We had a great time celebrating his birthday! We sent him on a scavenger hunt all through the church, the Mexican restaurant (where we had to eat dinner) and home to find his presents. Then the church showed up for a surprise cake and ice cream party. We had over 50 people in the house and it was so much fun!
Sam's garden is producing!Tomatoes every day. And our very first cucumber! Peppers and beans are about ready too!
I finally figured out a way to get these pictures from Carol's camera. Whew! Thanks Carol for taking all these pictures!Anyway.... In one of the toy stores in Downtown Disney, they had places where the toys were opened and you could play with them at stations. They had a HUGE Mr. Potato Head station where you could play for hours and never make the same face twice.Next to that was the My Little Pony station. And Kaebrie would have played for hours if we had let her! She brushed. She combed. She dressed. She stayed there a long time with Carol while I supervised the boys building their light sabers on the other side of the store. Kaitlynn went back and forth between the two stations.Below, the boys with their new toys!
The ONLY ride Kaebrie was to small for was this small ridiculous dinosaur roller coaster. If she could ride Everest, why was she to small for this one? I don't make the rules, but we had to follow them. So her sweet Daddy took her on the Dinosaur flyer while I took the others to the coaster and while we were gone, she and Daddy got to meet Goofy and "Puto".
I think this was the Pirates ride. Nope. I can not remember at this moment what ride we were floating on. Now I do remember it, but I can't recall the name. O well. Here is the group. All hot and sweaty. 
I am not sure whose big, hairy knee that is in the picture. EW!! But I am pretty sure this was in It's A Small World.
Thomas is an only child. Except when we vacation together every year. Then he becomes another big brother. I love seeing Kaebrie run up to grab his hand and want to spend time with him. He is so good with her.
Here is the Bowman clan! Carol, Brannon and Thomas!
The big boys!
On Monday, everyone except me and Kaebrie headed off to Hollywood. She was not feeling good as that was the first day of her ear problems. Here is the group with Prince Caspian!
Sam ended up bringing the boys home to swim around lunch time, but Kaitlynn stayed with the Bowmans for the rest of the day and late into the night! She LOVED the Tower of Terror!!!!
Posing on a Star Wars gun(?)
With Mickey!
She had a blast getting to do ALL of Disney. Every park, every ride, every show and every night time firework light show. I know this is from Warner Brothers and not Disney....but as far as Disney pictures go.......THAT'S ALL FOLKS!!!!
Kaebrie has a lot of patience. Maybe it is because she is the 4th child and has grown up having to wait her turn. Maybe that is just her personality. Whatever the reason, it sure makes it easy taking her places. Some of the lines we had to wait in, she just enjoyed herself. She danced. ALL DAY LONG. She would dance in line, dance just walking around, it was really cute. So here we are at Epcot waiting for the sun to set and for the fireworks and light show and next to us the Moroccan music is playing, and off she goes...just a dancing. She did end up seeing me with the camera, but this was seriously how she moved all day long. I think she was copying some of the moves she had seen from the dancers in the parade the night before in the Magic Kingdom.
It was a packed full 12 days. There is no argument about that! I had two cameras and I got copies of the pictures the Bowmans took, but I am still trying to figure out this Mac computer and can not make files to upload nor can I figure out how to open the files with their pictures. So, my pictures on here are all out of order and I will add theirs later when Sam can help me.We left Sunday afternoon after church and drove to Florida. Stopping first to have dinner with some Idaho friends! Mark and Nicole were neighbors of ours on base and they moved to Florida 2 summers ago (I think). Sam baptized their oldest daughter when she was a little one. Cloe and Emma have grown so much and baby number 3 will be here in a few more months! Mark grilled out burgers and dogs and we had a great visit while the kids played Guitar Hero on their Wii.We then drove a few more hours to Tallahassee where we crashed for 5 hours before it was time to get up. That had to have been the smallest hotel room I have ever been in. There was barely room for the sleeping bags on the floor! Thankfully no one got up and had to use the bathroom or there might have been some serious injuries!We got to our resort at noon on Monday and prayers were answered! We were allowed an early check-in and got our room! YAY! Sam immediately had to go to his first meeting, so we were able to unpack get all our swim stuff on, and head over to the pool.This resort had three pools, two normal pools (which we never went to) and one giant special pool. The Bowmans got checked in and joined us for a nice afternoon in the water.Below is Kaebrie in the kiddie pool playing with the water fountain.
She had a lot of fun!
Christopher decided to see what he could do with the streams of water as well!
I asked him to show me his new "toothless" grin, and this is the picture I got as the water squirted up right as I took the picture.
The water fall was cool!
That was about as high as they climbed up on it. Thomas is in the picture too. They spent a LOT of time on the water slide. Over and over and over they went up those steps and squealed all the way down. I don't have any pictures of the slide, but it opened up to the left of this pyramid. The entire pool was gigantic and had a HUGE section that was perfect for Tiff to stand in. So even though I insisted he wear his floaties, he could still stand and have a great time.
After we left the conference on Thursday, we rented a house with the Bowmans. GREAT idea! It was half the cost of the hotel, but had 4 bedrooms, a fully stocked kitchen, a washer and dryer and a private enclosed pool! We sure got good use out of that pool!!Here are 5 jumping Smiths trying to make the biggest pool wave ever!
and again!
and again! 
Tiff popped up into the picture the same second that Sam disappeared from the picture.
Cannonball time!
Not much of a cannon baller, but a fearless jumper!
Kaitlynn likes this one, she says it looks like she is standing on the water.
Let us back up a bit. We were able to buy 5 day passes through the air force that were so cheap, they were almost the same price as a one day pass at full price. We wanted to wait to use them after the conference was over so the Daddies could experience Disney with us. So one day we went to Downtown Disney for lunch because it was free and we didn't have to use our passes.We ate lunch at the Rain Forest Cafe. VERY NEAT!! Animals come to life every 11 minutes, and every 22 minutes a severe storm rolls through with loud thunder and bright lightning. I wish I had a picture of Keabrie's face the first time that happened!
Kaebrie has her eye on Minnie!
We played in the Lego store for a long time. They have stations out with legos the kids can play with and then race cars they build. Those people and dogs are all legos. Really cool!
After lunch, we had to get the famous dessert to share, the VOLCANO!!!
Here is Collin and Thomas underneath the tree we ate at, with the gorilla watching over them. It was a very fun lunch, but VERY expensive! All 5 of us drank water, 3 kids ate off the kids menu, I only had a salad, and it was still $83.00. yikes! I am not used to paying that much for a meal! But it was worth it (once).
Collin spent his allowance money building his own double sided light saber.
What is the kids idea of a GREAT time after a few hours of hot yard work on a Saturday afternoon?
Playing in the creek for an hour!
Knee high, but cool, they had a blast racing on their hands, having mud fights, and being chased by the dog.
Sam called it the red-neck country club!
I could not hike down the last little hill to the water, so i sat on a sand bar and took pictures, trying to keep the sweat from dripping onto the camera. Yazzi has SO much fun! Her breed is known for loving water and she sure does!
Yazzi and Kaitlynn look like they are talking about something important here.
I wish she could talk! I bet she would be saying THANKYOU-THANKYOU-THANKYOU
Both Sam and Collin each lost one shoe.They got sucked down into the sand/mud/clay and those sandals were never to be seen again.
