The Florida Cousins

We are lucky enough to live next door to the Hales and the Wilsons here in Memphis. Since they are cousins, they often talk about going to "the cousins house" or having movie night with "the cousins" and Josh thinks of these dear friends as his very own cousins. (I do too)...

 But, he was incredibly excited to get to spend a bit of face time with some of his biological cousins during our Disney trip - these guys, and the Utah cousins!

Drew's sisters live in FL and were crazy awesome enough to drive 4+ hours to meet us for a late lunch at Animal Kingdom. Melissa (on the right) and her youngest, Cason, have season passes, but Marcy (left) and her youngest, Havyn, don't. So they weren't even sure if they would be able to join us in the park. Don't tell anyone, but we were able to get Havyn in by using the pass of one of Melissa's other kids. Melissa also happened to have a 10-day no expiration Park Hopper pass that she randomly found on a previous trip to Magic Kingdom. She had held onto it "just in case" and it actually still had 5 days available! Marcy was able to use it and we got to spend some extra time together. We also convinced them to stay over that night and go with us to Magic Kingdom the next day! We had such a blast.

The sibs went for a grown up ride while the kiddos and I spent some time together digging in the Boneyard. I happen to go way back with that place. I spent many hours digging there while working as part of the Paleontology Staff during my semester in the Disney College Program.

Marcy is a Kindergarten teacher, and just before they left to drive down she fell on the playground at school and gave herself a nice shiner! I did my best to photoshop it out, but I'm an amateur. She looks lovely anyway! Havyn and Cason were such perfect little darlings, and I am jealous of how well behaved they are. Melissa and Marcy need to write a parenting book! By the way, this is one of the rare times we manged to get Josh to look at the camera and smile simultaneously.

 

The boys got to hang out with Buzz.

 Recently, we were at the mall and saw the Easter Bunny. Josh said he didn't need to get a picture with him because he already took pictures with him at Disney World... haha!

The Harmony Barber Shop on Main St. will style hair and add pixie dust for just $5! We got Josh's hair cut there, but he wasn't happy with the experience (he never is...) so we got as far as the spiked up style, but no pixie dust. Cason and Havyn both loved it, but the photographer didn't get any shots of Havyn. She looked totally cute though!

I think I have a similarly posed photo of these three taken about 10 years ago. We need to make sure it isn't another 10 years before the next one, okay!?

These two cousins were SO adorable. It is awesome that they are such good buddies. I wish that Josh could spend more time with them and all of his other cousins regularly. Too sweet!

As we were leaving the Magic Kingdom to say goodbye to the Aunts and the cousins, we just happened to run into this little lady. What a special surprise!

Josh was just waking up from a nap and tired of having his picture taken, so he missed out on the Tinkerbell photo op. But these two certainly made this a charming encounter.

I had such a delightful time getting to visit with Melissa and Marcy! We did a lot of laughing and day dreaming about future family reunion trips to Walt Disney World. I also loved getting to know my niece and nephew, and Josh had a ball with them. I am so thankful that those two wild and wonderful sisters decided we were worth the crazy amount of drive time it took for them to come see us!