Gulf Shores, A-l-a-b-a-m-a... (did you get that ConnieBean?)

We knew vacations would be kept to a minimum this year, but we still wanted to take a little family vacation get-a-way. Tom had received a $500 Travelocity Hotels gift card for a promotion at work (selling a robot...do you have robot insurance?) so we decided to look for someplace close to use the gift card. Our answer was Gulf Shores, Alabama! It is considered the beginning of the "emerald coast" which is the nickname given to the part of the gulf that isn't totally muddy from the Mississippi River run-off. The beaches are sandy white and the water is totally clear. And it is less crowded than Florida Beaches and very family friendly. It was a really great choice for us, especially since it would only be a few hours drive!

This is a picture I took of William and Natalie chillin at the hotel before we went out for the night. We got to our hotel at about dinner time, so we decided to go to dinner on the beach that night and save ocean time for the next day.

This is Natalie saying "Beach!"

I tried to get a picture of the two of them actually looking at me, but Hannah Montana was on, and I just couldn't get Binky's attention long enough for a picture!

We ate dinner literally right on the beach. It was a pretty cool place with alot of outdoor activities and entertainment. As you can see from this picture, there was only one thing William wanted to do...

Next morning after a delicious continental breakfast, we headed to the beach! But first we had to make a stop inside the giant shark mouth to buy some forgotten necessities, such as sunscreen! (whoops!) This was truly a magical shop with all sorts of treasures. For instance, lets say you were a bald person looking for a sun visor with built in hair....

Well...Look no further! You can get that here!

Or perhaps you were just looking for a few braids to add to your hair? Yeah, they got that, too. (Sorry, William. This will be blackmail for the rest of your life!)

Finally, the beach!! It was perfect weather. It was hot, sunny, with a slight breeze out of the Gulf. Water temperature was perfect, too. William could have stayed in the water all day. Not Natalie, though. She was more of a sand girl. The water made her a little bit nervous.

Here I got a nice picture of William's sexy beach pose. I know, real nice!

Finally, the only way to get Binky into the water was to have her literally wrap her legs around me and her arms around my neck!! But we had a good time regardless.

So, we spent a few days at the beach and then headed home. On the way, as promised, I got to hit up the outlet mall (woo hoo!!) and we stopped to see the battleship that is parked in Mobile Bay. Even though it is a permanent fixture, it still moves with the water, and it totally makes me seasick to be on the ship!! We even got to explore a submarine. Good times!!

Where has the summer gone?

So, it is almost the end of July, and I've totally noticed that I've neglected my blog for...well, a very long time. I guess it's gotten so bad, even Tom commented that I should probably do something about it! So, here goes...The next several posts will be me trying to show what we crazy O'Briens have been up to in the past, oh, 3 months! Enjoy!!

An All Nighter in New Orleans!

(So, my last post I mentioned that I was going to see Regis and Kelly film live in New Orleans. Here's the story!)

We decided to go really early to get in line so that we could get really good seats. So, we left Houma at about midnight on Tuesday and got there about 1am. We (Alonna and I) were the third goup of people in line, so that put us about 10 and 11 in line! We were so excited to be doing something crazy like that! We both brought sleeping bags because it actually did get really cold. It got down to about 42 degrees and that is way too cold for Southern Louisiana! But there was no sleeping! We made friends with the girls in line behind us and we looked at magazines and listened to music on ipods. It was so much fun!

At about 6am we took the sleeping bags back to the car and got ready to go into the area for the filming. We saw Kelly Ripa leave the hotel to be driven literally 20 feet to the stage!


This is the entrance to Fulton Street which is the road between Harrah's Casino and Harrah's Hotel which is where they were filming the show, and also where we waited in line.

This is a shot of the giant screen which was right by our row. Our seats were awesome. There were about 4 rows of special seating and then they started seating those of us who waited in line with tickets (first come first serve!) We were aboutthe 6th row to the left of the stage, they were amazing seats. We were right next to the sound stage where the musical guest (Jesse McCartney) performed and we could just about see up Regis and Kelly's nose!

This is a picture of our sweet homemade t-shirts we made for the show. We thought it would be warm enough to just wear them, but that didn't happen! I actually ended up putting my sweatshirt on under the t-shirt! Oh, and I have to bend down to take a picture with Alonna because she is literally 5 feet tall...I am half a foot taller than her! Don't we look wonderful? We have been up for about 28 hours by this point!

Gellman!! I love this picture because it looks like he's wearing a jester's hat! He was telling us how to be a good audience before the taping began.

And here is Regis and Kelly! When the audience died down after they came out, we stood up and "woo hoo'd" and Kelly pointed at our awesome t-shirts.

The first guest was Reggie Bush, local footbal hero for the New Orleans Saints. This is him and Regis discussing some photos that recently appeared in a magazine with Kim Kardashian. Reggie was alot smaller than I thought he would be!

