D - Destin Preview

Did I mention that we DROVE to Disney World? Oh, I did? Well, okay then. Because of all that added freedom, I talked Mike into a little preview of a vacation I've been wanting to do for a while now - Destin, FL. I've heard how beautiful it is, and we're definitely beach fans, and we were just SO close, so we HAD to check it out. It was very worth it.

Because Mike gets up MUCH earlier than the rest of us, he enjoyed his morning watching the sunrise on the beach - with camera handy as always. He got some great shots. I'm sure he would have picked others to show off, but I'm in charge here!

After church we had a quick lunch at a local seafood place (YUM!),

and then we hit the beach! Oh my, it was beautiful indeed. As you can see, it looked like snow. But when you are a regular in Galveston, I guess it doesn't take much to impress.

Because we needed to get back on the road about an hour after getting to the beach, I believe I said something along the lines of don't get wet or dirty. At least, I think I said it out loud.....

Take note of the coats. It was NOT warm out there, but you can see that didn't stop them.

While they were getting soaked, Mike was clearly snapping away, and I was just taking it all in. I LOVE the beach!!!

I can't wait for next summer!!!

D - Our Greatest Hits Day

As I fell asleep the night before, I felt extremely overwhelmed by our last day in the parks. a) This was Mike's big work day where he left before we woke up and drove a couple of hours for meetings all day long. b) We needed to check out of our hotel before we went to the parks. c) It was pouring down rain with no sun to be seen all day long. I was on my own with two kids who were tired and didn't want to go back into the rain with no car, no hotel and no place to get out of the rain, and I was scared.

As it turned out, it was one of my favorite days. Because I knew that there was no way I could do everything the way we had been doing it, I eased up on my expectations for the day. Ahhhhh. A more relaxed mom makes for a more relaxed family.

After sending all of our luggage to the hotel's storage area, the first stop we made was to the hotel gift shop where I bought the kids those overpriced Disney ponchos. Oh, my! That was money so well spent. They were a much higher quality plastic that didn't cling to them and since they were kid-sized, they actually fit. They were so happy to have them that they didn't complain the whole day long!

We used this day as a greatest hits day where we revisited our favorite rides. Our first stop was Epcot where we rode Soarin, Nemo and Test Track again. It was so much fun! The kids were so happy to be picking what we did and we just had so much fun even through the downpours.

After Epcot we went back to Magic Kingdom since we had sort of been cheated there the day before. We got there in time for the parade, but only got the "Rainy Day Parade." So disappointing! I've seen all of my friends' pictures of the parades and had really been looking forward to seeing this one. Unfortunately, all we got was the characters riding in covered wagons and waving out the windows at us. What a letdown!

The kids chose to revisit Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Peter Pan and the teacups as well as adding Cinderella's carousel, Goofy's Barnstormer (multiple times in a row), the railroad, Toontown, Ariel's Grotto, and a new favorite - the Monsters Inc. show. It was hilarious!

I know it's less fun to read since Mike wasn't there to take pictures, but I actually took a few of my own. You'll be sure to note their high quality.

Getting Cinderella's autograph. She told Noah that he was "as handsome as prince charming!"



By the time we visited Ariel in her cave, Noah was out on princesses. He was fairly patient with Katie though since Ariel was now her favorite.



Mike rejoined us around 7pm. We almost didn't let him once we saw his makeshift poncho. Didn't I mention earlier that he is a geek?

It quit raining for the first time that day at around 8pm. We were ever so grateful and actually got to see the Spectromagic nighttime parade. It was so great.

Our only family pic of the trip without a Disney character, and it's not very good. Oh well.

We stayed for the fireworks show, and it was just so magical. The story and the music just make it so unique with the lights going off all around the castle. It really was a great way to end our Disney experience.

Of course, Mike was in agony because he didn't have his camera. He left it in the van because of the rain, but when the rain let up he couldn't believe he couldn't take pictures of the castle by night. I gave him mine but that really wasn't good enough. Oh well. You do with what you have.

And this last picture pretty well sums up the trip. Katie was completely wiped out and fell asleep not long after we loaded into the car. I believe it took me a good two weeks to respond happily to friends' questions about how the trip went. I have never done a more exhausting vacation in my life! But doing this blog has been so great. I have really enjoyed looking back on this trip and look forward to doing it again......... in SEVERAL years.

D - (not so) Magic Kingdom

Another day, another early rising for a Disney Magic Hours morning. This time we were headed to Magic Kingdom - finally! It was actually rather imperative that we get there as quickly as possible because we knew we were in for a day of rainy weather. And since it wasn't supposed to hit until around 9:00, we had to take advantage of that first hour in the park.

Off we go on the ferry! That was actually one of the best parts of staying at the Wilderness Lodge. It was very convenient to get everywhere.



Magic Kingdom was a really fun park to enter. The welcome show already had us smiling before we even walked in and then all the greetings of "Welcome, Princess!" were so fun for Katie. You just can't help but smile the whole way down Main Street.



