05.29.09 Walt Disney World - Animal Kingdom

Another bright and early morning! We had planned to go to Hollywood Studios on this day, but we found out last night that the winner of American Idol was supposed to be there today, and it was going to be so extremely busy, so we switched our schedule up a bit since none of us really cared to fight the crowds. I think everyone was extremely tired today. Up until now, we'd done really well - we never really had much time just sitting around trying to decide what to do, etc, but today, no one really wanted to take the lead, the kids were all REALLY tired, and grumpy, too. Okay, admittedly some of the adults were, too! :-)

It started out great! We headed up to "Africa" for the Kilimanjaro Safari because we heard the animals are most active in the morning. It was incredible! Grant was afraid at first, but after he figured out that we were seeing animals, he came alive! It's so neat how you drive right up with the animals. I've heard sometimes they're so close you could touch them! It's one of my favorite rides at Disney, for sure. Grant just kept talking about the "Crapadiles" (crocadiles) that we got to see. The fun treasure for today was animal print sunglasses and visors to wear at the Animal Kingdom. We all looked pretty silly, but we had fun!

We ran back to see the Lion King, but it had started 5 minutes before we got there, so we couldn't get in. So we went to see "It's Tough Being a Bug" which is inside the famous Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom. I loved it. Grant hated it!

After that, we had signed up for a picnic lunch, so we went back up to Africa to pick it up and eat. It was a lovely lunch. We had planned to go back to see the Lion King, but Grant and Mason were both really grumpy, and Jason and Kendra were taking their kids back to the hotel, so we went with them. So we didn't really get to see much of the Animal Kingdom unfortunately. On our way out, we did get to see Brer Rabbit, one of my dad's favorite characters. So I was glad to get his autograph and picture.

We did go back and all four of us took a good 2 hour nap. When we woke up, we took the kids swimming, which was a big hit! I think if all we did was swim all week, Grant would have been happy, as long as a few characters were thrown in there, too! After our afternoon of rest, we got dressed and went to Ohana's for dinner. It's at the Polynesian resort, so we waited for our bus (which took absolutely forever) then boarded the tram to go to the Polynesian. This, too, took a while. It resulted in us being about 5 minutes late. No worries. They were running behind anyway. So we waited a long time. Mason was screaming because he wanted to eat/drink. Grant was antsy, and I was already going nuts. We hadn't even sat down yet. Finally dad went to check how long it would be and it seemed they skipped over us and had taken our name off the list. Ugh. We finally got to sit down and eat. But Mason was still screaming, so I finally had to take him out. Mom came out and suggested letting her try with Mason. Sometimes kids behave better when they're not with their parents, and it helped immensely. Unfortunately, Grant and Chris weren't having a very good time, either. Grant wouldn't eat anything except bread, and it wasn't going well. It was a stressful dinner for me, which disappointed me because the food was delicious, and I had a beautiful view overlooking Cinderella's castle. Eating at fancy restaurants with small children is so difficult! But the food was great! They served all sorts of different meats that they brought out on huge skewers and placed right on your plate. The veggies were incredible, and the pineapple-coconut bread was out of this world. And we had bread pudding with icecream and caramel sauce for dessert. Unfortunately, we had to rush it a little bit because we wanted to make it to the Magic Kingdom for the fireworks. We made it with merely minutes to spare. The park was open until 1:00, so we stayed until about 11:30, shopped for some souvenirs, enjoyed the cooler weather, and had fun "hooking" Grandpa! (Grant got a "hook" to wear on his hand).

05.28.09 Walt Disney World - Magic Kingdom

I forgot to mention the major mishap of the trip that occurred last evening: Dan came back from Epcot and prepared to go swimming. He was hungry so he reached for his wallet, only to find that it was not anywhere to be found. We searched the room for a good long while, he retraced his steps, thinking that he remembered it getting off the bus, they called the hotel and reported it missing, but it was nowhere to be found. It included their Disney world tickets, their room keys, their meal plan cards, their ID's (which they needed to board the plane back home) and their credit cards, along with a $300 gift card. Ugh! Disney reissued them their tickets/meals/keys so that was a relief, but the other stuff was nowhere to be found. The next several days were spent looking all over the parks and room and calling various lost and founds trying to locate the missing wallet. We were all sick about it. Poor Dan and Stef. Luckily, they were able to have the gift card cancelled and reissued, their credit cards put on hold and the airline worked with them to avoid needing a picture ID. Whew! They were lucky despite the unlucky circumstances.

