The Great Escape

We stayed in Orlando for the rest of our vacation. We got to spend time with my mom's biological family (that I had never met) and had a great time. My mom (like myself) was adopted and met her biological family a few years back thanks to my super sleuthing Internet skills. :) It has been a great experience for her to meet a whole family that welcomed her with loving arms despite the "scandal" surrounding her adoption. It's a shame ALL adoption reunions can't be that way! Such is life, I suppose...

Neve got to meet her great grandmother for the first time! She is 88 years old and looks so much like my mom it was scary. My mom now has a HUGE Lebanese family she never knew before. Glad it worked out- thanks to my meddling!

Neve just wanted to hang in the pool for most of the trip from that point on. She is getting much braver in the pool and I think she'll be full on swimming in no time.

We headed to Downtown Disney on our last day and Neve wanted to go to T-Rex. It's like Rainforest Cafe (except dinosaurs) and they have a Build-A-Dino store which is like Build-A-Bear.

Neve got to build "Super Dino". :)

They also had a "dino dig" out front where the kids could dig for fossils.

After face paintings, ice cream sundaes, souvenir shopping, etc... we headed back to the airport to fly home to good ol' Arizona. Aaron and Nate had a great vacation too- just spending time together. I wished Aaron had taken some pics of Nateman while I was gone..then I realized I took all cameras as well as the ipad with us. oops. :)

Anyway, it was great to get home and see our guys. Neve gave Nate a big stuffed Shamu in the car. Gotta love it.

I loaded all of my pics onto the family page too.

Portnoy Family Shutterfly Page

Thanks, Mom, for a fantastic trip!!!!! I love how you make so many special memories with Neve. I have such great memories of my Nana, so I am glad Neve has an amazing grandma too!

Free Willy

After our beach adventure we headed to Orlando to check into our resort and get ready for our Sea World adventure. We didn't do Disneyland this trip (although we were staying just down the street from it) because I just couldn't make those memories without Aaron and especially, Nate. So, Sea World won the vote because I love it there and I know Nate would have little to no interest in it because it involves SO much waiting for shows and such. Not exactly his specialty.

Neve was pumped! We got too see "Shamu" right when we walked in..so that thrilled her. I tried to tell her that Mommy's first job was at Sea World, but she was WAAAY confused by thinking that I lived in Florida. :)

We got to see the manatees, the dolphin show, and of course the Shamu show.

Neve also LOVED the Clyde and Seamore Sea Lion show. The canned humor is right up her alley. She is SUCH a Portnoy. :)

I also took Neve on Journey To Atlantis (big lunge boat ride) and she screamed and cried the whole time..then promptly asked to go on it again. She is nuts.

We headed back to Sea World again a few days later to see some things we missed. It's 8000 degrees in Florida with the humidity so there's no way you can do those places in just one day!

As you can see, ice cream was definitely the theme of this trip. Ha! We had to put her in detox when we got home.

Children of the Sea

Girls' Trip!

I finally decided that I MORE than needed a vacation...and my mom offered the perfect getaway. Hard to say no to that. Aaron and I have such a hard time planning vacations with Nate due to all the preparations needed to ensure he is A) comfortable in his surroundings without too much panic or sensory overload...and B) that he has all of his medications, supplements, special foods, etc...  We decided Neve was ready for an adventure without her brother, so she can experience things that just wouldn't interest Nate right now.

We hopped a flight to Orlando, Florida, and drove out to Clearwater Beach for a few nights.

Neve got the best seat in the airport. :) We kind of had a lot of luggage..is it wrong to pack 9 pairs of shoes for a 4 year old? I think not. :)

Neve had never been to, or even seen, the beach before (deprived child, I know).. so we woke up bright and early and had our breakfast beach side.

One of my favorite friends from Ohio, Jackie, had moved to Florida a couple years ago when we moved back to Arizona. She made the trip to the beach with her 4 girls and Neve had the best time ever. Jackie's girls are bursting with energy and fun. SUCH a good match for Neve.

The gulf was so warm and calm like a lake. She wanted to play in it all day.

BUT, she was even MORE excited to have crab legs for the first time.

This is Neve and Piper- they are both soon-to-be Kindergartners!

After dinner we headed back down to the beach to watch the sunset after the storm...

Neve and her Grandma Ding.

Next day we headed back down to spend the whole day just playing in the ocean and checking out the pier.

Neve said this was definitely the best part of our trip- seeing our long lost buddies, spending lots of time with Mom and Grandma Ding, and of course- THE OCEAN!!