A Disney Getaway!

This past week was rough on Bill. A lot of stress for him. So he wanted to get away. Our Disney passes will expire this week. We looked online and they had some good FL resident discounts on hotels. So we booked a room for the weekend. We were so thankful for our friends to look after the dogs. :-)

We left Friday afternoon. We checked in and then started exploring the hotel. Our room was a Pirate Theme. It was neat. We decided to walk to dinner. And did not realize how long the walk really was. We ate dinner (and the girls each got a sand pail with their dinner). Then A & J wanted to get their hair wrapped. Jadyn was super excited because some of her friends have done this before. So J picked out her colors and sat. Abby decided she did not want that, she wanted one already made with a clip. So J sat and sat, getting her hair wrapped. After about 5 min she was over it and wanted it to be done. She got to pick out some beads and loved it. Abby then picked out her clip wrap. The girls were very happy. :-)

After the hair wrap, it was off to the beach. They could not wait. We found a nice little beach by our hotel room and the girls had a blast. Tiff & Bill went back to the hotel. Tiff was hot and wanted to cool off. So the girls & I sat out and really enjoyed ourselves, until the sun found us. Then we got hot. We went back to the room, and around 7 PM got ready to go to the Magic Kingdom. They were doing 4th of July fireworks Friday & Sat nights, so we decided to try them Fri night. We got on the bus around 7:15. They crammed so many people on the bus. It was not fun. We got to the park around 7:50. We went to the tea cups, waited about 10-15 minutes. The girls love this ride. Then we went to Small World. By time we were done with that, we had about 10 min before the fireworks. We looked for a good spot and ended up back in Fantasyland. There were so many people there this night. But we still had a good view of the show. The show was good. The girls liked it. Then A, J & I decided to take the bus back to the room, while Tiff & Bill stayed and took advantage of the late hours of the park. It took the girls & I over 30 min just to get to the exit of the park. Then we walked to the bus, to get into another long line. Thankfully Disney was on top of the crowd situation because they had more buses running. We waited about 15 min or so for the bus. Again, cramming people on. THANKFULLY we got the last seat on the bus, so I could sit with 1 of the girls while the other was able to stand next to me. Then they took turns. It took over 30 min to get off the bus. It was 10:45 when we finally made it back to the hotel room. The girls changed & passed out. Bill & Tiff did not get back until about 1:45 AM. They had a great time. They went to the Monster's Inc Laugh Floor and They chose Bill to be "Thank Guy". Bill said it was great! Here are photos from Friday.




Since we stayed up so late Friday night, we decided to "try" to sleep in. Well Jadyn does not understand what "sleep in" means. 6:30 (her normal routine) she's up and making noise. We were not too thrilled. We all got up and ate donuts and then got our bathing suits on. We decided to check out the big pool. We chose to drive this time. :-) We did not realize that the water park and slides did not open till 10. It was about 9:15 when we got to the pool. So we just swam in the big pool. The girls had fun. Then the water park opened. They played in there for about 15 min and then they wanted to go back to the beach to build a sand castle with dad. So we got our things and drove back to the same little beach by our room. We found shade and chairs and we sat while the girls played in the sand. Dad did help them build a castle. They had fun. I think we were out there maybe an hour. It was such a nice morning. After the beach, Bill & Tiff went back to the room to shower and I took the girls to the little pool by our hotel room. There were 2 other kids there, so it was not crowded at all. We swam there for about 30 min. Abby made a new friend. It was fun. Here are photos.


After showers, we decided to go to Downtown Disney to see what time Ice Age 3 was playing. We ended up seeing the movie. The girls loved it. It was a cute movie. Then we went back to the hotel to rest. After some down time, we went to Riverside and ate dinner & got dessert to take back to our room. We could hear thunder in the distance, and we knew the crowds would be bad, so we chose not to do fireworks last night. We watched a movie we brought from home and we tried to go to sleep around 9:30. Unfortunately, we had loud neighbors, so Bill, Tiff & I were up till after 12:30. Finally they calmed down and we all went to sleep. I did not take any more photos.

We are home now. We had a nice getaway. Even though we went to the park once, we still had a lot of fun.

I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July.
Until next time.....

Animal Kingdom

Today we drove to Animal Kingdom for Tiffs birthday. The weather was beautiful. Not too hot. A nice breeze. We got to the park before 9, when we walked in a lady asked if we would like priority seating for The Lion King. (She informed me this was free LOL). So we accepted. That was for 11 AM. We walked over to Asia and Tiff & Bill did Everest. Tiff loves this ride. Jadyn so badly wants to ride it. She loves roller coasters. We were not sure if she was tall enough. (We learned later she is and she got to ride it-story later in the post).

