Wednesday, March 6, 2013

The Long Awaited Vacation Post...Well the First of a Few!

So some of you may have heard that we took the big trip to Disney World a few weeks back. Many of you have been oh so nicely asking for pictures....numerous times! I am happy to share our wonderful memories with all of our wonderful friends, but I came home to crazy. Not only did we pass around some nasty bugs before, during and after our trip, I got to come home and jump into the craziest time of the year at work. Therefore this post and the series of posts that will follow, just had to wait. I hope you don't mind, and that the actual product lives up to the anticipation!!

Walt Disney World: An Overview

Since there are SO many pictures and things to share about this trip I decided to break it down by park. We did not visit a park everyday so this is a general overview of our week.

February 16, 2013 the four of us plus my parents got up super early to fly out of Richmond, VA to Orlando, FL. The kids have never been on an airplane and they were very excited. It's always sad when I go to get on a plane and they ask if they will ever get to go. They did great on both flights and I think they enjoyed it. Once we got there we picked up our super awesome mini-van (I might be convinced that we need one now) and drove to our resort. We stayed at Bonnet Creek by Wyndham which is the only non-Disney resort on Disney property. It was amazing and I highly recommend it!



When we arrived there was an amazing balloon artist making the craziest things for the kids. We wondered around a little and then we got to meet up with Mimi, Papa, Gigi, and Auntie Ann! We were so excited to see them and couldn't wait to hang out. We got settled and got some food and then went swimming. Thank goodness for heated pools because it was chilly.



We spent Saturday and Sunday at the resort visiting with family and friends that live in the area. It was so nice to catch up with so many people that we don't get to see very often. The kids got their faces painted and we went to an Ice Cream social. The best part of our room was that we could see the fireworks right outside of our balcony! 

Watching Fireworks - it was too cold to go outside this night!
We also celebrated Noah's 30th birthday on this trip. The kids and I made a banner of the top 30 reasons that we love Daddy and included some pictures of him with the kids. We hung it up and he got to read it over and over while we were there!



Monday we visited Sea World and Auntie and Gigi came along. We knew the kids would love it since they love our little aquarium so much.

Tuesday was everyone's first visit to Animal Kingdom, breakfast with the characters, and the beginning of the sickness. Everyone had a good day even though a few people weren't feeling all that great. On Wednesday Noah and I tried to put our park hopper tickets to good use by visiting Epcot and Hollywood Studios. Unfortunately we got a phone call that Izzy was feeling miserable and we went back to the resort. 

Thursday we got to visit one of Orlando's urgent care facilities. Although this was not on the agenda they were very nice and took care of us right away to get us back to our vacation. They even had the antibiotics right on site so we didn't have to stop at a pharmacy on the way back. We jumped in the car and headed to Magic Kingdom so we didn't lose the whole day. We watched the parade (which Izabel says was the best part) and did a few attractions but the overall feeling of miserary told us it wasn't worth it any longer. We headed to Downtown Disney for some quick food and treats and back to the resort for a good nights sleep.

Friday was Izabel's big makeover, Magic Kingdom, and dinner with the Princess's. To be honest, I had been waiting a very long time for this and I wasn't going to let anything ruin my day! Thankfully we were all feeling much better and had a great time. On Saturday we flew home and I think we were all ready to get settled and sleep in our own beds!