::waiting for max's race to start::

Just found a couple of cute pictures that we didn't post when reporting on the race. I like them, so they get their own little spot here.
I just have to say it again, the weather was SO NICE there! We were so lucky.




That's it for tonight!

::disney fun 2::

More fun to report on!
We got to visit all the parks on our little jaunt, though we didn't get to ride or visit everything that we hoped to. The Soarin' line was so long that we had to give up at Epcot, and the Peter Pan ride in the Magic Kingdom was hopeless.
We did get to do the Toy Story one though, and the new Star Tours (which was awesome enough to make me carsick!)
We got to eat a lot (too much) decent to good food and the weather was PERFECT. It didn't rain on us once and it was never warmer than 80 degrees.

We got to introduce Grandma to the fun of pin trading. Max got to ride the Rocking Roller Coaster for the first time and he was brave enough to go right back on again after.
Here we are hanging out waiting for one of our many meals to show up.



Probably the best part of the whole trip was getting to spend time together doing stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with work!
And the second best thing was undoubtedly the weather. It was so nice to have weather like that in the middle of our winter.

The sad news is that Sandy got sick the night of our second to last day. He got a big fever and was so miserable. So he was up half the night and then slept most of the next day. Kris went home that morning to get some work done, and the rest of us were supposed to play. I sent Kathy and Max to the Magic Kingdom and watched over little Sandy.
Finally he woke up and we all met up for lunch.

The poor little guy did his best to be a good sport. Then Grandma took him back for more napping and Max and I got to play for a while. This is a picture she sent me later that night.

He felt a lot better by then, thank goodness and was actually eating. You can see his little pink cheeks though--they're the give away that he's still a little sick!
Why do kids always get sick on trips?
The flight home was a bit trying with a slightly sick exhausted baby, but Max was perfect.

But that's getting ahead of myself.
Max wanted a churro the whole trip and we had such a hard time finding one. But finally on the last day when Max and I were exploring the Magic Kingdom I spotted some people enjoying churros. I stopped them and asked where the heck to find them. We finally found them and snarfed them.

(Check out Max's awesome pins. He did some good trading on this trip.)

And last for now, but not least I have a picture of Sandy riding the ant at the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" playground. Max LOVES that place.

Sandy liked it too, but the uneven-ness and texture of the ground made him feel a little weirded out.
I will leave you with a pretty awesome video of the crawling that resulted. True Mowgli crawling. He also fell on his little head several times because he got so unbalanced. I think that's what happened right when I stopped the video. Wish I would've gotten it documented. It was hilarious.

I'm going to report on the running later!

::disney fun 1::

So all the racing and running and such aside, we had some classic Disney World fun with our leftover time.
We took Kathy to the Animal Kingdom--she'd never been. I loved that Max was still afraid of the 3d Bug's Life movie under the big tree.

The safari ride was as neat as usual. Seeing all the different animals is always so fun.

The baby elephant was A-dorable.

Max was dying to go on his "most favorite" ride, the river rapids one where you get all wet. Of course the best opportunity to do that came up at like 5PM when the sun was almost gone. I'm a nice mom and I went with him anyway.

I definitely got wet and cold--and evidently the ride also caused me to make ugly faces.

On a different day we ate at the German buffet in Epcot. This is Kris's favorite thing to do. The food is so good. The little band that plays is great too, and Max loves to dance and goof around.
Besides the fact that we got seated at a communal table with a cranky old man and a lady that wouldn't stop talking, it was a good night. Actually the lady was really nice, though was too loquacious after a stein of Germany's best bier. And the cranky old man just turned out to be lonely. He talked to Max a lot during the meal and won a lot of points with me.


You can see Germany behind us. And how amazingly flexible the Sand is.

Here we are waiting for the bus so that we can visit our resort pool. The resort was fun, but so spread out that you had to take an internal bus everywhere.

It was a fun pool with a big water slide and a really cute toddler area that Sandy hated.

You can see that Max is set and ready to take some serious underwater videos.