We picked up fast passes to Peter Pan and then hit some of the smaller highlights for kids rides. Of course there was the mandatory Dumbo ride......




& the tea cups (which I couldn't count how many times they rode)



Astro Orbitter

They also hit the Tomorrowland Speedway and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin before we went back to Peter Pan's Flight. They both really loved this ride, and it was definitely one of Katie's favorites of the trip. I think a big part of it was that they got to ride it together with no parents. They really enjoyed the rare rides where they got to do that.

And then it started raining. Another example of me following the books is that I decided before we left that we weren't going to splurge on those expensive Disney ponchos, so I went to Target and bought 4 of the $1 one-size-fits all ponchos. Smart, huh? Not so much. These things were HUGE on the kids, so I had to tie them up. They were also very lightweight plastic and felt like an icky, cheap, cold trash bag on you all day long. The kids hated them!

See? Here is a miserable little girl begging to take hers off as we wait for the Mickey's Philharmagic show.

Luckily it did sort of die down every now and then. There were reprieves in there where we could take off the miserable ponchos and have some fun. We crammed so much into that day. We did the Haunted Mansion, Tom Sawyer's Island, The Magic Carpets of Aladdin, and the Swiss Family Treehouse.

With a lot of convincing, we managed to talk Noah into trying another roller coaster, and was it ever a hit! I believe he ranked this one as #2 on his top 4 list of rides in the Kingdom. It was the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. And he loved it!

He and Mike did it alone the first time, and they were convinced that it wouldn't scare Katie too much, so we all did it together. And they were right! She WAS scared, but she is so very proud of herself for riding it. If you ask her about Disney, she will be sure to mention this one. I think she felt very big that she could handle it.

Oh! I almost forgot this one. Outside of the Aladdin ride there was a camel statue that randomly spits water like one of the scenes from the movie. It's really funny to watch as unexpecting people walk by and suddenly get spit on. We sat and watched it for a while because Mike found it quite hilarious and REALLY wanted to get a picture of someone with their shocked face. He kept getting on to our kids for playing in it because they were ruining the surprise!

Well, the rain kept coming down. We decided to ride It's a Small World once during a particularly strong downpour just so we could get out of the rain (notice my very wet jeans). Noah still likes to mention this particular torture. He does a hilarious impersonation of the little robot children. I think this one could use a little updating, but Mike really enjoyed it because it was long and dark and he got a nice little nap.

I can't lie. We were pretty miserable by that afternoon. We were all tired, cold and wet, but I insisted that we stay to see the parade. Here is our one lame attempt at a family picture in front of Cinderella's castle. You can't tell it, but it's raining pretty hard here, and Mike couldn't talk the 3 of us into trying very hard. We didn't even have the patience to let him find someone to get a pic of all 4 of us. I do regret that now, hon!

Here is poor Katie waiting for the parade. She's in there. I promise.

So, after we waited on the curb in the rain for 30+ minutes, the powers that be cancelled the parade. Bummer! At this point we were all just miserable, so we just headed back to the hotel.

Here's our drenched little Katie-bug on the ferry ride home.

And she wasn't the only one who was miserable.

We got back to the hotel around 4:00 and stayed there the rest of the night. I did a lot more laundry and made some enemies in the laundry room by not getting my clothes out of the dryer fast enough, but we somehow survived. It turned out to be somewhat of a blessing to have some forced time in the hotel as it gave me time to get a lot of packing done. I don't know when I would have done it otherwise. Only one day to go!

D - Hollywood Studios

Day #3 was another early start with Disney Magic Hours at Hollywood Studios. Yep. We took advantage of that early morning time every day. It really is the best hour of the park for getting those major attractions knocked out. It was almost worth how tired I was!

After getting our fast pass to Toy Story Mania, we did the Star Wars attraction. Mike had to admit that he was a little giddy. Did you realize there's a little geek in him? Because Noah has never been a Star Wars fan we thankfully got to skip the long line that all the other boys his age were waiting in to do the jedi training. I'm guessing Mike was secretly a little disappointed in that.



Hollywood is a really fun atmosphere. The cityscapes set up throughout are just amazing. Having been in San Fransisco a few years ago, it was really cool to see this view. It looked remarkably real.



Before we left on this trip I made the kids watch the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids because I knew there were a couple of different attractions related to it. They really loved the movie's playground adventure set here.



Here we are waiting for the Indiana Jones Stunt show to start. This show was great for Mike and I, but the kids really couldn't get it. They didn't understand that movies are made with actors playing a part and definitely couldn't grasp this show that skipped back and forth between talking to the characters as actors making a movie and then shooting scenes for that movie.

It DID, however, peak their interest in Indiana Jones. Since we got home, they've both watched the movies a couple of times. Katie really loves them.

After lunch we took our fast passes back over to Toy Story and it was another family favorite of all the parks. It was so much fun!

