Visiting the Big Mouse

WARNING: Blogger and I are NOT getting along. I have tried several times to leave spaces for paragraphs and Blogger keeps combining them. Sorry, that should make it interesting to read. :( Oh, Spring break...a very much needed week away from it all. We headed to Orlando bright and early on a Sunday (March 27) morning. Ron and I were up before 4 and the kiddos got up at 4:45. We were on the road just after 5 a.m. on our way to the airport. We made it to Orlando and started looking around for our name. You see, Ron had decided to surprise the children with a limo to our hotel. Besides being super cool, we thought it would help us beat some of the lines. Well, the agent who helped us with our trip had failed to pay attention to details. Ron had sent her our flight info and she apparently told the car company an earlier arrival time. Ron learned that the driver had waited an hour for us and then marked us as a no-show. So, we headed for the bus line. Of course, while standing there waiting, Veronica decided she needed to use the facilities. Ugh...off we ran to locate one as quickly as humanly possible as to not miss the bus. Whew...we made it. Upon arriving at the hotel, the children were thrilled to receive balloon animals during check-in. The girls each chose a dog, Emerson got a teddy bear, and Max got a sword balloon. Let the fun begin! We stayed at the All Star Music Resort as that was the one that could fit our "large" family in a suite. We spent some time in the piano pool. I am not a water person; but, I hopped in to help. Ron is a tad outnumbered these days. :) The three oldest had a blast and after awhile Emerson even warmed up to it. He especially liked splashing his sibs. After a quick picture with the Ariel statue and change of clothing, we headed for dinner and then back to the room. Monday was wet from start to finish. We braved it none-the-less. We munched on food that we had taken with us as everyone got ready and then we were off. We were not going to let the rain stop us! No way! It all paid off. Although we were soaked by the end of the day, we were able to walk onto many rides that usually require waiting hours. It was so awesome to be able to hop from ride to ride. We got way more done on that first full day than we thought we would the entire trip! The only disappointment for the day was that we had not met Jessie and Woody from Toy Story. That was the first thing we wanted to do; but, due to the weather, the characters were not out and about. (I laid in bed that night trying to figure out what I was going to do if we could not find them on Wednesday, our next and last day at Magic Kingdom, as if there would really be anything I could do. As a parent though, you really do want your children's dreams to come true and this was Veronica's dream.) We had lunch at the Liberty Tree Tavern...yummy! We decided things were going to get a bit chilly as the sun started to go down. We opted to head back to the hotel for dinner. As we were finishing up, the staff started a game of Disney trivia. Ron took the older two kiddos as the littles and I finished dinner. Eventually, we all ended up over there. I will tell you what Ron, Max, and Sydney rocked that game! They ended up winning and received "Yatzee" as a price. Great job!!!! Epcot was the plan for day 2. We love this place! We started our day by meeting some of the characters. Ironically, we ran into another family from our church and school. Too funny! We never did bump into them again after that monstrous line to see the characters. We had lunch at the Rose and Crown Pub. We had to wait so long to get in even though we had reservations, were there when they opened, and there were a ton of open tables. Go figure. Around the park, we had fun seeing the different countries and reminiscing over previous trips. I have to say the 360 degree video (VERY similar to the set-up in Xian) in "China" almost had me in tears. It was more emotional for me than I thought it would be. Just knowing we had been there to pick up one of our children was too much to handle. We tried to drink some adult beverages in "Japan" but wowsers I for one would not have remembered much more if I had finished it. I thought it had a coconut after taste which was nice but it was way too strong for our palettes! Sydney really got a kick out of watching the lady harvesting pearls. We had to peel her away from that. We could not stop in "Germany" without getting pretzels and beer. We are all for celebrating different cultures. Hee, hee! Max was very disappointed that the pretzels were not filled with chunks of butter as they were in Munich. (Given the fact that I came back with a few extra pounds from Disney as it was, I am glad the butter was not in there. I do agree the butter does make the pretzels ever so tasty though. Yummy!) We ate dinner at the Marrakesh. Max did not enjoy the food here at all. Emerson fell asleep during the meal. Sydney learned to belly dance. She was actually taken up front by the actual dancer along with other young girls! Veronica was invited, but wanted nothing to do with it. After some much needed sleep, we were off to Magic Kingdom again. This time we were having a character breakfast with the friends from the "100 Acre Woods". It was so funny because I could not relax and enjoy the food from the buffet until all the characters had been to our table. There was just too much to remember to do in the split second that they stand next to you...autographs, pictures, oh, my! I loved the little Mickey waffles. So cute, although not very tasty. Bummer. Again, we had to make a break for the restrooms right before the characters reached us. Veronica thought she could wait; but, at the last second, changed her mind. We made it again. Whew. (How did I gain weight with all the walking and running/rushing?!) Veronica said her favorite character from breakfast was Piglet because he is small like her. Once our bellies were full, it was off to search for Woody and Jessie. Guess what?! We found the spot where they were going to be. :) Of course, it was out in the sun; so, we headed for shade and put on sunblock. Then, we saw it...the line was starting to form. Run...hurry...we are NOT going to miss out on seeing them. Okay, that was a bit more dramatic then it needed to be. We were the second family in line. We waited and waited and waited. They were late!!!! Probably not by much; but, it seemed like forever. Thank God we had done all that other stuff on Monday; so, I did not feel as bad just standing there. Oh, I wish you could have seen little Veronica when she got to meet them. She was beaming from ear to ear. "Dreams do come true." It was nice that day to be able to just pick and choose what we wanted to do knowing we had already covered the basis. Ron, Max, and Sydney went on the Pirates of Caribbean again. The littles and I caught the pirate show right outside while we waited. We were able to go on the Buzz Lightyear ride again which is a fun one. We took Ron and Sydney on the Peoplemover which we had done on Monday while the two of them rode Space Mountain. We, also, took them on the Carousel of Progress which we had, also, done on Monday while they rode the roller coaster. Unfortunately, Emerson did not fall asleep this time. On Monday, he had fallen asleep for just a few minutes. Ron, Max, and Sydney went on Space Mountain. In the meantime, the littles and I walked through one of the shops. We checked on the Stitch ride; but, Emerson was too small. Plus, I had read that it is not too good for little ones. I have never been on it; so, I was going to ask. It turned out I did not have to worry about it on this trip. The three of us wandered back over to the Tea Cup ride. After some more browsing through the stores, we decided to take the kiddos on the monorail for a ride. We rode it to Epcot. Boy, oh boy, that became an interesting trip. Just as we were heading down the ramps you could see the rain coming in. We starting briskly walking/jogging to the bus stop. Wowsers, the storm that came next was NASTY. Once we were on the bus, another mom told us that there was a tornado warning. Fun, fun.

