Disneyworld Thanksgiving 2011

Whoa. My second post in two days. I guess I just want to feel semi caught up, even though I've left out so much that we've done. Here's some picture overload from our surprise trip to Disney world over Thanksgiving. We woke the kids up at 4:30am and threw them in the car without telling them that we were driving to Disney. At breakfast time, we told them and they were so excited. It took about 15-16 hours to drive all the way down, but totally worth it. They were troopers in the car. Our house that we rented for the week was stellar. Here are some highlights.

My brother Ben lives about 45 minutes away from where we were staying. I hadn't seen him since my dad's funeral 1.5 years ago so it was nice to catch up, even for a short time. My mom and Rob's parents joined us for the week and did all our crazy adventures with us. We actually went to Gatorland and Daytona Beach (before our parents came) which was awesome, but the ocean water wasn't too kind to our camera. It died and we haven't recovered the memory yet. So this post starts with dinner with everyone at Cheesecake Factory.

One of the most exciting things that happened while we were down there was that our oldest son, Noah, was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We were so happy that our folks could attend this special event for our Noah. It ended up being a joint baptism with another 8 year old from the ward we were visiting. They were so nice and welcoming to us. Noah was excited to finally get dunked since his 8th birthday was 2 months earlier (in our church kids don't get baptized until they are at least 8 because we consider this to be the age of accountability).


It was amazing to have our own private pool and hot tub. It came with the house, was heated and I think the kids loved that more than Disney world.


We did get several photos with characters, but mostly because the week after Thanksgiving is the SLOWEST WEEK OF THE WHOLE YEAR at Disney. It is the best time to go because things are decorated for Christmas, but you don't have to deal with the crowds. So standing in line for 1-10 minutes for a character is way better than 1-2 hours like the rest of the year. Plus, we also used ridemax.com----best Disney site ever. For $16 you pay to use their planners. You tell the computer what rides you want to go on, including what breaks you want to take and what special events you want to attend (like parades and shows). It then gives you a list of what to do and in what order so that you can get it all in. Seriously, it would say some like this:

9:03--send runner to get Buzz Lightyear fast passes
9:10--ride Space Mountain (4 minute wait)
9:28--ride Speedway (6 minute wait)
etc, etc

The plan was RIGHT ON to the minute and we got so much done because of it. They have it for Disneyland too. Do it! You won't be sad you do.

If a photo shoot had a line for longer than 10 minutes then we would strategically place Issy at the exit and snap a photo. We made a big deal of just being able to see the characters so she wasn't sad about not actually hugging them.

I know this is just some random Indian statue in Frontierland, but I have a picture of me and all my siblings hanging on it when I was 7 years old so it was fun to have all my kids hanging on it too.

We were smart and when the weather called for rain the next day, we bought $2 ponchos at Walmart so we wouldn't have to spend $15 on ones inside the park. It did rain pretty hard for a couple of hours, but the parade went on! Here are Mickey and Minnie

All of us in front of the castle.

Day 2 was Animal Kingdom. Here we are on the way to It's A Bug's Life inside the Tree of Life. I love that thing. Animals are carved into the tree.


My mom was our secret weapon when a line was too long. There is usually a handicap entrance or quicker line for people in wheelchairs. She rents one of those electric carts whenever we do Disney so we got head of line privledges. I don't think we waited for more than 10-15 minutes the entire time we were at all 4 parks for any ride.



Kali River Rapids at Animal Kingdom (before shot)

On the ride

After shot. It was pretty dang cold! Fortunately it was the end of the day and we were heading home. Plus, being the super awesome stellar mom that I am, I had a change of clothes (in case of accidents or spills) for the kids so they got mostly dry clothes to change in to. Note that I wasn't in the before picture. It said pregnant people couldn't ride the ride, but after one time everyone agreed that it would be fine for me to ride so I hopped on.

IN front of the Tree of Life before leaving the park. It's all lit up in the background.

Day 3-Epcot! Daisy Duck was at the entrance. I love this picture of all us girls.


In 1999 I was babysitting a little girl who was about 8 years old at the time. Her parents sent us on a amazing trip to Disney....just the two of us. They had this thing going on where you could get your picture laser engraved and it would be put at the entrance of Epcot. It was for the year 2000. We found our engraving and are pointing to it in this picture. You can really tell it's me!

Fish are friends, not food.


This is what most of the shot "with" characters look like. I love this one because you can see both Belle and the Beast along with Ben and Issy's face. Can you tell I said "turn" right when I took the picture b/c Issy's hair is flying. They got pretty good at posing without being next to the characters.

This picture cracks me up every time I see it. Issy walks right up to Alice and gives her a big hug. Kate was more shy and wanted to give her a hug, but really wanted Alice to grab her and hug her first. So instead, she walks up to Alice and leans forward. Well, when Alice didn't grab her and hug her, Kate just kept leaning forward until it turned into a bow. Then she stayed there for like 30 seconds. The whole time Alice was so cute making all sorts of darling jokes about excercising and how a girl can't get enough time for stretching in so might as well do it now. It was hysterical.

I love how Rob can get the kids to laugh.

Issy just loves physical attention so much. During our wonderful (yet LONG 2 hour lunch) Rob and Issy were so cute showing their love to each other. I love seeing Rob with his girls.