After Everest we walked over to the Safari. Fun ride. Then it was The Lion King time. We were seated right behind the handicap seats, but there was nobody in front of us. Once the show started it was fun. One of the cast members came up to the girls during a song and asked for a high five. Then later in the show, they came to Abby & Jadyn and asked if they wanted to come and be in the show. They got to shake an instrument and walk around the room with other kids & cast members. I loved it. I took video. I was shocked that Jadyn did it. And shocked that they left us without even looking and saying bye. :-) They had fun.

After the show was lunch. Then we walked to Dinoland and Tiff & Bill did Primevil Whirl and the girls & I did Triceratops Spin. Abby loves this ride. She got to ride in the front all by herself. A big deal for her. Jadyn was upset because she wants to ride Prime Evil Whirl. But she's too short (see photos).

Well, Jadyn kept saying "I want to ride the roller coaster". So we walked back to Everest. She is tall enough. The wait was 55 minutes so I took Abby back to Dinoland to "dig" for bones. Well we were there maybe 5 minutes and Bill called asking where we were. He said that a cast member came up to them to check her height. Saw she was good and then said "Do you want to take advantage of a million dream gift?" Bill said "Of course". So the guy took Tiff, Bill & Jadyn and they skipped the whole line and walked right on to the ride. It was great. Bill said Jadyn LOVED it. And she said she wants to do it again next time.

Our day was fun. We're exhausted. I hope you enjoy the photos & video.

Until next time......

Another Trip to Disney

Today we skipped school. I know, bad parents. But it was for a good cause. Our good friends are up in Orlando and we wanted to spend the day with them. So we got in the car and drove up to Magic Kingdom. It was COLD today! The car temp said 47 degrees. That is COLD for FL.
We had an awesome day. The crowds were lighter than on the weekend. We did Dumbo, the Carousel, The tea cups, Goofy's roller coaster, lunch, Small World, Monsters Inc Laugh Lab and the race cars. The girls had a blast! Before we knew it it was 3 PM. We planned on leaving by then so we could get home before rush hour. We said our goodbyes, which was very hard. Autumn does not like goodbyes and the look on her face made me so sad. It took all I had not to cry.
We started to leave and then saw the crowd for the parade. So we rode the people mover and then Bill saw the line for Space Mountain was 20 min long, so he & Tiff did that. Then we were off.
Tinker Bell & the fairies are at the park now for the kids to see, so we tried to see them earlier in the day and the line was 90 minutes long. So we did not do that this time.
Here is a slide show of our day. It was a good day. Everyone had a great time. I wish the Clarks did not live so far away. We miss them already.
Until next time....

Annual Birthday Celebrations

Every year, my friend Dawn & I make sure we get our families together in the fall to celebrate our girls birthdays. They are September (Abby), October (Autumn), November (Kya), and December (Jadyn). This year we did a Halloween Theme. The girls loved wearing their costumes. Kya was Hannah Montana. Abby was a Cheerleader (High School Musical Cheerleader if you ask her), Autumn was Spider Man and Jadyn is a Cheetah.


We strongly believe that Abby & Kya knew each other in China. They had a bond that we instantly recognized. We have vowed to make sure they remain friends. When they see each other, they act like they see each other every day. They are so happy together.
Jadyn & Autumn did not grow up together in China, but we adopted them together. And they have so many similarities that it's scary. They are also very good friends. You can tell by the photos below how much our girls love each other.



After they opened their gifts, they swam in the pool. We met our friends at a town home they are renting for vacation. It has it's own little pool. The girls had the best time swimming together. It was fun to watch.


After pizza, it was cake time. Nobody had a match or lighter, so we did not have candles this year. But we did sing Happy Birthday. The girls loved it.


This final photo is of Tiffani & Kya. Kya loves Tiff. I was happy to get this precious photo of the 2 of them.


We had such a great time. It was fun to see the kids. Unfortunately the visit was very short. So we planned on meeting them at Magic Kingdom so Kya & I can ride Dumbo together. :-) That was her only request. It made me feel special.
Until next time.......

Photos from Disney

I will put a few photo slide shows from this weekend in this post. We had a great time! I wish we did not have to come home.

Friday's photos



Saturday's Photos



Below are photos from today. We drive to Downtown Disney. We did a little shopping. Then I told the girls they could get their feet wet. Take a look at the photos and see what happened. :-)

Chef Mickey's

We woke up VERY early (5:15 AM) Saturday morning so we could go down to breakfast with Mickey. Our reservations were for 7 AM. This is why we stayed at The Contemporary. We did not want to have to drive to the hotel this early in the morning.

