Depressing, isn't it?, but oh, it's typical KS weather, 80 degrees one week, a snowstorm the next. Just the perfect time to reminisce and imagine myself a month ago when we were on vacation in balmy Florida...
Every February there's a neonatology conference in Orlando, and since we've never been to Disney World, we figured this was the perfect excuse to pull the kids out of school for a week of fun (well, o.k., it may have not been fun for Chris to sit through some of the lectures, but for the rest of us)...
That's right. We've NEVER been to Disney World. My poor, deprived kids are probably the only ones in their school who hadn't been there before (Disneyland yes, Disney World, no). Here I will remind you--in case you forgot!--that while we've lived in Kansas City for almost 14 years, Chris is from Seattle and I'm from Boise, and both of those places are really far from Florida. Growing up, everything was Disneyland and California. And we went there. Oh, sure, a few of our lucky friends actually went to Florida, but as a child the big golf ball at Epcot seemed like a million miles away.
Of course living in Kansas makes Florida a whole lot closer than California:)
So off we went! Sunshine poured through the airplane windows and the girls HAD to pull out their sunglasses. Sunny and 20 when we took off, sunny and 82 when we landed. Enough said.
Now in my naivete, I had envisoned Disney World to be a whole lot like Disneyland. Hahaha, those of you who have been there are saying! Disneyland is a PARK, and Disney World, well, it really is a WORLD. I don't think I need to say that we absolutely LOVED Disney World. It was like a magical, fairy tale land (does that sound Disney enough?) Everyone friendly, everything clean, so many activities to do, things to see, rides to go on...here's a little bit of what we did for 7 days...After landing we headed to Downtown Disney.
First stop: ice cream at Ghiradelli's! Yum yummy yum yum. Just the smell of freshly baked waffle cones and melted chocolate was enough to make anyone more than happy to fork out $9 for a sundae and shake! 
We had free passes to Disney Quest, and spent the evening trying out virtual reality games, playing old arcade games, and just having a good time together. Abs, Lisi and I learned how to draw Pluto, 
While Kierst made a virtual roller coaster, then rode it. I think that was one of her favorite things on the trip. That, and going on real roller coasters. 
Aargh, matey, we fought ships for treasure and plundered their gold (say that with a piratey Jeffrey Rush ala Pirates of the Carribean accent) on a virtual adventure. 
They love playing mariokart on the wii, so it was fun for them to try out the arcade game. 
We met Chris one night in Hollywood Studios for dinner. He took Kierst on the Tower of Terror...
We lined up for the 9 p.m. showing of Fantasmic. Such a great show, but look at the line behind us, taken on Chris' phone, and this was an hour before the show, there were probably 700 people in line in front of us. C-R-A-Z-Y!!
We found a little Mickey waiting for Fantasmic, too.
It just so happened that Chris' conference fell on the third busiest week of Disney World. You can imagine that the parks were really really crowded and we stood in a lot of long long lines (yes, we used fast passes, but they can only get you so far).One thing we learned early on was to take breaks whenever we needed to. While Chris took Kierst on Mission Space, the rest of us cooled off in the shade, played, and ate snacks.
Test Track was definately worth the wait, for everyone except Abs, she spent most of the ride screaming. 
Oh, Canada! 
You know that when you go to Disney World with little kids part of your time will be taken up getting character signatures. Chris didn't believe me when I warned him (it's been a really, really long time since he went to Disneyland!), but quickly learned I was right! And oh, what fun it was to see our children's faces light up when they hugged their favorite characters! Especially Lisi, who doesn't yet realize that it's not really Mickey Mouse. 
Mexico!
Thanks to Chris wearing a BYU hat we learned that Mulan goes to BYU--she asked the girls if they choose the right! Haha!
We really didn't make it through most of the countries at Epcot, we spent so much time everywhere else! 
We did splurge and have a couple of character meals. Chip and Dale are without a doubt my kids' favorite Disney characters, we ate at the Garden Grill to see them.
Our reservation was pretty late in the evening and the restaurant wasn't half full, which meant the girls had plenty of time with Chip and Dale, all the characters circled by our table a few times.
This says it all. Lisi was like this every time we saw a character.
We spent a day with Chris in the Magic Kingdom. Abbie's favorite ride was Splash Mountain. 
Yes, yes, yes, the lines were long, long, long and we found different ways to amuse ourselves. 
We saw a lot of 3-D shows, I must mention here that we HATED Bug's Life and that I loved watching Captain EO--yes, the 1980s 3-D with Michael Jackson, I'd always wanted to see it and hadn't and it was playing!! Kierst thought it was lame, I was dancing in my seat throughout the whole thing, today's 3-D effects certainly are better, but hey, it's Captain EO!!
What better way to end our day in the Magic Kingdom than by hitting the candy shop on Main Street for fudge, lollipops and cupcakes, then watching the parade go by?
On the way back to our hotel afterwards, I realized that I left my camera case--with my driver's license, visa, camera and phone in it--on Main Street, right outside the candy shop! How could I do that? Well, I had my little point and shoot camera, I kept it out while Chris carried around the backpack with all of our water, etc. and I put it down for some reason next to me while we sat on the steps outside the candy shop. I was a little panicked as you can imagine, not about the visa and all that but about all the pictures on the camera! By this time it was 9:45 and the bus driver called ahead to see what could be done, and got me back to the park as quickly as he could. A security guard walked me to the candy shop, the employees there said they found the camera case on a store shelf. All I know is that I was being watched over because I KNOW I left it on Main Street--the pics above were taken with it :) The security guard then took me to consumer affairs, got me to the front of the line, got all of my belongings, she was so helpful and kind. And was I ever relieved!
