Harry Potter in pictures

By: Ryan


So as everyone is no doubt aware, the very highly anticipated Wizarding World of Harry Potter opens on June 18 at Universal Studios Florida. The advertising blitz in central Florida has begun with billboards, commercials, and posters everywhere. Even driving past Universal, you can't help but notice the castle towers above the trees.

We headed to Universal yesterday just to walk around and let Amber have some fun. When we finally made our way back to the Harry Potter area, we discovered, much to our surprise, that it was open! We were able to check out almost everything inside the new area, even the new ride inside Hogwarts Castle. Here are some pictures of the excitement.

(note: if you're reading this in a feed reader or by email, be sure to visit RyanAndShelsy.com to view these pictures in a clickable slideshow format.)

Birthday Girl

By: Shelsy

Our little baby is finally a year old. It's hard to believe, but it has been such an amazing year. She has grown and changed so much. In the last couple of months she's started really communicating with us. She said her first word, which was "duck." She loves playing with her rubber ducks, and if you ask her where her duck is, she'll look around the room until she spots one. Same goes for balloons. We have quite a few in our living room from her party, including a giant mylar birthday balloon, and she gets excited about them every time. She can also spot balloons from across the Magic Kingdom. :-)

She is working on a bunch of other words also, and she does a lot of pointing and gesturing to tell us what she wants. It's a lot nicer than having to guess all the time, although she still baffles us pretty often. :-)

She's not walking yet, but is getting close. She can cruise pretty easily and often will let go of whatever she's holding on to and balance for a second or two before grabbing it again. She'll also lunge from one object to another one if she can't quite reach it, but she always gets this wide-eyed look of terror on her face mid-lunge.

My mom and dad, Mindy, Von, and Carter all came down last week for her birthday. We celebrated her birthday on Sunday afternoon. I made a ladybug cake, which didn't turn out too badly. Amber got her own little ladybug cake too. And she daintily picked at the spots for awhile before she finally got into it a little more. But even then she didn't make a big mess, despite promptings from her Pappy and uncle.

We spent the rest of the week hanging out and visiting some parks. We went to Universal and Islands of Adventure one day, and we also went to Magic Kingdom. It was Von's first time going to any of them, and he really seemed to have a blast. :-) I think everyone did. Magic Kingdom was open until 1am the day we went, and we were there past closing. None of us could believe we stayed that long, but we all had fun, and got to do everything we wanted to. The whole week was great and everyone had a really good visit. It was too short, though.

I still have a hard time believing it's been a whole year since we first met our little girl. It did go fast, but it was very full. We enjoyed every minute and are super excited to see what next year has in store. :-)

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Family Visit!

By: Shelsy

July isn't even over yet and this has already been quite a month! Her Grandma, Aunt Shanna, and Uncle Aaron came down to visit for two weeks, and were joined by other visitors at different points during their stay. It was very exciting! And very busy. :-)

They arrived on the 4th, and Amber was all ready to go in her 4th of July outfit (the back of it is blue with stars).

The next day we were joined by the O'Neills and we went all kinds of fun places! We hit some of the parks, of course. Here are a couple of pictures of us at SeaWorld:

And here's a picture of her hanging out with Uncle Aaron at Universal:

The O'Neills left after the first week and then we were joined by Jidu and Ryan's Nana and Papa. Here she is meeting Nana and Papa for the first time!

And of course her grandparents and great grandparents were fully prepared to spoil her rotten. :-) Papa made her some beautiful wooden puzzles. I can't wait until she's old enough to play with them!

This one has the alphabet painted on the other side!

We went to Downtown Disney and, as I said, she got very spoiled! This Mickey was the first thing she's ever really grabbed and put in her mouth. As soon as Nana showed it to her she started chewing on his ear! She continued to chew on his ear (and anything else we gave her) for the rest of the week.

She was also dedicated at church on the 18th. We were excited that Ryan's family and his grandparents were able to be there. We were planning on having her dedicated anyway, but we were glad that it happened to fall during the time they would be here!

We did some swimming while they were here, which is always fun. Amber seems to really enjoy the water. Here's a video of her making some of her signature noises to express her excitement.

Speaking of noises, the day after everyone left, she started doing this screaming thing. It's just a new noise she figured out, so she enjoys practicing all the time. It's very loud and high pitched and gives me a headache. But it's hilarious at the same time. I've started referring to her affectionately as my pterodactyl baby. Mom thinks she'll sing higher than Mariah Carey if she keeps it up. See for yourself:

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Last Week: Our first visitors!

By: Ryan

Last week we had our first visitors from back north. Well, unless you count Aaron and Tom, but they were more hired help than houseguests. :-)

My mom and Shanna flew down last week and we had a great time during their visit. We went to Aquatica, Seaworld, Universal Studios, and Islands of Adventure. Here are some pictures from their visit:

This is Shanna and my mom in the lazy river at Aquatica, Seaworld's water park. There are actually two lazy rivers, one that requires tubes and moves slowly, and one that is no-tubes-allowed and moves very fast. The faster moving one was definitely a hit. :-)

Here's Shanna, cruising up for the kill, apparently.

Here are Shanna and Shelsy posing in front of the Blue Man Group splashing TV. The show was excellent, as always, and afterwards, Shanna and Shelsy both got "autographed." :-)

(this and all of the following pictures have been shamelessly stolen from Shanna)

Here are Shanna, Shelsy, and myself outside Islands of Adventure. I look super happy to be taking another picture, don't I? :-)

And finally, here are all four of us outside Universal Studios. Definitely a quality place.

So as you can see, we totally had an excellent time during their visit. Here's hoping they can come again soon, and that we get more visitors in the near future. :-)

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Moving Walkway Spinning

Tom and Aaron, the ever helpful car drivers, box unpackers, and loungers, flew back home on Tuesday night. Before they left, we wanted to do something fun, so we went to Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios. We had a great time riding roller coasters, getting drenched (...or not) and exploring the park.

But on the way out, Tom and Aaron found an activity that might trump even the roller coasters. Behold:



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