Jessica's Graduation

On June 5th Jessica graduated from 5th Grade at Hobe Sound Elementary. We are so proud of her accomplishments this year. She did well academically and she had a great teacher. Next year on to a new adventure and a new school.

Zach's Recital

About a week before school was out, Zachary had his recital for his trumpet. He was quite nervous going into this. He practiced countless times and had the music memorized. When it came down to it, he took his music up with him for fear of forgetting it. And the nerves were quite bad, as it shows in his playing. But I am very proud of the fact he went through with it and got up in front of everyone and played. I would have been a nervous wreck too. Solo's are not for me! Good Job Zach!

Happy Birthday to Me

Today I celebrate another Birthday! Woo Hoo! Lex & her boyfriend Shawn sent me these awesome homemade cookies. They were Yummy! Thanks Guys!

Disney's Hollywood Studios- AI Experience

One of the first things inside of the Hollywood Studios park is the New American Idol Experience . If any of you have ever watched American Idol on tv it is quite an interesting competition. This is very much like the whole American Idol thing just in a shortened version of course. We talked Lex into auditioning for it just for the heck of it. I think she was a bit nervous about the whole thing, but after all was said and done I think she had a really good time. When you first go in to audition, they take you inside a room with one judge. You can pick anything you want to sing Acapella of course. They ask you a few questions and then they decide if they think you should go on to the second audition. Well, judge # 1 said definately move forward. Then they proceed to take you into a waiting room area. They give you a song list of about 50 songs to choose from, a set of earphones and an Ipod to listen to these songs on. You have to pick 2 songs to sing to judge #2. These are karaoke style. The music plays and words are scrolling on the screen behind the judges head. When you pick your 2 songs and feel confident your ready they send you into the judge. He plays a portion of each of the 2 songs you picked and you sing them. They tell you which of the 2 songs they like best and if they let you move forward to a show you sing that song in the show. Lex was told she was moving forward to one of the shows. They have a total of 7 shows a day. Three people compete in each one of those shows. She was scheduled to sing in the noon show. She was told to come back at 10:50 to get hair and makeup done and to practice her song and get instructions about the show. The rest of the family was aloud in at 11:30 to watch her practice her song before the audience was opened to the public. The other 2 she competed with did a good job, but she was definately the top. She won show # 1. This means she had to come back and do the finale show at 7pm and compete with the winners of the other six shows of the day. The winner of the Finale show was to receive a Golden ticket to actually get the chance to go audition at a true American Idol tryout.With this golden ticket you could jump to the front of the line at those auditions and be up front and not have to stand around waiting for hours or days to try out. The bad part about the AI Experience at Hollywood studios there was not an age limit for who could try out and win this ticket. But for American Idol itself they do have an age limit of I think 32. Below you will see a slide of pictures from the first show.

This video is a short one of Lex practicing before her performance in show # 1
This next video is of all 3 getting up to find out who the winner is.
This next video is the winner being announced
Below is a slide of pictures from the Finale show. We didn't know what to expect going into the Finale, but for the most part the ones who made it to the top 3 were definately the top 3 performers. The others must not have had alot of competition in the prior shows they were in. The funny part was, the top 3 were the last 3 to sing and perform. So I think by my personal opinion(not sure it matters) is that the judges going into it knew who should be the top 3 and so it was planned to have them perform last. Just seemed to work out that way anyhow.

Below is Lex's performance. Sorry for the jiggly camera. Not really sure why I was moving so much, other than to get out of the way of the person with the hat in front of us.
And last but not least, the winner is announced
The winner was definately good. He actually does music ministry in a church. The bad part is , he won the golden ticket, which he deserved, but he was turning 32 in a few weeks and wouldn't be able to use it to audition for American Idol anyhow. The girl who was second place was also over 32 , So guess noone will be using that ticket. Guess that's why they call it an American Idol Experience.

Disney's Hollywood studios

After relaxing a couple days , we had one more day at a park. We had never been to Hollywood studios, so we decided we would try it out. Theres not a ton of stuff there to do, but it was a little slower pace for a park. We have learned to take our own food for sandwiches and some frozen water bottles in with us and put them in a locker. And we packed several different snacks and water in a backpack to carry around with us. Makes for a cheaper day food wise. We headed back up front to get our food just at the right time for the parade, so we had great seats for that. A few highlights below of some of the things there to do. I have one more blog to do on one exciting thing we did that day. But that's a whole other blog. Enjoy!

More vacation photos

After Spending Saturday at Magic Kingdom , we were all tired so Sunday was the day to relax and spend by the pool. We also baked Andrea a cake for her birthday and had that. And Monday evening we went to downtown Disney and walked around the shops. Here are some highlights of those few days in pictures below.

Disney

This post is long overdue. About 1 month exactly!
On Saturday May 2nd Andrea Celebrated her 8th birthday. We surprised everyone and took them to Disney. We went to Orlando on Friday evening and after checking into our condo we told the kids they needed a good nights sleep because they were going to disney in the morning. None of them had a clue! They were so excited. We spent a full day there and we had a great time. Below are some pictures. Some of you may get bored but I know friends and family who will enjoy the many pictures.