The Hill's will head to Walt Disney World in less than two weeks! We are so excited! It's going to be an amazing 10 days together. I will have to work at the AAU's volleyball tournament for 5 days, but I will be able to spend the evenings at the parks with the kids. The first few days will be pretty relaxing. We had the best time at Typhoon Lagoon last year, so we want to hit that park on day 1!

We are taking the red eye out. I'm very nervous about being exhausted the next day. Check-in isn't until 4:00 pm. We will literally need to spend the whole day at the park. We have dinner reservations at Bongo's Cuban Cafe on our first night. They are super late, and I am sure we are going to be exhausted! We can sleep in the next morning before hitting the next park.

This year we booked with a travel agent which is new. They planned our whole trip, so I am excited and grateful we aren't trying to plan out each day. I want to enjoy the trip as much as possible. Derek is going to be a junior in high school. I honestly don't know how many more vacations he will go on with us. He will be starting college before we know it, have a job and be moving out. Yikes!

Over the next several weeks, I am planning our upcoming family road trip. I can't tell you how overwhelming it is to try and schedule all of these college campus visits. The location and route is fairly easy, it's trying to ensure everyone is home when we need them to be. There will be some we just can't get to this trip. I think that is the toughest part. There are so many people we want to see on the road, and it is impossible to fit everyone in...so honestly, a lot of our decisions have come down to whether the volleyball team is in town when we are in town.

At this point, we are at 3 full months on the road. We aren't adding anything else, or we won't make it home, and we will probably run into some bad weather. We leave September 5th. I have a feeling this will become a tradition every fall. 

The Hill's have decided to hit the road again! Can I tell you how excited I am about this upcoming trip?! We have decided to head out in late September to tour the country. This will seriously be an amazing opportunity to get on campuses, spend time with coaches, former clients and see all that our colleges have to offer! 

Had a fabulous time in Houston! It was great to see my TAV peeps and hit tryouts. I've been so blessed to work with this organization. They are such an amazing group of people. I also had a great visit at the University of Houston.

Marty and the kids mainly relaxed. At this point we are dreaming about our beds and more square footage. We miss our family too!

Last night after tryouts, we headed to San Antonio. We arrived at 1:30 in the morning and stayed at an awful RV park. Fortunately it was only for us to sleep, and now we are already back on the road. We originally planned to spend a few days in San Antonio, but with so many of my athletes playing beach, I need to get home and catch up!

We have 543 miles to El Paso. This is an insane drive for us, but there is nothing in between. We will stay the night, sleep in and then drive to Phoenix tomorrow. This will put us home on Friday evening.

Yesterday we spent the day at the George Ranch Historical Park. We arrived around 11:30. We were disappointed we missed the reading of the Declaration of Independence. The truth is, we left more than enough time to get to the park for the reading, but we discovered I left my wallet in the trailer after we had already traveled 20 miles toward the park. So we had to go back, and it added 45 minutes to our drive. To top it off, the lunch was sold out by the time we got there, so we left to eat. It is just too big of a place to explore on an empty stomach with 3 kids.

We headed to the Texas Roadhouse for lunch. We were all feeling very flustered at this point, so we ate as quickly as we could and headed back to the Historical Park to explore. The volunteers working at the beginning of the tour didn't have as much knowledge and experience as the tour guide we had the last time we were there. Needless to say, it was a little disappointing. Mainly since I had raved about this place the entire drive over. The highlight were the cowboys at the end. They herded cattle, and showed us how they care for the animals. Jake, the lead cowboy, showed us the variety of whips they used over the years, and explained the history dating back to the Greeks. It was very cool! Devlin asked so many questions, Jake finally said, "Does anyone, other than this young man, have any questions?!" We laughed, but we were a bit embarrassed. We told Devlin to stop asking so many questions at least a dozen times. Clearly he has some things to work on before returning to the classroom in the fall. We will pray for his first grade teacher. He gets this from me. When I was his age  I was the exact same way. 


We left the George Ranch Historical Park around 4:00, and headed back to the trailer. We had an hour drive. When we returned, Marty got his fishing pole out and headed to the pond to fish. He met some nice people using one of the bbq's who asked if we wanted to share the grill. So we brought our hamburgers and hot dogs over to cook. It was nice to visit with some new people.


After dinner we went to a place called Chill…the Milkshake Bar. The dessert here is really good. This is a very fun place to hang out with the kids. It's similar to Which Wich. When you walk in, you fill out a form with everything you want in your shake, or you can choose a waffle. The shakes are fantastic. They have a great seating area where you can play games and hang out. The boys played checkers. We didn't spend much time here, because McKinley was a bit of a handful. So we left and headed back to the trailer to play games.


