WDW

We went to Disney World a couple of weeks ago, so it's about time I shared some pictures!  It happened to be Mardi Gras when we left and Jackson's class had been celebrating!

 Within 20 minutes of picking Jackson up from school,
Katherine was asleep.

(The significance ... she's not going to sleep any more of the 

day's drive and we're just getting started.  Yikes.)

 Later that afternoon, we made it into Florida and

the 'Sunshine State' was not living up to its nickname.

We spent the night in Tallahassee, and it was obvious Katherine was feeling awful.  She wasn't much better the next morning, either.  As we were walking out of our hotel room, the housekeeper saw her, and honest-to-goodness she started tearing up since Katherine looked so pitiful.

We made it to Disney World that afternoon and gave Katherine a bath with hopes of helping her feel better.  This is what she looked liked afterwards.

Jackson and Katherine quickly discovered the pool at the resort, and Zach was a great dad and jumped in the freezing water with them.  Katherine did manage some smiles while in the pool!

The next morning, we started breakfast off with Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and Daisy!

Katherine was starting to feel better and was quite taken with Mickey.  

It may be hard to tell, but she's giving him a big hug below.

We spent our first day at Animal Kingdom and

Jackson couldn't get enough of the dinosaurs.

Grandpa and Jackson playing dinosaurs.  

We were carrying around 4 of these big dinos by the end of the day!

Poor Katherine.  You're not supposed to be sick at Disney World.

While Katherine was sleeping, the parade came through. 

Chip and Dale tried to make off with one of Jackson's dinosaurs!

The next day, we ate lunch at the T-Rex restaurant.  Again, Jackson was in heaven.

Katherine is pretty fond of dinosaurs herself, 

and can name a surprising number of them!

After lunch, we made it to Magic Kingdom!

Jackson's picture of the 3 of us!

That night, Emma and Austin made it down and

we spent the next day with them as well!

It was also Zach's birthday that day.  Turns out, just as Katherine was getting back to normal, Zach was falling victim to a stomach virus.  A virus on your birthday while at Disney World.  Miserable.

On the teacups with Katherine!

 Unfortunately, Zach was getting worse and we didn't get too 

much more in before we had to head back to the hotel with him.

Thankfully, Zach was feeling better by the next day and almost back to normal.  Even better for him, (for some reason) I lost my voice and ended up not being able to talk the entire way home!  Maybe on our next trip, we'll all stay healthy.

Nonetheless, Disney World wore these 2 out!   

Even though someone in the family was sick the entire time,

we made some sweet memories!

Weekend Roundup

Each week Jackson's class learns about a different letter, and last week was the letter K.  On Friday, they bring home a letter bag filled with goodies that start with the appropriate letter. Last Friday, he brought home the "K Bag."  The mom who put this one together went over the top.  Not only did they have hats from Krispy Kreme, they also had a doughnut.  Jackson inhaled his and thankfully Katherine wasn't too interested.

She did inhale the Kit Kats that were in the bag,

which I guess is appropriate since that's what we call her half the time.

And she's still walking around playing that kazoo beside her.  

I can't explain the commotion that these letter bags cause each week since there's only one and there are two children in this house.

Then the kites came out.  Yep, this mom bought 20 bags of kites.  Actually (and thankfully), there were 2 kites in each pack, so a disaster at the Vaughn house was averted.

And to top it off, one kite had a dinosaur on it!

It turned out to be a windy afternoon 

and Katherine joined the action!

 

We never were able to get the kites flying, but they had fun trying!

On Saturday, Jackson had his last basketball game.  We arrived early so he could warm up some and hopefully get a few goals under his belt before the game started.  He ended up making 5 or 6 goals in about 10 minutes!

 And then during the game, he nailed one!!!

Zach came out of his seat and I may have had tears in my eyes!  Grammy and Grandpa were there and as soon as he made the goal, he ran over and hugged Grammy!  To say we're proud is an understatement!

Following the game, he said he wanted coke and a ring pop ... he got both!

And then there was Sunday.  We happened to be arriving at the awards ceremony for the basketball teams when everyone started yelling to get inside.  Below is what was coming.

These two pictures are not my pictures,

but the above is the tornado that went through Petal.

The Ace Hardware is a before/after and actually 0.2 miles from where we were.  It was so sudden, we really had no idea what was going on.  Needless to say, the awards ceremony was cancelled and with all of the fallen trees and power lines, it was like a maze getting home.  I didn't see it last night, but as we were getting in the car today, I noticed something odd on the side of the car and realized it was insulation from buildings.

While we were out, we went by Zach's office in Hattiesburg.  Most of the roads leading to his office were closed, and this is typical of roads that were still open.

A couple of pictures from Petal.

We were all lucky.

'Round Here

We've been living life and staying busy 'round here.  Last week, Jackson's class went on a train ride for a field trip.  It's the third time he's been able to ride this train and it's the perfect distance and amount of time for small children.  The ride is about 30 minutes and is long enough to get them excited, but not too long where they start getting tired.

Waiting on the train with his classmates and they're all excited!

He indulged me and let me get a picture of the two of us!

Grandma was in town during this time and met us at the depot.  From there, the kids rode the bus to a local park.  They ate lunch and then played for TWO hours.  Thankfully, the weather was great!

The next day, Grandma and Grandpa got to watch Jackson's basketball game!  He's improved each week and also had a great practice this week!

He's starting to get the hang of following around "his man"

and keeping his hands up to guard.

The week prior to that, Grammy and Grandpa came down to watch his game

and came to the house afterwards.

These posts lately seem to be dominated by Jackson, so here's a sweet little picture of Katherine.  This little girl is non-stop and always up to something.

That's a little snippet of what's been going on 'round here.

Friends

Before school started back, Jackson got to spend the day with his friend, Nicholas.  They aren't at the same school this year, but Jackson talks about him all the time.  It had been a while since they had seen each other, so it was nice they were able to spend so much time together.

Jackson had been asking to see Nic for a while and he had also been wanting to go back to the Children's Museum, so we combined the two!

Katherine tagged along as well!  Little TV chef!

Fishermen

 Katherine loves playing tea party.

 Katherine discussing the boys with Mrs. Jill.

 Another tea party.

 Our boy.

He's gotten so big.

Nic and Jackson.

These two love playing with each other.

Basketball Game!

Jackson had his first basketball game this morning!

As expected, he was pretty timid when we got there. 

They warmed up before the game and Jackson went after the ball a few times.

  

Once they came out for the game,

Jackson was obviously not excited about being there.

He was less than enthusiastic when he was put into the game.  Sometime after 'halftime' we started wondering if Katherine was upsetting him.  He brought home a toy lizard from school yesterday and has been obsessed with it since.  Katherine was playing with it during the game and apparently Jackson noticed.  Zach managed to get the lizard away from her and showed Jackson he had it.  Jackson completely changed.  He started running around and thankfully started acting happier!

Jackson's teammate was throwing the ball in to him and it ended up knocking Jackson in the face.  I just happened to be taking pictures at that moment and caught this blurry picture right after it hit him.  He fell to the ground and once his coach helped him up, he brushed it off and went back to playing.

  

Jackson did pretty good dribbling!  Most of them dribble a couple of times, pick the ball up and run, and somewhere in there remember to start dribbling again (a couple of players are actually pretty good at dribbling).  They were cute to watch!

We're excited to see how he progresses each week!

Here is a video just before the end of the game.  He is like me and the least aggressive person, but at this point he had perked up and we were relieved he was acting happy, more into the game, running some, and not frowning!