Every year, our gymnastics gym has a big event for their kids that they call their Olympics. Alli is on a competitive team now, so she doesn't compete, but Ian has been progressing in tumbling from beginner to intermediate, and working to get up into advanced. All season Alli has had friends and family come to watch her events, and now we've got a great big party coming to watch Ian, flying out from Michigan and Colorado!
Today we're in California, Theresa's off work, and we're all set to have some fun at Disney!
When I asked Ian which park he preferred, we had the following exchange.
Ian - which one has Toy Story Midway Mania? DCA
Ian - and the Incredicoaster? DCA
Ian - and Guardians? DCA
Ian - and Web Slingers? DCA
Ian - and Radiator Springs Racers? DCA
I guess it's pretty clear which park we're going to visit!
Time for our next adventure! Last year when we visited, our Six Flags passes were only good at Six Flags parks. Since then though, all the Cedar Fair parks have been rolled into the family and now they're included as well! It's been forever since I've been to Knott's Berry Farm, and the kids have never been!
We watched a few videos showing all the rides and the kids were excited to get on some new roller coasters.
It's time to head out on another adventure! This time we're headed out to California for a week and we're going to try to cram in as much fun as we can!
It's Spring Break and Theresa and I just put on the kids on an airplane to fly out to Colorado to hang out with their grandparents and cousin all week! Time for us to do something fun too! On past trips, we've dropped the kids off and headed to Tahiti, and then another time we flew to Bora Bora. Where to this time?
It's Spring Break! Normally we would plan a trip somewhere to do something, but we've been pretty busy with gymnastics and other travel these last couple months. Still with a week of downtime, the kids certainly would want to have something going on. Theresa had the thought, why not head out to Colorado since it's Avery's spring break too? The kids would love to play together.
Hmm, what if though, instead of everyone going to Colorado, it was just the kids... Theresa and I could do some tropical and warm destination while Ian and Alli went to stay with their grandparents for the week! I think that's a great plan! We check with Gram and Pop Pop and they were totally all for it!
I've got to get this one last taste test written up before we get too far away from Easter.
We love Peeps (except Theresa). Their marshmallow insides and crunchy sugar coated outsides makes for a very tasty treat. We've tried so many different flavors of Peeps, and then lots of Peeps flavored things, like Cereal, Soda, Lollipops, Gummy Candy, Cotton Candy, and more! Now we've got one more Peeps flavored item to add to the list. Jelly Beans!
While wandering through our neighborhood Asian Market, I found a new treat that looked visually interesting. Knowing my sister-in-law Megan was coming to visit soon and loves all things banana, I knew I'd have to pick this up and test it out with everyone when we got together.
It's time for another fun Skittles Taste Test! We've done so many different taste tests that have involved Skittles, including Skittles Jelly Beans, Skittles Cotton Candy, Freeze Dried Skittles of course, Skittles Candy Canes, Skittles Yogurt, Skittles Drink Mix, Skittles Freezer Pops, and even a mega taste test with 13 different bags of Skittles consisting of 56 different flavors!
So when the kids got a new Skittles Candy in their stocking from their Aunt and Uncle, I knew we'd have to turn it into a taste test.
It's been a busy weekend getting here, but it's finally time for Alli's Gymnastics State Meet! We've been preparing for this all year!
We're in Atlanta visiting Six Flags before Alli has her gymnastics state meet, but there's other fun things to do here too!
On Saturday morning, we could have ducked into Six Flags one more time to hit a few more rides, but let's see something else instead. We didn't have too much time at Chuck E Cheese a couple nights ago, arriving shortly before they closed. We enjoyed a lot of the games there, so we decided to come back!
This weekend we've got to head up to Gainesville Florida for Alli's Gymnastics State Meet.
We've got a lot of stuff going on this spring! From hanging out with friends, celebrating Easter, and getting ready for Alli's final gymnastics meet at State! Let's jump right into it!
Our RV friends, the Rayborns, are traveling down to the Florida Keys for Spring Break, but stopping at the same RV park that we're in! The kids were all excited to meet back up and play together again. First starting the day by going to play together in the pool.
Happy Easter! We've got a couple more fun Easter themed taste tests before we move on to the next thing.
Some people in our family LOVE Peeps Marshmallows, while others don't. We've tried so many different kinds of Peeps, including dozens of Marshmallow Flavors, Peeps Cereal (two different kinds), Peeps Soda, Peeps Gummies, Peeps Lollipops, Peeps Candy Ropes, Peeps Cotton Candy, and more!
We were all happy to see a new flavor to try this season! It's Pop-Tarts Frosted Strawberry Peeps!
Well, we said we like to taste interesting new things. I think these Pickle Flavored Jelly Beans certainly qualifies.
Among all the other Easter Jelly Bean flavors, we have found something unique. Claussen has come out with a Pickle Jelly Bean! Do you like pickles? I don't but the rest of the family does, so this one promises to be an interesting one. I mean, I've tried a Pickle Milkshake from Epcot before, so why not do a jelly bean.