Oh, Canada! You know that when you go to Disney World with little kids part of your time will be taken up getting character signatures. Chris didn't believe me when I warned him (it's been a really, really long time since he went to Disneyland!), but quickly learned I was right! And oh, what fun it was to see our children's faces light up when they hugged their favorite characters! Especially Lisi, who doesn't yet realize that it's not really Mickey Mouse. Mexico! Thanks to Chris wearing a BYU hat we learned that Mulan goes to BYU--she asked the girls if they choose the right! Haha! We really didn't make it through most of the countries at Epcot, we spent so much time everywhere else! We did splurge and have a couple of character meals. Chip and Dale are without a doubt my kids' favorite Disney characters, we ate at the Garden Grill to see them. Don't you love how everything at Disney World is shaped like a mouse?
Our reservation was pretty late in the evening and the restaurant wasn't half full, which meant the girls had plenty of time with Chip and Dale, all the characters circled by our table a few times. This says it all. Lisi was like this every time we saw a character. We spent a day with Chris in the Magic Kingdom. Abbie's favorite ride was Splash Mountain. Yes, yes, yes, the lines were long, long, long and we found different ways to amuse ourselves. We saw a lot of 3-D shows, I must mention here that we HATED Bug's Life and that I loved watching Captain EO--yes, the 1980s 3-D with Michael Jackson, I'd always wanted to see it and hadn't and it was playing!! Kierst thought it was lame, I was dancing in my seat throughout the whole thing, today's 3-D effects certainly are better, but hey, it's Captain EO!! 
What better way to end our day in the Magic Kingdom than by hitting the candy shop on Main Street for fudge, lollipops and cupcakes, then watching the parade go by? 
On the way back to our hotel afterwards, I realized that I left my camera case--with my driver's license, visa, camera and phone in it--on Main Street, right outside the candy shop! How could I do that? Well, I had my little point and shoot camera, I kept it out while Chris carried around the backpack with all of our water, etc. and I put it down for some reason next to me while we sat on the steps outside the candy shop. I was a little panicked as you can imagine, not about the visa and all that but about all the pictures on the camera! By this time it was 9:45 and the bus driver called ahead to see what could be done, and got me back to the park as quickly as he could. A security guard walked me to the candy shop, the employees there said they found the camera case on a store shelf. All I know is that I was being watched over because I KNOW I left it on Main Street--the pics above were taken with it :) The security guard then took me to consumer affairs, got me to the front of the line, got all of my belongings, she was so helpful and kind. And was I ever relieved!One morning we had breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and friends.
Kierst love, love, loved Winnie the Pooh as a little girl, she wouldn't watch any other movie but the classic Pooh bear ones, you know, the ones where Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit's hole when he eats too much honey? Or he acts like a rain cloud to try to get honey from the bee tree? She would carry a Pooh bear everywhere we went. My mom gave her a Piglet, she called it Pigalow.
On the parade...
More characters...
Cooling off at Epcot...
On the boat to our hotel...
Our hotel's pool complex was fantastic, with water slides, waterfalls, a kiddie pool, sand beach, it was great.
Kierst love, love, loved Winnie the Pooh as a little girl, she wouldn't watch any other movie but the classic Pooh bear ones, you know, the ones where Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit's hole when he eats too much honey? Or he acts like a rain cloud to try to get honey from the bee tree? She would carry a Pooh bear everywhere we went. My mom gave her a Piglet, she called it Pigalow. 
On the parade... 
More characters... 
Cooling off at Epcot... 
On the boat to our hotel... 
Our hotel's pool complex was fantastic, with water slides, waterfalls, a kiddie pool, sand beach, it was great. 
We all watched the skies from the pool for the space shuttle launch, it was so cloudy we could only see a few flames and a contrail before it disappeared--can you see it?
Animal Kingdom.
Jammin' to the African music.
Another night at the pool.
For the first time Lisi wanted to wear a life vest so she could move away from the shallow end. We've tried everything to get her interested in learning to swim, but she's refused, I think we're finally taking a step in the right direction!
Hollywood Studios.
Loved Beauty and the Beast.
But my favorite was the stunt show. I would love to drive a race car, no, I'm not talking Nascar, I would just like to drive a car that's moving really really fast. Didn't know that about me did you? :)
Our last night was a sad time. The kids posed to show me how they felt. And yah, we were looking pretty scroungy by day 6 of our vacation.
Back to Magic Kingdom for a final day of fun before catching our plane for home!
We were so sad on the way home, Kierst was crying in the van on the way to the airport! Lisi kept asking when we were going back to Disney World, Abs was so tired out she fell asleep on the plane. Lisi, I don't know when we'll be going back, but you can bet it will be sometime soon!
Animal Kingdom. 
Jammin' to the African music. 
Another night at the pool. 
For the first time Lisi wanted to wear a life vest so she could move away from the shallow end. We've tried everything to get her interested in learning to swim, but she's refused, I think we're finally taking a step in the right direction! 
Hollywood Studios. 
Loved Beauty and the Beast. 
But my favorite was the stunt show. I would love to drive a race car, no, I'm not talking Nascar, I would just like to drive a car that's moving really really fast. Didn't know that about me did you? :) 
Our last night was a sad time. The kids posed to show me how they felt. And yah, we were looking pretty scroungy by day 6 of our vacation. 
Back to Magic Kingdom for a final day of fun before catching our plane for home! 
We were so sad on the way home, Kierst was crying in the van on the way to the airport! Lisi kept asking when we were going back to Disney World, Abs was so tired out she fell asleep on the plane. Lisi, I don't know when we'll be going back, but you can bet it will be sometime soon!
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