Disney World!! (well...almost)

Hahaha! Ok that was kind of mean...I know a lot of my family, friends, and followers have been anticipating my blogs of our trip to Disney World a week ago. Well, let me just start with this: it has taken me a (full) week to recover. And now that I have recovered, it is going to take me a while to get myself organized to write my posts. There is SO much that we saw, did, and experienced and I want to write it all down..because who knows when we will get to go back! Plus, I want you all to be as worn out from my blog posts as our family was from the actual "vacation." :)

A trip to Disney World is NO JOKE. First off, I felt like I was taking a big leap into a black hole when I started the planning of this in January. And in one sense I was. Luckily, I have several friends who are Disney FANATICS (I say that lovingly...for without them I would have been lost in both the planning aspect and once we got there). So I picked their brain more than I care to admit. And because they are Disney lovers, these kind folks were quick to respond to my needy ways!

One of my needy ways (you can also read this as HIGH MAINTENANCE. I fully admit to this) is that I did not want to stay in a general (yet themed) hotel room at Disney, sleeping in a bed right next to my kids who don't sleep at all. But this is about all that exists. So I got past that, but because I am high maintenance, I was struggling looking past that I would be sleeping in a full-size bed the whole week (because that is pretty much all that was available). Ahem, I sleep in a king size bed (because I am a princess) and cannot imagine anything smaller when I am on vacation. Now you all know my selfish heart.  But my need for sleep is great and I literally turn into the Beast (think: Beauty and the Beast) when I am deprived. Enter another great friend who is a Disney Vacation Club member. He offered for us to purchase his time share points...and long story short, our family ended up in a 2-bedroom, 3-bath condo. With a KING sized bed in the master bedroom. SCORE.

Once I figured out lodging, the rest of the planning was "easy." Well, not really, but there were no hang-ups just a ton of decisions on what I thought our family would like. In hind-sight I was way off base, but it didn't hinder our vacation, just made me realize that next time we go I will think outside the box. For instance: my boys LOVED the princesses and characters...and I didn't think they would care so I initially didn't plan for any of this. And once money was paid we told the boys that we were going to take them to Disney World! Keagan was heart-broken. He wanted to go to the beach. And he said this for months initially. So I built a 100-days-to-go countdown chain to help him get excited...and it helped tremendously! It is amazing how quickly the links disappeared.

 

Then we got our Magic Bands...signifying a month to go! CRAZY.

And because we were going to be in DW during Halloween Season, we were going to the huge Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party...and needed costumes. Enter Spidey. Keagan was a Ninja Turtle, more on this later.

Then like the blink of an eye, it was time. We were all so excited and couldn't believe all the planning was over. It seriously was about as anticipatory as planning a wedding. So at 3am we loaded up the boys into the already-packed car and took off.

When they awoke that morning somewhere near Chattanooga, we gave them a Disney present that they could use all week: Mickey Mouse Crocs and a personalized water bottle. Those kids were so excited!

This was the first trip ever that both boys did so well in the car. Keagan is a fantastic traveler, but Finn usually makes us hate life for the duration of the trip. We only had one screaming issue with him that a quick pull-over and spanking cured, and then back on the road without further ado. It really was fantabulous. Minus the toll-roads. Which we weren't warned about nor were we prepared. We are hoping FL police don't track us down... :) but we are fully expecting a bill in the mail in the next 10 years!  We had to wake Keagan up from his slumber when we finally got to Disney World...Everyone was super excited, but Finley was pretty stone-faced.

And when we finally "moved into" our home-away-from-home for the week, we took in the sights around our resort. (By the way, we stayed in Bay Lake Tower, which is part of Contemporary) Here are some pictures of the condo before it was absolutely destroyed with our junk.

After we got settled, we put on our swimsuits and headed down to the pool to play a little. After sitting in the car for 12 hours we were all ready to chill out. The boys enjoyed sliding down a baby slide and running around the Mickey Mouse shaped splash pad.  The smiles on the boys in these pictures are so sweet. Love how happy they were!

That night we watched the Magic Kingdom fireworks show from our resort. It was incredible and beautiful. And there were even Mickey Mouse shaped fireworks!!! I loved it. The boys loved it. It was our first taste of the Disney Magic...and then when we got back to our room the boys felt a little more of that magic when they peeked in their rooms and saw that "Mickey Mouse" had left them some goodies! 

By the time they boys crawled into bed, a very sleepy Keagan was blissfully saying how much fun he was having and that he loved Disney World, and he loved us soooo much. So sweet! And he didn't have a clue what the next day was going to bring! Stay Tuned...