We arrived downstairs around 6:50 AM. We were the 1st ones in line. They took our names and we walked in. They took a family photo. Then we were seated. The food was really good. The girls had PB&J pizza. That is different, but they liked it. They also ate eggs (Abby had 3 hard boiled eggs AND scrambled eggs), Mickey waffles, bacon, fruit and more.

The one thing that stresses me out about these character meals is the characters. LOL I feel that we can't eat because they come around so fast and we have to have camera's ready & autograph books ready etc. I had to keep telling myself to relax. :-)

We were at breakfast for over an hour. We filled up. Then we headed back to our room to get ready for the day. I believe I wrote about our morning at Magic Kingdom in an earlier post from the hotel.

Abby had a great birthday breakfast. She said it was a lot of fun.

Enjoy the photos.

Debbie

A fun and busy day....

It's only 2 PM and we've had a fun filled day. Our day started at 5:15 this morning. I got up and took my shower. Then everyone else got up and got ready for breakfast. We were at Chef Mickey's by 6:50 AM. We were seated by 7:05. They first took our family photo (which we're suckers, and bought). Then we ate. The girls did very well. They ate a lot. They saw Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, Minnie & Donald. They were thrilled. Abby got a special place mat since it was her birthday breakfast. Then she got a cupcake & candle to blow out. Breakfast was really good.
We were done by 8:15 or so. Headed back to the room to get sunblock & last minute things for the morning.
We took the monorail to Magic Kingdom. We got to the park around 9:00 AM. It was EMPTY! We were shocked. We literally walked on every ride we did today. The rides we rode were Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain (Tiff & Bill), The People Mover (me, Abby & Jadyn), The race cars (Bill, Jadyn, Abby & Tiff), the tea cups (me, Abby & Jadyn), Goofy's roller coaster (Bill, Jadyn, Abby & Tiff), The train to Frontierland, Splash Mountain (Bill, Jadyn, Tiff AND Abby!), Tiff & Jadyn did Splash mountain again, Thunder Mountain (Bill & Tiff), the Haunted Mansion, The carousel and then Mickey's Philharmagic. We could not believe how light the crowds were. The crowd was starting to pick up as we were leaving.
It is HOT today. Very hot. The sun is strong. No cloud cover.
Bill & the girls are at the hotel arcade now. I'm cooling off. I think we'll head down to the pool later after a much needed rest.
I have to tell you that this hotel reminds me of a lot. Yesterday, the halls reminded me of being in a hospital. Then this morning, when I was getting ready to take a shower, I thought I was in China. The hotel reminded me of China.
The hotel is really nice. We like it here.
Well I'm going to rest right now. I just wanted to type up some thoughts before I forgot.
Until next time...
Debbie

We're at Disney

Well we are here. The weather is okay. Some sprinkles. It's very overcast. That's better than HOT! :-) We checked into our hotel around 3 PM and we have a computer & FREE internet. Woo Hoo! So we are thrilled. One problem is I can't check email. Oh well. I can post here. But no pictures since we did not bring any cables to plug into the computer.
We are having fun. Abby has had a great birthday. The girls are exhausted. They are getting a bath now and then off to bed. We have to get up at 5:30 AM to be at our 7 AM reservation for breakfast with Mickey.
The hotel is very nice. The room is awesome! Very spacious. We love it.
Well that's all for now. Tomorrow will be very busy.
Love, Debbie

A Disney Day

Today we woke up early and headed out to Disney for the day. We decided to go to Magic Kingdom. We got in the park around 9:30. We took the train to Frontier Land. Bill & Tiff went on Thunder Mountain. While we waited, we saw 2 ladies asking kids to pan for gold. So the girls went. They had fun. They got their gold pieces (gold Mickey confetti) and a certificate. It was fun. When they were finished, we waited a few minutes and then Bill & Tiff were off the ride.
Then Jade decided she wanted to do Splash Mountain. So she, Bill & Tiff went. Jade LOVED it. She had a blast. Abby & I waited and there was a little play area for "little kids" as Abby put it. But she played on it anyways. I was taking photos of her and she said "Mom, enough pictures. I don't want you to run out of batteries". So funny!
After that, we ate lunch. We were hungry. When we were finishing up, a lady came over to Bill and whispered something. Then she said "Mickey Mouse wanted me to give these cookies to you." The girls were so excited!
After lunch was Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, It's A Small World, The Carousel (me & Abby), The Tea Cups (me & Abby), Goofy's roller coaster (Bill, Tiff & Jade) and then finally the train back to main street.
We had a fun day at the Magic Kingdom. It was HOT and a little crowded.
Enjoy the photos!
Love, Debbie

