Disney World, June 2010

Here comes picture overload of our Fink Family Vacation to Disney World in Orlando, Florida during the first week of June. Isaac, who will be three in October, had a blast!! We were very excited for Isaac--knowing that he would actually understand and appreciate all the rides and shows a lot more. When Isaac saw the castle in Magic Kingdom he dropped his jaw and said, "Wow!" It was so priceless! So DAY ONE (MONDAY) spent at Magic Kingdom during the day and Hollywood Studios at night.

Taylor was so good to take Isaac on Dumbo. The line for this ride was ridiculous!

"It's a Small World"

"Mickey's PhilharMagic" 3D show

"Buzz Lightyear"

On the Disney Bus--this picture shows Isaac's personality! Lil stinker!

At Hollywood Studios they opened a new ride "Toy Story" --we loved it!!! Isaac refers to Mr. Potato Head as "oto head"

The ride is also 3D

DAY 2, TUESDAY: Hollywood Studios & ...I don't remember what we did at night...

We started the morning with Playhouse Disney Character Breakfast. Isaac was so terrified of the characters at first, when they came up to the table he freaked out and didn't want to touch them. Then they turned on music and started dancing, so he and I went up to dance with Handy Manny and Isaac warmed up to them a lot. And, still to this day, he continues to talk about all the characters he met and loves to look at their "autographs" but it is so funny because it was what he was most scared of the whole trip.

Isaac "hiding", getting "protection" from Papa

Family picture with June from "Little Einsteins"

After breakfast we went to Beauty & the Beast and then to a Live Playhouse Disney show--again, Isaac loved it!!! It was perfect for his age!!

Downtown Disney--they have a stage and let all the kids dance to music--it was so fun!

DAY 3, WEDNESDAY: Pool & Animal Kingdom

Here we are on the Animal Safari

Love this picture of my mom!

Our hotel had the coolest slides!! This was the "baby slide"

This was the "big slide"

I love that I captured this of Taylor's great "form"!
Isaac getting ready to go down the big slide!! I was so shocked he went down it, but he went over and over and over again....

DAY 4, THURSDAY: I don't remember what we did during the day, but we went to Epcot at night. Heather and Isaac on the "Imagination" ride (Heather's favorite when she was a kid!)

DAY 5, FRIDAY: Man, this is why you blog soon after your trip because I don't remember what we did during the day....oh wait, I believe the boys went golfing and when they came back we went to the pool again. That night we did the extra magic hours at Magic Kingdom and watched their new "Electrical Parade" at night and then the fireworks--very cool! Here we are before the parade.

And for those of you who have stuck with this long post, you will see Isaac's shirt says "BIG BRO"....that's right!!! We announced to both our families while in Disney World that Isaac will be a big brother at the end of the year!! I am currently 14.5 weeks along and all is well. More details for another post....

Papa, Isaac and Nana on "Pirates of the Caribbean"

DAY SIX, SATURDAY: Taylor's 27th birthday!!! We went to Disney Quest during the day. Isaac with his "virtual glasses" on for the Pirate ride.

Tyson, Heather, Taylor, me and Isaac with our glasses on! haha!

That night we went to "Charley's Steakhouse" for dinner. I love this picture of Isaac and Taylor!

The whole family!!

And then on Sunday, we flew home. We had a full week in Disney World and we loved every minute of it. Isaac was surrounded by buses, trains, planes and boats--he was in heaven!! He loved the pool and the parks. We were sufficiently worn out by the end of the trip, as evidenced by this next picture which was taken of Isaac 5 minutes after getting in the car to drive home after landing in Denver.

Thanks for the great and memorable trip Nana and Papa! --Isaac :)

Month of May

Wow, I have been slacking on blogging. So...let's start at the beginning of May. My sister and her husband blessed their new baby girl on Sunday, May 2, which coincidentally was my birthday. It made for a good change in the regular Sunday routine, so it was a good way to celebrate. We had my sister's in-laws in town and my grandparents came. Saturday--the day before the blessing--my Nana taught me how to make a blanket for Isaac. He loves it, I love it, and I sure love my Nana for teaching me!