And here is where the Hollywood pictures end. Did I mention that this was a business trip for Mike? He left us at this point and went to a meeting. The kids and I had a couple of unique Disney experiences at this point that were such fun for us.

As we hustled our way to the Beauty & The Beast show, Katie fell and scraped her knee. It was bleeding a little, so I asked some of the people working in front of the show if they knew where I could get a bandaid. They wanted to walk me over to the first aid station, but it would take too long and we would miss the show. I told them that I would just take her when it was over because it really wasn't that bad (but you know about the magical healing properties of bandaids, right?). So, they seated us in the VIP section of the show, and the seats were awesome! Afterwards, they walked us through the backlots because it was a much faster route to the first aid station. It was so cool!

Once we got Katie bandaged up, I realized that we were right next to the guest services office. Because Noah had lost his OU hat the day before at Hollywood, I went in to see if they had it. While we were there, I saw a woman flipping through a book of Disney pins which Noah had been collecting and trading (FUN!). I asked the customer service rep if those were lost pins because Noah had lost one of his favorites a couple of days earlier at Animal Kingdom, and if they kept them we might be able to go back and get it.

She regretfully told me that the book was not for lost pins and that none of the parks had anything like that. Bummer! Then she got out a pad and started writing and told us to hang on for a minute. She gave us a $25 voucher for a new pin! Since pins only cost about $6, Noah was able to get a set of 4 pins with his voucher. He was so pumped! And on top of that, when he was shopping for those pins, he found another one of the one he had lost and was able to get that too. Those are our 2 favorite stories of the awesome Disney service that you always hear about.

And now back to our narrative....This was the only day of our trip that we heeded the advice of our books and went back to the hotel to relax a little. I needed to do some laundry, and the kids REALLY wanted to swim so it was nice. In hind sight, we should have done this every day, but it's just so hard to stop!

After our relaxing afternoon and reuniting with Mike, we went back to Epcot for dinner in the world showcase and the Illuminations show. It was fantastic.

It didn't' start until very late and Katie was so sleepy that she fell asleep in the middle of the loudest fireworks show ever. We love this picture that Mike caught of her as she leaned against her light saber from pure exhaustion.

This was another wonderful day. I really love Disney by night - so beautiful!

D - Epcot

So it turns out that it's a really good thing I'm finally doing this, because I've already forgotten a lot of the details of this trip. Because we made multiple trips to Epcot, they're all sort of blending together in my mind, and I can't remember exactly what we did when. Oh well.

I know day 2 started out for us with an early morning princess breakfast. Noah was thrilled.


In my mind anyhow, this breakfast was a highlight of the trip. Not only was the buffet beautiful with an enormous selection of delicious foods, but my daughter was just thrilled to be there. It was so fun.



These princesses are wonderful actresses, and you really feel like they are royal hostesses welcoming you into their castle.

Here's Katie with her former favorite princess, Sleeping Beauty.




Here's Noah with his favorite (& Mike's, who forced him to pose for this picture).



Katie's new favorite princess - Ariel. Actually, my favorite moment of the breakfast was when Ariel asked Noah if it was his idea to come to the breakfast. His face was horror-stricken. It was hilarious!

After breakfast we did what turned out to be our favorite rides in all of the parks - Test Track, Soarin' and Finding Nemo.

Guess whose seatbelts are on Test Track?

Yes, he made the ride lady hold up a seatbelt and smile.

This was Noah's #1 ride in all of the parks. We rode it 3 times for him.

It wasn't Katie's favorite the first time through, but she rode it all 3 times with us and actually grew to enjoy it.

Mike took a picture of our family pic that the ride auto-snaps. I don't really consider it a coincidence that he was taking a picture right as they caught us. It probably would have been more of a long shot if he hadn't been.

Katie's favorite ride in all of the lands was Finding Nemo. We also rode it 3 times.

I think my favorite ride has to be Soarin. It was such an amazing experience. At first I thought I was going to be terrified because it started going up like a ferris wheel. And. I. Don't. Do. Ferris Wheels. Luckily though, it stopped that motion pretty quickly, and I was able to relax and enjoy it for what it was. So unique!

Noah had fun playing in the fountains after we tortured Katie with another 3d show - Honey I Shrunk the Audience.

From here I'm pretty sure we wandered through some of the countries for a little bit in the world showcase before going to Hollywood Studios for dinner at the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater. We weren't all that impressed, and after this dinner we just cancelled the rest of our sit-down meals. We decided that all Disney must get their food from the same vendor so it really just didn't taste that much different wherever you went. Maybe we just didn't go to the right places, but we decided to save some money and not have to be somewhere at a scheduled time and just eat at the fast-foodish places for the rest of the trip. It worked for us.

We made it back to Epcot 2 other times during our trip. Noah and I actually both rank it as our favorite park. It really gets a bum reputation as being outdated, and I couldn't recommend it enough. It is absolutely beautiful and I LOVED the world showcase and wish I could have spent MUCH more time there (& eaten LOTS more).