Disney Discoveries

We just got home last night from spending ten days at Disney World, a trip we've been planning since Christmas!  We are exhausted, but we had a great time.  Much as I would love to write down all the minutiae of each day here, I'm pretty sure that would be really boring for you...  So instead, I'm going to present a list of things we discovered (mostly about ourselves) from this trip...

1) Be married to a Disney freak.  It's just one of many reasons Craig and I are perfect for each other.  Disney makes us both happy.  I don't think we could have managed something as marathon-like as this trip if we weren't both 100% all in.

Last day at Magic Kingdom

2)  I totally rock at packing.  Not only did I pack for six people (Craig was on his own there), I also packed a TON of food for the trip (Disney is one of the few amusement parks that allows you to bring your own food in, so we took advantage of that in a big way), I packed food for the drive there, AND I loaded the entire car while Craig was at work.  My in-laws were super kind, and offered to let us borrow their Suburban for the trip and I FILLED that trunk: 5 suitcases, 1 duffel bag (packed with everything we needed for the one night hotel stay on the drive down, so we could leave the rest in the car), 1 cooler, 1 huge Costco diaper box full of food, 1 double stroller, 1 umbrella stroller, and a pack-n-play.  Plus diaper bags, backpacks for everyone etc.  I even remembered to bring a couple laundry detergent packs so it would be easy to do laundry at the hotel!  The only thing I almost forgot was socks for myself, but I remembered those as we were buckling the kids into the car!

This stroller takes up SO MUCH SPACE

3)  While I'm bragging about myself, I rock at UNpacking, too.  We got in at 6:20 last night, and by 11pm, I had unloaded the car, unpacked everything, done four loads of laundry, and gotten milk and stuff from the grocery store.  BOO.  YA.  (Craig was hard at work bathing children and helping.  This wasn't just me.)

4)  My kids are a bunch of thrill seekers.  If they were tall enough for a ride, they were on it.  Ryder did the Tower of Terror at least three times and says it's his favorite ride.  Bentley and Kendra absolutely loved the Rock'n'Roller Coaster.  Colton was only tall enough for Goofy's Barnstormer ride, but as soon as he stepped off it, he declared that it was "Scary awesome!"  I don't think I was that brave when I was their age...

Bentley looking afraid of Splash Mountain.  Don't be fooled-- this was when it was all over!

Goofballs

I realize Thunder Mountain is not the scariest ride out there.  But still-- look at those grins!

5)  Camille is a big pain.  I love my baby to death, but my goodness she made this trip challenging!  She hardly EVER slept in her stroller (Craig and I think that she maybe napped for a total of 20 minutes the entire time we were in the parks-- FOR TEN DAYS).  Every time someone smiled at her, she would grin back at them and then chuck her binkie at them.  We spent a lot of time picking binkies up off the ground.  (She meant it to be friendly, but try explaining that to a stranger!)  She wanted to get out of her stroller and walk, but then would insist on walking whatever direction she wanted to go-- herding her in the right direction was impossible, and would lead to her screaming in protest.  So we finally just left her in her stroller almost constantly.  Ugh.  We should have left her at home!

This sums up our trip: everyone is happy except Camille

Craig entertains her during the ridiculously long and boring line for the Jungle Cruise

A rare moment of sleep

And another

Fighting with Daddy as he tries to hold her.  Look at that face!  (Actually, both of them are pulling pretty funny faces!)

One of the times I let her out of the stroller to walk, she just sat down and glared at me instead...

6)  It's nice to have other grown-ups around.  My parents were there the whole time, which was great because they got us in the military hotel, Shades of Green.  Sometimes they came to the parks with us and sometimes they did their own thing, but any time we could have an extra set of hands pushing strollers, and helping get kids on and off the bus was nice.  My sister Tracy came for a couple days over the weekend, too, and her help was most appreciated!  It was only because she was with us that we braved the water park, Blizzard Beach.  (And even then, splashing in the wave pool nearly did me in, I spent so much time counting heads!)

Also-- added bonus-- Tracy stayed at the hotel with the kids one night so Craig and I could have dinner at Chefs de France and enjoy the fireworks at Epcot.  It was nice to not push strollers around for a bit and not worry about losing anyone!

7)  Jedi Training for the kids is SO all about grown-ups getting to take pictures of their kids.  I think I was more excited about the pictures we got than the kids were about what they were doing.  Totally worth it.

