We're Going to DisneyWorld!

The following is just a recount of our recent trip (put together by my husband shortly after our trip) to Walt Disney World to help us remember all the details as time goes on.  You may find some tips if you are planning a trip (especially at the end) but this is mostly for our memory! =)

(Copied from tomhypes.com and I added in a few tidbits and pictures!  -- jenni)


Timing
We planned our trip for the first full week of December which was GREAT timing! The crowds were low and the weather was great… The temperature was in the 60s and the 70s with only one short rain.


Sunday - The Surprise!
The moment finally came after church and our family was the last in the building. I set up our video camera in my office and we invited Emily in. The video reflects it all as Emily freaked out at the news and spent all her energy yelling and running in circles around inside the church and then outside in the parking lot.

After a quick lunch at O’Charleys, we drove down to the airport. I dropped mom and Emily off with the luggage and went to park the car. After a quick shuttle ride, we were reunited and headed through security. Emily was just as excited about flying as she was about the destination and she grabbed the window seat. Mom was in the middle and dad on the aisle…. the same both ways.

Killing some time in the airport while waiting
for her first flight (that she remembers!)

After landing in Orlando, we met our driver of the Towne car service we hired. He helped us grab our bags, get loaded, and started the drive to the cabins of the Fort Wilderness Campground. We really enjoyed Demetrious, our driver, and he had great advice. He also drove us back to our cabin after we checked in which was a great blessing.

We made it!

Since it was late, we followed the recommendation of the front desk and headed for Trail’s End Restaurant for a great buffet. After a filling meal, it was back to the cabin to get some sleep before our adventures.

Special Note: Our key card for the cabin also served as our tickets to the parks and we set them up so that we could charge on them, which was very convenient. You just have to be somewhat aware of what you are charging so you don’t go overboard.  We did our shopping on the room card and our food on the debit card. (We did not do the meal plan, which we did not regret for our case... we didn't need snacks throughout the days or desserts with our meals.)

The front desk is also where Emily got her “1^st Visit” badge which was great as it starts good conversations in the parks and gets you some surprises as the week goes on.

E, Me, My, Moe

One of the most frustrating (yet funniest) things we've tried to learn in a while...
This has taken us 3 days to get this far.

(Pardon the nap head!)

A Visit to Leeds Farm

It's been 3 years since we've visited here...

The last time we were here, Sparkles looked like this...

And today, she looks like this...

Now that we have a few years and more skills under our belts we were able to try some new things!  Like this...

and the giant jumpy pumpkin thingie, 
(note, not one kid's foot is touching it!)

and the giant mountain with giant slides,

the mini zipline,

 

the hayride,

concrete  pig riding,

more giant slides,

and fun with Daddy in the straw barn!

Thanks Leeds Family for sharing your farm and fun with us again this year!

4 Weeks Under Our Belts

So we have completed 4 weeks of school so far.  Only 13+ years to go!

Em's first few days of school went very well and she was exhausted by the end of the week.  She's used to taking naps after lunch and adjusting to her new schedule took a bit of effort.  (Her mommy wasn't smart enough to start working ahead of time to get her used to no naps.)

Emily's favorite parts of school so far are recess (of course) and gym.  After a couple of gym classes she randomly declared her love for her gym teacher while we were running errands.

It went a little something like this...

E: Mommy, I just love Mrs. H.

Me: Really?  What do you love about her?

E:  She just really knows how to wexercise!

She loves her teacher and she comes home almost every day with a new song that she's learned.  We also have a list that we add to every day with the names of new friends that she's met that day.

Even though we're only 4 weeks in, Em's been initiated into the world of public school fundraising.  With grandma's help, she sold 18 "mumkins" for the PTO fundraiser.  (Grandpa G - we're going to have to borrow your truck to pick up and deliver all these flowers!)

Enough chit chat, here's Em having an after school recap with her daddy!

