Florida in July...

For reasons that may forever remain a mystery, the Anderson family decided to have its annual reunion at Disneyworld in July. JULY! In case you didn't know it's hot in Florida in July. Nevertheless, nearly the whole Anderson crew made it down there (We missed you Jenni!!!), and had an awesome time.

The NY Harts decided to drive down rather than spend the money on airline tickets and car rentals. As a bonus we got to see some great friends and great things along the way. For starters we got to see Lindsay Jones Waters in VA. We were hoping to spend a nice leisurely evening together, but NYC traffic being what it is, we didn't actually get to her house until after midnight. Ever the gracious host, Lindsay put up with our lateness and made us a delectable breakfast of cinnamon rolls. MMmmm!

The next day we decided to take the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway. It was gorgeous, and I highly suggest it to anyone in the area. The kids thought going through the clouds was awesome, but found the "overlooks" completely terrifying, in a fun way.

After a delightful day, and a brief stop at the South Carolina State Capital, we made it the home of our good friend Kathi Woodall. Ellie and Nico really hit it off with her kids and Ellie declared that she wants to have more sleepovers with them.

Eventually, we did make it to the Orlando area and joined the whole crew in a week of heat, theme parks, humidity, cousin time and a celebration of my parents 50th wedding anniversary.


Hangin' with the fam.













Marge, B. Ray & Brad with some of the honorary Andersons, Ye Fu and Lyn, some great friends of all of us from many moons ago. I think this was the first time I'd seen them in almost 20 years.










Ellie and Brit were inseparable!













Inseparable and daring...
















Nico and I stuck to the more placid rides, me for obvious reasons, and Nico because that's just what he went for. We did try to get him interested in some of the more intense rides, but after Test Track at Epcot, he was having no more of that. Here we are on flying dinosaurs at Animal Kingdom.







This is one of the rare photos of Alex. He spent a lot of time running around with the girls since he actually could go on the more intense rides. It's a bit hard to see him, but he's there.











Ellie was delighted to find Marie from The Aristocats (one of her favorites still...). She would have been interested in some of the princesses as well, but the lines were simply unbearable.














A rare shot of Nico actually happy to be in a picture. He really liked hanging out with Mike. I think it made him feel a little more grown up to be hanging out with the "older cousins."










He liked hanging with the younger cousins as well, especially when they had a Nintendo DS.












What Nico did while Ellie and Brit went on scary rides... find snails.


















And lest you think I wasn't actually pregnant on this venture... We spent many an afternoon in the pool at the house. Did I mention it was hot?












Our last parting shot of Disneyworld. Nico is back to his thundercloud look.












All in all it was a fantastic trip. It was wonderful to see everyone and the kids LOVED seeing all the cousins. It was also great to be together to celebrate Mom & Dad's 50th anniversary. However, I'm voting for somewhere a little cooler when we celebrate their 75th.