Characters at Animal Kingdom

On Tuesday, August 12, we went to Animal Kingdom with the Pittards. It was also very crowded, but I guess that's what we should expect during summer break. Laura told me about a petting zoo inside the Animal Kingdom. I didn't even know the petting zoo existed. It's impossible to fit all of the activites of one park into one day. In order to get to the zoo, we had to ride a train. The kids enjoyed the train ride.

I was walking around the petting zoo with my children, and we came upon a few Disney characters. I absolutely hate waiting for my children to greet characters. I feel like it is such a waste of time, but I know the kids like it. There was no wait, so I actually was happy to take pictures with the not-so-popular characters.

Universal Studios and Islands of Aventure

Laura and Brian came to visit us and enjoy Orlando on Aug. 7th. The kids (and us!) are always excited for any visitors that are able to come our way. On Friday, Aug. 8th, we all drove to Orlando to spend a week enjoying the amusement parks and the beach. On Saturday and Monday we were able to visit Universal Studios and Island Of Adventure. The kids had a great time. Here are some of the pictures that we took while visiting.

Here Dominique is quick to point out the paparazzi with the camera trying to take our picture. Luckily, we wrested the camera away from this Lindsay Lohan stalker to post his work on our blog and deny the National Enquirer of yet another photo of the glamorous Janae. Dominique really wanted to go on the Jaws ride, but we weren't very successful in doing so. The line was an hour long. After we were almost to the front of the line to get on the ride, there were mechanical problems, and they stopped the ride. It was so hot and humid. We were ticked after waiting that long for nothing. Below is Brian who was sooooo disappointed as he had been totally psyched to go on his FAV ride Jaws. But don't tell anyone that he wet himself the first time he rode on it! :)

Kylie and Paige got ahold of my camera and snapped several pictures. Did you know Kylie and Paige have matured enough (Ok, maybe "matured" is not the best term to use as they definitely are not mature, but they have racked up a few more years here on Earth) to become infected with that devastating disorder of loving to shop? They didn't come back to Universal on our second day, because they wanted to shop and hang out at the hotel pool. What crazy teenagers!!

Here Paige is taking a picture of Dominique and herself. Paige is trying to demonstrate to her cousin the proper puckering technique she uses to practice her kissing on her Jonas Brothers doll.

Now she snaps one of her and Jasmine. Here Paige is trying to teach Jasmine the proper gang sign for, "Don't kill me because I am a ditzy blonde not smart enough to disturb your turf." We were glad Jasmine didn't quite master that one.

And here are Paige & K-Y. Don't they both look extremely ill with that horrible shopping disorder? We are willing to donate these two as subjects to any science research project that is trying to find a cure for this disease, and we are still willing even if it involves invasive or non-approved methods. It is a risk we are willing to take for the betterment of mankind...womankind??

Laura, Paige, and Kylie were resting while the boys were inside a dinosaur museum. Don't these two teeny-boppers act MUCH better when they are around their loving, doting mother?

Donovan joined us for one day of the trip, but he would much rather vacation at a Lake House with a boat.

The kids were able to splash a little in a water area. Did I mention it was soooo hot?!

Jyllian kept drinking this disgusting pee water. Yes, she peed in it too, so the ool is definitely a Pool. At least it wasn't too cold of water (around 98.6 degrees F), and it acutally had kind of a lemony taste. A little sugar, and it would have been not-too-bad tasting lemonade.


Ohhhhhhhhh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea?! DOM-I-NIQUE & JYL-LIAN!

This is the statue that Jyllian fell off and hit her head. She was on the platform and fell back smacking her noggin' into the not so soft concrete. Her eyes rolled back and forth in her head, and I knew something was wrong. We took her to the health services at Universal, and they tried to put an ice pack on her head. It appeared she was Ok at the time. She fell asleep shortly after hitting her head, but when she woke up, she started throwing up. She threw up about five times. We ended up taking her to the emergency room later that night. The E.R. took cat scans of her head, and they told us she did have a minor concussion. Fortunately, she was fine the next day, and we had to pull her down from climbing up on other objects several times. The kid is a climber! It's amazing how quickly toddlers can climb (and recover). We are just glad she is all right.

