Blast From the Past - Disney Style

I feel like I don't have anything awesome to blog about now that the holidays and birthdays are done for a bit. I will say that I have been feeling pretty great about life the last few weeks. I am just really content with life. I can hardly believe we are truly done with fertility treatments. It has been so freeing to finally, finally put all of that behind us. I am no longer chained to any of it, and I am really enjoying life without it.

Since I don't have anything new to blog about, I thought I would write up a post I've had up my sleeve for some time (well, one of many). While I was home on leave for my surgery, I was able to take the time to scan in some old photos from my past. This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time, but it was always way at the bottom of my priorities list. Since blogs are really like live diaries, sometimes it is fun to throw in a story here and there from The Good Ole Days. Gosh, it is so hard to pick which theme I want to start with first! Let's go with a Brother Favorite.

As I have said about a million times before on my blog, my little brother and I have always been very close. We're so goofy when we're together, and our thoughts are never far from the same brain wave. We have been known to say the exact same things at the exact same time a lot.

When I graduated from high school, I heeded the words of my sister who told me to live life selfishly before getting married. She had gotten married at 20 and wished that she had spent some more time finding herself and enjoying life before settling down. Not that she doesn't love her husband. She just wishes they were a bit older before tying the knot. Taking her words to heart, my goal was to graduate from college unmarried, and then spend a few years doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and spending my money however I wanted without answering to anyone and focusing 100% on ME. Sewing my wild oats, if you will.

It was during these years when money was plentiful that my little brother and I opted to make frequent trips to Disney Land. Let me tell you, Disney Land is fun and all on its own, but going with my little brother seriously made it the greatest place on earth. We had so much fun and were so goofy. We bought whatever souvenirs we wanted, whatever food we wanted, and threw around money like it was rain. Those were some of the best days of my life for sure.

This picture is very typical of us. We rarely took life seriously. I only wish we had shelled out for some of the pictures that were taken on rides because we made sure we always made those memorable. Like the ones where we would pretend to be asleep on Space Mountain when the picture was snapped. The funniest thing about that one was seeing how many people copied us.

If this picture doesn't make you at least chuckle on the inside, then you have no sense of humor. At all. You need to go take classes on how to laugh. For real.

This picture isn't as silly, but we also loved to go to Disney Land with our older brother and his wife.

Who can take life seriously in front of a castle?

Winnie the Pooh is one of my all-time favorite characters. This is me on the Winnie the Pooh ride almost a year before I met my husband.

My lovely sister-in-law and I. She is one of the sweetest, most caring, loving people I have ever met. She is awesome beyond words.

 What a suave, suave man... standing next to a garbage can... in front of the Matterhorn...

But it gets better when you add a sister... who points at her suave brother... to tell the world, "He's the man."

Want to know where we get our sense of humor? Well here you go, our pappy. Don't be alarmed, he wasn't harmed when this picture was taken.

 This picture was taken when my niece, who is now 12, was my daughter's age (they are 7 days shy of being exactly 9 years apart). CRAZY!

And last, but not least, this was a favorite picture of an old friend and co-worker of mine. He actually framed this picture and hung it in his house, he liked it that much.

You know what I love most about looking at these pictures? Looking forward to taking more in the same places with my daughter. Disney Land is such a special place for my family because of all of the memories we have made there, and because of the memories we will make there in the coming years. The only thing that makes a good thing better, is having my brother there. Baby Bean and my brother with me in Disney Land? It just doesn't get any better!