3, 2, 1 LIFTOFF!

What a great way to end our Easter. On Sunday we decided to go ahead and head to the coast at the weeee hours of the morning to see Space Shuttle Discovery launch. The weather was going to be perfect, and living right here in FL so close why not go and experience it once before there are no more.

So I spent the night at my parents house with the kids on Sunday night. Jay had to work on Monday so we were very disappointed that he wasn't going to be able to make it. Good things is that he has seen a shuttle launch in person before so he was all for us going and experiencing it for ourselves. We still missed him. Anyway...we got up at 1:30am and were out the door with the kids in tow at 2:15am. It was a 1hr 20min drive to Titusville. At least this time it wasn't like 30 degrees outside.

We got to Space View Park by about 3:40am, well a side little part of it with the same view that most locals go to, its less crowded, but still packed! My Mom, Brinlee and I staked out a place and relaxed. We had over 2 hours to wait. Brinlee was really good and was a hoot! I wish I took video of her. Quinn, Bella and Gramps stayed in the van and watched a movie until later. They joined us on the blanket at about 5:30am. They both hid under their blankets for awhile then played some games on our phones to pass the time.

We had a wonderful guy next to us who knew a lot about the stars and launches and such. So we heard some great info. One really cool thing that he knew was that at around 6:08am the ISS you'd be able to see pass under the moon and over the shuttle launch site. TRULY BREATHTAKING! I swear I videotaped this, but for some reason my camera didn't. It looked like a start or plane moving across the sky really fast.

Then only a few minutes later Shuttle Discovery started it's journey. Words can not express what it is like to see it in person. So cool the way the sky lite up, my body was shaking I was so excited and in aww! (Part of the reason why I missed the first second of the shuttle actually taking off on the camera, I was trying to watch it!) Not until minutes later did you FEEL and HEAR the actual rumble from it taking off. You can hear it in the second video part if you listen closely.

I have always loved seeing the launches on TV or from our front lawns here in FL thinking that was amazing, but to be that close and see and feel the launch....AWESOME!! I am very happy we took the kids to see it. They might not remember it, but thanks to technology today I hope they will be able to watch it over and over again. To say they were there for one of the last few launches, have pictures and video will stay in history forever. The long journey home was horrible, but thinking back to why we drove out there to see the launch just brushes those 4.5hrs away to the waste side. Who cares!

So after reading this very very very long post, I do have pictures and video of the launch to share with you.

Fun family day!

This is a week old but finally getting around to posting it. We went to DAK on March 7th for a fun family day, without Daddy :( We took Nanny and Gramps and a picnic lunch and so much fun!! We met up with our twin family friends from the Tampa area, walked around with them and also saw Festival of the Lion King show. It was one of the first warm, beautiful days in FL in a long time.

Here is a video of our day, enjoy!

Birthday Rewind

Well the Birthday craziness has ended in the Cone Family household. The cake has been eaten, the presents opened, the smiles recorded and the memories have been canned up for rememberance. We had a great time, even in these hard times.

Quinn and Bella turned the BIG 3 and brinlee turn the BIG 1! If you weren't here to celebrate with us we missed you dearly. We started out by letting Nanny and Gramps taking the kids on Friday and they spent some time at Magic Kingdom and at Old Key West Pool with the Englers. They had a blast. While they were having fun, Jay was working hard and Me well I was fighting with frosting. I was baking all 3 cakes to save money, NOT TIME! They turned out FABULOUS though...'Watch out Publix!' Then we all met at OKW to have a nice dinner in, put party favors together and relax.

Then on Saturday it was PARTY TIME! The day started out great, but then of course when it was time to go to the park it started to rain, or should I say POUR! So we sat in the car for about 30min. There was another party going on at the pavillion and taking up all the tables, so yep Mommy went over to ask for at least 2 tables. (At least they were nice). It poured, it stopped, it poured again but we enjoyed our family and friends. We had food, cake, the park, some crafts, presents and most important the friends that we love that came to celebrate with us!!

Then come Sunday, it's Quinn and Bella's 3rd BIRTHDAY! (We also celebrated Brinlee's too of course!) We went to Disney's Yacht and Beach to have a character breakfast. It was very yummy!! The twins wanted to take pictures of the characters but not be near them or take a picture with them. Brinlee was terrified, go figure my kids like them from afar but not next to them. Emma LOVED them and wanted to take pictures with them all morning!!

After breakfast we went to Epoct and walked around. We saw the Nemo ride, all the fish, turtles, stingrays, etc. We saw figment and played in the jumping waters too. It was a lot of fun. After a few hours in the park we decided to go and eat at a local mexican restaurant and then go back to Nanny and Gramps and go....you guessed it Swimming! What a day to wrap up the Birthday Day!

You can see a slideshow of all the pictures in the right sidebar!

Animal Kingdom FUN!

We had a great day at the park on Saturday. After I was done teaching we all piled into the van and went to Animal Kingdom to "See the Animals!" We had a blast and Quinn and Bella had fun running the trails to spot the animals. Nanny had a ton of fun with them and we wore ourselves out. here are some of the pictures that we took while we were there. Enjoy!

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