LEGOLAND! I was so excited to take Noah to this place. He's been obsessed with Legos for several years now. It's pretty much what he gets for every birthday and Christmas. So when I realized we'd be there just one month after the Legoland Florida opened I had to take him. He extremely unfortunate thing, though, was that he woke up with a fever and migraine that morning and was miserable all day long. We kept pumping him full of Tylenol, but it only worked for a short time. He'd do one or two things and then crash in the stroller. Poor kid. I felt so bad for him. The other kids LOVED it. The park really is meant for preschoolers though about 10 years old so it was perfect for my kids. It was not crowded and because it was new it was so clean.









We just had such a great time and I am grateful for our military discount allowing us to experience Disneyworld for a fraction of the real cost. It was awesome to have our parents there too. I felt a little guilty getting all their time without any distractions, but it was fantastic. Then we drove straight home arriving back in Maryland around 2am. It was wonderful.

Summer to Christmas 2011

Okay....shock of the century. I'm actually updating my blog. This is for you, Mom.

We've done a lot and been pretty dang busy over the last 6-7 months. Obviously we aren't in Okinawa anymore. The move went fairly smooth and although it seemed like our stuff was out of our possession for a long time we got it all with minimal breakage. We stopped in SLC and Buffalo to visit family on our way out to Annapolis, MD where Rob is now stationed at the Naval Academy. Here are some pics of our visits with family. This is a picture of us with Grandpa Kiser. Rob was living with Grandpa and Grandma Kiser when we met! He was also a Navy pilot who later switched over to the Air Force and retired as a full bird colonel after 33 years (also a dentist) too! Rob really looks up to him.

Visiting Grandma Kiser's grave. It's super close to several prophets gravestones and the kids had a fun time spotting them all.

Rob's dad is a representative for the State of Utah. Here the kids are voting on his behalf up at the capital building.

Visiting the planetarium with cousins

Visiting Temple Square (my old mission). I love taking my kids there.

We hiked up some canyon in the SLC valley. I can't remember the name, but it had a little creek and the kids had fun on the rocks.



Ben's hiking around the woods in my mom's backyard in NY. She gave him a leaf collecting guide/book so he spent the time matching leaves to the ones in the book.

Hamilin Park


Bonfire in the backyard with smores!

Once we got to Maryland, I put the kids on our local swim team. Best decision ever! They spent every morning swimming for one hour and had meets each Saturday. The kids were only ones that lived in our neighborhood so they recognized some faces when school started. Ben ended up being voted "Best 6 and under boy" and he relishes his trophy. They all had so much fun with kids ranging in age from 3-18 on the team.

4th of July down at the Naval Station with the ships in the background.

A little children's museum in Annapolis

When we finally got our stuff, I took the girls' annual birthday picture in my wedding dress. Kate turned 2 on June 10th and Issy turned 5 on June 1st.


In August my mom paid for the kids to attend a wicked Boys and Girls Club camp that I went to when I was their age. They had SO MUCH FUN! They were filthy muddy every day when we picked them up and literally needed to be hosed down.

We also got to meet up with my niece Rachel and spend some time with her. She is so good with the kids and they love her. She also recently got baptized into our church and it's soooooooo exciting to have another member of my family belong to our faith. She is darling!

The boys on their first day of 1st and 2nd grade

Isabella on her fist day of kindergarden (along with her brother who started the week before)

Rob and I looked out the window one day and noticed the kids had set up this "picnic" on the front lawn. A bunch of random stuff was out there, but they were having so much fun. They have really bonded together and have been getting along pretty well since there are NO neighborhood kids to play with like Okinawa. It's pretty sad actually. In Oki we could open the back door and there would be many children running around all day for hours on end. Here, everyone has tightly fenced in yards and we have retired people all around us. I feel bad for them, but they have resorted to being better friends with each other!

Noah turned 8 at the end of September and as you can tell from his abundance of gifts....he's still very into Legos. Somehow we convinced him to just hang out with us and get more presents instead of having a birthday party. Works for me!

In case you haven't heard, the real reason I haven't been blogging is that I'm pregnant with another boy and due Feb 25th. I really don't have the energy or motivation to blog. However, my picture upload speed was WAY faster this time so maybe it'll make updating easier. We'll see. Here I am about 5 months prego. This baby is measuring really big and I predict he will beat out Ben's 8 lb 12 oz (2 weeks early) and Kate's 8 lb 13 oz (1 week early).

Noah finished reading the entire Book of Mormon and we told him before he started reading that if he finished we'd give him $100. Of course, he bought Legos with it.

Here the kids are announcing that our new kid count will be "Boys-3, Girls-2" Issy wasn't very excited about that (as evidenced from the picture), but she has been the only one excited about my pregnancy. She constantly gives Matthew hugs and kisses and loves to feel him kick her. Oh, yeah....we are naming him Matthew Driggs Kiser. Driggs is Rob's mom's maiden name.

One super fun thing for us about moving to Maryland is getting to know my Uncle Dan and his family better. Uncle Dan has 8 kids (all grown) and live on a rural farm about 45 minutes from us. My cousin, Morrigan, got married this fall and my other cousin, Megan, had her first baby too. It's been fun to be a part of their family gatherings. The kids beg to go over to Uncle Dan's all the time. They have every farm animal you can pretty much imagine.

For Morrigan's wedding reception they had a pig roast with also included the slaughtering of a goat and sheep. We actually got to witness the slaughter and skinning. So fascinating! Uncle Dan even took out the lungs and blew them up to show how they work inside us. The kids were mesmorized. He made the boys two necklaces our of the goat's horns.

My cute friend Kat took these pictures for us outside her home this fall. I love experiencing autumn again! We have yet to have our first snowfall though. I guess we are just too far south.

Gettysburg is about 1.5 hours away from us and we went up there one Saturday. The kids love things about the Civil War so it was great to actually be a part of that history.