And in other news....

So with all this blogging about Spencer's wish trip, I haven't kept you up to date about anything else going on in our family...

It turns out we have two new members.  Sam and Alease have come to live with us.  Sam is Morgan's boyfriend and Alease is his two year old.  In order for this to happen, Morgan had to give up her room so that Alease could have a room to sleep in with her daddy.  Morgan's room now consists of sleeping on our very comfy sofa!  I don't know why but I find this funny  in a perverse sort of way.  Morgan LOVES sleeping and now I get to wake her up early EVERY morning by making noise in the kitchen!  Yeeee haaaa!

Living with a two year old is interesting.  It's been a LONG time since I've had one in the house.  While we were gone, we somehow picked up a Mrs. Potato Head for her, and she LOVES it.  She calls it her Tatoe, and wants to play with it 24/7.  So what could I do but find more tatoes.  These tatoes have become a nightly game.  You would be amazed what 7 kids can make out of plastic potatoes and a few potato props.  We've had old potatoes, mexican potatoes, fat potatoes, two faced potatoes, and the list goes on and on.  We even had a potato army.  (And one random carrot, but shhhhhh...we won't tell him he's not a potato if you don't!)

Another new favorite seems to be sidewalk chalk.  However, it's not contained to our sidewalk.  The whole cul de sac got a make over.  It sort of resembles a crime scene.  There are alot of outlines of bodies out there.  Also a turtle.  He must have been crossing the road at the wrong time.

Notice that they traced her big head just right!

Eventually, they did run out of pavement (they're hoping for a good gully washing rain), and they moved to the sidewalk.  Just in case you have forgotten who all lives here, they've drawn you a map...

I tried to tell them that when you create a crime scene you shouldn't leave a map right to your front door.  They just don't listen...

Spencer's Wish Trip Day 7: Last Day :-( and Gatorland

We woke up on our last day feeling bittersweet.  We were ready to sleep in our own beds, but not ready to leave this wonderful place.  We decided to spend the morning at the village, lingering over breakfast, finding Spencer's star, and getting one last scoop of ice cream.  God was smiling on us, because for his last morning the Gingerbread House was serving Spencer's favorite...pancakes.  They serve different things every day, and we had only had pancakes one morning up until then.  (However they do have a stand that serves amazing waffles every morning, so he was making due.)  We finished those up and then headed to the castle to find Spencer's star.  The kids jumped on the Carousel, while we went to the front office to check out and visit the gift shop.  I spent alot of money in there.  I bought both of the books about the founder of GKTW, we bought license plate covers and key chains, and we bought t-shirts.  I really wanted one of everything, truth be known.  Just as we were finishing up the boys found us and told us they wanted.....ice cream.  LOL.  So to the ice cream palace we all went for one last time.

There is nothing quite like ice cream in the mornings.  Amazingly, the place was PACKED!

Spencer's last ice cream was a chocolate milk shake.  Mike kept trying to get him to share but he refused.  Finally Mike got one sip and he said there is no wonder he wouldn't share...it was delicious!

I'm sure you have no doubts that as soon as we were done we grabbed some cookies for the road... Then we were off.  We had picked up passes in the office when we checked out to visit Gatorland.  We really had no idea what it was all about but it was a few hours until we needed to be at the airport so we decided to check it out.  Originally, we had thought we might head back to Islands of Adventure but we knew if we did that we might get distracted and miss our flight.  So Gatorland it was.

Gatorland it turns out is exactly what it says....it's all about alligators!  It's set up kind of like a zoo.  They have a few other animals but they have lots and lots of alligators.  You would  think this would be boring but it totally wasn't.

A lady saw us coming and grabbed us out of the line to get us set up and ready to go.  She even gave us a ticket to get a free photo taken! 

Yup...it's a real gator and a real snake.  Aspen ASKED to hold the snake.  Ick!  x2!

We knew we might be in for something interesting when we came upon this sign right after we got inside....

There were gators everywhere...

And sure enough, one tried to eat Aspen...

We decided if they were that aggressive, that we might need some assistance, so we set out to find out how it's done....

