and our Easter celebrations!

Justin is 5!

Justin opening presents. His friends were very generous.

Eating Cake after playing. Lots of cute kids. Katelyn is flushed with a 102 fever poor girl.

Justin had to have a penguin cake.

Justin and his friend Canon.

The foam pit.

After this party Ashley decided she wanted to try gymnastics again.

Strong rope climbers!

Justin's favorite part. And we even own a trampoline.

This swing was awesome.

The Fords were very thoughtful with some bug glasses. He loves these.

Birthday morning pancakes on the special plate. An Egbert tradition.

Justin turned 5 on March 21st. He is one handsome, happy, enthusiastic boy and we all adore him. He brings a lot of life and energy into our home, which I appreciate. He is outgoing and friendly and has about a million friends. He is constantly doing playdates, mostly of his own creating, and has practically moved in with his friend Canon. He is curious and loves to explore every chance he can. He loves bugs, video games, cars, bikes, and anything with a remote-control. He is SO happy that the reflecting pool is finally open so he can drive his remote controlled boat there. For Justin's birthday we invited a lot of kids from pre-school and the neighborhood to aerials for a gymnastics party. They had a great time. The whole day was so amazingly exciting for him and I loved watching him. He has the cutest giggles when he is so full of happiness that he can't help himself. I'm so grateful for Justin and I love him.