Ryder is aiming his lightsaber like it's a gun (?)

Using the force

Each kid took a turn battling either Darth Vader or, for my kids, the Seventh Sister

Kendra was FIERCE out there!  I was so proud of her!!!

Ryder finished his fight and then skipped up the steps to take on Darth Vader before anyone could stop him

Bentley rocked his turn, too

8)  Ten days is a really long time.  We were exhausted after just the first day!

9)  Ten days is not nearly long enough.  There was still so much stuff I would have liked to have done!

10)  Walking 8+ miles a day and being so hot that you'd rather drink ice water than eat food is a great way to lose weight.  I think I lost 5 pounds.  And after the first couple days, my shin splints went away and I was fine with all the walking, so that rocked!

11)  Florida is so much more humid than Virginia.  Coming from Seattle (and Utah) I always figured that east coast humidity was a universal thing.  Not so.  Next time we go to Disney World, we're going in February.

12)  Hamilton is the best road trip music EVER.  24 hours of driving and we still aren't bored by it.

13)  Two adjoining rooms worked perfectly for our family.  The first night, though, when the hotel accidentally gave our room away to someone else: Not so good.  After that glitch was cleared up (and got us a free night-- woo!), we happily discovered that two rooms feels TWICE AS ROOMY AS ONE!  Go figure.  (It also helped that Shades of Green has fairly large rooms for a Disney resort-- thanks again, Mom and Dad for making that possible for us!)

Zonked kids

This looks kinda sketchy.  It's probably a good thing they don't normally share beds...

14)  The new Soarin' Across the World ride was fabulous.  (It replaced Soarin' Over California, which was already one of our favorite rides.)  It opened our last day there, and we figured there was no way we'd be able to handle waiting in line for it.  Until my Mom pointed out that our stroller switch passes were good for a month, so the ones we got earlier in the week could be used on opening day!  That was the sole reason we hit Epcot on our last day!

15)  Shopping will never be a priority for us.  Not even at Disney World.  We'd decided we were going to buy t-shirts for the whole family, and didn't get around to doing it until our last day.

At Epcot-- on our last day-- riding Soarin' and shopping for matching t-shirts!

16)  For the kids, we made a rule that they could buy one toy (with their own money), but only after they'd been to all four parks.  We didn't want any buyer's remorse going on.  Within the first hour at Magic Kingdom, Ryder was desperate for an Emperor Zurg toy (from Toy Story).  Surprise, surprise, he stuck to that the entire time!  And he's very happy with it (although he was disappointed that it didn't actually shoot stuff).  The other kids all got stuffed animals at Animal Kingdom.  Done.

17)  Bentley and Kendra were both super helpful the entire time.  I was seriously impressed by their willingness to push strollers and carry backpacks for me, and they never got cranky or complained.  Ryder and Colton both had their break-down moments, which I expected.  But not Bentley or Kendra.  They were both absolutely delightful the entire time.  This may have been the best discovery from the entire trip, actually!

Keeping Camille happy on the Jungle Cruise

18)  For being such a goofball, Ryder is strangely charismatic.  He got featured on the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor.  And then, when we had dinner at the Hoop-de-Doo Revue, which serves family-style BBQ, Ryder announced that he was eating cheese pizza.  He burst into tears when our server brought out ribs and fried chicken.  Within two minutes, she had a plate full of cheese pizza just for him.  He was happy.  We were happy.  And we left her a very generous tip.

Can you tell that's him?

19)  Character dining is great-- you get food and your kids get to see some of the characters (as opposed to waiting in line for the same thing).  It's also crazy expensive, so we only did two meals this way-- breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and friends and lunch with Mickey, Pluto and Chip'n'Dale.  That lunch was kind of late-- 2pm-- and that turned out to work in our favor: because the restaurant wasn't very busy, all the characters came around a BUNCH of times to see us.  Camille was absolutely in love with the chipmunks, so they would come and give her big long hugs.  Does it get much cuter than that?

I love here grin here as she leans in for her hug!

Pure joy

Craig is always excited to see Pluto, his favorite Disney character

That's an excited smile, in case you couldn't tell...

The whole family with Tigger (one of my personal favorites)

We also did "Enchanted Tales with Belle" and I have to admit-- it was a lot of standing around for not much.  Do the ones with food!

Kendra got to play the role of "footrest/dog"

And Bentley was a plate!

