Disney Trip

Oh, my- where to start?!  We had an awesome week at Disney World!  It was so much fun!  Seriously- so fun.  Joe and I and the older two kids had a great week together.  Joe's parents were gracious enough to make a trip down and watch Troy for the week while we went.  I missed the little guy so much, but I said to myself at least 100 times a day that I am so glad Troy was not with us.  We saw a ton of people with crabby toddlers and hot and tired babies and it made me happy that Troy was in his comfort zone at home with undivided attention from Nana and Papa.  Leaving Troy at home gave us four the opportunity to race around the park from ride to ride and get up really early and stay really late at the parks.  We could also all go on the rides and not have to have someone stay behind with Troy. 

This is going to be a really long post, but I have to get it all down so we remember it in 20 years! So here goes!

On Sunday, we got up early and got the car packed up and left!

It took us about 7 1/2 hours to get to our hotel.  We stayed at the Coronado Springs in Animal Kingdom.  It was a neat hotel with a great pool and water slide.  It also had some huge fake rocks in the front of our room and the kids (especially Tate) loved climbing and playing on the rocks.  In fact, a couple of the days we would be at a park and Tate wanted to know when we could go back to the hotel to play on the rocks. (we could have probably found some huge rocks closer to our house and for a lot cheaper, since that seemed to be one of his favorite parts, but whatever)

That night we had reservations at Rainforest Cafe.  The kids weren't super thrilled about the restaurant because it has a thunderstorm every 30 minutes and there was a loud elephant right by our table.

Monday morning we got up super early to be at the Magic Kingdom by 7:00.  Since we stayed at a Disney resort, we had extra magic hours from 7-8 each morning that week.  It was definitely the right choice to get there super early because we got on most of the rides we wanted to without any wait.  By about 9:30 we had been on a ton of rides already.  Then we happened upon Ariel and Prince Eric and Tinkerbell and Terence.  We waited in line a little bit to meet them, but it was in the shade so it was comfortable.

Bright and early at Magic Kingdom

The Buzz Lightyear ride was their favorite!

Prince Eric and Ariel

Terence from Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell

What handsome men!

The Pirates of the Caribbean ride

We had lunch and went back to the hotel room to take a nap because we knew we wanted to go back to the Magic Kingdom in the evening for the parade and fireworks.  It was an awesome parade and the kids loved it.  They also loved seeing Tinkerbell fly from the castle before the fireworks.

Tuesday morning we had reservations for a Princess breakfast in Epcot.  Adria was so excited!  She put on her princess dress and her fancy new mickey ears.  (I know Tate was pretty excited, too!)  The breakfast was a really good buffet/family style breakfast and while we were eating, the princesses came around one by one to your table for autographs and pictures.  Adria literally ate two bites the entire time.  She couldn't stop looking around.  This was by far one of the highlights of our trip!

First thing in the morning at Epcot

Belle

Princess Aurora

Adria and Cinderella (this is my favorite picture)

Snow White

Ariel

After the breakfast, we walked around Epcot and did a few of the attractions there.  Then we started to walk around to some of the countries and found Jasmine and Aladdin!

Princess Jasmine and Aladdin

I love this picture of Tate!

We left Epcot pretty early because it wasn't the most interesting place for the kids to be.  Then we went to Downtown Disney to shop around and eat at the T-Rex restaurant.  It was such a cool place to eat.  We ate in the ice cave part and it looked like we were surrounded by ice and every so often there would be a meteor shower.  And they had all sorts of dinosaurs situated around the place.  Very cool.

LegoLand at Downtown Disney

In the ice cave at T-Rex

On Wednesday, we got up early and went to Animal Kingdom.  We went on an awesome safari and looked around at all the animals.  Then we went to a 3D show of "It's a Bug's Life".  It was there that we found out our kids do not like 3D.  We ended up leaving after a couple of minutes!  We also went to the Lion King show.  It was fantastic!  The kids loved it and it was a really entertaining 30 minutes.

In front of the Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom

Safari

Tate found Pluto!

Later that afternoon we went to Hollywood Studios.  Since we got there so late, we missed most of the shows and all the lines were too long.  The kids did play in a playground from "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids".  They thought that was cool.  And we did get to see the Little Mermaid show.  The kids also got to see The Green Army Man from Toy Story.  For some reason this guy made me laugh!  He signed the autograph book as "The Green Army Man".  And on his shoes he had a big piece of plastic just like the little plastic army figures do to keep them standing up.  I found this hilarious for some reason.  We left the park early though because we were sooooo tired.

Hollywood Studios

The Green Army Man from Toy Story

On Thursday, we got up really early again to be at the Magic Kingdom at 7.  We rode a bunch of rides over and over and over.  Adria rode her first roller coaster!  We went on that a couple times in a row because she loved it!  She is a thrill ride person (my kind of girl!).  Tate- not so much.  If he doesn't know exactly what is going to happen, he is very uncomfortable.  And he has motion sickness so that doesn't help.  Although I was really proud of him and he did a lot more than I thought he would.

In front of the castle at Magic Kingdom

After a couple hours at Magic Kingdom, we had reservations at Chef Mickey's to eat with Mickey and his friends.  That breakfast was sooo much fun and the kids got autographs and pictures with all the characters!  Tate said it was one of his favorite things and it was one of my favorites, too.

Tate's shirt says "I'm with Goofy" with a finger pointing at Goofy!

Family Pic with Mickey!

That afternoon we waited in line for over an hour to meet Rapunzel.  Adria wanted to really bad and we didn't have anything else planned, so we waited and waited.  It wasn't bad because there was shade and a place to sit and Rapunzel was worth the wait!

After that we were pretty tired so we just went back to our hotel and went to the pool.  The kids went down the water slide no less than 25 times!  They were loving it. 

On Friday, we packed up and headed home!

Look at those sad faces!  We don't want to leave!

Our hotel

Our room at the hotel

What a great family trip!  The kids did awesome and it was fun to hang out all together.  And we were so happy to get home to Troy!  We all missed him so much.  In the car on the way home we were arguing about who was going to get to him first to pick him up and kiss him.  We are so appreciative to Joe's parents for coming down to watch him.  I think they had a great time hanging out with Troy and getting to know him.  Next time, we will have to bring Troy along!