Eclipse Girls Weekend

Back in December 2009, a group of us started planning a girls weekend in July to go see Eclipse in IMAX in Orlando. It seemed so far away at the time but it has finally happened. This past weekend we all got away without husbands and without kids for a weekend of shopping, relaxation, food, and Twilight love. So here are a few pics from the weekend. Jen B put together a CD of everyone’s pictures so I’m not sure whose I used. If it’s yours, thanks!

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Brandi and I headed down on Thursday and spent the night at my parents. When we left on Friday, we picked up the movie tickets…Brandi even drove in Orlando…then had some time to kill.

We happened to go past this sign and decided to stop in honor of Twilight. Thankfully, we made it out alive.

We made a quick stop at Publix to get some food then headed over to the condo and were even able to check in a few minutes early.

Our lovely, sea-foam green building. When everyone was arriving, I just told them to look for the green building and everyone found it without a problem.

Brandi & Josi’s room

One of the huge tubs

Brandi/Josi/Vernine/Susan’s bathroom

The second kitchen, to the right was where Vernine & Susan stayed

 

Mine & Jen B’s room

 Jen S & Kelly shared this room…there was another bed on the other side. :-)  

Brandi and I wanted to set the mood for the weekend so we put up a few decorations.

The swag bags (every time I see these pictures I see VBS…so didn’t mean to do that) and a couple of the posters Brandi had in her teen dream magazine. :-)

   Twilight table

Favorite Eclipse quotes

The plates that everyone refused to eat off of.

The cake that Kelly decorated herself at Publix.

Decorating the cake…complete with hairnet.

The Edward shrine

The Jacob shrine

Once everyone arrived, we headed to Uno’s for dinner.

     On the way.

 

The first of many group shots that weekend.

When we got back we opened the bags and made our t-shirts for the movie.

Vernine with her Team Mike sticker.

Brandi’s newest shirt

Our shirts are now ready for the movie!

Before heading to bed, Jen and I did a little light reading while watching Twilight.

Saturday morning a couple of us hit the pool for a few hours.

The water was great, but it got hot laying out. And ironically, one of the other women at the pool was reading Twilight.

Krystle was able to join us on Saturday for the day. She made a shirt too.

 

We headed over to Downtown Disney for a bite to eat and to look around.

Jen found this dress at the Rainforest Cafe.

We hung out for a bit then got ready for dinner and the movie. Our DVD player didn’t have a remote so Brandi attempted to pause New Moon right when Jacob takes off his shirt the first time.

It was close, she did pause it where you could see his abs…and it stayed there the who time we were gone.

We headed to Pointe Orlando and had dinner at Houlihan’s.

Team Edward

The neutral swiss

Team Jacob

After dinner we headed over to the theater and took lots of pictures while multiple people stared at us.

Finally at the theater!   The screen was literally 52 feet tall. It was crazy. Sharks vs. Jets picture

Afterwards, we stopped off at Steak & Shake for some milkshakes.

The next morning, we packed everything up then headed to IKEA for breakfast and some shopping. Trouble was, we got there 45 minutes before IKEA opened so we headed over to the Mall at Millenia for our devo time.

Chatting in the IKEA parking lot as we figured out where to go.

The Starbucks in the mall had two tip jars. :-)

Communion

We browsed a bit…but none of the stores were open there either. 

Finally we headed over to IKEA.

It was such a great weekend. So ready to do it again!

And if you’re bored, here’s a little video of the weekend. Some of the pics are the same, same are different. If you want to watch and you’re reading in Facebook, you can check out the video here.

Swim Lessons

We attempted swim lessons for Rosemary this summer. They didn’t go as well as I had hoped, but they weren’t a disaster either. She’s certainly more comfortable in the water and now we know some of the things we can be doing with her to get her swimming.

Attempting to swim to Coach Addlee (Addly?, Adleigh?)

Kicking at the side of the pool

Trying to float, while keeping her teacher in a death grip (his words)

Ferdinand the Bull’s Spanish Feast

A couple of weeks ago, our family was inspired to put together a special dinner after reading a couple of blog posts titled Around the World ~ One Picture Book at a Time and How to Study Your Favorite Country.

To start out, we checked out Ferdinand the Bull from our library and read it for a couple nights. Then we found some Spanish recipes online. Since I’m a picky eater, I was a little bit limited, but finally found a recipe for Viva Madrid Spanish Chicken. Rosemary really wanted to do Gazpacho, which we had learned was cold tomato soup. She LOVES tomato soup and I think she just assumed to make Gazpacho all we had to do was open up a can of Campbell’s, pour it in a bowl and we’d be done. We didn’t do Gazpacho. Instead, we added some Spanish rice, green beans (not sure about how culturally correct those were, but it was what we had), and then had flan for dessert.

Our meal. The chicken really turned out great…but I did leave the onions out. :-)

There’s a line in the book that says “and all the lovely ladies wore flowers in their hair.” Rosemary and I were going to each wear flowers, but when we went to cut the hibiscus, we only had one on our bush. So we pinned that in Rosemary’s and added a couple of silk flowers we had around. Rosemary also insisted on wearing a dress to dinner that night. Rosemary really wanted Jonathan to dress as a matador and Ben to dress as Ferdinand, but alas, we weren’t able to get the appropriate costumes together for them. :-)

Rosemary opened the book to her favorite page with the lovely ladies.

Ben thoroughly enjoyed his flan.

The flan was store bought…and so good.

Our family had such a good time doing this that we’re going to try it again, we’ve just got to decide ‘where’ we want to go next.