These are just a few of the over 200 pictures we took in the happiest place on earth...Disney World! We went for the week of thanksgiving, spent one day as a family of four then tripled our numbers by Tuesday:) We spent the week in a big ole' house with our Destiny's family of 8! Destiny played ball for Mick and quickly became a part of our family. She graduates this year from college, and somehow we have blended into a pretty special extended family with theirs. They (Cindy, Des' mom) had been coming every other year since Des was 2! To say they knew the ropes would be an understatement. There are so many things I want to remember for our trip but no real neat and tidy way to record them...so I will just bullet list them. Beware the next few posts will consist of more pictures, but don't worry, facebook world was subjected to all of them, but my blogbook would not appreciate 200 here.
So here are some things I learned in the place where dreams really do come true:
~Going with 6 twentysomethings and 2 children is a really good idea.
~Doing so inevitably will remind you that you in turn are NOT twentysomething anymore:(
~While it is nice to stay in a nice place, the amount of sleeping and staying put you do, a rat motel would be just fine, you'll be too tired to notice.
~OR you could just go for EIGHT days, then you could enjoy the big house AND Cinderella's Castle.
~Napping at a park in the middle of thousands of people, IS possible, if you have blankie.
~My two year old is not afraid of characters. In fact, she is obsessed. The way she interacted with them was so amazing.
~My four year old could care less about characters. Unless you bribe him with a roller coaster, he ain't even gonna smile.
~If you spike your shorter four year olds hair into a mohawk he is indeed tall enough to ride those coasters you promised him.
~If your child is obsessed with the Mouse and his friends a character breakfast is so worth it. Although, the characters are way more accessible than I expected.
~You can go days without saying anything to your spouse other than "You got that one?"
~You shouldn't go days, but you can.
~Wishes there was a way I could magically guarantee that my kiddos will be as kind and compassionate when they are twentysomething as the ones that we traveled with.
~I am indeed too old to ride Mt. Everest or any other roller coaster. I am unfortunately not too old to puke in the middle of the road as lots of tourists pass by.
~Mick and I enjoyed Disney just as much as the kiddos and they enjoyed it alot.
~Epcot and Animal Kingdom could be combined to one day so as to spend way more time at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. (totally a personal preference but there was just so much more to do for us at those places)
~Disney gets the whole good and evil thing in EVERY ride. And while biblical, my two year old would appreciate a few more bright spots and a few less dark ones.
~To see any parade or event you must get there way ahead of time and then fight for your space until the time of event.
~People from anywhere other than the south do NOT get the personal space thing.
~In my opinion, we will leave disney everytime wanting to go back soon!
~Ok, there are way more pictures and a few more stories to come.
We saw ALOT of characters while in Disney World. The characters were by far SadieJane's favorite part. She loved to talk to them, hug them and kiss them. Since she was too little to ride the "big kid" rides, we would go find characters while Mick, Micah and the rest of the big kid crew went to ride scary things. Which is why SayJ is pretty much the star of our character show. Plus, Micah did not like them at all. He wasn't scared of them, he just really didn't care about having his picture made with them. Jake, was the only one that he was excited about, and he allllmost backed out of that one. Micah did take part in the group shots and at Chef Mickey's he agreed to have pictures taken because he was in turn getting them to sign his baseball. The characters were everywhere and way more accessible than I remember. Most had lines but didn't take more than 10-20 minutes. Except good ole' princesses and tinkerbell. Disney is definitely capitalizing on that market...and SayJ is definitely getting sucked in. BUT, SayJ refused to really talk to the "real" characters that could really speak. She instead chatted it up with anyone whose mouth was cemented into a plastic smile. When it came to the Princesses and tinklebell she froze and would just stare and stare as they tried their darndest to get her to say something. I even jumped in to translate what her stares meant often and to try to get her warmed up, but stare and smile, smile and stare was all the girls were getting out of her. In turn I will have to admit the characters were actually my favorite part too. The way they interacted with us was so special and I just enjoyed watching SayJ experience such joy from their small acts and gestures. Since SadieJane and I were relegated to spending lots of time alone together it was a special treat to be the one to introduce her to all her friends and Mick was so kind most of the time to take the pictures for us if he was around. A small bit of info that Mick and I weren't expecting is that everyone there offers to take a picture with your camera for you. The disney employee will just step right up and snap away so that everyone can get in a picture. With all my picture love this was obviously something I was so thankful for...