What a wonderful day today was!! We got up bright and early this morning to hit the Extra Morning Magic Hours. We had a great surprise when we woke up. "Mickey Mouse" had visited our room while we were sleeping and left a present for Grant and Mason! They opened it up and found Buzz Lightyear. Now I'm not talking about any Buzz Lightyear. I mean the REAL Buzz Lightyear toy that talks, etc. Chris and I had talked before we went and had decided that we didn't want to buy a bunch of stuff in the parks, so we were so excited when Mickey was so thoughtful to bring the souvenirs directly to our rooms - wrapped an everything! :-) It was just like Christmas! The boys were thrilled. Grant's face lit up so preciously when he saw Buzz. He plays with him non-stop! The only problem is, he was for both the boys, but Grant has claimed him as "MINE!" and poor Mason doesn't get to see him too often.

We were instructed to bring the kids to mom and dad's room as soon as they woke up. We weren't supposed to dress them, brush their teeth, or anything - just send them over with their clothes and any thing else that was necessary and they'd be taken care of. When we came to get them to eat breakfast, we found all four kids up on mom and dad's bed with laniards around their necks, sorting out pins for trading, putting little disney characters on their crocs, and very excited for the treasures that they had found in the pirate treasure chest that morning. Pirate Grandma and Pirate Aunt Stefi had may treasures up their sleeves for each day! The kids could hardly wait to see what the treasure was each day, and in fact, they checked the treasure chest multiple times daily to see if something else had appeared!

After waiting a few minutes for the bus, we were on our way. As soon as we reached Disney World, the music started playing, and as we approached, we saw Mickey Mouse and his friends standing at the top of a building, singing a song and welcoming us to Walt Disney World. I stood there with tears in my eyes, as I always do, filled with the excitement and emotion of being at the most magical place on earth. These emotions were merely compounded when Grant, who was so excited to be seeing Mickey Mouse, couldn't control the joy that he felt; his whole body went stiff and his arms and legs were moving about a mile a minute while he shrieked in a high pitched, very excited voice, "There's my Mickey mouse, mommy! MY Mickey MOUSE!!" He just couldn't wait to get inside. Once we did make it inside, we got to see Pinocchio and Pluto right away. We also got to see Mary Poppins. Interestingly, Grant has no fear of these huge, grossly proportioned characters such as Pinocchio or Pluto. They can't talk, they look funny, and they're huge. But he loves them. And strangely, he found ways to communicate. For example, Daisy Duck was flirting with him, and touched her finger to her lip and somehow, Grant understood that she wanted him to kiss her, and he planted a big one right there on her beak! But Mary Poppins, who is a beautiful, normal looking person who can talk, interact, etc, he didn't want anything to do with. You'd think he'd be just fine with Mary Poppins - afterall, she's just like his mother, for goodness sake! ;-)

Incidentally, I was amazed to watch the characters - both human and cartoon in how they portrayed their character. They put themselves into the characters incredibly. The female characters acted so very female, prancing around, swinging their hips as they walked, holding their hands and arms like a princess, etc. Pluto acted like a fun loving dog, Goofy acted just like Goofy and Buzz Lightyear was just as macho as could be! I was really amazed! I found them very believable, and I was thrilled to see them...and I knew that there was a person in there just like you and me. But even I wanted the autograph of Buzz Lightyear and Mary Poppins. Strange to think I could have signed it myself and it be just the same. But somehow, the character becomes real when you see them in costume, and it's thrilling to meet them - ordinary as they are!

We explored Main Street for a while, learned about trading pins and how you should look for the hidden Mickey pins. Evidentally those are the most valuable. Since Grant didn't really care WHICH pins he got, just that he was able to trade, Chris and I had a ball searching for the hidden Mickey pins and helping Grant trade for them. Then we went up to the Dumbo ride and took a spin. Amazingly, we waited longer for the Dumbo ride than we did any other ride that we took the whole trip.