Now this is funny. I have one child that ADORES the characters. I've never really liked people in big costumes that like. I still don't really like them. But Max loves them to death. He gets so excited when he sees them.

At this dinner he was essentially jumping up and down trying to be patient while the characters made the rounds.

BUT
I have another child who HATES the characters. Turns out he thinks they are terrifying, weird and creepy.


And those darn characters won't take no for an answer. They expect to be adored and are dismayed when it doesn't happen. Most of them just kept trying and trying until Sand broke down and I had to send them away.

No babies were harmed in the course of the evening, but he did get really mad. The rest of the restaurant thought he was pretty cute.
I think he's over it by now. I hope anyway.

::family shots::

In November we got together with a friend who did a family photo shoot for us. Unfortunately we had a limited window of time to do it in, and the light was super bad. So a lot of the pictures didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. We're going to redo the session at some point here when it's not so darn cold. But a few of them were cute, so I wanted to show you all.
We found a gorgeous house with big wooden gates and blue doors in their courtyard wall. The people there were kind enough to let us use their place as a backdrop. It made me want to go home and paint all our doors blue!




Sweet little boys:


That Sandy sure does love his brother!





And after the blue door house we went down to the railyard to try to get a few shots with the trains. But the boys were pretty much worn out by then. And it was windy and cold. And Max was hungry.
So we'll have to redo those too--but at least you can see what a cool setting it is there!



So there ya go!
I used a couple of the photos for our Christmas card and it turned out fun. I'll post it here later for those of you who might not've got one! (Or for those of you I sent them out to and then got them back later for various reasons!)

::kansas city::

In early November we got to go to Kansas City to see Kelly's family and to be present for baby Gray's blessing. We were pretty excited to go, considering it has been years since we've been back there. We're quite fond of Kansas City and there have been many things we've missed about it over the years.
The bummer was that it was seriously a whirlwind trip. We got there saturday afternoon and left monday morning.
So it was tough to squeeze in all we were hoping and wanting to do.

But of course, most importantly, we got to see family. Kelly and Lechelle had a nice little open house before the blessing with lots of yummy food. We got to hang out together for a bit there, and then go to church. The blessing was so nice and their ward seems great.
Before church we took a couple of photos, but Boston was NOT wanting to cooperate. Cute, but cranky!



This was the very cutest one:

And then the whole group of us Hendricks.

Some cute kids in there!

Besides the family time, we got to go and eat some of our favorite foods at our favorite places. The Taqueria Mexico was still there, just the same as when we left it.


And still delicious. Sandy loved digging into the rice and beans.

We also went to our favorite sandwich place--Planet Sub. Twice. And it was just so stinking good.
The funniest thing is that we started taking Max to Planet Sub (regularly) back when he was about Sandy's age. He would eat a little bite of the kid's sandwich and then be done.
Well Mr. Sand the crazy eater chowed the whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then asked for MORE!


I think he may have the potential to grow up to be a competitive eater. YIKES. I better watch out.

So it was a fun quick trip. Wish it could've been longer, truly it only seemed like we saw Kelly & Lechelle for a few minutes. But we can do it again soon! We're always up for more Planet Sub.

::some family photos::

We posed for a few quick photos before we all split off to go to our respective houses. I set my camera up on the tripod and we went for it with the timer.
I think my favorite pictures though, are the ones before anybody is quite ready. The test ones. Like this one.

It's just funny. And I'm not in it, which is a plus for me of course.

But here's the real one. I think it turned out cute, except for Max's strange arm situation.

A bunch of cute people with a BUNCH of cute little boys.

And the other best thing--this is a tradition adopted from my family. The Silly One.

Not sure why it turned out so dark, but oh well.
It's hilarious to me because it looks like both Sultan and Sandy are pretending like they don't know the rest of us. Everybody else is on board though.

It was a really fun weekend. We missed the Kelly & Lechelle family though. It would be fun if they were in these silly photos with their own two little boys!!

More St George report to come though, I just haven't gotten that far yet.