Yes sir, they wrastle them gators.  It wasn't long before they had one down....

Personally, I think that dude has WAY too much time on his hands.

By this time we were getting hot but we wanted to see some Gator jumparoo....well, hey, I didn't name it.  That's what they called it.  So we set back off toward the front of the park. (There were a whole lot more shows and exhibits that we didn't get to see while we were here....surprisingly, I think you could make a full day out of Gatorland if you are ever in Orlando!)  We did find these cool birds on our way back to see the Gator jumpin'....

I had to drag the girls out of there.  At one point they both had them on their heads, and they were holding like ten of them!!  But I DID drag them out of there, because I wanted to see the jumparoo.  Bascially, they hang chicken on strings (they make a show out of it, so it's funnier and more complex than that) and see how high they can get the gators to jump out of the water.

Them gators love chicken!!!!

And they can get pretty darn high up out of that water!  Good to know in gator country!

By then we were HOT, even though we hadn't seen even half of Gatorland.  We decided to head out and grab some food before we hit the airport to head home.  We did make our flight, and met up with the other wish family that traveled down and back with us from Virginia Beach.  Spencer spotted our limo waiting on us from the airport window before we even got down to the baggage claim.

The girls getting in the limo...this was one of their favorite things about the trip.

Our last ride of the trip.  It ended the same way it started.  But with alot more memories, and a week full of fun.  Everyone agreed it was the best vacation of our lives.  We had an amazing time.  Thank you Make A Wish and Give Kids the World.  We will never forget this one fabulous week you gifted us with.  Our lives will never be the same.

Spencer's wish trip, day 6: Hollywood Studios

After a brief break, I'm back and ready to tackle the end of the trip.  I left off on day six.  A day the older kids had GREATLY been looking forward to, as we were heading to Hollywood Studios.  This is their favorite of the Disney parks and it is also the location of Star Tours.  My older kids are big Star Wars buffs.  Our plan was to get there early and sign up for the Jedi Training Academy.

As you can see there are quite a few shows that happen throughout the day....HOWEVEVER...they fill up FAST.  We had planned to get there when the park opened at 9am, but we took longer getting ready than anticipated.  We got there around 10am and RAN to the Star Tours site.  There was a very nice young lady named MJ working there and she directed us to where we needed to go and told us to ask for Carol.  When we found Carol, they were already taking reservations for the 8pm Jedi academy!!!  No worries....Carol said that since we were Make A Wish that she would squeeze Aspen into the 11am academy, and Madi into the 11:50 academy.  (Padawan's can only be up to age 12, or I think Madison would have tried to do it too!)  The girls were super excited because, other than Star Wars weekends, the Jedi training academy is the ONLY place that Darth Vader appears.  He does NOT do meet and greets.  Spencer wanted to do the academy also, but he doesn't have the mobility to be on stage and move around and "fight" Darth Vader.  Carol asked us if we could be back with him at 2:30, that she could arrange for him to be "taken to the dark side".  (Who knew Spencer had a dark side...)  Then it was time for Aspen to partake in her Jedi training....

She was a fast learning Padawan, and it's a good thing because it wasn't long before the ship was invaded by the man himself....

Then there was a brief interlude, while we waited for Madi's group to appear next.  The lady from before (MJ) came down to talk to us and told us some more about our meeting with the dark side.  She told us that private audiences with Darth are rare and at the most 2 or 3 families a day get the experience...some days he does NO meetings.  99% of the park employees have never seen it happen, including her and she works the Jedi Academy.  She said they usually allow only one cast member to go back with you and the photopass photographer.  (I am completely stumped as to why Darth Vader is so elusive, yet it seems they like the mystery of it all.)  So now we were really stoked.  The photographer for Darth Vader also came up to us and asked us if we wanted her to do a special "magic" photo of Spencer.  (Sure we did!)  She had him stand in front of the stage/ship and hold up a light saber....aimed at a tree.  The final result when we checked out our photos was....

Then Madi's group of Padawan's was ready to take the stage....

Madi hated all of her photos, but I thought it one was cool.