Our trip home became an adventure in and of itself. First, we did get to use the limo service to the airport. Very cool! The TVs helped keep the children's minds off the storm outside and the fact that they were up early leaving a very fun place. Next, at the airport in Orlando, we sat ON the plane AT the gate for 3 hours!!!! Max, Emerson, and I did go for a tour up in the cockpit which was cool; but, that was within the first 5 minutes of being told we were not going anywhere. Ugg! When we finally did take off, we obviously had missed our connecting flight in the next state. They could not get us all together on a flight. We were told we could wait around until 10:30 that night in hopes to get on the flight then or they could get us on a 6:00 flight in the morning. Yep, we opted to go to the hotel and at least get some sleep. We ordered in dinner...Indian for Mom and Dad and Italian for the kiddos. We enjoyed dinner while watching a movie and then it was off to bed. I was awaken around 11 or 11:30 with the two little ones both crying. It turned out that Sydney had practically pushed Veronica out of the bed they were sharing. Besides being bad for Veronica, this was not a pleasant wake-up call for Emerson who was sleeping on the floor by Veronica's side of the bed. Can you imagine having someone fall on top of you while you were sound asleep?! Oh, my! Sydney slept through all of it. God bless her! LOL!

Here comes the really fun part...we got to fly over our state in order to go to a different state/airport to catch another flight home. Fun, huh? We had to hang out there for awhile and then we finally made it home a day later than originally planned.

Fun things to remember: - The first character we met, Pluto, about devoured Emerson. Pluto actually stuck his whole mouth over Emerson's head. Needless to say, Emerson was NOT a huge fan of that. - We rented a double stroller for our three days in the park. The child who enjoyed it the most...Sydney. - Our favorite rides...the tea cups (Ron, Julie, Veronica, and Emerson...EVERYONE had a blast on this!!!!), Pirates of the Caribbean (Max), and Space Mountain (Sydney) - Poor Veronica screamed at the Haunted Mansion in the stretching room and buried her head in my lap the entire ride. She, also, did not care for the Pirates of the Caribbean. She had buried her head for that one too. :( - Emerson falls asleep as soon as the plane takes off. No joke! It cracked us up how quickly he was out. - Max loved how you could hear the people on Space Mountain screaming as you ride on the Peoplemover. Pictures to come later as this is already long enough. :)