Disney World

For the most part these photos will speak for themselves, thank goodness!  If you have the energy to make it through all of them, God Bless you! Ha!  Needless to say, we had an amazing amazing amazing time, and I found it nearly impossible to accurately summarize all the fun in one post, but it does scrape the surface.  It literally took the kids three weeks to come out of their post Disney depression. If the park was open, we were there -- even staying until after midnight most nights, and 3 in the morning on Havah's birthday.  We walked over 110 miles during our 10 day trip, which is completely mind boggling.  Ahh, Disney, why are you so awesome??

We're going WHERE???

We pulled out of our driveway at 3:30 AM to make the 16 hour drive.  

Louisiana

Boiled peanuts from a roadside stand in Alabama

The almost birthday girl opening a few presents from relatives in Alaska.  A brass Scottie Dog!

My project...

Henry, who had been watching from the backseat for a few hours suddenly said, "let me try!" Sure enough, the kid could do it. 

We FINALLY made it to Florida!!

We're here!  We are finally here!

Am I the only one who tears up walking through the Disney gates?

sitting silly in Gaston's chair

H and H are really into pin trading.  We gave each kid a budgeted amount of money each day, which they could save or spend.  They loved buying special pins or even traders to trade with the cast members and a few times they traded with other kids.

Test Track time!  I was sitting next to a little boy, who couldn't have been more than three years old.  This ride is FAST, and oh so fun.  Throughout the ride he kept asking his dad, "is this the ride, are we on the ride, is this the ride?" It was the cutest.

We are big fans of sweet little Duffy, Mickey's stuffed bear

We packed our lunches and dinners each day, but bought treats and drinks when needed.  ;-)

My very favorite nanny.  I love you MP!!

They were reenacting a photo that we took of them in this same spot when they were 3 and 5...ha ha ha!  Henry's face!  This was really fun, actually.  We looked through all our photos from one of our previous trips and decided to reenact them while we were there.

Another reenactment from 2008

She's got her princess hand going on.  Love love love.

My favorite treat at WDW

 H and H wanted to ride most of the big roller coasters on this trip. Here we are getting on Expedition Everest! My absolute favorite ride in the world (well, maybe after Splash Mountain ;)

They conquered Expedition Everest! And then wanted to ride it again.  And again.  

Early morning Lego building in our Condo.  

This sweet Mickey Mouse talked and interacted with his visitors, even doing a magic trick with the kids. It was a very long wait to see him, but completely worth it.

One word: HILARIOUS.

We are still laughing about our visit with Gaston.  

 The kids love love love Baymax and waited almost two hours to see him.  

While Havah and Tink were talking, Tink suddenly grabbed Havah in a tight little squeeze! Havah was so surprised! We love her!

 We were very happy that we happened to be at Walt Disney World during the Star Wars weekends.

On the day we were planning on visiting Hollywood Studios, Jon dropped me off before it opening so I could to get fast passes/tickets to meet Daniel Logan. (He played young Boba Fett in the recent Star Wars movies -- Henry's favorite character.) When I got there there were only two tickets left, (apparently people had spent the night outside the gate?!), but the cast members had to secure a bracelet on our wrists for entrance, so I couldn't get the tickets without Henry.

I pleaded my case, telling them that Henry would be along shortly, but they said there was nothing they could do.  I got out of line, knowing the tickets would go to the people behind me.  But what I didn't know was the three women who were running the ticket line had taken pity on me and pulled the last two tickets aside.  They waited and watched until they saw Jon and the kids arrive and then they approached us and gave Henry and me the ticket bracelets.  BLESS THEM.  It was only 7:30 in the morning, but I felt like I had run a marathon! Later in the day, when we went to our scheduled visiting time to see Daniel Logan, the man taking the tickets let all FOUR of us inside to see meet him, instead of just Henry and me. We couldn't believe it!

 Daniel was THE BEST.  He spent a long time with us, talking to Henry all about Star Wars, what it was like to be an actor in the Star Wars movies, and generally making Henry feel special. 

It was totally worth it all that stress! 

Birthday Girl!

Birthday Lunch!  

Birthday hugs!

Birthday cake milkshakes!

She told us it was the best birthday ever.  She's the sweetest.

Can you see the sweat on this kid?  You guys, Florida is H-O-T in June!

For the last several days of our trip we stayed in a Disney Hotel, Coronado Springs.  Before our trip we narrowed down which of the 25 WDW resorts we would like to stay in.  After we picked 5 or 6 we had Havalah and Henry choose from that list.  They both agreed on Coronado Springs, liking the huge pools and watersides.  The only down side was it was almost too large and took a long time to get around.

Staying at a Disney Resort gave us extended hours at the parks.  Can you tell by their faces they are up five hours past their bedtimes?

Ha ha!  This is what Henry did while we waited for the hotel bus to pick us up at 3 AM.  I decided to choose my battles on this one. ;-)

 At the resort - tired but happy

 I love this family of mine.  (But that guy behind us is cracking me up :P

It really was one of the best trips we've had at Disney World or Disneyland.  The kids have already started saving their money for our next visit.  We'll be back!