For the past 2 years I have taken our kids camping by myself while Matt worked.  Finally after being married for 9.5 years and having 2 kids, Matt joined us on a camping trip!

"We are a happy family"

Mason loved playing with our friend's dog

Kids enjoying nature

Talking to friends around the camp fire

5 families that all went camping together

Thanks to our friends who planned this trip and invited us to tag-a-long.

In our church we get baptized at the age of 8 or older.  This year Kalani turned 8 and was baptized by her father.

Dressed in white and ready to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized

Our beautiful girl in now 8 years old

8 fun facts about Kalani:

-loves to swim

-loves to play with Legos and really likes the new Lego Ninjago sets

-cries when she has to wear jeans and pull her hair back for her choir performances

-loves to read about her interests on Wikipedia 

-wears the same dress to church every week…although she has others to choose from

-makes friends easily even while we are traveling

-loves to cuddle with her parents

-hates having her brother play in her room and getting into her things

The beginning of 2011 Kalani got really into Harry Potter.  We made a deal with her that if she would read all 7 of the Harry Potter books we would treat her to a trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida.  And Matt had an even better idea to have it be a mother/daughter trip.  We loved seeing her carrying a book around and even staying up late to read.  It took her a year to complete, but that isn’t too bad considering she was 7 years old!

Harry Potter World is only 1 out of 6 areas of the Island Adventure theme park.  We spent half a day on Monday and all day on Tuesday at the park.  Since we went towards the end of April the crowd wasn’t too bad…a benefit of homeschooling!  I really liked that they have “child swap” areas so Kalani could wait for me while I rode a ride that she didn’t want to ride or was too short to ride.

Howarts Castle...Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride is inside

The Hogwart's Express and conductor

Hogsmeade had a bunch of chocolate frogs for purchase...with a trading card inside

Kalani loved getting her own chocolate frog...it wasn't a "jumper"

Enjoying Butter Beer; they had regular and frozen...we tried both!

Triwizard Spirit Rally Characters

Water Taxi from our hotel to the theme park

I realized 2 days before we were leaving that I forgot to book a hotel for us.  So I went with one that Universal Studio recommends: Loews Royal Pacific Resort.  It was a bit expensive, but with our room card we got to the front of the line on nearly all the rides.  I don’t know if Kalani would have handled standing in lines longer than 10 minutes and I wanted to have a good time.  Also we were able to go into the park an hour before the general public was allowed.  Kalani loved the pool that was at the hotel and made friends with some other kids there.  They even showed Thor on a screen while Kalani was swimming.  Overall it was a pretty great trip.  I asked Kalani what she thought of our vacation and she said, “AWESOME!”

More photos here