It's Easter so that means it's the time of the year for Jelly Beans! There's the regular boring Jelly Beans of course, but I always like to find unique and interesting Jelly Beans! We've tried Sweetarts Jelly Beans, Skittles Jelly Beans, Starburst Jelly Beans, Sour Patch Kids Jelly Beans, Krispy Kreme Donut Jelly Beans, Tabasco Jelly Beans, Late Night Taco Truck Jelly Beans, Holiday Favorites Jelly Beans, and many many more.
So finding these Froot Loops Jelly Beans of course fits right in to all the unique things we like to try!
Let's wrap up this summer Michigan trip with all the rest of the things we did that weren't part of the birthday celebrations.
We joined the Federle's at Buffalo Wild Wings for their Bottomless Apps deal.
A Book Tasting? Am I reading that right? We've done plenty of taste tests, and even did our first ever movie tasting before for Home Alone this past winter. But a book tasting? Theresa and I had talked about it with the kids, trying to think of what books might be good source material. Harry Potter, Ranger's Apprentice (stews, breads, and coffee), or Willy Wonka even. But we'd never gone all the way through to pulling it off.
And before we could do it, someone else did it for us! The Winter Park Library had its first ever Book Tasting event on February 26th, 2026!
We've already had two small celebrations for Tyler's 50th birthday, but here's the big reason we're here. Months ago, Aubrey wanted to do a big surprise party for her dad's 50th birthday, and this weekend is the big celebration!
Time to continue our summer of travel. We're leaving Chicago and headed to Michigan!
Continuing on with our 2025 Summer travels, time to move on to the next place.
Happy Valentines Day weekend! It's an especially fun one because we've got visitors! Gram and Pop Pop have flown down from Colorado to hang out with us all weekend! They got in early enough to see both Ian and Alli at gymnastics practice, and were impressed by their improvements since they last saw them.
Since 2014, I've challenged myself to make something creative and unique that I've never done before every holiday season.
It started when my Disney friend Ariel shared Disneyland's recipe for Gingerbread Cookies, and I thought to myself "I've never made homemade gingerbread. I should try it!" Since then, I've been making different treats every holiday season that I've never attempted before! Things like Homemade Candy Canes (2015), Fudge (2016), Peppermint Marshmallows (2017), Figgy Pudding (2018), Eggnog (2019), A Holiday Yule Log (2020), English Toffee (2021), and Pepperidge Farm Cookies (2022). In 2023, I branched out and instead of making something to eat, I made something to wear. With some help from my mother, I learned how to sew a Santa Hat (2023), so I made a few for me and even more for the rest of the family. Last year, I made those tasty Peppermint Butter Mints (2024) that melt in your mouth, which were pretty delicious.
This year, I was thinking to myself about tasty holiday beverages. I've already done homemade Eggnog, which is the classic Christmas drink. But there's another one that I think I could do, along with all the things that go into it. Hot Chocolate!
The Disneyland Half Marathon is over, but it's still super early in the day. The day would turn out to be a bit different than I had expected it to go, but we'll get to that shortly.
It's time! Time for the 2026 Disneyland Half Marathon!
The run today will be a little bittersweet though. All the runners were notified that after this race, all the runDisney races at Disneyland will be going on hiatus. Many people were asking at the expo if anyone in charge had an idea of when it might be coming back. 5 years? 10 years? Never? No one had a good answer. So today, we're going to make the best of it and have the best race and come away with some good memories.
It's January and that means it's time for runDisney races including the one and only Disneyland Half Marathon! I'm headed out to California to run it!
It's our last day here in Hawaii. So far it's been a very relaxing trip, which has been perfect. Let's jump into it!
Jumping back to our summer travels. I've got a lot to still write about! We had an eventful summer.
Today though isn't all that full. It's mostly a relaxing day still in Hawaii.
Wrapping up our Christmas vacation with all the family from Michigan and beyond.
Grammy and Grandpa took all their grandkids out for an afternoon of fun. It started with our usual Chick-fil-A where the kids got recognized and got to introduce them to the whole family.
It's Christmas! And instead of doing presents for every single person, a few years ago we decided each family would do fun Christmas Games with money as the prize! It's something we look forward to every year. There's always big laughs and lots of rivalry.
Merry Christmas! We're happy the whole Michigan (and extended) family is here to celebrate in Florida with us! We got a huge rental house so we can all be together for the holiday!
Happy Christmas! Every year we flip flop between families for Christmastime, and this year it's time to hang out with the Michigan family. Except it's really cold in Michigan. A better idea would be for everyone to come out to Florida! Since we can't squeeze 16 people into the RV, Theresa was looking months and months in advance for a rental house to hold us all. The family has gotten even bigger since the last time we did this, so we're heading to a new rental resort a little further from Disney, but closer to our RV. Welcome to Windsor Island Resort!
Took a bit of a break around the holidays, but I'm starting to get back into our write-ups.
Here's a look at a few of the things we did to get into the Holiday spirit.
We love how some of the smaller towns have decorated their areas for the season.