We all played a few rounds of Uno, and Connect Four. It was a great night. We missed fireworks, but after all the Disney World Fireworks, we didn't feel like we missed anything.


Today we are off to the USS Battleship Texas. There are also some battlegrounds to explore. After we will likely grab a bite to eat and head back to the trailer.

The last few days have been pretty rough! McKinley has had a fever since Monday. She's been pretty lethargic, and very needy! Monday we spent the day at Blizzard Beach. We did not like this park as much as the Typhoon Lagoon. McKinley was not feeling great, and felt like she had a fever, so I took her up to first aid to have her temperature taken. It was 104.1. We took her clothes off, put an ice pack on and left the park right away. She became less responsive and in a daze on the bus, so we called the paramedics when we got back to the resort. They checked her vitals, took her temperature and fortunately her fever went down to 102.5. We decided to begin giving her Motrin and Tylenol for the fever and discomfort. We've been doing this since Monday.

We finished getting all of the stamps in Devlin's passport at Epcot, and spent time at The Magic Kingdom. Since McKinley hasn't been feeling great we've tried to take it easy. She's been in my arms for days. I'm a little disappointed because was only able to go to one day of AAU for 16's. She's just not been herself.

We made it to Tallahassee last night, and we are on our way to New Orleans now. We had dinner at a cute place called Cabo's Bar and Grill. It was really good!

We took McKinley to urgent care last night and they checked her ears, throat and listened to her vitals. They think she has a bad case of the flu. If she doesn't improve, we have to take her to the emergency room to have more tests done. We've got a bigger drive than we wanted today. It's 386 miles to the resort. I made reservations at Emeril's Creole restaurant for tonight. I hope we can make it but it will all depend on when we arrive and how the baby is doing.

Not a lot of pictures now, I've got my hands full with the baby and work. Hopefully we will do better in New Orleans!

We are all having an awesome time in Walt Disney World, and none of us want it to end. We have had a fun filled past few days full of adventure. At Typhoon Lagoon, we experienced a crazy storm. Not long after we arrived, we were cruising along the lazy river, when the lifeguards and security began telling everyone to get out of the water. So we get out, and head over to our towels and stroller. We could see thunder, lightning, and it began to get closer. Our family was out on the beach. As I am looking around, I am noticing families hustling out of where we were and taking shelter. I asked Marty if he thought we should move, since we are out in the open. He thought we were okay, but then it started pouring down rain! We have never been in weather like this before. It was intense. Devlin started to get nervous, McKinley was getting cold, I looked like I was going to cry. It was so loud! We started moving very quickly to the food court area where everyone who knew what they were doing were circled around each other under shelter. I am sure they could tell we were not from there!

We had to stand under shelter for a good 30 minutes until the storm lightened up a bit. Then we were able to make our way to the bus to leave. We left the park, and headed back to the trailer. That night we had dinner at the Bongo's Cuban Cafe in Downtown Disney. The ceviche was amazing. This may be our favorite thing we have eaten so far. My drink slipped out of my hand at the restaurant and spilled all over me, so I had to purchase another shirt while out. This makes 2 this trip. McKinley exploded all over me (while wearing white) and this drink incident.

We were invited to a private lounge to watch fireworks with a very nice family we met here in Walt Disney World. After dinner, we headed to the Contemporary Resort to grab dessert, drinks and enjoy the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom. It was a spectacular view!

Yesterday was Father's Day! Marty caught a fish while fishing, and we went to Hollywood Studios after I finished at the tournament. We had a terrible time with the buses yesterday but it all worked out in the end. Hollywood Studios was fun. We didn't see everything, but we caught the Indiana Jones Stunt Show, Star Tours, the Frozen Show with Olaf, and a play area where Devlin and McKinley could play. We ended the night at the Animal Kingdom Lodge where we had dinner at Jiko. The food was pretty good. To be honest, we haven't had the greatest food throughout Walt Disney World. It's good but not great. This was the last fine dining restaurant we are planning to eat here. 

Today we are off to Blizzard Beach! There is something here for all of us, and the water makes me happy. We have not been able to finish Devlin's passport at Epcot yet, so that is also part of the game plan. Tomorrow is our last day at the parks, and we will go to the Magic Kingdom all day.

Wow, the last few days have been amazing! I'm already trying to figure out when we can come back to Walt Disney World! We have had so much packed into these last few days but it has been truly enjoyable.

Derek and I did the dolphin interaction at Epcot yesterday which we both liked a lot. I've swam with dolphins in Hawaii, but this was better. We actually spent more time with the Dolphins at Epcot. We took a tour, watched a research project they were working on with one of the dolphins, and then we actually spent about an hour in the water with them. We didn't get to swim with them, but we did get to touch and play with them. We of course got a photo, and we wrapped up around lunch time. I don't think I would do this again, but it was worth the money. The only thing we didn't like was when they am started preaching about not feeding them in the wild, how it changes there behavior and then they went on and on about cleaning up the beaches. While I appreciate them bringing it to our attention, I didn't appreciate being talked to like an elementary student who is getting scolded for acting out in the classroom. This was my only complaint.