Week 2 and part of week 3 were a little bumpier.  She still really liked school, her teacher, etc. but as with preschool, I think she thought kindergarten was just a 1 week gig and then she could be done.  She kept telling me that kindergarten was just too long for her and that she really missed me when she was at school.  There were tears and everything.  We ended up having a talk.  Who am I kidding?  We had several talks... but things have worked themselves out and this week, she determined that she loved school again.  And - someday, I will study up on emotional roller coasters a.k.a. 5-year old girls.

Happy President's Day!

A special little patriotic treat from our Kazakh kiddo...

Happy President's Day, y'all!

Snow Days... Snow Play!

We've had a little bit (okay... a lot!) of snow lately and we were out of school 4 out of 5 days last week.

Over the weekend we actually had some decent weather and were able to get out and play in it.  Here's another video montage of the past week!

Be Blessed!

It's almost time!

Here's a little somethin' we've been working on this weekend!

THIS is cool.

We've gained some new followers in the past month or so and I feel it might be helpful to give a little background to explain what's so cool about this post.

The New and Improved Hypes Family
(minus big brother, Ryan)

Our daughter, Emily (or "Sparkles" as she likes to refer to herself occasionally), was born 10 weeks premature in Uralsk, Kazakhstan.   I didn't get to formally introduce myself to her as "Mom" until she was 8 months old and we traveled to Kazakhstan to adopt her.  

We lived in Kaz for 4 weeks while we bonded with her and went through the official adoption process.  In February of 2007, Emily came home with us to Ohio.

In the years since, Emily has grown to be your ordinary 4-year old girl that happens to have a mild case of Spastic Diplegic Cerebral Palsy.  As a result, she has high/tight muscle tone in her calves and ankles and also in her hips and waist. She goes to physical therapy twice a week to help with this and we do stretching exercises on a regular basis now.  Last year, Em received botox injections in both calves to help weaken the muscles so her other muscles become more developed.  Along with those, she also wore AFOs on both legs during the day and a DAFO on her left leg at night.  (These are leg braces made of molded plastic that basically fit like a boot.) 

Above is a sample of the braces she wore during the day.

Like any kid, Em loved to play outside on the swings and slides at an early age.  (Still does!)  Now, with that being said, there are a couple of differences between Em playing on a swingset and most other kids playing on a swingset.  Em is a tiptoe walker when she's not wearing her braces.  Standing on your tiptoes all the time make it very easy to trip and/or get knocked down.  With her tight trunk muscles, it was difficult for her to sit at anything close to a 90° angle... which also made it very difficult for her to sit safely in a normal swing.  :-(   

We kept her in baby swings for as long as we could possibly cram those long legs of hers down through the leg holes.  We also hovered around her when she climbed the ladders to the slides because it didn't take much for her to get distracted and lose her balance and fall backwards.

Finally, when she was about 3 1/2, the day came when we felt she was gaining a little more independence and would be ready to start trying to tackle a small playset on her own... 

Can you feel the excitement?

It's been a little over a year since that video and she's doing great!  We don't have to hover any more unless she's going up a really tall slide or attempting to traverse some sort of obstacle course that some of the doohickeys have on them.  Em is no longer getting botox injections this year, she doesn't have to wear AFO braces during the day but still wears DAFO braces on both legs at night.  She loves running and playing and sliding AND SWINGING.

And now, something related but, slightly off topic:

Why is that swinging part so important?  That part is so important because of the next video I want to share with you.  Do you remember the freedom you felt as a kid flying through the air on a swing?  Do you remember how fast and how high you could go?  Do you remember your hair blowing back and forth in the breeze and your stomach leaping a bit when you'd reach the really high part?  Yeah?  Ok, now, imagine you're confined to a wheelchair with cerebral palsy or for any other number of reasons.  What are the changes that you're ever going to get to sit in a swing and experience that thrill? 

Look what I ran across today.  Wouldn't it be awesome if every town in America had one of these? 

iScream, uScream... and other merriment

Guess what!??!   Yep, here's another lovely video!

Enjoy!

Have a great day and be blessed!

Clean off the cobweb... another video!