Then of course we rode Star Tours (there are 54 possible outcomes on that ride, for those of you who have never been), and then headed to see the Stunt car show....Lights, Camera, Action!  Despite all of the action of that show, Spencer's favorite part was the unexpected appearance of.....(drum roll....)

Yes! That IS McQueen!

As soon as we left there it was time to head back to meet up with Carol and go over to the dark side.  As we were waiting on her, MJ appeared to check on us and Carol asked her to take us up to wait on Darth.  You have NO idea how excited MJ was.  Once we were done with it all, she even came back to thank us for giving her the chance to finally get to participate in one of the meet and greets.  I think she was as happy as we were.  Anyway, we headed through the Star Tours ride up onto a platform above the riders waiting to ride.  (This it seems is The Dark Side.)  And soon HE appeared.  Not only did he appear but he had a surprise for Spencer....An autographed Light Saber (Red of course...that's Darth's color).  He presented Spencer with it and made his day.  Actually, the older kids were just as excited.  They have already informed us of how we NEED to display that on the bedroom wall so that Darth's signature is visible.  They took great care in protecting it for Spencer.

The whole thing may have lasted ten minutes, but it is ten minutes that will live on in my children's minds FOREVER.  And something that they got to do at Disneyworld that their friends will likely never get to do.  They are still talking about it.


After that, the only two things we cared about doing were The Great American Movie Ride and Tower of Terror.  My husband has never ridden the Movie ride and I loved it the last time we went, so I wanted to take him on it. 

It is a ride that is ridden "train style" through movie sets from the greatest movies of all time.  Through the ages.  It's also interactive.  You have a guide who participates in the action and narrates the whole ride.  Mike loved it, just like I knew he would.  One of our favorite sets is The Wizard of Oz.  It's also air conditioned and it was almost 100 degrees so that was an added benefit!

After that, we grabbed some lunch and headed to Tower of Terror.  For some reason, the last time we were there Spencer didn't ride this.  So he had never been on it.  Everyone knows he is an adrenaline junkie and we had already decided to let him do it this time.  Madison said he was NOT riding that, so he walked through with us and then waited in the  gift shop on us.  (I'm actually quite proud of him.  He usually doesn't want to ride anything, but on this trip he rode 95% of everything...willingly!)  Spencer LOVED Tower of Terror.  Even though he doesn't speak too well most of the time (but it's getting better!), when he is excited he stutters.  As soon as the ride stopped he said "I....I....I wanna....I wanna....I wanna do it again!"  And, as usual, they gave us the photo....

By this time, we were hot and tired.  So we decided to head back to the village to grab some ice cream and cookies and swim in the pool.  It was our last night, and Spencer loves the pool and the cookies.  We parked at the front of the village and took a route we never take across to the ice cream palace.  On the way we saw this mailbox, announcing that it delivers "Letters to God"...what a wonderful idea!!!!

Hope IS contagious!

Then it was on to grab ice cream and cookies!

They were completely spoiled on ice cream.  They were encouraged to ask for more...and more...and more...

Then they would hop next door and order cookies at Katie's Kitchen! LOL

Everyone headed back to our villa to get outfitted for the pool.  I threw some clothes in the washer and folded some towels, so I got there later than the others did.  As I came through the entrance, I ran into this lady and her parrot!

There were actually two of them, but this one posed for me!  I ran in to tell everyone else...and found then scattered all about the pool and the water garden.

It was still pretty light and we got alot of time in at the pool.

This is the water garden....Spencer and Mike spent alot of time in there.  They swore the water was cooler than the pool.

By the time we finished up at the pool, it was getting dark and the Mayor and Miss Merry were out doing tuck ins....in their mini convertibles!!!  They even stopped so I could take some pictures!

Miss Merry

Mayor Clayton

Since Mayor Clayton's tuck in was one of Spencer's favorite things about the village it was a really cool way to end our last night at the village.  All of us were exhausted but none of us were looking forward to leaving this wonderful place!

Give Kids the World....

