Daisy's baptism day

This was a really busy week for us! On Monday Justin graduated from Basic Training, marking the midway point for his overall training. He received additional awards for Expert Marksmanship, Academics, and Crazy driving. This graduation wasn't really such a big deal since training isn't over and the guys didn't even have the rest of the day off, but we won't be here for his second and final graduation in April so we wanted to be there for this one.

Justin won't brag about this but I will....Along with his awards he was also voted by the remainder of his classmates (half the people in his class were with the Secret Service and they are finishing their training in another state) to be their class president for this half of training. I think that's quite a compliment because they voted in the first class president when nobody knew anybody at the beginning of training. Now that everyone has been together for three months they voted for Justin. They must think he's as cool as I do...

That's one good looking special agent!

We had been debating since we've lived here whether we wanted to spend the money taking the kids to Orlando (it's only 3.5hrs from us and it's the closest we'll ever be without having to pay for airline tickets!) to go to either Sea World or Disneyworld. Since we went to Disneyland last March, we opted for Sea World but it hinged on how generous our parents were with the Christmas money (we are basically paying two mortgage payments a month now and money is very tight). Well, they came through for us so we decided to go to Sea World Christmas Eve. We woke up at 4:30am, left by 5am, arrived at 8:30am (I knew Justin was waking us up too early! They didn't even open until 9am!) and spent the entire day without any major meltdowns! The kids lasted until 6:30 that night and we all had a great time! They had a great little place by Shamu stadium that was just for kids. All the rides were suitable for little ones and they had an indoor baby station with changing tables, a nursing room, and bathrooms for mothers. They had this enormous 4-story playground for the kids that was simply awesome! It had slides, tunnels, and lots of rope mesh for the kids to crawl over as they dangled 20-50ft in the air.

Adaira was really enjoying herself, she actually was willing to give us some smiling faces for the camera today! Usually she scowls at us...

They had some steel drums for the kids to play on

Brighton has my dad's ears...they really aren't always this noticeable, but he just got a haircut the day before so his sides were very short, making his ears look like they stick out a LOT.

I think Brighton looks like my dad in the previous pic, but to me he looks like his Uncle Jeff in this picture. At least I could see Jeff making that face!

All the shows were a huge hit! They were great for kids too tired to be walking around and standing in lines all day too...

Okay, back to scowling faces for the camera. They had a Sesame Street Christmas show that was really cute and Brighton and Adaira really enjoyed it.

Dale started to get tired so in the pouch he went!

They had a special "Polar Express" experience in honor of Christmas where we watched an abbreviated version of the movie and then walked through a Christmas themed Polar Bear & Beluga Whale exhibit. At the end was SANTA! And this was the best Santa I have ever seen. This guy was a natural and absolutely awesome. The wait was pretty long but totally worth it. He literally spent 3-5 minutes talking to each child, holding their hand, giving them a hug and taking a picture with them. I don't know how much talking he got in with Brighton though, from the looks of his body language I'm pretty sure Brighton did all the talking. No doubt he was spouting his theory of how Santa flies the sleigh so fast, squeezes down chimneys and maneuvers the sleigh with such a huge bag on top...

Again Adaira stood to the side and initially wanted absolutely nothing to do with Santa. However after everything was said and done with Brighton, Santa motioned for her to come over and held out his hand to her. He got down and talked to her and asked her all sorts of questions and I could see her just melt for this nice jolly man!

Look at that smile! He has no idea what a good job he did! Definitely worth the wait!

Best of all, Dale did an awesome job at the park. He loved sitting up in his stroller like a big boy and being able to see everything around him. He was so busy watching everything that he went for 4 hours without nursing or putting up any kind of fuss! When I finally stopped to feed him he almost reluctantly nursed since he just wanted to be watching the action outside.

We had to squeeze jackets next to him on either side so he wouldn't flop over, but he was a happy boy almost the entire day and everyone we passed just loved seeing this itty bitty three month old sitting in his big stroller taking in the excitement. He slept most of the drive to and from Orlando, which was a good thing because this kid HATES his carseat and screams just about the entire time he's in it. He slept until we were about 30 minutes from home and then broke the night silence with his piercing screams the rest of the way. What a relief to get home shortly after 11pm. A great fun day, glad it's over! Brighton was concerned that Santa asked him to leave the milk and cookies out so I told him to go to sleep and assured him that I'd put some cookies out for Santa. Boy was he excited to come in the next morning and tell us that Santa came and left him a note thanking him for the cookies! We just love Christmas and sharing the magic with the kids, it's so much fun!