We're home!! Did you miss us? We went to Disney World for Adam's 3rd birthday!!! We had a FANTASTIC time! The kids are ready to go back and, I must admit, I wouldn't mind jumping right back on the plane for a repeat performance, however, since I'm not Oprah, we'll just have to relive the moments through video and pictures for a while.
THE RECAP:
As I mentioned, the trip was great. This was Adam's first time on a plane so,naturally, I wasn't able to book a non-stop flight to Florida. Instead, we had to catch a connecting flight in Atlanta. Now, this would have been fine except that David was already in Florida for his conference so I was traveling with the kids by myself. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal except that my curious little 2-yr old is going through a "gotta see-it, touch-it, poke-it, hit-it, jab-it, smell-it, taste-it, ride-it, throw-it, squish-it, kick-it" phase right now soooo, the pre-flight "what-if's" were stressin' me out like you wouldn't believe! That being said, like any good mother, I was packin' some heat ya'll - an entertainment arsenal loaded with coloring books, puzzles, the laptop, Skittles (I was desperate), and a deadbolt lock w/keys (Yes, they will actually let you on the plane with one of these, however, a toy pirate gun - umm, not so much, but we'll get to that later). When we arrived at the airport, oh, there were about 20+ people in line to check their bags and, of course, there was only ONE baggage clerk! What is up with that? It's just like that at the post office! Anyway, we sat in line for, no kidding, 30-minutes. After the first 10-minutes I was seriously considering loading everyone back into the car, calling David and telling him to give Mickey and Goofy our regards because we were stayin' home! When we DID finally make it to the counter and the agent asked, "At any point in your travels, has your bag been left unattended?", I wanted to crawl over the counter and strangle her! Are you kidding me?! Maybe just briefly during one of the one hundred times I had to jump out of line to chase Adam through the Terminal! FINALLY, we checked our bag, undressed and redressed for security and got on the plane without further incident.
One down, one to go.
In Atlanta, on our way to the bathroom, Adam decided to hop a ride on a flight attendant's bag as she was pulling it through the airport, much to her surprise. My first reaction is to look at Gracie for some sort of explanation as to why on earth her brother would do such a thing and she simply rolled her eyes as if to say, hey, don't ask me! Thankfully, the flight attendant was kind enough to accept all three of my apologies. People in Georgia are go nice! Anyway, we successfully boarded our next flight thus completing the 2nd leg of our trip. We were now in Florida! After a long wait for our bag, and bit of body surfing atop some random suitcase on the baggage carousel, we were finally reunited with Daddy and on our way to the hotel. Whew!
Most of that day was spent traveling so when we arrived at the hotel, it was dinner time. We hooked up with our friends, ate dinner in the hotel cafe' and hit the pool. We stayed at the Pop Century Resort. We love this hotel because not only do the kids love it but it's on Disney property so we have our own shuttle service to and from the parks.
This is a picture taken outside our hotel room.
Saturday
First thing Saturday, while Daddy was still working the conference, we headed for Magic Kingdom.
The kids had a blast! They rode the Dumbo ride, the race cars (Adam drove a car for the first time), Buzz Lightyear, Skyway, and the dreaded teacups! Does this ride make anyone else sick or is it just me? Gracie was laughing her fanny off at the fact that Mommy was about to heave!
After riding the Winnie the Pooh's Adventure, we spotted Pooh, Tigger and Darby. So, while Adam snoozed in his stroller, Gracie got some one-on-one time with storybook crew.
I'm sad that Adam was sleeping because the boy loves him some Tigger ya'll. Oh well, maybe next time buddy.
Around dinnertime, we headed back to the hotel to meet Daddy and tell him all about our day at Magic Kingdom.
Before our trip, I'd made reservations to have breakfast with some of the Disney characters and, boy, am I glad I did because we'd have never gotten in otherwise. Sooooo.....
Sunday Morning/Afternoon
Sunday, we headed to Disney's Hollywood Studios. It was a really big day for us because Daddy was finally finished with his conference!! Yay!
We started the day having breakfast at Hollywood & Vine with Jo-Jo, Goliath, and two of our Little Einstein friends, Leo and June.
