September

 September brought a lot of fun, crazy and joy in the Holden house!

Celebrating Bonnie's birthday

Avery (9 years, 1 month) - Avery's month started strong with Harry Potter day at the Braves game. She and dad have been reading through the serious together in anticipation of their trip to Universal this month and she has been very into it.

Soccer season started back up for Reign FC and Avery is enjoying hanging with her friends again and getting her weekly snack fix.

Otherwise Avery had a busy month getting into all sorts of craziness!

Monthly dad's club meeting

Enjoying ice cream

Excited about her new recorder

Parker (11 years, 10 months) - Parker's free time this month revolved around baseball which is how he likes it. In between neighborhood wiffle ball games, he fit in his last season of rec Little League baseball on the HotRods, enjoying getting to play his non-regular positions like Shortstop and Pitcher. His travel team also started their tournament season and he is enjoying getting back on the field with his buddies!

Carter (13 years, 4 months) - Carter and dad started the month with Georgia Tech's opening football game at Mercedes-Benz stadium. 

He followed it up with a Boy Scout rafting trip the next weekend.

And spent lots of time playing and watching baseball. He decided to play rec baseball this Fall and has been enjoying being a Red Wing with several familiar faces from baseball teams of the past.

Siblings - Lots of sibling fun included a volunteer day with the Boy Scout troop...

Braves games...

Falcons vs. Packers game,,,

A trip to the county fair with the boys...

That's Parker up there

And fun mom/sons time while Dad and Avery were in Orlando.

Universal Orlando Fall Break

After our marathon of four parks in four days at Disney World, Avery and Dad made an early morning relocation to Universal Orlando for three more days of fun.

Avery has recently gotten into the Harry Potter book series which was a major inspiration and motivator of the entire trip.  Our first day we went to Islands of Adventure first as this park includes Hogwarts and Hogsmeade from the book and the park stayed open later in the evening.  Avery was overly giddy upon entering Hogsmeade with huge genuine smiles as she explored it all and rode the rides.

Before getting on any rides, we got into the wand selection show at Ollivander's wand shop.  Avery selected her wand (core of unicorn hair) and immediately started her wizarding training.

We lucked into a short line for Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure and we will not spoil any details, but along with Guardians of the Galaxy and Velocicoaster, this is an all time favorite ride!

Diagon Alley was as impressive as Hogsmeade and Avery really enjoyed exploring there and Knockturn Alley.  The more she explored, the better she got with her wand skills and their interactive sections of these areas.

We utilized the Hogwarts Express multiple times as it is an easy and fun way between Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios parks.  The ride is very entertaining and provides great utility.

Platform 9 3/4!

As much as Avery and Dad enjoyed the world of Harry Potter, plenty of additional areas and attractions were experienced.  We stayed at the Royal Pacific hotel on property which is a very nice Loews hotel and includes Unlimited Express Passes which allowed most every ride (except Hagrid's) to basically be walk on.

Jurassic Park and its rides were a huge success

Last time Avery rode this one, she was in tears, now all smiles after!

This is a ride we have never done before, Avery loved it and we rode four times

Knowing we had time, we spent half a day at Volcano Bay water park.  This park is part of the Universal Resort and is by far the best water park we have been to anywhere.  Incredibly well themed, fantastic rides, a great water coaster and a massive drop door slide, Ko'okiri Body Plunge which was 210 stairs to the top but well worth it... for Dad, Avery would go on it :(.  

Universal also has Characters which are a bit more spread out in the parks as their lines aren't as long to interact.  Avery found many as we walk around.

Edith and Margo from Despicable Me

A return to the site of Avery's first obsession, Hello Kitt

Hashtag Panda from the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

Who isn't excited to meet Doc Brown?

Penguins from Madagascar

Optimus Prime

Betty Boop

Homer and Bart Simpson

To finish it all off, a massive Donut from Lardlad Donuts!

Eventually it was time to go head home, but it was a great trip and there is already talk of a return trip sometime in the future as the boys were very jealous and Avery had a blast!