We've Decided to Go Back to Disney!-SLIDESHOW IS UP

Bill & I have had the itch for a while now. We have not been to Disney in over 6 months. I know, that is not that long. But for us it is. We are used to going up once a month as our family get away. We let our passes run out in Feb and decided to take a break. Well we wanted to go back so we bought annual passes. We left on Thursday and came back today (Saturday). We had a good time. We stayed at Port Orleans, Riverside. This is one of the few hotels that all 5 of us can fit into one room. It's tight, but cozy. We checked in on Thursday and decided to head over to Disney's Hollywood Studios (It will always be MGM to me). They have a new ride, called Toy Story Mania. So we headed over there and the line was out the door. So we kept walking. We did the Muppets 3D movie and then Bill, Tiff & Jadyn did Star Tours. Then we headed back to Toy Story and the line was not too bad so we went in. We waited about 40 min or so. The inside is really neat. It kept our attention while we waited. Then we finally got to get on the ride. It was fun. Bill, Abby & Jadyn sat on one side and Tiff & I on the other. We got through 2 of the games and then our car broke. The last 3 games we could not play. We were not happy. So when it was time to get off, we complained and they let us get back on (in a new car of course) and then we could play. Wow, what a ride. I loved it. It was so much fun! The girls loved it too. I have to say it's much better than Buzz Lightyear at Magic Kingdom. We left the Studios around 6 I think and went back to the hotel to eat dinner and call it a night. we were pooped.
We got up at 6 AM and headed back to Hollywood Studios. It was their "Extra Magic Early" day. Bill & Tiff went to Rockin Rollercoaster. They had a great time. Then we headed back to Toy Story Mania. On our way there, we saw Dale was out so the girls met him. Then as we're heading to Toy Story, we saw a group of about 75 kids walking that way. Well we were not fast enough. We were behind them. So we waited again and walked through the inside. They let that whole group go through and made us wait. Then they asked how many in our party, we told them 5 and they said "come this way". They had us go into the handicapped cars. We got to cut just about all of the kids in the big group! That was awesome. And again the ride was awesome. This time I sat with Abby & Jadyn and Bill was able to play the game with Tiff.
We left the Studio's and took the boat to Epcot. The girls liked the boat ride. We got to Epcot at the back of the park. The countries were still closed so it was a ghost town. Which was nice. But it was HOT! The girls were not happy. We got over to the front and Bill, Tiff & Jadyn went to The Land to get Fast Passes for Soarin. Abby & I found a tree and waited. We then went on the Figment ride, then Nemo's ride, then we ate lunch in The Land and then went on the ride in The Land. Then it was time for Soarin. We love this ride. It is so much fun. After Soarin we went on Spaceship Earth. We have not been on it since they re-did it. We really liked it. It was around 1 PM and we decided to head out and cool off at the hotel for a while. We all fell asleep and at 3 PM it was STORMING! The rain did not stop. So we were stuck at the hotel the rest of the night. We watched TV and braved it to the hotel food court for dinner. Then we put on Disney Channel and watched a movie. Everyone was asleep by 10 PM.
This morning we woke up at 6:30 AM. We left the hotel at 8 AM. Today was "Extra Magic Hour" at Animal Kingdom. We got there at 8:30 and headed to Everest. Bill & Tiff did that. The girls & I took our time getting there and I took some cute pictures on the way. The girls even took some photos too on my camera. Bill & Tiff waited about 15 min to ride Everest. Not bad at all. Then we headed over to Dinoland. Jadyn went on the Dinosaur ride. While they did that, Abby & I went on the Triceratop Spin twice. Jadyn came off the Dino ride and said it "freaked her out". But she said she'll go on it again when Marissa (her cousin) comes with her. Then we headed to the Safari. We saw a lot of animals today. And a Rhino even charged at our truck. Pretty scary. After the safari, we saw some bats & tigers. Jadyn liked that. Then it was time for lunch. After lunch we left to come home. It is very hot & humid today. We were all ready to come home.
We had a great time back at Disney. Our next planned trip is in Sept for Abby's 5th birthday. But we might make it up there again before that.
Enjoy the photos. I have 3 slideshows, one for each day.
Love, Debbie

P.S. The Slide Show program FINALLY WORKING! Enjoy