I think it's about time that I take a break in posting about Spencer's trip and take a moment to devote a blog to the fabulous place that we stayed while in Florida.  Make a Wish made all of our arrangements and financed the majority of the trip.  They provided airfare, limos to and from the airport, made all of the arrangements, gave Spencer gifts and a send off party, and on top of that gave us all of the Spending money that we would need.  We spent NONE of our own money on this trip.  While we were there we stayed at a resort in Kissimee Florida that is known as Give Kids The World.  (GKTW for short.)  I probably cannot do this place justice in a simple blog but I will try.

Located just fifteen minutes from the major attractions, over 115,000 families have visited the Give Kids the World village. They have come from all fifty states, as well as over 70 countries from around the world. Most of what happens at Give Kids the World is done by volunteers. Each week, there are over 1500 volunteer shifts. Volunteers range from young teens to adults in their 90s.  This is a beautiful place started by an amazing man who didn't do it for any reason except to help children with life-threatening illnesses and their families. There are so many organizations and companies that help out, yet you will see no logos or banners proclaiming their gifts at GKTW. It is only done for love. 

Henri Landwirth was born in 1927 in Belgium. Along with his twin sister, Margot, he lived a happy early life with his parents Fanny and Max.

And then came the Holocaust. Henri's family was Jewish.

His father was arrested and soon after, his family was taken to the Krakow ghetto in Poland.

His family was separated and later, his father was marched into a mass grave and shot in the back of the head. Towards the end of the war, his mother was also murdered by the Nazis. Along with many other women and girls, she was put into an old ship and sent out into the ocean. The guards took the lifeboats, fled the ship and then exploded the ship in the ocean.

Henri was starved, beaten, humiliated and tortured. He was forced to work in a labor camp where the only goal was to get as much work out of him as possible before he died of starvation or was killed. He spent his teenage years in places like Matthausen and Auschwitz, witnessing things that are so horrible and so awful that I could barely stand to read about them. 

Henri lived through those horrible things for over five years. 

Days before the end of the war, a German guard was ordered to take Henri and two other prisoners into the woods and kill them. By some miracle, the guard decided that he didn't want to kill them, as close as it was to the end of the war. The guard told them to run, and Henri, although he was very badly injured, ran. 

When the war was over, Henri was filled with anger and hatred. He had suffered so greatly that he didn't care about what he did and who he might hurt.

But Henri realized that his hatred was not doing him any good. That there was nothing positive that could ever come from it. 

He writes:

"There is no life-affirming value when a person keeps hatred and anger in his heart. Only bad things can come from such thoughts. It is possible to take that hate and anger, every drop of it, and change it into love and caring. Once a survivor can reach this point, he will be on the way to a better, more fulfilling life. No matter how cruel the past has been to you, today can be a happy time. Just for today, let yourself enjoy life. Instead of hating, reach out to your brother and sister and help them. Kindness makes all the difference, both to the person receiving it and the person giving it."
-Gift of Life by Henri Landwirth with J.P. Hendricks

Eventually Henri immigrated to the United States. Years later, he made his way to Florida and became employed in the hotel industry. 

When the space program came to Cape Canaveral, there was not sufficient lodging for all of the employees as well as all of the press who were coming to cover this important event. Henri was at the forefront of providing the hotel accommodations, as well as coming up with innovative programs that made him a favorite with the press and the first astronauts. He became well liked by people like Walter Cronkite, Alan Shephard and John Glenn. 

In 1986, a little girl named Amy was scheduled to stay at one of the Holiday Inns that Henri owned. She had incurable cancer and her biggest wish was to meet Mickey Mouse. Sadly, Amy died before all of the arrangements could be made for her trip.

Henri's heart was broken by this news. He couldn't understand how, in America, we could allow any child to die without fulfilling their last wish.

Henri was wealthy and he had connections and friendships with a whole lot of very influential people.

But more importantly, Henri had the understanding of suffering in his soul. He knew what it meant to lose part of your childhood.

And so, Henri took his knowledge of the hotel industry and his knowledge of the pain a child can suffer and made one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

He created Give Kids the World.