The second guest was Faith Ford. She and Kelly used to have a sitcom called "Hope and Faith." Faith is also a native of Louisiana so she and Kelly went around to a bunch of local favorites and did fun things like making pralines and exploring the house from "The curious case of Benjamin Button."

The musical guest was Jesse McCarthey, which I wasn't really familiar with. But the young girls all knew him, and I finally remembered that I had seen him on an episode of Law and Order once. He was also really short!

When the show was over security did a fantastic job of hearding everyone out because they had to tape a second show at 10:30. (Ours was live, theirs...not so live!) I had a goal to get our awesome t-shirt signed, so I got Regis's attention and asked if he would sign our shirts, he was torn because he was being rushed off stage, so he said he would see what he could do. Then I saw the lady who does Kelly's make-up and recognized her as the lady who did my make-up for "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" I'm sure she remembered me. But then I saw Lori Schulweiss, affectionately nicknamed "Schully" on the show. So I yelled, "hey Schully, can you get Regis and Kelly to sign our t-shirts?" I think I took her by surprise cause I knew her nickname! She thought for a second then said, yeah hand em over! So we did. While waiting, Art Moore walked by (he's an executive producer) so we got him to take a picture with us! Our new friends from line even got in the picture with us!
But we did it! We got our shirts back and Regis and Kelly and signed them for us! Security was about to pick us up and haul us out, but we did get our shirts back! And after being awake for longer than 30 hours straight, we headed home and crashed. But it was so much fun!!

Watch for me!

To anyone interested: Live with Regis and Kelly will be shooting live in New Orleans this whole week and I have tickets to the Tuesday show. So...turn to your local broadcast of the show on Tuesday morning and see if you can spot me in the audience! Look for the loudest person there!

Has anyone in this family even seen a chicken before?

Hey Queen ConnieBean! This is my response to your latest post. enjoy!

Our Disney Trip...FINALLY!!!

(Sorry about the delay in posting our Disney pictures. But, I'm getting around to it now, so please enjoy our "recent" vacation!)

We were able to go on a little vacation in the middle of February because Mardi Gras/Ash Wednesday is pretty much a state holiday in Louisiana because of the predominantly Catholic population. So, William had off school for almost a week and Tom was off work, so it was the perfect time to go! (Not to mention we had just celebrated Tom's 30th birthday on the 20th, the day we left on vaction!) Also, the weather is perfect that time of year in Florida and the crowds were much smaller than if we had waited for summer. It was just well planned!

What also made this vacation such a success is that my good friend Jen Woods took a a job at Disney World after graduating from college. She started out doing the backlot tours for Disney Hollywood Studios and is now a performer/stilt-walker/character. Because of her Disney expertise we felt like we had our own personal tour guide with us the whole time! It was especially fun for the kids since alot of characters knew her and would give a little extra attention to William and Natalie. We even got our own persoanl meet and greet with Prince Eric and Max the Dog! And I should mention how much money she saved us on this vacation, since we never had to pay to get in and used her for all sorts of discounts! I hope the mashed potatoes at the Crystal Palace made up for it Jen :)!

This picture is from us checking into our hotel. We stayed at the Coronado Springs Resort. We really didnt spend too much time at our resort since most of our time was spent at the parks, but I think if we were to plan a longer vacation next time it would be fun to explore what the resort offered. But it was perfect for us!
After checking into our room we decided to head to Downtown Disney. Jen was busy at rehersals and it was late enough that we just wanted to eat, see a little Disney stuff, and head to bed. Natalie was so excited to see a giant statue of Cinderella, her favorite princess. Little did she know that she would meet the real thing soon enough! We ate dinner at "The Earl of Sandwich" and then explored several character shops as well as the Lego Store, Tom's favorite.

William was excited to see a pirate, and he knew he would see more soon enough as well!

The next morning Jen had some rehersals early so we took a Disney bus over to Downtown Disney to play and try to get into their newest restaurent, the T-Rex! We were able to get in for lunch and it was so cool! It was like eating in the Jurassic Period, complete with roaring dinosaurs, meteor showers, and huge plant life. The kids thought it was super fun!

This is Tom and the kids in the Ice Cave pretending it is very cold! When the meteor shower would come (ever 15 minutes or so) the ice cave would slowely turn from blue to purple to orange to bright red.
This baby triceratops was right by our table, and Natalie would eat a few bites, run over and sit on the dinosaur, eat a few more bites, run and sit on the dinosaur...it never got old for her!

After lunch the moment had arrived! It was time to head over to the Magic Kingdom!! We decided to do Magic Kingdom first and get our favorite rides out of the way and do everything else on our remaining days. Jen met us at the front gate and our fun began!

So, Jen also got to double as our family's official photographer :)! Disney's yearlong theme for 2009 is "what will you celebrate?" We all got big buttons at the front and we could write what we were celebrating. Tom's button said his birthday, William and Natalie's said their first visit to the park, even though it was really their second visit. Jen and I wanted to do something creative.What were we celebrating? "Being Awesome!!"