Dominique on the same statue acting as if he's holding up the pizza. Maybe he should consider a pizza delivery job? Besides, that whole FBI dream job of his would never have the fringe benefits of free pizza, and nobody shoots someone over a pizza pie.

The Universal ball with the cool mist coming out and around it as the zombies leave their hiding place beneath the ball for their nightly feast of remaining Universal patrons. I guess that is why it is half price to get into Universal after 6:30 pm?

Which Muppet are you??

So while we were in Utah, Kristen commented how Jyllian acts like Animal from the Muppets as she roars and shakes her head full of hair from side to side while running around. We decided we would look around and find out what Muppet character most suits us...

Jyllian:Animal
Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_(Muppet)) provides the following aboout Animal: "Animal's vocabulary is generally limited to guttural shouts and monosyllabic grunts, often repeating a few simple phrases. During performances, Animal is usually chained to the drum set, as his musical outbursts are extremely violent." Wow!! That is our little Jyllian to a 't.'

Jasmine:Miss Piggy
Miss Piggy is infamous for being a VERY independent and hard-headed lady who at the same time is the princess of princesses when it comes to her Kermit. Jasmine can also be stubborn and packs quite the whallop when she unleashes her inner beast (just ask her brothers!). HII-YAAAH!!

Dreyton:Fozzie the Bear
Dreyton is like Fozzie in being "good natured and loves his friends." He has a warm heart and likes to tell jokes (and most of them are much better than Fozzie's bad humor).




Dominique:Scooter
Dominique is like Scooter mostly due to the glasses and age, but we also think he is "brainy and computer-knowledgable." Go, Scooter, Go!



Janae:Janice
When we saw this picture of Janice, we knew it was Janae. In part due to Janice covering up the letters "i" and "c" in her name so that it could be "Janae" in the lettering behind her. Also, we could tell that her eye shadow was soooo Mary Kay (just like Janae's!).

Donovan:Statler
Statler is one half of the old pair of "ornery disagreeable hecklers" from the Muppets that sat in the balcony. We thought Donovan looked a little more like Statler than Waldorf, so this was an easy pick. He continues as (at least) a third generation of ornery disagreeable men for the Lott family.

Daisy:Rowlf
Brown dogs...enough said.


So, which Muppet are you?? Leave a comment and let us know.

Utah Lake

On our last day in Orem, UT, we were able to go boating on Utah Lake. Will and Shannon asked if we would like to go boating before we left town.. Donovan tried not to jump up and down and froth at the mouth excessivley from hearing the word boating. His first love was waterskiing, and unfortantely he doesn't get to waterski too much now that we live in a state with LOTS of lakes (but not a lot of free time or access to a boat). Dominique, Dreyton, Jasmine, Amanda, Haley, Grayson, and Trent all bumper tubed. The water was so nice around 12:00 p.m., and Donovan enjoyed waterskiing.
Jyllian loved jumping in the water and kicking around. I really miss the mountains.

Callister family picnic

I know I'm really behind on posting (can you please forgive me??), but I'll try to get caught up (like we ever really can do THAT in life, right?). I've been gone a lot this summer leaving Donovan to enjoy the bachelor life (namely doing his own cooking and laundry) for awhile. These pictures below were taken at a park in North East Orem, (Windsor Park) for the 2nd Annual Callister Related People Who Live Around Northern Utah (AKA ACRPWLANU...maybe you have seen this acronym eleswhere but were unsure of what it stood for. Now you know! :) ). Below is Aunt Grace, Julie (her daughter), Karen, Kristen, Jyllian, Donovan, John, Anne, and Wayne. The kids were having a great time with water balloons like the ones Donovan is holding (No, they aren't big eggs...just balloons). Jasmine would love to throw the balloons at others to mositen them in the heat, but she did not want to be the recipent of one and its fluid contents. Jyllian was protecting her balloons, but water ballons do break open, unfortunately on me.
Anne,
Thanks for putting the ACRPWLANU picnic together. It's always fun to see family and what's happening in their lives. Anne provided the meat for the picnic, and Wayne, Gary, and Donovan cooked it. I always look forward to the desserts on the Callister side because they all make fantanstic sweets.
I have found it to be very difficult to get a picture of John. But at least I got a side view. Sorry, ladies, but he is a married man! Although his Firebird is single...and VERY clean.
Here we have Margaret and Ruthanne with her husband, Austin. These are Lois' girls.

