Colt getting into the holiday spirit :)
I get the feeling that Colt and I are starting to make a habit of creating some pretty incredible Christmas memories. I mean, Christmas of 2012 we got engaged, that's pretty huge! So let me explain why our Christmas in 2013 was just as memorable :)
For starters, we went to the lovely and WARM Florida!!! I cannot tell you how nice it was to leave South Carolina at 53 degrees fahrenheit (okay, I realize that's really not cold...) and watch throughout the day as the temperature rose to a beautiful 86 degrees fahrenheit. After a truly nice and easy car ride down, it was absolute bliss to open that car door and feel the warmth and humidity wrap around me like a perfect blanket to snuggle with. Colt enjoyed it so much that no sooner had we unpacked the car, then he was off on a run. Of course, we were also very excited to see my family again too!
We enjoyed an awesome weekend full of golf cart rides, Church, getting to see old friends, eating AMAZING food and too many wonderful goodies, and relaxing!!
On Christmas Eve we had the pleasure of picking up Colt's mom from the airport, as she flew in to spend Christmas with my family! It was such a joy to share Christmas with family on both sides :)
Colt loves trains, so it was awesome when my mom found a Christmas train for a really good price!
Not excited in the least, or being a goofball for the camera either...
I think this train will definitely make an appearance under future Christmas trees :)
Colt found a great deal on Groupon for a trip to a horse farm in Ocala, FL. Since his mom loves horses, it was a great Christmas present that he and she could both share!
We ended up opening gifts and having "Christmas" on Christmas Eve because on Christmas day we went to Disney World!! It was so much fun, but it was incredibly packed with people!! I've been to Disney on Christmas day several times before, and it's always had a big crowd (I mean, it's Disney...let's be honest here...), but never anything like this crowd! It was kind of ridiculous, but we still had a ton of fun!!
I love Disney at Christmas :)
"The Haunted Mansion"
Waiting in line for "It's a Small World"
"The Jungle Cruise" which got changed for the holidays to "The Jingle Cruise". Every boat had a holiday-themed name and the classic jokes were given a little holiday sparkle too!
Waiting in line for "The Jingle Cruise"
We're really good at taking pictures...Take 1...
Take 2...
Ahh, third times the charm :)
Throughout the rest of the week we enjoyed much of the same activities as we had before. The Villages is always a good place to visit, I never ever get tired of going back there :)
The Monday after Christmas, Colt and I, along with my parents (Colt's mom had gone home a couple days before :( ) went to Disney's Animal Kingdom! Colt had never been so we were really excited to take him there. Each Disney park is magical, but all for different reasons, so it's really necessary to go to all of them at least once if you want the full magical package :) However, the crowds were still quite bad, so we didn't get to fully enjoy everything there was to offer, but we can always go again! We still had a blast though :)
In front of the Animal Kingdom's Christmas tree. This is one of my favorite Christmas trees!
"Expedition Everest"
Colt was the only one able/willing to go on "Expedition Everest". If you look on the left, he's the 5th one up from the bottom in a black t-shirt :)
Quite possibly our favorite ride of the day was "Kali River Rapids". Here we are on our second trip through :)
These next photos are what you get to see as you wait in line for "Kali River Rapids".
We also went on the Safari ride and got to see some really cool animals, although most of them were starting to turn in for the night.
On New Year's Eve, we (Colt, me, Mom, Dad, and Grandma Miner) went to The Olive Garden for dinner, and might I say we got there at the perfect time! It wasn't too early, but just early enough that we missed the huge dinner crowd and didn't have to wait forever! Later that evening, I wanted everyone to stay up so we could watch the ball drop at midnight...everyone else did a great job, but I kind of fell asleep and woke up just before it dropped....oops.
Our last couple of days in Florida were perfect, but all too soon we had to go back to the real world. It was an incredible vacation, and one that will definitely stay with us for a long time to come, but wait...I think I'm forgetting something....what was it?....OH YES!!! I forgot to tell you what really made this the most amazing Christmas yet!!!
When we went to Disney on Christmas day, I really wanted a picture of our family in front of Cinderella's castle. We never seem to get a picture there, and I knew it would look great on this blog post. However, unbeknownst (I looked it up, that's the correct spelling of that word) to our parents, I was really taking a video of them because Colt and I had some very special information to tell them.
I took 3 just to be sure!
BABY CAMPBELL is due July 28th, and we could not be more thrilled!!!
We found out that I was pregnant the week before Thanksgiving, and boy was it hard to keep that quiet!! I was only 4 weeks when we found out, so we wanted to make sure that everything was okay before we shared our happy news. Plus, we knew that our parents would be together at Christmas, and that we would be able to tell them in person...at Disney World. I mean, how could we pass up that wonderful opportunity to announce it like that???
We are so excited for our baby and can't wait to meet them! So far my pregnancy has gone very nicely, I haven't really had morning sickness at all, and I just hit 14 weeks yesterday! What's kind of funny is our baby's due date...the week that band camp starts....yup, we planned that one really well, didn't we? ;) It will be fine though, there are so many wonderful people to help us out with whatever that everything will be great. Plus, this ensures that our baby will definitely be a bando from the very beginning :)
