Fort Wilderness & Disney World Adventure

August 6-7, 2011

Thanks to a wonderful friend of ours in the Oviedo Ward, Liz Cullen, we were able to stay at the Fort Wilderness Resort at Disney World for a reduced price. We also got into the theme parks for free!

This is a picture of the bus that we rode between the theme parks and the resort.

This building was where we checked in/out. Other services were provided there, but we didn't need them.

Here's our cabin! We had just 1 bedroom in the cabin, but there was a double bed, bunk beds, plus a pull-down bed in the living room, so there was enough room for all 6 of us.

The bunk beds:

Living/dining area:

Pull-down bed in living room:

We spent a short time at Magic Kingdom. The children wanted to ride the tea cups.

Anuhea & Nalani in their teacup:

Hokulani & Leiohu in their teacup:

Hokulani & Anuhea on the Disney Transport bus:

We spent most of our time at Animal Kingdom since it's one that can't be found in California (whenever we can get to Disneyland).

Jason holding Leiohu at the entrance to Animal Kingdom:

Carmel, Anuhea holding Leiohu, Hokulani & Nalani at the entrance to Animal Kingdom:

Having lunch at the Animal Kingdom...

Jason, Nalani & Carmel:

Hokulani eating her lunch:

Carmel & Leiohu eating lunch:

One of the best places at Animal Kingdom is the river ride, especially since it's so hot & humid in Florida.

Jason & I had to take turns riding the raft, because Leiohu couldn't ride, but the girls could ride with both of us. Anuhea & Hokulani chose to ride both times.

This is the ride with Jason, Hokulani & Anuhea:

I can't remember what this was called. Sorry.

Tiger

Bats

Komodo Dragon

The 4D show "It's Tough to be a Bug!" was fun. We saw it before when the children were younger so they didn't remember it.

Anuhea in the 3D glasses:


The Tree of Life:


We spent a brief time at Epcot to get our passes into the theme parks, then we returned in the evening for the fireworks display.

After a whirlwind overnight trip, Leiohu just couldn't take it any longer. She fell asleep on the way back to the Howards' home.

Anuhea's 11th Birthday_01262008

Anuhea Chen was born on January 26, 1997. Today she turned 11 years old. I can't believe my oldest daughter is already 11! Last night we had a slumber party for Anuhea and her friends. It was quite an experience, and I think Jason will never want to do that again. There were 10 girls, including Anuhea, and the other 4 of us in the family for a total of 14 people. Anuhea's friends who attended were: Heidi & Hunter Winters, Kaitlyn Handler, Kati, Kennedy Howard, Laura Telson, Maile Perriton, Olivia Melli, and Shanique Williams.


All of the girls had a great time and screamed a lot. First, we had pizza and salad for dinner. We also had 4 bottles of juice that went very quickly. Second, the girls painted something they brought with fabric paint. Some girls had t-shirts, other had bags, pillowcases, jeans, etc. They had a great time, but it was a challenge to make sure they didn't get any on the clothes they were wearing. We moved all of their painted items to the back of the house to dry on newspapers.

Third, we had cake (chocolate) and ice cream, and Anuhea opened all of her gifts.

She got some great gifts! Anuhea received a cat with a Bruster's (ice cream) gift card from the Winters sisters;

a card with a Target gift card from Kaitlyn;

a Wal Mart gift card from Kati;

2 canvas boards, oil pastel paints, and 2 Hershey's candy bars from Kennedy;

a fuzzy poster (to color), High School Musical 2 party planner book, and a monogrammed (with "A") notebook from Laura;

Scrapbooking kit from Maile;

and a card and Target gift card from Olivia.

Finally, the girls settled down--a little--to watch the movie "Ice Age 2". They were kind of restless during the movie, but most of them watched the entire movie. Kennedy and Maile had to leave early because they weren't allowed to sleep over. The rest of the girls got their sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows and got ready to sleep in the living room. Even Hokulani slept in the living room with the "big girls". Nalani had to sleep in her room because she's still sick. The girls were still so loud even though it was around 11pm, but they finally went to sleep sometime before midnight. 3 girls slept in Anuhea's room.

This morning the girls started stirring and making noise and it was only 7am! I didn't want to get up yet, but I did anyway because I needed to cook rice for breakfast. Soon Jason and I started preparing breakfast for 12 people. Jason cooked scrambled eggs, portuguese sausage, and Lil' smokies sausages. We also had milk. Everything was delicious! Jason explained that in Hawaii people often eat portuguese sausage, eggs, and rice for breakfast. If they didn't like it, then that was okay, but we wanted them to try it. Most of them enjoyed it, and Kaitlyn really liked the rice. She kept asking for more. With all of the craziness from the night before, and the continued craziness at the breakfast table, Jason was so funny. It was about 9:30am and the girls were supposed to be picked up at 10am. Jason was saying to himself, "Only half an hour to go. . .only half an hour to go."

After breakfast we had one last activity for the girls to do before they went home. We had foam sheets of different colors, and self-adhesive insect shapes and letters for the girls to decorate the sheets. They could put their name on the sheet and add insects, or anything else they wanted.

They completed their creations, and decided to have some dancing fun while they waited for their parents.

Shanique was the last one left, but her aunt never arrived because she couldn't get a ride from the hospital. We ended up dropping her off at her grandmother's house before going to Chinese school.

We were relieved when the party was over, but glad too that they all enjoyed themselves. Anuhea enjoyed the fact that she had a party, and that her friends were able to be there.