Yes, I am still posting about Christmas, and in all honesty, I will probably still be catching up on December events throughout the rest of January. January used to be my least favorite month, with Christmas a fading memory and the bills from the holidays an ever growing reality. But now I truly appreciate the rest and renewal January brings.
But before our calm January, came a crazy, busy, wonderful December. The kids Christmas break was scheduled to start after school on December 16th. We surprised them earlier that week by telling them we were heading down to Florida to spend our break with Mickey Mouse! Since Jeff and I had kept it a secret for so long (since June) we wanted to tell them in a special way. When everyone was home Tuesday night we gave them each a small present to open. Each present contained an ornament with a letter on the back. The kids had to lay out the letters until they spelled a word...NEDSYI...can you guess? It was a lot of fun to watch them work together, although it didn't take nearly as long as I thought to figure out:) While they were excited about going to Disney World, it didn't touch the excitement they had when they found out grandma was going with us! Jeff and I were pretty excited about that as well:)
We normally break the trip to Florida up into a two day event, however, this time we just drove straight through and it worked out great. We reached the Florida state line around lunchtime, perfect timing for a refreshing glass of orange juice.
The hotel we stayed in was fabulous! Plenty of room and just a 2-mile cruise over to Walt Disney World. Elijah sure seemed to enjoy it.
Finally here!
Nope, still couldn't budge that sword!
Grandma's only request was to ride the Tea Cups, her favorite. She had so much fun, she rode it twice. Other favorites included the carousel (Bella), Space Mountain (Calla), The Tower of Terror (Noah), Toy Story Mania (Micah) and Small World (Jeff and I).
Meeting the Big Cheese:)
Grandma treated everyone to an ice cream break before heading back to the hotel. With temps nearing 80 degrees, it was a welcome treat.
The next day was our "day off" so to speak, meaning we didn't actually visit any of the Disney parks. But that doesn't mean that there was any shortage of Disney related fun. First, we ate breakfast at the Polynesian Resort complete with visits from Mickey, Pluto, Lilo and Stitch. I would highly recommend this breakfast if you have a large group, since it was served family style at the table instead of buffet. The food was incredible and the company was even better.
After breakfast we went to the Grand Floridan Resort to have our family picture taken in front of their enormous tree (those pictures are still in transit) followed by a monorail ride to the Contemporary for some fun at the arcade. Shortly after leaving the resorts the little boys fell asleep. Mom and I and the older kids decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and take an afternoon swim back at the hotel.
Teaching the boys:)
Calla, Noah and Grandma had a blast on the waterslide.
That evening we drove over to the Downtown Disney area to play at the Lego Store and eat dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.
Racing Lego cars.
We even got pictures with Santa Claus.
We celebrated our night with a giant volcano brownie, ice cream cake...YUM!
Our last full day in Orlando started early at Disney's Hollywood Studios. We got there so early in fact, that we were able to ride Toy Story Mania immediately, an hour later the wait was over 70 minutes. Next Noah wanted to ride Star Tours (a Star Wars themed ride) which I opted out of. After seeing Jeff's face when they got off, I was so glad I made that decision.
Soon we were racing to see the Indiana Jones Show, a family favorite. Jeff took so many pictures, that if you run the slide show really fast, you can almost recreate the entire 20 minute show!
The kids were so enthralled by the characters and loved getting autographs.
After lunch at Hollywood Studios, we raced over to spend the rest of our time at Epcot, my favorite park. We rode lots of rides, ate tons of Norwegian pastries and then caught the fireworks display before calling it a night.
A troll in Norway...can you tell which one it is?
Yep, they were tuckered out:)
We knew the next day would be a long one since we were driving straight through to get home. We decided to break the trip up a bit with a stop at Daytona Beach.
We considered making this our Christmas card picture for our family in Ohio, who were at the time snowed in:)
Our mid-afternoon snack at Krispy Kreme:)
Finally we had dinner at a Cracker Barrel somewhere in South Carolina before getting home late that evening. The best part of the trip home was the anticipation that our Christmas vacation wasn't over, we still had Christmas left to enjoy!!
