Cirque du Soleil and Universal Studios

Emory and Ellie had a four day weekend so we headed off for some fun in Orlando.

We set off for Orlando right after school on Thursday afternoon to take Emory and Ellie to see Cirque du Soleil for the first time.  Dan and I saw it for our first time ten years ago but were excited to share it with the kids.  They absolutely loved it!

We had dinner at Wolfgang Puck's in Downtown Disney before the show started at 9pm.  There were lots of fun Halloween decorations, including this large pumpkin Mickey Mouse.

The next morning we got up and headed over to Universal Studios and Universal's Islands of Adventure for the day. 

Emory enjoyed trying on the wigs in one of the shops.  Maybe we should get one of these for Halloween next year?

Ellie looked super cute in the furry pink top hat! 

Emory had lots of fun being silly with the props around the park. 

The best part of the day for Ellie was that she was tall enough to ride the "big" roller coasters for the first time ever.  We got our Universal passes back in February and each time we have visited she hasn't been tall enough to ride the Hulk coaster or the Dueling Dragons coaster with Emory.  This time she wore tennis shoes rather than flip flops(and we stuffed a couple of napkins in her heels!.) With all of that she was just tall enough!  Yea!!! She must have looked much taller on this particular day because they didn't measure her on either coaster and they have each time that we have tried to get her on in the past.  She loved both coasters and had so much fun.  Dueling Dragons which is a hanging coaster is her favorite!

Ellie's Field Trip to the Corn Maze

Ellie's 2nd grade class went on their first field trip of the year last week.  It was to a local sod farm turned corn maze for the season.  The kids got to navigate their way through a huge maze of corn by answering questions correctly.

There were lots of fun fall decorations like tractors, scarecrowns and even a couple of pumpkin patches.

Here is Ellie with her whole class with their teacher, Ms. Mayall.  This year there are only 15 kids in her class and it is wonderful to have such a small class!

The kids had fun crawling around in a large box full of dried corn kernels.

 

The neatest part of the whole trip was something that they called the "corn popper".  It was like a big bounce house with no sides.  It kind of looked like a big air pillow that was about 50 feet long and 20 feet wide.  The kids had so much fun bouncing all over it and sliding down the sides.

Ellie scored a goal!

Ellie scored her first goal of the season on October 16th!  Way to go Ellie!!!

Ellie's Fairness Award

At Mill Creek Elementary, each month the children participate in a program called Character Counts!  The character trait that was taught for the month of September was Fairness.  At the end of the month, each class votes on one student from their classroom who they feel represents this character trait.  Ellie's class voted for her to receive the award for Fairness!

She was very excited about this award.  Not only because it's an honor to have your class vote for you to get the award but because you get to attend a special assembly that your parents are invited to attend and they serve cake at the end! 

Congratulations, Ellie!