20)  The Lion King Festival at Animal Kingdom is probably my favorite show-- such high energy, great music and dancing and harmonizing and acrobatics.  It's wonderful.  We saw it twice in one day, we liked it so much!  After that, my next favorite is probably Finding Nemo (also at Animal Kingdom)-- the music is pretty forgettable, but the puppets and the staging are so great!  Also, I never get bored of watching fireworks (but make sure you pick up your baby when you notice that the booming has terrified her so much that she's trying to "hide" in her stroller out of fear.  Oops).  Also, Fantasmik is a lot of fun, even if it doesn't really make any sense.  Any time you can watch water catch fire, you know you're in for a treat!  (That show got delayed quite a bit because of the weather, so when it finally started a half hour late, it was even more past bedtime than usual.  Ryder got mad and lectured us, "You can't keep me up this late!!!  I'M TIRED!!!!!")

21)  Don't bother trying to look nice.  It's too hot and too sweaty and no one cares.  The one day I actually did my hair, it poured rain on us.  I never bothered again after that (and the pictures we have proves that!).  But short hair sure rocks at Disney!  I'd see women with long thick hair and wonder how they were even surviving!!!!!!!  I wondered the same thing when I saw men with beards...

22)  Other Disney guests are the best.  People were always so friendly, whether they were giving me a seat on the bus (since I was holding a squirming Camille or a sleeping Ryder), handing me binkies that had been thrown at them, offering food when Ryder was crying (he would say he was hungry, but based on the fact that he'd just eaten, what he really meant was that he was exhausted), or pulling faces at Colton and making him laugh...  They were great.  Unless.  If there was a huge crowd waiting for something, and then all bets are off.  But I kind of turn into a monster in those situations, too, so I'm don't mean that as a complaint.

23)  True to his normally chill self, Colton was very easy-going about all the rides he wasn't allowed to go on.  Some kids would have been in hysterics over that, so I'm thankful he didn't seem to mind.  I can't wait to take him on all the stuff he's missed out on, though!

Here are some of the things he DID get to do, though:

Close encounter with a hippo!

And a sea turtle!

He loved this tiger and decided to name him "Cheetah."  Naturally.

I did bring him to meet Olaf while the other kids were on Star Tours.  He presented Olaf with this water bottle and Olaf acted appropriately thrilled with it (and then sneakily handed it off to me so it wouldn't be in the photo.  What a pro!)

Colton also practiced using the force while the kids did Jedi Training

Hard to get much cooler than this little guy!

24)  It is SO HARD to leave the parks once you're there.  We had some idea that each day we'd leave around noon and go back to the hotel for naps and pool time/cooling off from the heat time, but we only managed to do that a few times, and even then, we wouldn't leave until 4 or 5.  There's just always one more thing you want to do before you leave!  And once it got to be evening, it would be cooling off and the lines would get shorter and there was even less motivation to leave!  My Dad thought we were nuts for staying so late each day, but it's more like we were too lazy to go catch a bus back to the hotel.  We'd say, "We should get going.  But wait-- Pirates of the Caribbean only has a 20 minute wait!  LET'S GO!!!!"

25)  The safari ride and the bird show at Animal Kingdom are also pretty awesome.  I never got tired of them...

Kendra, who is very into nature and the environment right now, loved going on safari!

I don't know why wildebeest are so cool, but they are.

26)  Take your kids while they're still young enough to be amazed by how magical Disney World is.  As much as you could argue that we should have waited until Camille was older and better behaved to come (that will happen some day, right???) I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on Bentley hugging Chip'n'Dale and being willing to ride the merry-go-round.

So cute!!!

26)  And here are some more pictures that don't fit into my list, but that I want to share anyway!

Waiting to eat dinner at the Shades of Green buffet.  Craig is helping Bentley smile...

Taking the bus back to the park after a nap

Glamor shot while we wait in line.  Colton and Ryder are down there somewhere...

It was Kendra who pointed out to me that the tower we were seeing was Rapunzel's tower.  Of course!

I just like this picture

Kendra lost a tooth while we were in FantasyLand!

Kendra desperately wanted cotton candy

Bentley's ice cream melted fast in the Florida heat

Tired Ryder

This is what a lot of the drive there and back looked like: kids sleeping, Camille screaming.  Fun!

I can't believe our big Disney vacation is already over and done!  I can hardly wait to go back again!!!

Animal Kingdom with Everest behind us