A "Cars" blanket--so appropriate for his age and stage right now...I think he gets his little cars out every day and there are little piles of cars and trains all over our house on occasion.
All the "girls!"

Here's Taylor's "helping efforts" for the brunch--handing croissants to my Nana! :)

My adorable niece Katie--look at that blessing dress!!!

The Housley's and Hill's

My mama with her girls and our kiddos!

The month of May has been pretty crazy for our entire family, but we were able to squeeze in my birthday dinner at the delicious Melting Pot!! YUM!!! If you remember, The Melting Pot was my birthday choice last year, too. ....it did not disappoint this year either!

Another big time commitment in May was our Stake's Youth Dance Festival. About a year ago I was asked to be apart of it and I was in charge of the choreography for the all girls' (ages 14-15) African dance. I sure love these girls and it was so fun to be apart of their experience. The performances were in the middle of May and they did wonderful!! Here is a picture of me with some of the girls at one of our rehearsals back in February or March.

In other news, Isaac started taking private swim lessons. He freaked out for the first minute or two, but as soon as we found a ball for him to toss he was a happy camper and had a "perma-grin" the rest of his lesson. Hopefully he will work up his courage and go all the way under the water....

And, besides swim lessons, he continues to attend a soccer class once a week at a nearby country club. He has really taken a liking to it and does really well at listening to his coach.

This picture is of Isaac trying to drop the ball on his head by himself so he can jump up and hit it...so funny!

The weather has been pretty nice here lately--in the past three days we've been to the pool twice and enjoyed being outside! And....other than that, I think that about makes me current in my blogging--or at least closer!! Yahoo!

This is AMAZING, click on the link

Anyone follow Stephanie Nielson? Or her blog, NieNie Dialogues? Well she just posted a short video she was a part of--the trials of her "new life"--and it is amazing! Click on the link to view it:

My New Life

Isaac in Soccer and a Kris Allen Exclusive

I must say, it sure is fun to have Isaac at an age where he can start participating in activities and genuinely enjoy it! This past Tuesday we took Isaac to a "'Lil Kickers Soccer Class." It is a 3-5 year old class, and with Isaac being 2 1/2 we didn't know how he would do--so we went to try it--and he did awesome!! There was one time at the beginning where he ran over to me, but I took him back and he stayed with the group the rest of the time.

And obviously, being the biased mom that I am, thought he did great!!! In all reality though, Isaac has never been in an environment like this, with other kids playing a sport, so I was anxious to see how he would take to it and he truly picked it up naturally and listened to the coach well.

Don't know why these pictures got so dark....here Isaac is helping the coach pick up the balls.

He did wonderful and even got two stamps on his hand at the end of class and he thought that was so cool!!

Next up: My mom and I got invited to go to an exclusive Kris Allen concert at the Broadmoor. Well, I guess my mom got invited and she invited me--helps that my dad had meetings and my sister just had a baby. Man, I was low on the list! :) But it was really pretty awesome!! Luisa Graff--a retail jeweler here in the Springs--was a sponsor for the event and she got the tickets and gave two to my mom. Here we are with Luisa and her husband (left), another couple Luisa invited (middle), and my mom and I.

After his performance he signed autographs and took pictures....look at how close we were able to stand to him!

He was really down to earth and pretty humorous--it was a great night.

And then my mom and I after the performance.

Easter Weekend

Our Easter weekend started on Thursday, April 1, for us. Many of you know that April 1 was the year mark of losing our baby girl, Angelina. You can visit http://letterstoangelina.blogspot.com to read more about approaching April 1 and what we did, etc. But one of the things we did, which has been something we have wanted to do forever but didn't really know how to do it, was make a sign to put on the bench Taylor gave me last year for Mother's Day that sits by the waterfall in our back yard. We think it turned out perfect!!

It reads: "In Loving Memory of Our Angel, Angelina Joyce Housley, April 1, 2009" We love it!!!

