Just where in the world are the FOUR little FULTON's?!...

It's adventure time! In just under an hour myself, the tribe & our special guest will be taking off on an adventure. Nothing like hitting the pavement in double digit weather. Now just what will we do? Where will we go? Who will we see? That is the 1000 dollar question. I am going to attempt to take the 6 of us on this adventure for 1,000 dollars or less. If you want to follow our journey just check in here to see exactly how I manage it. Trust me I think this is going to be more of an "adventure" for me than them! So...


Just where in the world are the FOUR little FULTON's?!...

Let's get Physical...

I can remember it like it was yesterday, I was about ten years old and my mom had sent me to go visit my oldest brother Jim in Maryland. It was my very FIRST flight & due to some family connections I was able to fly FIRST Class on Eastern Airlines. {Remember that airline?} You see my Dad's cousin Pete worked there & on the day of my flight we stopped in to see him. Somehow he finagled me a FIRST Class ticket. Don't know how but he did. I was excited just to be going on a trip let alone FIRST Class! This was back when they served you fancy food on REAL plates. Don't remember the food but I do remember that they did not seat anyone next to me! I was a talker even back then so no talking for an ENTIRE flight was just plain awful! When my brother arrived at the gate to pick me up I was literally speechless! LOL! My brother Jim is twelve years older than me so he had his own apt and a COOL job working at the Pentagon. I remember his stereo system the most. It was not normal tapes but something that looked like a movie reel. He had ALL kinds of albums for me to listen to but the one album that I really loved was Olivia Newton John. I listened to it OVER & OVER! By the time my trip was over I knew EVERY song by heart including the one I mentioned, "Let's get Physical". Boy am I dating myself!!


Fast forward to the other day when I had to bring Dustyn in for his fifteen year check up. He graduated from the eighth grade & next year it's High School! YIKES! So off to the Doctor we went! From the moment the nurse said "I have a few things I need to check you on for this physical" I just knew there would be a GREAT post in those words! Hehee! I immediately took out my camera & started taking some pictures! [=




Besides getting two vaccines he had his vision tested {FYI it was NOT as good as his Dad's}, his hearing tested & lastly his blood pressure. Let's just say that D was NOT happy to have me taking his picture! LOL! What? I write about the mundane yet funny things we do! And just like almost every other activity we do a song comes to mind when we do it! So the next time you have to take your kid in for a check up just remember me and sing...

Let's get Physical...

Disney World!...

You know the ad where the team just wins the Super Bowl, they run up to the MVP & ask him "You just won the Super Bowl, What are you going to do next?", and they reply "Go to Disney World!". Well that is how I felt yesterday! I got to take the tribe for their very FIRST visit to Disney World on of all days MY birthday! I just want to give a shout out to whomever thought up the get in free to Disney on your birthday sales promo! What a great idea! I do not think I could ever get my hubby to take us ALL to Disney World any other way. I was psyched! We invited our niece to tag along so our tribe of seven expanded to eight! Once we got to the hotel, Disneys Pop Century, and I saw the decade signs out front I knew I needed to get a picture! Being that I was born in 1970 it was perfect! Look really close & you will see me in the bottom zero! There was just one glitch to our last minute plan, the weather! We had a cold front come through & the temp's were frigid! This Florida girl is not used to COLD weather & Mother Nature sure did provide us COLD weather! Once in Orlando we awoke to FOURTY NINE degree weather, YIKES! It was a bit nippy & even with all the preparations we could not keep the tribe or ourselves warm! It was BAD! We ended up returning to our hotel just to warm up! CRAZY! I know, there is a blizzard going on up North but remember this is Florida people!We are used to WARM weather! Once we warmed our tushes up we headed out to the Magic Kingdom. All the tribe kept talking about was seeing Mickey Mouse. I knew this would be short lived because like most children they usually talk a good game until thee moment & then they bawl. I was preparing myself for that exact thing! Oh to be in Disney World with my family on MY birthday! It was such a fun day even if my hubby was "Grumpy" himself. He does not do well in the patience dept. and when you have 5 kids plus one to get ready & out the door by a certain time he just could not do it! Patience is NOT his virtue! LOL! Lucky for us we had reenforcements already at the park! Our good friends Andy, Laurie, Travis, Carol, Norman & their families were there to help us wrangle our brood. THANK YOU GUYS! They are pros at all things Disney so we followed them. The BIG boys went to do BIG boy stuff while we ladies PLUS Daddy went to see little people stuff. We decided to hit "Toon Town" first to nip the whole Mickey & Minnie experience in the bud.After waiting about 45 minutes in a line that seemed to go on FOREVER we finally met the Mr & Mrs of all Disney! Brendan of course freaked out & wanted out of there! I think his seeing Mickey was fine if he was about 50 feet away but once he got up next to him he wanted NO part of him. Lindsey felt the same way but not as extreme as Mr B. Avery was okay with both of them. Not overly excited but not scared either. Camryn on the other hand LOVED Minnie! She did not want to leave & kept hugging her & giving her kisses. "Aunt Larry" said waiting in that 45 minute line was worth every minute after seeing her reaction! awhh... After that experience I realized just how difficult it was going to be to take our family of 7 anywhere! Some of them are going to be "easy" and some are going to be "difficult". I am just going to have to figure out how to meet them halfway. Trying to get pictures was even harder! I ended up doing Disney's photo pass. What a great idea! Even if it will cost us an arm & a leg to get copies made at least we can say we went to...

Disney World!...

memories...

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I really do believe this & hope that I remember ALL of my "memories" when I get older. My mom was SO good about capturing our "moments". She would take pictures of EVERYTHING! I have class photos where my mom wrote the name of each child on the back of the picture so I would remember my friends. We had like 25 people in each of our classes! It was CRAZY! We also have albums & albums of trips we took growing up. One trip that I remember was when we went to Washington D.C. when I was 10 years old. Well it was more of a work vacation for my Dad. Being that he was in the swimming pool industry he had a Convention to attend & brought the entire family along. My father was VERY big on history & especially politics so this trip was a good way for him to show us EVERYTHING! He even wrote these fancy letters to our Principals stating why this trip would be a great learning experience & why we should get excused absences for the week. They LOVED it & after a few stipulations we left on our road trip. One stipulation being that we each had to do an "assignment" about our trip. Mine was a scrapbook which I still have. We loaded up the car & off we went. My parents had a BIG pad that covered the entire rear of our station wagon for us to sleep on if needed. There were no seat belt requirements back then. Gosh, I am dating myself! YIKES! I remember my Dad telling us as we approached the D.C. area that the first one to spot the Washington monument would get a quarter. A QUARTER! Like that was some BIG money! LOL! However each one of us wanted to be the first one to spot it! TOO funny! Prior to our trip my Dad had written to our congressmen about getting tickets to the White House, Capitol Building, The Federal Mint, etc... We had plenty to do! The weather that fall was VERY freaky & it was VERY cold! We were some VERY UNPREPARED Floridians! My mom had packed me PLENTY of sundresses but NO sweaters! Needless to say my scrapbook shows how crazy we looked. A hoodie over a sundress in 32 degre weather! HA! It is weird how I can almost remember that entire trip just by looking at my scrapbook! It is weird how that works! My hope is that all the blog posts, pictures & video I take of our life do that for our kids. I hope that they have plenty of...

memories...