Downtown Disney {Disney World}

After driving all day Saturday (with the exception of our stop in St. Louis), we made it to Atlanta before stopping for the night. When I started calling for a hotel from the road, I found the hotels were all booked. In the end I called Hilton and let them find me a room. The good news is that they found us a room, the bad news is that it was downtown in Atlanta. Getting to the hotel, checking in, unloading the car, getting into the parking garage and getting an overtired 6-year-old to bed at 11pm eastern time was tricky, but we did it.

Yes, it was raining as we arrived, but the rain was done when we
unloaded the car and that was the only rain all week!

We decided to sleep in a little the next morning and hit the road about 9:30am for the approximately 7 hour drive to Orlando.  We checked into our resort (Disney’s All Star Music Resort) and made it to our room at about 4:30pm. Not bad!  Once again it was a little frustrating getting our things to our room – no luggage carts!  We definitely could have packed lighter, but since we drove and had entertainment for the road, clothes for bizarre weather (which was good – there were a few record low temp days in Florida), and food (breakfast and lunch for the entire week), we had a lot of things to carry in.  Total pain, but having all that stuff with us was worth it.



Once we knew we would be at Disney sometime Sunday afternoon we decided to make reservations at a restaurant in Downtown Disney. This was easier said than done! Having never been there before, we didn’t know what restaurants to try, but after some quick online searching, I attempted to make some reservations at a handful of different restaurants without success. Everything was busy!  In the end we made a reservation at Bongos Cuban Café.


 No trip to Bongo’s would be complete without playing the bongos!


The funniest thing happened when we arrived at Bongo’s… Hubby started laughing, leaned over and said, “I’ve been here before!”.  He was at Disney World for a work conference a few years ago and didn’t even remember going to Downtown Disney!  Once he walked into the restaurant, he recognized it though!  Funny stuff!


Dinner was…okay.  Would I go back? Honestly? I would try somewhere else.  It was not the best meal I had during the week.


After dinner we walked around and checked things out.


A man working at one of the kiosk’s thought Anthony needed a Mickey Mouse sticker. Somehow that turned into 6.5 stickers, because Anthony is 6.5 years old!


Anthony needed to run around a bit, so he raced up and down the sidewalks along the lake with hubby.  We checked out a few stores and we also ventured over to Lego Land for a little fun before heading back to the hotel. 


 I think it’s a requirement to build a few guys every time you go to Lego Land!


The Incredible Hulk was awesome! There was a line for pictures with him, and Anthony didn’t want to wait, so I just snapped a pic quick. As you can see, the little boy below thought Hulk was awesome too!






We were off to the Magic Kingdom the next day so we decided to head back to the hotel early to attempt to get some sleep.  Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom were starting at 7am!!

A Quick Stop at the Arch {St. Louis}

If you follow me on Instagram (@MomsGonnaSnap) then you have had a chance to see snapshots taken throughout our vacation. Now that we’re home, I have started going through the 2200+ (!!!) photos that we took on two cameras and my phone.  Brace up, there will be lots of vacation posts coming!!!



I think it’s funny how much we look forward to going on vacation, and also how much we look forward to coming home when the vacation is done.  If you read my last post, you know that we were on vacation this past week – we drove from Minnesota to Orlando!  Just in case geography is not your thing, that means we drove through 8 states for a total of 1,440 miles EACH WAY.  This was no small venture!  When we left Orlando, I was wishing I was Dorothy and could just click my heels 3 times and be home!  We experienced incredibly heavy “spring break” traffic (so the digital road signs told us) throughout Florida and Georgia on the way home.  In fact, at one point, we drove about 10 miles in 1.5 hours!  It was awful.

Since Anthony attends a year-round school, following a 45/15 calendar, he has 3 weeks off for spring break.  Hubby had to take some mandatory vacation days and my work schedule is somewhat flexible these days so we made a decision to go for it!  We decided to leave early on a Saturday morning, the day after Anthony was done with school for 3 weeks to spend a week in Florida and planned to leave Florida sometime in the afternoon on the following Saturday to start the drive back to Minnesota.

As I said in my last post, we ended up leaving around 4 in the morning, which actually worked out pretty good.  Anthony was able to fall back asleep for awhile as we started trekking across the country.  That morning we drove from Minnesota, through Iowa and down through Missouri to St. Louis – our timing was perfect to stop for lunch at the arch!  Since I was a kid, I have always thought the arch was pretty cool, so I was ready to share my excitement with Anthony.  We all needed to stretch our legs, so taking some time to walk around the arch was perfect.



It was a nice day, and unfortunately we were not the only ones who thought visiting the arch was a good idea.  When we got inside (under the arch) we were all ready to purchase tickets to take a ride to the top.  Then we found we would have to wait about 3 hours for a turn.  Ugh!  Waiting three hours on a day when we were planning to drive approximately 1000 miles was not an option.  Anthony was thrilled though – he was nervous about riding in the tram to the top of the arch and he really didn’t want to.  I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed, but there was nothing we could do about it.  We took a handful of pictures, made some sandwiches for lunch and hit the road!  In total, we stopped for about an hour before jumping back in the van and heading down the road.