All the food here is free....and you have options.  Breakfast and dinner are provided by Perkins restaurant in a place known as the Gingerbread House....the tables are child sized and covered in peppermints.  Everything here is about the kids.  No one carries their own trays...not even the grown ups.  They don't want you to have to worry about anything and they want to do it all for you.

There is the icecream palace....where you can have icecream for breakfast if you want.  Or lunch.  Or dinner.  Or all three.  You can have all you want.  You can have milkshakes, sundaes, or banana splits.  You can have one or you can have three....

You can also get some pancakes there if you missed breakfast!

It's right beside Katie's Kitchen....which is run by Boston Market.  You can get lunch here and you can get dinner....delivered to you at your villa even.  They also have amazing chocolate chip cookies!

A little farther down is the Safari Theatre....where you can grab a slurpee and catch a movie!

My husband was suprized to see that inside it's JUST like a movie theatre....it has a concession stand and movie theatre seats!

There is also the amberville train station....where you can drive model boats in the water, play video games, or ride the train around the station!

There is putt putt golf...

There is the castle of miracles, where every child who has ever visited the village places a star that goes up on the ceiling thanks to a magical fairy.....

a ceiling covered in stars...

Spencer's star, in the middle, placed on the ceiling...

Madison's star, up on the ceiling from back in 2002

Every morning after breakfast, Spencer would take a ride on the Carousel.  He loved it.  Every day he picked a different animal to ride on.

This chicken was a two seater!

This elephant sucks trash up his trunk!

There was a train that would pick you up and drop you off where ever you wanted to go in the village!

There is Matthew's boundless playground...which is made like a giant candyland game...and once a week the world's largest human game of Candyland is played there!

Spencer's favorite place to hang out, was at the Park of Dreams.....which has a huge swimming pool and water garden.  One night a week there is a huge pool party here, and another night there is a dive-in movie.

There are parties every night at the villa....one night is Christmas.  Complete with Santa, snow, and gifts.  Another night is Halloween, complete with costume decorating and trick or treating.  There is Mayor Clayton's big birthday bash once a week.  The pirates and princesses party.  The world's largest candyland game.  It just never stops.  It's a world all it's own.

Each family that stays here is assigned a villa.  It's essentially a three bedroom house.  They leave gifts for the kids every day while you are out at the parks.  They leave snacks and drinks.  It has washers and dryers and they provide the laundry detergent.  Everything at GKTW is free.  The food.  The entertainment.  The cookie cart that comes around in the evenings.  And they give you all the tickets to all the theme parks.  Then the theme parks give you free wheelchair and stroller rentals.  Free photos.  Spencer even got free souveniers from Disney that the workers just handed to him and said "they're yours."  Even companies that aren't Disney  Seaworld, or Universal donate to the kids.  Boggy Creek Airboat rides gave us free admission and photos.  The pirate dinner theatre gave Spencer free admission and the rest of us a huge discount.  Gatorworld let us all in free and gave us free photos.  So many people come together on a daily basis 365 days a year to make the magic happen for these kids.  We are honored to have been allowed to stay here.

One of the villas.  (actually two...there is one on each side.)

There is alot more here that I'm missing, but I'm sure you get the idea.  GKTW is an amazing place, run by amazing people.  There are 120 paid employees and 8,000 volunteers.  Volunteers make up 1500 shifts a year.  We even saw kids as small as 9 years old volunteering....eagerly, politely, and with huge smiles.  Students.  And even those old enough that we should have been waiting on them.  (One of them joked "Have fun, laugh...but not too loud, you might wake up the volunteers!")  They served us food, gave us directions, took our pictures, provided us with towels at the pool, carried around parrots (yes parrots), baked us cookies, operated the carousel, and picked up our trash.  They even told us not to wash dishes or towels or anything when we left.  They do not want you working while you are there.  They will come let you in when you lock yourself out of your villa (yes we did it...it took them about one minute to hop in a golf cart and come let us in), and they will give you a wake up call in the morning.  They even gave us sunscreen and bugspray when we forgot ours.  It's the best place to stay in all of Florida...probably all of the world!