Island Park Family Picture

My mom always wants her family picture updated, but we all say Ugh! The only time the whole family would be together was at the reunion. Jason and Alayne live in Rexburg, and I live in Florida. The rest of the Peterson clan live pretty close to one another in Happy Valley. So we don't have a lot of opportunities to have ALL of us together for a picture that often. Amanda always does a great job with the photography even when circumstances are difficult. Amanda (my sister-in-law [AKA Amandona]) had asked a friend that was in Idaho to come take the picture, but he wasn't able to come. Amanda had her tripod and a timer on her camera. So Amanda (and later the oldest [but maybe not the wisest] grandchild, Kylie [AKA Heather or K-Y]) would turn the camera's timer on and then run like a banshee to her spot in the picture to get there just before the picture was taken. Considering our large group (and the glare from some of the balding heads), the picture turned out to be much better than expected.Amanda snapped a few shots of my family, and we really appreciated Amanda's service to us. Donovan wanted the lake to be in the background, of course. Too bad we didn't get a complete family picture with our other child, Demond (Donovan's waterski).

On Saturday, before pictures were taken, we were able to float down the river on rafts. Dominique rode in a raft with Tyler, Dreyton was in a raft with Grandpa Peterson, Jasmine went with Katie, and Donovan, Jyllian and myself were in a two man raft. The kids had a great time with their cousins, and I really enjoyed the outdoor activites.

Yellowstone National Park

Friday, July 18th, was planned to spend the day in Yellowstone National Park. There were a lot of stops around the park to view geysers (but then again, I am already married to a consistent fountain of hot air). Although, we spent the majority of our day driving, we did a lot of walking too.

I thought I took a picture of the waterfall we were viewing at this spot, but I guess not. Annette (who is flashing gang signs to her Wyoming homies [Is that an oxymoronic statement??]), Will, and Sierra were in the background of the picture below with me and my wind-swept hair. Where is a good bottle of hair spray when you need some in the middle of a national park?This is the back of the motorhome that acted as our Rock & Roll tour bus through Yellowstone. It would have been a lot cooler if we actually had some roadies, but at least we had my little sister (Alicia, AKA Jessica) to help out. Jyllian was very tired as we had hit her nap time a couple of hours prior to this picture being taken. As for me, well I just try to have my eyes closed in all of my pictures because I like the way my eyelids look. :) That is actually not a growth on Dominique's back, but it is his little sister, Jasmine. Donovan and Dominique spent much of their time with her on their shoulders, and she is much heavier than she actually looks when you lug her around for several hundred yards. We are thinking of having an MRI of her to make sure her legs aren't made of lead.
Kami and Tate joined the motorhome tour bus later during the day.

The kids sitting in the Old Faithful vistor center keeping warm and waiting for Old Faithful to erupt. Can you tell they were "requested" to smile pretty for the camera??

We were patiently waiting for Old Faithful to explode. Once again it was a little chilly with wind, but at least we were able to get the dust off of our jackets/sweatshirts that hadn't been used since we were in Missouri. Unfortunately, we missed old faithful by five minutes. We had to wait another 90 minutes for the next erruption.

Here is Dominique on the top bunk of the motorhome. He was checking out how well the fan was working. At least it made him feel 2 inches taller for a moment. Ahhhhh....to be over 5 feet! I wonder how those tall giants above 5'6" don't walk around with a constant nose bleed, though...