Then we were off to hit the rides! One of the coolest was Toy Story Mania. A huge hit with the kids because not only did you get to wear really cool 3-D glasses but you got to shoot things to score points during the ride. We rode this one twice!
Part of our group did manage to ride some of the adult rides. The Aerosmith roller coaster and Tower of Terror got the votes for biggest thrill rides......I wouldn't know because I was too chicken to get on either one of them.
Did I mention that Adam discovered the Power Rangers while we were at Disney? Oh my goodness!! My heart goes out to Gracie, who has since been dubbed "the bad guy" in many of Adam's fight scene re-enactments. In fact, he has scrapped the whole "I wanna be a fooo-ball player!" and now runs around the house in his new Red Power Ranger outfit (yes, we caved!!!) and has taken to power-punchin' Gracie every chance he gets, poor thing. : (
Sunday Night
Once we'd seen and experienced all there was to do at the Hollywood Studios theme park, we scrambled back to the hotel, ate a quick dinner and then got the kids dressed in their Halloween costumes for "Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party". We had to buy special tickets for this event since its held "after hours" at Magic Kingdom. You basically have the whole park to yourselves.
The characters were all dressed up in their costumes and the kids got to trick-or-treat down Main Street. They had the best time!! The party lasted until midnight and there was SO much going on that neither of the kids slept a wink or even complained about being tired. I would do this event again in a heartbeat and recommend it to anyone that hasn't been to Disney World during the holidays. Gracie must have told me that she loved me about 20 times that night, which means she was having the most awesome time ever!!
At midnight we headed back to the hotel for some much-needed sleep!
Monday
I don't know what on earth possessed me to make an 8 am reservation for Monday morning but I just couldn't pass up the chance to have breakfast with Donald and ALL his Safari friends at Tuskers House in Animal Kingdom!! It was to be our last day of park fun so I wanted to go out with a bang! Needless to say, I wasn't the most popular person in our Party of 7 that morning. Everybody was so cranky! Dang!
Here are some cute pictures with Goofy and Daisy.
We spent breakfast and the first part of the day at Animal Kingdom. The kids played in the Boneyard, we went on a Safari and then tried to go on Mount Everest, the greatest Disney roller coaster ever made (I'm told) but it was "CLOSED FOR TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES". Guess we'll have to try again next trip.
We wrapped up our tour of Animal Kingdom and then left to spend the remainder of our day at Epcot. We rode Mission Space, Nemo, Test Track (super cool) and then, there it was, the most incredible ride I've ever been on in my ENTIRE LIFE..........Soaring!! I could have gone on that ride 50 times and never tired of it. Even Gracie, who was very skeptical at first, fell in love. For those of you that haven't been on it, you sit on what looks like a long bench swing that is perched in front of a giant IMAX-type movie screen and you "soar" all over the countryside as if you're on a hand glider. It was breathtaking!!! What a great way to end the trip! We truly saved the best for last.
Tuesday
We left very early for the airport and were homeward bound.
The End
Well, that about sums up our trip. Oh, there WAS that one incident that happened to us at the Orlando airport.....remember earlier when I mentioned the pirate gun and airport security thing? Well, turns out that when our carry-on bag went through the x-ray machine, one of the guards threw his hand up in the air, signaled the other guards nearby, ordered all of us to move away from the conveyor belt, whereupon he seized our bag, opened it up, and pulled out...............yes, you guessed it, our weapon of mass destruction - Adam's plastic toy pirate(s of the Caribbean) gun! I was instructed to remain still while our not-so-pleasant security guard checked with his supervisor to see if we were going to be allowed to "keep" the toy gun. Seriously?!!! After about a 5-minute discussion between the two men (again, seriously?!), the guard brought the gun back to us, put it in the bag, and told us (very sternly) that "Under NO circumstances are you to remove this item from your bag at ANY point during your flight! Do you understand, ma'am?"
And now, like they Annette and Cubby used to sing at the end of EVERY episode of the Mickey Mouse Club......
M-I-Ceeee
See ya real soon!
K-E-Yiiii
Why?
Because we like you!
Mmmmmm
Oooooooooo
Uuuuuuuuu
Ssssssssssss
Eeeeeeeeee
See ya back here real soon! Good-bye