Marty, Devlin and McKinley did not do the dolphin tour. Dev and McKinley are actually too young. So we met up with them and went to Restaurant Marrakesh in the World Showcase. I thought Dev would like the belly dancing but he didn't really get into it. McKinley clapped and smiled at the dancer. She probably liked it more than any of us. The food was pretty good, but the atmosphere was very cool.

Derek's stomach has been off the last few days so he's been taking breaks and resting at the trailer. He finally feels better tonight. Thank God!

Marty, Dev, McKinley and I had the best time at Typhoon Lagoon this afternoon. This may be my favorite water park ever. I love there lazy river. It actually made me miss my mom quite a bit because that is one of her favorite things at water parks! The boys and McKinley are planning to go back tomorrow while I work at the AAU tournament. I'm planning to meet up with them once I become available.

What I love most about Disney is there creativity in capturing your memories with your family. There are people with cameras all throughout the parks, including the water parks. While McKinley and I were floating down the lazy river, one of the photographers got our picture, and then they were able to load it onto our account through our magic band. It was really awesome! Tonight we got another family picture in front of the big ball at Epcot while it was lit up. I hope it turns out good. I decided to wait until the end of the trip to go through the pictures and pick out the ones we want.

Since I am behind on the blog, the days are all getting jumbled together. Tonight we spent our evening at Epcot. We had reservations for the dessert party, made new friends, and watched the Illuminations show. It was fantastic! Seriously, I think this may be the best of the Disney shows. We love Fantasmic and the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom, but Illuminations was in your face and just really cool. Our new friends have a travel agency and specialize in Disney. (I'll never book Disney again without them by the way ( #Magicyourway ) They had special glasses to see the fireworks and you could see all of these Mickey ears throughout the show. It was really neat! They invited us to watch the fireworks at a different place tomorrow. So we will catch up with them tomorrow night! (Thanks Jennifer)

The Magic Kingdom is similar to Disneyland at home but bigger and in my opinion better. We loved the Monsters University laugh show. It's an interactive show which changes in each experience because it is all about the participation in the audience. Derek texted a joke into the show and they read it. He was pretty thrilled with himself.

The Pirates of the Carribean ride is down for refurbishment, so unfortunately we didn't get to ride it. This is one of my favorite rides at Disneyland. Dev began to cry. He was looking forward to seeing the Pirates.

We rode the Jungle Cruise which is similar to the ride at home, but a little longer. The jokes are pretty similar if not the same, but our Captain Adam was awesome. McKinley kept smiling and jumping up and down throughout the ride. She really liked it!

We haven't hit up any of the other rides at Magic Kingdom yet. We will be going back to experience a bit on Monday and Tuesday!

As for tomorrow, it's Epcot in the morning and then Typhoon Lagoon the remainder of the day, before meeting up for fireworks with the new family we met tonight. We did make dinner reservations at a restaurant Jennifer suggested at the Kidani Village. She said the food is excellent, and then after dinner you can watch the animals at sunset out on the savannah. She said it's incredible!

We bought Devlin a passport at The World Showcase at Epcot, and in each country you get a stamp and signature from the people who are from the country. Devlin has really loved this passport activity. We bought it after we had toured a few of the countries, so now he has to go back to get those stamps. This is why they are going there tomorrow morning.

I feel like I'm missing some stuff that we have seen and done. I'm hoping to be more diligent the rest of the time. It's kind of difficult when you e got everything stored up in your brain.

Yesterday we got up bright and early to head to the Animal Kingdom. It takes about an hour to get to any of the parks with all the Disney Transportation because the resorts are so large and it's a bit of a distance to the parks.

We arrived and we were overwhelmed by the heat and humidity. It was really hot! We were limited to what we could do because of the baby, so we walked around, saw the gorillas, birds, a hippo, had lunch in the air conditioned restaurant and left. We feel pretty fortunate because we have seen zoo's, and we have Disneyland at home. We just don't feel the pressure that so many of the other families seem to feel while visiting here.

Devlin has been wanting to rent a canoe, so Marty took him yesterday. We all got a nap, went to the pool and I worked.

This morning I am at the AAU tournament, and then I will head back and we will head to one of the parks. Marty would like to go to Epcot since we don't have anything like it at home. We are supposed to be spending the next 2 days there, so we will see how it goes. I'm going to bring our swim suits in case we decide to go to the water park.