Welcome to my new blog page! Instead of posting the pics from Disney and some others that I thought were cute, I found a way to post them in slide format. I hope that you enjoy them- if it's not working, click on "View All Images."
As for our trip to Disney- it was eventful, fun, exciting, magical, memorable, and eventful. Did I say eventful more than once? Eventful is the best way to describe it. My mom, 2 sisters (Laura and Julie), Archie, Madison, Christian, Caleb, and myself all caravanned together to Florida for a week of fun at Walt Disney World. It was Archie's first time there, so I wanted him to really be able to experience it. Laura's boyfriend John flew down in the middle of the week and then drove back with us.
The reason why it was eventful is because of the time of year that we went (HUGE crowds= LONG lines) and because it was difficult with 2 kids under the age of 2. Also, there were a lot of us and we decided to stick together for the most part and there ended up being some miscommunication- as would be expected. We learned to work through everything and people were very generous helping us watch the boys so Archie and I could also have some fun together. All I can say is AMEN for Fast passes and Baby swap passes--and family!
We left for Florida on Friday, the day after Christmas around 2:00 p.m. which turned out to be a good time to leave. We decided to drive through the night since we had so many drivers which also turned out to be a good thing. The only bad thing that happened on the way down, was that Christian threw up from some bad milk that I bought at the gas station (it expired that day and I thought that it would be fine--oops!) Overall the kids did great on our long car trip.
We arrived at our destination near Walt Disney World on Saturday late afternoon and took some time to unpack and relax. On Sunday we went to Sea World. Sea World was full of wonderful shows and animals for the kids (they especially liked the Elmo and Shamu show), and also some rides for the adults. Archie and I decided to leave in the middle of the day so the kids could take naps and then we met up with the gang later in the evening. The Night Light show featuring Shamu was amazing. It was overall a great day.
On Monday we went to Epcot. I said that I didn't have any "expectations" for the day and that proved to be incorrect early on. This was my first emotional "time" for me that week. Not too sure exactly why, but I think that it was because I wanted to do SO many things- but with 2 children under the age of 2- I wasn't able to--and lack of sleep from the night before trying to figure out everything that Epcot had to offer. Julie and Mom ended up taking the boys for a few hours which was WONDERFUL, so Laura, Archie, Madison and I had some time on our own to enjoy. I think that SOAR was the most favorite ride.
We decided to spend 2 days in the Magic Kingdom (Tuesday and Wednesday). Tuesday was our breakfast with the princesses IN Cinderella's castle! We had so much fun there. Archie and Caleb were not allowed to come since there were not enough seats since we had this scheduled for 5 months and that was when we thought my cousin Katie was coming and watching the boys. Anyways, Madison dressed up as Ariel and we met Cinderella and took some professional pics with her. After meeting Cinderealla, we were invited to dine upstairs with othr princesses. What a fun time we had! We saw and took pics with Mary Poppins, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, and I think a few more but I would have to look at all my pics again. The food was delicious and Madison and Christian had loads of fun. My mom, Laura, Julie, and I were treated as royalty so we also really enjoyed it. ALL of the princesses LOVED Christain and gave him HUGE kisses. He ate it up and flirted right back! Madison was given a beautiful wand to make wishes upon while Christain was given a sword to fight with--and he did! The only other things I really remember from Tuesday was that Laura and I left the park early so the boys could have naps and that John flew in that night. Oh and yes, that Thunder Mountain became my mom's and Madison's FAVORITE ride. On New Years Eve I was told that the park reached its capacity at 154,000 people in the Magic Kingdom alone by 11:00 a.m., so we knew that it would be a bad idea to try to take the kids home for naps. So we ended up being at the Magic kingdom on New Years Eve from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. This was a real magical day and night overall. The park looked beautiful and it was Archie's birthday. On New Years Eve, I hit my 2nd and last emotional "time" of the week. Not too bad for everything that was going on. After being hysterically cried and peed on, starving since we were waiting to eat for Archie's birthday dinner, tired from a long week, and the gigantic amounts of people swarming around me- I needed a few minutes to myself. After about 20 minutes of time alone, I rejoined everyone and danced with Archie and the kids in the streets of Disney--which they LOVED. We had awesome seats in front of the castle for the midnight fireworks and ALL 3 kids fell asleep peacefully and missed them. Oh well, the rest of us enjoyed them. We were all together relaxing and enjoying the quietness-all besides Julie. The employees of Disney would not allow her to pass a certain place in the park to sit with us since it was packed, so she enjoyed them from afar.
Thursday we slept in since we were out so late the night before. We all met Jenny Breining and her mom for lunch at the Olive Garden since they were also in Orlando at that time. It was fun seeing Jen and catching up with her. Madison and Jen had fun posing for pics together. After Olive Garden, we went to the Animal Kingdom for the remainder of the day. We would have loved to have spent more time there, but I was told that it wasn't all that great, so we chose to only have a few hours there. Next time we know. The Safari Trip was awesome. We got to ride on a safari bus and search for animals in the wild. We ALL really enjoyed this and got some great pics of wildlife. Christian saw monkeys and decided to act like them- it made everyone on the bus laugh! Everyone besides Laura and the boys went on a roaring rapid water ride in which we ALL got wet. This was the coolest day that we had, so after our jeans got drenched- I was ready to go back home and relax.
Friday was our last day and we went to Disney Studios. What a wonderful day we all had! Madison LOVED the Tower of Terror and convinced her Grammy to go on 2 times. Archie and I really liked the Rock -n- Roll Roller Coaster so we went on a few times with Mom, Julie, Laura, and John. The shows were awesome and everyone had a BLAST on our last day. I think that this was actually our best day since we all REALLY enjoyed ourselves and the boys did great. We got to see exhibits and shows on Star Wars, the Muppets, High School Musical 3, Beauty and the Beast, Fantasia (the night show is awesome!), dinosaurs, Prince Caspian, The Little Mermaid, etc. We were at this park from open to close.
On Saturday we packed up and left and arrived home on Sunday afternoon. After arriving home we wanted to go back and kept thinking about the magic that we felt when we were there- at least Madison and I did. Now it's been almost 2 months and we are content looking at pictures of our time in Disney. We would all like to go back again, but we will definitely wait until the last child is at least 5 years old. My Mom, sisters, and John were SO helpful and it was wonderful experiencing Disney with them.