Here's another video I found of Emily from this summer.  I'm gathering from her attire that this was done the same day she was telling me all about Princess Pea and the Bad Wolf.  :-)


Happy Birthday, Daddy!   (in July... just a few months late... or early.  Yeah, we're going with Happy Early Birthday, Daddy!)

Have a great day and be blessed!

Princess Pea and the Big Wolf - by Sparkles

I was sorting through files on my laptop last night and doing a little spring cleaning and I ran across a short video clip of Sparkles telling me a story in the car this summer.  Enjoy.

Have a great day and be blessed!

Braveheart

Over the course of the last couple of years, Em has garnered a fear of quite a few things:

• Loud noises
• Automatic flushing toilets
• Car washes
• Flies
• Spiders
• Dirt
• Hot water  (great combination, huh?)
• Automatic hand dryers (blowers... she loves the automatic towel dispensers!)
• ...feel free to add to the list if you're remembering something I'm not! 

And, over the last couple of weeks, Em has tackled a few of her fears.  When we went camping and visited the Cincinnati Zoo, she had a complete meltdown in one of the restrooms because she had to go potty, but was terrified of the automatic toilets.  She would NOT even trust me enough to hold my hand over the sensor while she went. 

However, a couple of weeks ago, Em faced that fear and has used at least 2 "scary" potties since then... and then comes out victorious and tells everyone she meets how brave she was.  That was a fun story to explain to all my colleagues at the local high school homecoming game!

Sunday, Emily tackled another fear.  For about a year and a half, she has built up a fear of car washes.  Whenever I've needed to run through one, I've always asked her (without pressuring her) if she wants to give it a shot and then answer has always been "No, they're scary."  Imagine my surprise when I asked her again on Sunday and out of the blue she said she wanted to try it! 

Enjoy!

Leaf Angels!

Due to the lack of a rake, we found an old broom in the garage this afternoon and swept some leaves from the back yard into a big pile.... yeehaw!

 

 

But we also learned in the process that you have to watch out for scary critters in the leaf piles.  Look out!

 

Preschool!

There's a little girl in our house that got to sleep rather late last night because she was so excited about starting preschool that she just couldn't settle into bed. After about 2 hours of wriggling, she finally slowed down enough to succumb to sleep.

When she finally settled in, I pulled out her plain pink backpack (from "Hobbly Blobby") and got to work adding the extra ribbon and "gingerbread" she had helped me pick out so we could pretty it up and make it her own.

This morning, Em met me in the hallway with a big smile on her face and was very chatty and full of questions. When I wrapped up my shower, I peaked in her bedroom and found her stuffing her backpack full of "all things school"... colored pencils, papers, notepads, books, and she was looking for the crayons and markers. She was just sure they wouldn't have everything she needed at preschool and she would have to have stuff to share with all of her new friends. (She takes after her mother.)

She was bummed out when I told her she wouldn't have room for all of that stuff AND the papers she might bring home from preschool... but then after she emptied her backpack, she gave me a giant hug and thanked me for decorating her backpack last night for her. And then... she told me, "Thank you, thank you, thank you! You're the best mom ever!" Aw, shucks.

Morning routines commenced and before long we were taking the obligatory "First Day of School Pictures".

The drop-off at preschool went very well. Hugs, kisses and in a matter of seconds Em was running the 25-yard dash to the teacher who was waiting at the door. See ya later, Alligator. Buh-bye. I'll see ya on the flip side!

(I tried to embed the video of Em heading in to her class... but Google/Blogger/YouTube apparently don't like me right now. So, instead of seeing the video right here in this lovely window, you'll have to click right here and see it on YouTube instead.)

Have fun.


Signed,
The Best Mom Ever

(....Yeah, I'm holding onto that one!)

Singin' in the Rain

Nothing like a beautiful rain on a warm summer day... 

 It makes it more fun to collect raindrops

 when you have a beautiful princess umbrella to hang out under

and puddles to jump in.

Congratulations, Ryan!

On May 27th, we packed up the family and headed down to Columbus to watch Ryan graduate from Fort Hayes Career Center. Here's a little snippet of him walking across the stage!


