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Tuesday, December 30, 2014

DISNEY!!

Nana and Pops took us all on a trip to DISNEY!!!  Nana, Pops, Hunter, Fisher, Tyler and the 4 of us headed out for the 5 hour drive about 8 AM kids in tow, and not having a clue where they were going!  The excitement was killing me!

The kids were great on the way down there...they watched movies and Colt mostly played on the iPad.  We stopped and got McDonalds to go and crazy enough a whole happy meal fits in a Snackee!  We got the fries, chicken nuggets and chocolate milk in there:)  Sweet!

We finally told the kids about 30 minutes out of Disney.  Josh asked Colt if he could choose one place to go in the whole world where would it be?  Colt's response...Disney World.  So we told them, that's right!  They both were very excited.  Colt immediately started playing on the iPad again and we were like, what are you doing?  Aren't you excited?  He remembered that there was an App of a virtual tour of Disney on the iPad and already had it open looking around!  Ha:)  So cute and smart!  Addie really doesn't know too much about Disney World but she was excited too.  She started singing (in a whispering voice) "Disney World, Disney World....all the way!"  Now to get there!  Traffic started getting crazy! 



Finally Addie and Colt took a little nap.

We are here!  Finally...along with the rest of the world!


We stayed at the Disney's Port Orleans Riverside Resort.  It was very nice!  Plenty of room for the 4 of us, a pool, place to eat, access to the Ferry to go downtown.  Josh and I realized that this was the first time they had stayed in a hotel.  They were too cute checking out the phone, pretending like they were calling people.  Colt said it said it smelled good, but I had to disagree!  Addie's first words when we walked in was "They don't have any toys!"

At Disney, you get these cups that you can fill up at any Resort.  It was nice to be able to use these instead of buying a drink everywhere we went.


A little snack before we head out.  We did have fast passes to a few rides the day we got there, but we missed most of them.  Just hard to plan for 9 people.


First stop...Magic Kingdom of course!  The crowd was nuts!! 

But Cinderella's Castle was beautiful!  They had it lit up for a Frozen Sing Along event with Anna and Elsa.  It was beautiful!  It was too crowded for us to really go and watch.



While Colt and the others had a fast pass for a ride to Big Thunder Mountain, Addie, Nana and I went to see Rapunzel and Cinderella at the Fairy Tell Hall.  Addie wasn't quite tall enough for some of the rides.  But nothing could beat this moment!  It was so sweet and the princesses were extremely nice and friendly too Addie:)  And Addie absolutely loved it!  This was probably my favorite part of the trip.









Colt was so excited about the ride...he went on and on about how he actually went "through" a mountain and zoomed around.  We ate a quick meal at The Columbia Barbour House.  This was considered one of our "quick-meals."  It was pretty good, they have a good system going.  I had the shrimp-lobster mac n cheese.  The kids ended up eating ALL of their food...rare.  Later Colt, Josh and Pops rode Barnstormer while Addie and I rode Dumbo.  I love riding and seeing things that I rode/saw when I was a child:)  When I told her we were riding, she jumped A LOT yelling "Dumbo Dumbo Dumbo!!"  I really don't think she even knows who Dumbo is?  After that all of us rode The Seven Dwarfs roller coaster!  This was FUN!  And really cute, later I found out this ride just opened and the wait time was over 100 minutes.  Crazy luckily we had a fast pass.  Nana said she had to close her eyes.  I was worried about Addie, I sat with her of course.  But as we were going I would check on her and she was just a laughing!  At time when we were getting jerked around, she could barely keep her head straight, but she didn't care!  The last thing we did before we called it a night, was "ride" Lilo and Stitch.  Which it wasn't really a ride and it wasn't very good.  Addie got a little freaked out because they turn the lights completely out.  We were just ready to get out of there.  It was pretty late at that point...10:30 pm.  As we were leaving we caught the Fantasy of Lights parade.  Amazing!

 Saturday

We got a late start...but we didn't go to bed until about midnight!  But the kids are ready to go!


Addie loves riding the bus!  She said "this is fun!"  We headed to Hollywood Studios.  We went were we had reservations and we wanted to hit up all the parks anyway.





Looks like I'm wearing the hat!  We basically got there right in time for our reservations at Hollywood and Vine, which was a character meal. 

Sophia!  What a great costume!  Addie was terrified at Sophia...screamed and would NOT let go of me!  It was sad, I was sad...first character and she hates it???

Colt took this pic with Jake just for us...even though he didn't want to.
 Change of heart!  Addie decided she liked Doc McStuffins...hugged, talked to her...after that we were golden with the characters!  Now...she wanted to see Sophia again.



 There was a huge line to see Goofy (Santa Goofy) so we just took a pic with him from afar.  See him in the background:)
 Nana loved these two...Mike and Sully.


We went to Frozen Underground where the kids played in the "snow."  Colt was dying to do this, but it wasn't that great.  Oh well...I'm sure he didn't mind.



Taking a break for a sec.

Colt and Josh ended up going to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground...now this place was neat!