Then on Saturday, I got a crazy hair to throw a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. I had the idea because my sister-in-law does it every year with her neighborhood--when I thought about doing it here, I needed some encouragement so I called one of my neighbors to see if she would participate. That really locked me in to doing it! I didn't think we had too many houses in our neighborhood, but when you have to go door to door to drop off fliers, you begin to notice how many houses there really are! I think in the end there were close to 86 houses that we had to individually deliver fliers to!! Isaac was all about helping me for the first 10 houses or so, but then he wanted to sit in the car! :)


We had over 300 eggs and a great turn out. It will be a great annual tradition for our neighborhood!! The only downside was that it was windy and about 50 degrees, which wasn't bad, but with the wind, it was cold!!

We had food afterwards which provided a great opportunity to meet our neighbors.

After the Easter Egg hunt, we jumped right in the car and went to the hospital because my sister had her baby!!! Heather and Tyson welcomed their first child, Katie Sue, at 2:49 a.m. on Saturday, April 3. Katie weighed 6 lbs 8 ozs and was about 19 inches long. She is SOOO adorable!!

The two Fink grandkids!!

Me and my sis with our kiddos.

A close up of Katie. She had to go to the NICU for a day...it sounds worse than it was, but they took the necessary precautions and had to stay an extra day in the hospital.

Then on Monday, mom and baby came home!! She is soo precious!

And while we were at the hospital...Isaac found ways to entertain himself! ;)

On Easter, Isaac woke up to the goodies we got him in his Easter basket. Here he is showing me one of the cars he got.

Then off to Nana and Papa's. It was General Conference for our church--which is a worldwide meeting for all where our leaders speak to us on several topics, you can go to www.lds.org to read more about it--between sessions my parents gave Isaac a basket as well. He thought it was pretty cool.

Isaac giving Papa a hug to say thank you

After the basket, they did another Easter Egg hunt for Isaac in their basement. I love this picture of Isaac looking at my dads mountain lion while grabbing the egg.

This is his "searching" pose....love it!

Isaac got a Little Einstein DVD...have I mentioned lately that he LOVES Little Einstein??? He calls it "pat pat pat" and asks to watch it ALL the time.

And that was our Easter weekend. It was pretty busy but yet low key. Can I put those two phrases in the same sentence?? :) Between General Conference, the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt, and going back and forth to the hospital, we had a great weekend filled with friends and family. It is wonderful to be at a point where Isaac can start to understand holidays.

We are so silly....

The other night...Isaac and I were in a bit of a silly mood... We, yes, I said "we", put his pajamas on our heads and had a ball! Taylor was on the phone while we did this, so we were getting a good laugh out of trying to make him laugh but not distract him too much... hahaha...

Oh it is fun to have nights like this!!!

Alright...time to update!

I know, I haven't posted for about a month now, and the reason for that is because I have totally slacked on taking pictures. So I tried to do better, hence a post. :)

We've been plenty busy, so to start...here is a fairly recent (within a few weeks) picture of Isaac. He is almost 2 1/2 years old!!!!

This past weekend, my good friend Jodie and I put together a Post-Valentine's day video-taped scavenger hunt with some couples in our ward. Unfortunately, a pretty good snow storm came in Thursday and Friday so we changed our plans last minute. We stayed at our house and played a game--while it wasn't the original plan, we still had a great time!!

The next day we were busy with getting a free pretzel for "Free Preztel day" and attending the AFA v. New Mexico girls basketball game. Isaac sure loved it--even blew a kiss to the Air Force Academy's mascot, the falcon; however, when the mascot came to sit behind us, Isaac FREAKED out, so the falcon left. It was pretty comical! Apparently Isaac likes the falcon from a distance, but that's it! After the game, we went home to put Isaac down for a nap. Once he woke up we went to dinner with some good friends, the Sidwell's, and then went bowling with them. Isaac LOVED bowling! He even bowled a strike to boost my score!

And the last bit of update, we had my sister--Heather's--baby shower last night at my house. I couldn't have pulled it off without the incredible help of my mom!! We had a great turn out and Heather got loaded with cute clothes! She is 35 weeks and is having a girl, who they will name Katie Sue.

...now I don't feel so bad about how long it has been since I last posted... :)