Grant was afraid of most everything that we did today. He loved walking around, seeing the buildings, playing with Jaybin and Kinsen, trading pins and seeing the characters, but the shows and rides really scared him. He clung to my neck most of the day saying, "Scary, Mommy! Grant's so scary!" Even It's a Small World was frightening to the poor child. A common phrase that I heard today in a pathetic little voice was, "I just wanna go home, mommy!" I was disappointed in that, because I was so excited for him to see everything and I so badly wanted him to have fun. I told my dad that I had always laughed at those parents who I'd hear pull their kids aside and sternly tell them, "I paid good money for this, now straighten up, be happy and enjoy it!" Seemed kind of like an oxymoron to me as I watched the poor child sulk as he pouted and tried to behave. And yet I found myself doing the very same thing with little Grant. Look, kid, I paid good money for this. You'd better have fun!

Grandpa took all the kids today and bought them charms for the end of their laniards. Grant chose a "Pirate Mickey" charm. Jaybin got the classic disney characters, and Kinsen, of course, picked the disney princess charm. Kinsen had fun trying to find all the disney princess pins for her laniard. She did great!

After lunch, we went to the Buzz Lightyear ride. Grant, of course, was terrified, but as soon as we got done with the ride and went outside, the "real" Buzz was outside greeting visitors. We waited in a short line. When it was Grant's turn, Buzz held out his hand for Grant to give him a high five. Grant ignored the hand, however, and just went in for a great big bear hug. Good thing Buzz has good balance! It was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip - watching Grant meet his hero. Mason was enthralled with Buzz, too, and wouldn't even look at Daddy for a picture. He just kept smiling and waving at Buzz Lightyear!

We decided we were going to take the kids back for a nap, because we wanted to stay in the park for the fireworks that evening. So we started to take them back, when mom and dad decided they wanted to go back and rest for a while, so they took them and allowed Chris and I to stay, which was nice. They did get caught at the front gates and got to see the parade, which I was so glad about. The whole time I was watching it, I was wishing Grant could have seen it. Evidentally, mom said as soon as he saw Mickey Mouse, he took off running towards him. Mom had trouble catching him! I wish I could have seen his reaction to it all. They came back around 5:30, and we just enjoyed the Magic Kingdom. We took the kids up to a little playground, showed them Mickey Mouse's house, etc. Grant was crushed that Mickey wasn't there, but found it fascinating that he had Mickey shaped pumpkins. That's all he talked about. It started to downpour shortly thereafter, so we ran to Pinocchio's Pizza place for dinner. It was surprisingly good, and we found a quiet corner where we escaped the deluge. It cleared up rather quickly and we went outside to prepare for the fireworks. The freshly fallen rain made for a beautiful reflection of the lights from the rides and the castle. We got some great pictures! Unfortunately, there was still lightning, so they couldn't do the fireworks afterall. Bummer. And we had the perfect viewing spot, too! So we went home exhausted, planning on returning the following evening for the fireworks. I think we all slept well that night for sure! (I'm including the fireworks pictures on this day - just to keep all the Magic Kingdom Pics together!)

05.27.2009 Walt Disney World - Epcot

Well the trip we have been talking about and planning for nearly two years has finally arrived! We left Tuesday afternoon to head down to Orlando for 5 days to meet my entire family for a fun-filled vacation at Walt Disney World. We were not sure Chris would have Tuesday off, so we had to get a hotel off campus for Tuesday night. We had a great time at Downtown Disney. We took the kids to T-Rex for dinner. It's like a Rainforest Cafe, only with dinosaurs. About every 20 minutes, there was a simulated thunderstorm. The lights were flashing, the dinosaurs were moving and making all sorts of strange noises, and both of our kids were going crazy. We had to take them both out numerous times because they were screaming. But beyond our rather frustrating dinner, we had a blast. Grant was caught up in the magic of Downtown Disney. He was enthralled with all the "Pirate" themed merchandise (we had gotten the pirate-themed rooms at the Caribbean Beach Resort and had been talking about it for months so he was very excited about this) and we even saw a life-sized Buzz Lightyear outside the toy store. Life just can't get better than this! :-) Until we had to tear him away from Buzz because other kids wanted to take pictures with him, too. Grant just wanted to stand there and hold his hand. Ha!

Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early, packed up our things and headed over to the Caribbean Beach resort to meet the rest of my family. They hadn't gotten in until about 8:30 the night before, so we were very excited to see them. After a quick breakfast, we headed over to Epcot, our first park for our vacation. Grant was so excited to go to "Disney World" and he and Jaybin stood at the bus stop with great anticipation. Every bus that would come they would squeal with delight and jump up and down with excitement. But 5 busses passed us by before the Epcot bus arrived. We were all excited to begin our journey!

As soon as we got into Epcot, Stef and Dan ran to get fast-passes for the ride, "Soarin." (which was a fabulous ride, by the way! So much fun!) In the meantime, we saw Daisy Duck off to the side, greeting people. So we went and stood in line waiting to meet Miss Daisy. While we were waiting, Stitch came out and greeted us, too. I had made little Mickey Mouse heads for the characters all to sign, so our Autograph book was well underway! Grant was thrilled to meet the characters. I think the characters were his favorite part of the entire trip. He really bought into the fantasy aspect of Disney World. The rides, however, were a different story. He was terrified! He'd bury his head into whoever was holding him and not look up until the ride was over. Poor guy. Mason, on the other hand, was intrigued by everything and wanted to see it all! He, too, was intrigued by the characters and wanted to touch, wave to, and kiss them all.

We had a beautiful day in Epcot. It was sunny, and hot, for sure. The humidity was high, but it didn't seem to bother us too much. It did rain a couple of times for short periods, but it seemed to really cool things down, so it was quite welcome! We purchased the meal plan, so we had lunch at the Coral Reef. It was my favorite meal of the trip. There was a beautiful aquarium that made up the main wall of the restaurant so we watched the fish, shark, dolphin and sea turtle swimming while we ate. I had a delicious New York Strip for lunch, and Chris had mahi-mahi. And our waiter convinced us all to order a "Jack Daniel's Chocolate Mousse" for dessert. There were other options, but he insisted it was the best. My favorite quote from the day was mom asking him, "None of us are alcoholics...are you sure we'll like this?" He said he didn't drink either and it was a must! So we all ordered it and I must say, after he showed us the proper technique in eating all three layers at the same time, it was quite delicious.

We had a small mishap today...Grant and Mason both had gotten sick over the weekend right before we came. We got Mason on an antibiotic and it seemed to be helping a lot. Grant was doing great...as long as he didn't have milk. If he had milk, he had severe diarrhea just once and then he was fine again. Well, it had been like 3 days, so I assumed he was fine. He shared some ice cream with Jaybin and Kinsen, however, and while Chris and I were on a ride the boys weren't big enough to ride, they stayed with Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Kendra and Uncle Jason. Suddenly, he started telling them 'No!' backing away and yelling for his mommy. That's when they noticed that, as they put it, he had "pooped in his shoe." His sick tummy had struck again and Aunt Kendra and Grandma had their job cut out for them. It was pretty much cleaned up by the time I got there to help. But he sure was a mess. And as I walked into the bathroom, I noticed several ladies walking out with quite disgusted faces. Thank goodness for loving family members who helped take care of this poor little guy. Luckily, this was the last of the sickness for the trip.

We took the kids back to the hotel around 4-ish. They hadn't had naps and were getting cranky. Plus, the next day was the Magic Kingdom and I didn't want to wear them out for that. Mason had slept through lunch for a little while, but all of the kids were tired. So Jason and Kendra took Jaybin and Kinsen back, and we took our kids back. After naps, we took them swimming down at the cool pirate-themed pool. After we put the kids to bed for the night, Jason, Kendra, Chris and I sat outside our rooms at a picnic table and talked for a while. The plan was to go to Mom and Dad's room and play games, but they were still in Epcot with Stef and Dan, so we didn't have a key to get in their room. We called the front desk and said we were locked out, but after 2 hours they still hadn't come. When we finally got them to come let us in the room, it wasn't 5 minutes later and mom and dad arrived, ready to crash. Oh well. It was nice being outside for a few hours just relaxing! :-)

Waiting for our Epcot Bus to Arrive!