You heard that right... Ryan received the Award of Distinction for his Automotive Specialists class. The plaque says, "Has demonstrated outstanding personal qualities, commendable participation and cooperation and the development of a high degree of skill and proficiency." We're very proud of you, Ryan!

Ryan and Emily

Ryan and his mom, Angie

Ryan and his Dad

Ryan's friend, Dylan, and Ryan -- many, many moons ago...

And a smattering of senior pictures and pictures from this year...

CONGRATULATIONS, RYAN! WE LOVE YOU!

Bonding Time

Mid-May:  Shortly after getting back from Tennessee we were able to get together with Ryan for Emily's birthday.  Emily was thrilled to get to sit next to her brother and he's so patient at listening to her stories and talking with her.  It was a fun night for all of us and a we had a good time catching up.



It's late... there will be more to come later!

Of weddings and vacations!

It's been a busy couple of weeks for the family. Here's the story of our lives.


CHAPTER 1: THE WEDDING

Emily was the flower girl for my cousin Matt's wedding. She was pumped. She made several new friends over the course of a couple of days and still talks about the wedding. Here is a video of the beginning and the end of the evening.

CHAPTER 2: VACATION

We took some time off the week after Mother's Day. With the store closing and lots of other changes going on in our lives right now, it was a good time to get away. We went down to Tennessee and took some time refocusing and hanging out as a family and with some friends that live down there.

We spent a little extra time in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg this trip. One of our first days there, we stopped at the Applewood Farmhouse Restaurant... or as Tom calls it, The Apple Barn. :-) Tom and I are both on Twitter (@tsfGodGuy and @jennihypes) and we tweeted a lot during our trip. Tom sent out a few posts while we were waiting on our yummy food!


We also killed a little bit of time while waiting for our food by playing with my camera. Check out the close-up of Snickerdoodle's beautiful eyeball!


At some point during the week (I can't remember if it was after lunch or an entirely different day -- but does it really matter in the whole scheme of things?) we went to Ripley's Aquarium. It's become another one of our standard stops when we're in the area. Here's a picture of Em looking into an aquarium tube from underneath it... or if you don't believe that, she might also be listening to angels announcing the virgin birth, or trapped in a Steven Spielberg movie.


The Ripley's Aqaurium has quite a few exhibits to be proud of.

There's the giant, Emily-sized catfish that apparently likes to have it's belly tickled.


There's a ginormous tank that you can see from above....


...that has sharks....


... and old people swimming and scootering about in it!


Then, there are the giant tubes with moving sidewalks that take you underneath the ginormous tanks so you can get an up-close-and-personal view of the sharks, turtles, stingray and other creatures lurking about in the deep water.


There are also creatures that make us want to go, "Oooooooo!"


At the end of the moving sidewalk are several other exhibits and rooms to explore. Here's another giant tank that would make a fabulous addition to our living room. Any volunteers to buy it, set it up, clean it and maintain it for us?


One of my favorite exhibits at ANY aquarium are the jellyfish. We saw these first when we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I made these guys sit still for this picture and it took about 6 takes before the smaller of the two stopped grumping it up... it was WAAAAY past nap time at this point.


Once we made it out of the darker, more peaceful part of the aquarium, someone caught their second wind and was ready to start checking out the domes that were built into the smaller aquariums.


On our way back past the giant aquarium (remember the one we wanted for our living room?), we were lucky enough to find a diver that was just finishing up feeding the fish some lettuce. That's Em's silhouette on the bottom-right working her charm to get the diver to wave at her.


There's a new penguin exhibit in the aquarium this year. It opened just a little over a month before we got there. It was pretty sweet. Here's a picture of Emily laying on the glass floor watching penguins swim back and forth between the indoor and outdoor parts of the exhibit. They also had tubes to crawl into so you could reach a dome that popped up in the middle of the penguin exhibit. Up close and personal folks. Up close and personal.


It was a good day. A long day. But a good day to snuggle up to a penguin.