Thursday, September 25, 2008

A Month In Pictures...

Get comfy... this is a long one. :)

September started off with a detour to TN. Hurricane Gustav messed up our driving plans to Disney World, so we left a couple of days early and went to Chattanooga! It was a quick visit, but it's always so good to be home.

Audrey LOVED playing with Aspen...
and playing outside in the cool weather!

Audrey teaching Owen how to throw a perfect spiral...


On the 3rd the whole family (Grammy, Grandad, Nana, Papa, Greg, April, Autumn, Owen, Jeremy, Audrey and me) headed to WDW! This is us at our resort- All Star Movies. We were in the Mighty Duck building!


Swimmin!


Eating at Downtown Disney!





Hanging out at the Boardwalk...amazing sunset!
Our good friends Donny and Kim (and Hunter and Millie!) met us there and we had a blast!

Below are a few shots from our day at EPCOT. Btw, if you're wondering why there are so many pictures of us in restaurants, it's because we spent half of our trip eating! We took advantage of Disney's free dining promotion- which I can't recommend highly enough.

Dining with the princesses at Akershus in Norway (EPCOT).
Audrey wasn't a big fan...



This picture pretty much sums up Audrey's experience
at Biergarten in Germany.


And then there was breakfast at Chef Mickeys...
Audrey LOVED every single one of the characters!


I think she liked Donald the best... she even started an impromptu game of peekaboo with him! This moment made the entire trip! And my 30th birthday! :)


Dinner at Ohana! Autumn, Audrey and Owen...



A bit breezy on the ferry boat...


Hammock shot!


...And the last of the Disney pics-
this is Audrey's favorite souvenir from the trip.

We got home from Disney on Tuesday 9/9 and spent much of the following day watching the news related to hurricane Ike. Then on Thursday morning, our zipcode was included in the mandatory evacuation zone. SO, we booked it to Richard and Gabe's house in Dallas! All things considered, we had a total blast. Audrey loved hanging out with Jonathan (and playing in his car- see below), and we really enjoyed being with good friends.


And then on the following Monday we headed home...


...to find minimal damage, thankfully.



Many of the pine trees in our neighborhood suffered a similar fate as this one above...
And Audrey enjoyed helping us clean up the yard!


Our neighbor's tree, which fell away from the house- thankfully!
And what is left of our fence and tree limbs...


Our electricity was out for 4 days so we kept the headlamps handy...


Generator + giant blow-up play thing = tons 'o fun! Thanks Jamie!


No fence...New fence!


And just when we thought the fun was over...
Yesterday a tree trimming truck drove down our street with it's cherry-picker still up in the air, and it ripped our power lines in half. It was actually pretty scary- live electrical wires were all over the place and 4 firetrucks, 2 ambulances and 6 police cars blocked off our street. We didn't have power all day, but all is well now.


And finally...
We let Audrey have some chocolate ice cream, you know,
since this month has been so traumatic for her. :)

Hopefully October will be completely uneventful.
Thanks for reading all the way to the end, friends!
Lots of love to all!

3 comments:

donnyandkim said...

Elizabeth,
Your "September in review" is awesome. We are so happy we could be a part of such an eventful month for you. I have always wanted to do Chef Mickey's, and seeing Audrey's pics with the characters makes me want to do it even more. What fun pics and memories. Love you!

lyndsay said...

it's absolutely unreal how much i love you. i am SO THANKFUL that your house is okay. i cannot BELIEVE how quickly that fence got built again!!

and you know i'm insanely jealous that you got to do wdw on your 30th, right? i've been dropping MAJOR hints lately....;)

Chipper said...

Praise the Lord! for the minimal damage. I wondered a lot about you guys being down there. Congrats on such a fun month!