We got autographs and pictures with alot of characters right away.First there was Stitch, who is a very silly alien!

Then it was Buzz Lightyear, defender of the Galaxy...

Followed by Rafiki. I was waiting for him to pick of Natalie and present her to a crowd of onlookers, but that fortunately didn't happen!


Of course, we did ride rides as well. Our family's favorite, the Buzz Lightyear ride is always fun! We like to do our part to defend the galaxy!

But no matter, William and Natalie still ended up captured with Evil Emperor Zurg!Natalie's favorite ride? "Its a Small World!" We rode it way too many times, and one time is already too many. This is her sitting on Tom's shoulders. "I'm fabulous!"-thanks Sharpay!

We did Pirates of the Caribbean (Jack Sparrow has been added), Haunted Mansion (with lots of new updates!), Magic Carpet Ride...all the classics. At night we headed over to Hollywood Disney to catch their night show "Fantasmic." It was an amazing show!

Next Day we headed to Hollywood Disney first to grab fastpasses for the new ride "Toy Story Mania." It's very popular and even though we got there first thing in the morning, our fastpass return wasn't until 2 pm!

So we killed some time at the "Honey I shrunk the Kids" play area...

Chatted with Lightening McQueen and Mater...

And hung out with William's favorites, Buzz Lightyear and Woody!

We even ate lunch at Pizza Planet (are you sensing a theme? This family loves Toy Story!). We still had time before our fastpasses so we caught the Little Mermaid show, which is basically a live action 15 minute version of the whole movie! Afterwards, since Jen is personal friends with Max the dog, we got to hang out and meet Max and Prince Eric! (Ariel couldn't leave the rock she sits on!)

And yes, Prince Eric's hair really is as fabulous as it looks in the movie and here in this picture!

We also ran into Mr. and Mrs. Parr, aka Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl! Too bad I left my red spandex at home!

And of course, we also saw a new favorite, Bolt and Rhino! (He had escaped from his plastic ball.)

We finally got to ride on Toy Story Mania, and it was worth the wait! It was almost 5 minutes long and really fun and interactive. If you go, make sure you get a fastpass early!

We headed over to Epcot Center to catch dinner at our favorite place, the Biergarten in Germany. Epcot is so quiet compared to all the other parks, so it was kind of refreshing! (please note that by this time William and Natalie had become Peter Pan and Cinderella. We were graced by Disney Royalty!)

We did swing by China on our way to Germany to meet up with Mulan. (Mushu was there but went to cause mischief, we're sure!) Mulan is my favorite princess, probably because out of all of the princesses she can really kick butt!

Finally, dinner at the Biergarten! Tom and William were so excited for the Bratwurst! (I was excited for the Schpetzi!! sp?)
And both kids loved to dance to the German band in Leiderhosen!
And, of course, no trip to Epcot should go without a stop in Norway to ride the dreaded "Maelstrom!" Tom and I had never actually been on it before but Jen insisted we ride it! Boy was it scarry! The trolls, the polar bears and the...oil rig platforms? Really? You made that part of a ride at Disney World? Weird!

What started out as a beautiful day quickely became very cold and we huddled together to watch Epcot's nighttime show "Illuminations." I think Jen has seen it too many times because she was basically conducting when the fireworks would go off, etc...!

Our last day at the parks we went back to the Magic Kingdom. It was princess time!
Cinderealla asked Natalie if her Fairy Godmother made her dress for her, too. Natalie replied, "no, my mom did." Yeah....I made that...sure!

We also got to see Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She had the coolest autograph out of all the autographs the kids got. I also noticed that Belle is left handed, a little known disney fact for ya!

We had lunch at Pinocchio's Haus then Jen had to scoot cause she was going to be performing for the parade at Disney Animal Kingdom that afternoon. We did a few more things at the Magic Kingdom then headed over to watch her in the parade. It was so cool to see her up on stilts! She is so talented!

It was very entertaining to watch Jen! Tom even said she was the most animated performer in the parade. I think all those badgerette high kicks really helped!

We headed back to Magic Kingdom for dinner and to catch our last night show, "Wishes."
Jen joined us at the Crystal Palace for character dining, so much fun! We got to meet Tigger, Pooh, Piglet, and Eeyore, and the kids even joined in Pooh's parade around the restaurant! And again, if ever in Disney World, please have mashed potatoes at Crystal Palace! They are beyond good, and this is coming from someone who doesn't even eat mashed potatoes! Jen and I were trying to think of ways to smuggle some out, like hollowing out bread rolls or putting it in sippie cups. Yeah...that good.

So, we caught our last night show and headed back to the hotel, our Disney vacation at a close. Hope those of you who made it this far enjoyed our pictures as much as we enjoyed our time there!