Here are a few more pics from our stop in St. Louis…

Anthony raced to the stop of the steps.  I kept asking him to stop so I could tell him something (I don’t remember what, but it was probably for a picture) and he just rushed to the top, not letting us catch him.



I think he was pretty excited to be out of the car – I had to hang on to him so hubby could take this photo!






Our mini photographer took this next one for us!  We stood on a bench and he sat on the ground below us – he did pretty good!  The weird thing coming out of my head is my hand – in the first round of photos I had hair standing straight up – this helped with the hair, but it looks like I have an arm coming out of the side of my head…



A stranger saw our photo attempts (see above picture) and took pity on us.  On trips like this, we love nice strangers so we can get some family shots!







Maybe next time we go through St. Louis we’ll be able to take a trip to the top – I sure hope so!

It feels good to be home, now I just wish the Minnesota snow had melted while we were in Florida!!

Are we there yet? {Disney World}

The last couple weeks have been really busy. Working on the fireplace in the basement, planning/prepping for a road trip across the country, and working, so that we can actually go on vacation.

All of our hard work has officially paid off and we are on the road headed for Florida! My alarm went off at 3:05 this morning and after a snoozing it a couple of times, we got up, pulled ourselves together and hit the road.

Any ideas what we have forgotten?? Yeah, we don't know either! I'm sure there is something, although if you saw how packed our van is, you would think we haven't left much behind.

After a slight detour in Minnesota (yes, we missed a turn before even getting out of the state!), we are officially somewhere in the middle of Iowa and I'm blogging from the car. Have I told you that I'm a big fan of technology?

Anthony is definitely excited - he woke up on his own around 3:25 and was thrilled that today is the day we FINALLY leave for Disney World.

Let the adventures begin!!

Celebrating Gotcha Day

Tomorrow will be 6 years since Anthony joined our family.  Whenever I think of that day I am filled with so much emotion.  Reminders of the nerves and excitement that came with the first phone call, driving to northern MN to meet him, to the actual transfer in Minneapolis just a few days later. 

(Photo taken Feb 2013 by Midwest LifeShots Photography)

Six years ago we the became parents of an amazing 8-month-old.  Anthony, we love you so much and we are so thankful that your birthparents chose us to be your forever family.

We love you Anthony!


Want to read more about our adoption experiences?
Adoption Home Study
Fingerprints
Annual Christmas Ornaments for Birth family
Waiting for the right one
Still waiting to adopt
Gotcha Day
Waiting to Adopt is Hard
Starting school

Fireplace Stone {Basement Progress}

This past week has been a full week – nearly every evening we have been working in the basement on the fireplace stone.

Here’s a quick iPhone photo to show the progress we have made!



The stone will go all the way to the ceiling – we are hoping we can get the rest of the stone installed this weekend!

Happy Friday!

A Month in Photos {February}

February brings the end of the coldest period of the brutal winter’s that we experience each year in Minnesota. We are tired of the cold, the novelty of the snow has worn off
and we are sick of spending all of our time inside.  That said, we still had some fun!

We are going to DisneyWorld!
Math & Munchies at school with Dad
Ice Skating
Pinewood Derby (photos of the Pinewood Derby coming soon!)
Swimming & Piano Lessons
A Valentine’s gift – $20! (he’s saving it for Disney!)
The School Carnival
Basketball at the YMCA

(*If you follow me on Insta, you may have seen photos from some of the events above)
I am MomsGonnaSnap on Instagram.

Adoption Home Study {Again...}

Once again it was time to make our annual trip to Minneapolis to update our home study with our adoption office. This is just part of the process of keeping us "legal" as a family that can be considered to adopt. We recently completed tons of paperwork updates, had new fingerprints done, and wrote out a few more checks.


Today, March 1st, is 3 full years that we have been waiting to adopt our second child. Not only has it been 3 years, but we also found out where we are “in the book”. At this moment we are #3 in the book. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean anything good. This does not mean that we are 3rd in line to be chosen. This means that there are just 2 families that have been waiting longer than we have. Two. Considering our agency places 60+ children with adoptive families each year, this means that we have been passed by birthmothers/birthparents at least 180 times. It’s all part of the process, but wow, waiting is hard.

We have always been extremely open with the staff at the adoption office. Any suggestions for us? Is there something offensive in our letter? Should we change out our pictures (again)? Is it time to completely re-vamp our letter? Do we need to create a website? What can we do?!?  The counselors have assured us that there really isn’t anything that we need to do, but there are some things we can try.

When we get back from Disney next month, we will be completely updating our letter. Hopefully we will have some fabulous fun pictures to include and some great inspiration to show the world that we are great people and deserve to be chosen during this process.  We are also planning to create a website that we can regularly update with photos and info about our family.

Here’s to praying that we are chosen sooner rather than later!