Break time!  There is a lot of walking around here!


Optical allusion! 


Nana and Pops took the kids back to the hotel to get a nap in and Josh and I and Hunter and his kids went to Animal Kingdom.  I really wanted to take a nap, but also wanted to do something without the kids...


This tree was pretty neat, it looked fake and real all at the same time.  When you get close it had tons of animals carved into it.


Not sure how I got talked into this one, but we rode this thing and it was exciting!  Mount Everest....whoa!  Pretty sure there was screaming involved.


We also rode Dinosaur which was pretty good.  Josh thought it was pretty funny that I was actually scared of the all the Dinosaurs but they got really close to me!  We headed back to the hotel around 6pm to check on the kids.  They were up and ready to go.  We ended up eating at the hotel in the cafeteria and headed back to Hollywood Studios to at 9:00 to watch Fantasmic.  It was VERY good!  Thankfully Mickey saved the day:)  We also rode Great American Movie, which was ok, I think Nana and Pops enjoyed it.  Once again...got home at midnight!
 Addie was a little scared watching fantasmic mainly because it was dark and loud.

Great American Movie


I took these pics of our shampoo and soap because I thought it was so cute.  Disney thinks of everything!


Hotel life...I love staying in a hotel...and I think the kids enjoyed it too.  Addie slept with me and Colt slept with Josh.


Sunday

The next morning I promised the kids I would take them swimming.  I think they would be happy doing this the whole time.  They had a really cool slide that both Addie and Colt enjoyed.  They are just too cute!  I didn't mention how nice the weather was!  I got in the pool too and it felt great!




Once everyone was up...we headed to Animal Kingdom again.  Everyone rode Dinosaur (Addie was too short), while Addie and I found other things to keep us busy.

The Boys...


The Girls...


Pops had the HARDEST time getting in every park.  Poor thing, it wouldn't read his fingerprint.

We found Donald!  Addie just lays on them:)



We also got to ride a similar ride like Dumbo called Triceratops Spin.

We headed back to the hotel for naps around 3:30 then off to Epcot to eat at Captains Grill.  Now THIS place was good!  I got crab cakes...yummy!

The kids got this yummy dessert!

I think Epcot was one of my favorite places.


We went on Finding Nemo ride.  This ride was actually a treat!  The ride itself was pretty cute, taking you through clips of the movie Finding Nemo which we have watched 100's of times.  Then when you get off you step into a huge aquarium. 





Once again...the boys went on a ride called "Soarin" while Nana, Addie and I ventured out.  We just happened to go into this buiding that said "Character Hot Spot" and got to see Mickey, Goofie and Minnie!  I was so excited!  Nothing beats watching Addie with these guys!














We got home late once again...just night owls these days! 

Addie's Peppa set up...

Monday

Bad, bad, bad move!  We thought, Hey lets try driving to Magic Kingdom instead of taking the bus system.  BAD idea!  The bus system is a little frustrating because you have to wait for a bus, and whatever bus you are on has to make several stops at other bus stations before you actually get to your destination.  Well, Magic Kingdom probably wasn't the best place to try to test driving out.  We FINALLY get somewhere in the car with tons and tons of traffic to park and find out we have to get on a stinkin' bus anyway to take us to the entrance of Magic Kingdom.  Ugh.  It probably took us over an hour to get there.


We finally walk through the gates.  



When you go to Disney World, you just HAVE to ride It's a Small World.




We also rode Jungle Cruise which just takes you in a boat through a little river, our tour guy was hilarious...that was the best part of the ride:)  Then we ran into this!  It was very cute! 

Josh loved it because he used to watch the Swiss Family Robinson show a lot growing up.

On her phone...


We ate at the Columbia Harbour House again...this place is so packed we went to where we know.  Nana, Addie and I headed back to the place to get a nap in while the boys stayed.  Colt really wanted to ride another roller coaster so Josh was in.  They chose Space Mountain and Colt was barely tall enough to ride (by 1/2 inch).  Josh said they stood in line for 2 hours!!!  And Colt did not complain a bit.  Colt ended up riding in the very front and loved every second.



Making plans

The girls heading back:)



That night we had reservations at Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney.  I really liked downtown also, lots of shopping and site seeing.  We went to Goofy's Candy Store and the Lego store. 




Yummy dessert for the kids!

Legos!




Nana and I sporting our Minnie and Mickey shirts:)




We took the Ferry back to the hotel.  This was the last night:(  It was fun riding the boat.  At this point Addie kind of took to Tyler :)


When we got back, this lady painting Caricatures so we had to get it done.  This lady was super sweet to both kids.


We went to be LATE again!  It was about 12:30!

The next morning we packed up and ate at the cafeteria at the hotel.  They make the cutest waffles.  Breakfast was delicious!  Then we headed back to Dothan.

In our PJ's:)
 
 
Disney World was so much fun!  I would not recommend going at Christmas time, we didn't get to do everything we wanted.  More rides would have been fun!  They told us that into January when school just starts back is the best time to go!  The kids didn't care and had a blast anyway.  This will be a time we will always remember!