Disney Travelogue #2 (Magic Kingdom!)

On Tuesday morning, we headed to the Magic Kingdom (YAY!). We started our day with breakfast at the Crystal Palace, joined by Winnie the Pooh & friends. This is my favorite character meal we’ve been to (we did the princess lunch in Norway/Epcot and the Garden/Turning restaurant one at Epcot with Mickey, Goofy, Chip & Dale last time we went to WDW; This time we did the Crystal Palace and lunch at Cinderella’s Royal Table.) It’s a beautiful restaurant, Pooh and friends were AWESOME, and breakfast is much easier than lunch – going first thing, rather than having to plan your whole day around being in a certain place at lunch time.)

In between a yummy breakfast buffet (including Mickey shaped waffles, I don’t know what I was thinking – I didn’t take pictures!), we got visits from Pooh:

Piglet…

Eeyore…

 

And everyone’s favorite, TIGGER (who was very Tigger-y, whomever is in that suit did a great job.)

Then we headed over to Tomorrowland to ride Space Mountain first thing. Since the little boys are too short (you have to be 44 in, Tobin and Logan are 42” and 43”), we had to take turns staying off with them, which means that Luke and Alyssa got to ride multiple times. And almost no wait, so that was nice.

Then we headed over to Frontierland to ride Splash Mountain (Tobin’s FAVORITE. If you ask him about our trip, this is what you’ll hear about.

 

For whatever reason, Luke was really worried about the big drop at the end, and getting wet. We wouldn’t let him opt out of the ride (i.e. we made him go). I know, it’s bizarre, right? He rode Rock & Roller Coaster AND Mount Everest (everything but Twilight Zone Tower or Terror), but he was worried about Splash Mountain. He felt pretty silly about it after the ride, but this is what he was like as we got on:

Logan LOVED it. And this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. LOVE his expression.

And here’s what Tobin thought:

As we came around the bend after the big drop, Tobin said, “WHOA! That was fweaky!” :)

Then we headed to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Matt took a video of Tobin the first time we rode BTMR, I’ll see what I can do to get it up here.

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel (after riding Splash Mountain one more time, at Logan and Tobin’s request) to get the little ones naps and get changed for “Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.” I’ll do those pictures separately – in the meantime, you should know that the Magic Kingdom is one of my favorite places on earth to be, and I was there with many of my favorite people. Can’t ask for more than that! :)

Disney Travelogue #1

So thankful for time with my sweet family! My mom (Nana!) took our family, my sister Khymberly’s family, and my brother and his fiancée (Michael & Lesli) to Disney World for a week.

We stayed in family suites at the All-Star Music, which were AWESOME. Having a child (T) who is so social he practically can’t sleep if there are people around (for example: Not sleeping at all in the van, even on 15 hour trips.), it was so nice to have a suite. No hiding under the covers as he says, “I can SEE you!”

We left last Sunday after church, and arrived just in time to say hi to everyone and go to bed. Monday morning, we headed to Disney’s Hollywood studios…one of our favorite parks because it’s home to the Rock & Roller Coaster. Mom took us 4 years ago, when I was preggers with Tobin, and I didn’t get to ride ANYTHING (just the baby rides, which were fun :D). I loved getting to do whatever I wanted and have never been happier to not be pregnant!

First on the list of things to do: Toy Story Mania, in which you ride through scenes with characters from the movies and play laser gun games. Super fun. Even waiting in line was fun, since you’re walking through board games and scenes from the movie as you wait (and this was our longest wait – 40 minutes or so. We didn’t know it at the time, but we could have waited until later and practically walked on…)

Lesli & Alyssa…

 

My mom, Alyssa, Khymberly & her youngest, Langston…

Leslie & Michael…

Logan, Khymberly, Alyssa, Luke and Tobin!

 

It’s a 3D ride!

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The cousins had a super time together. All Luke’s girl cousins want to grow up and marry him, you know…

And after the ride, we found some green army men to play with!

Then we got picked up by the claw…

strapped the boys to some rockets,

 

And rode in Buzz Lightyear’s Spaceship. Good times :).

Later that day, Khymberly & I took Alyssa and the 3 little boys (Logan, Tobin & Langston) to the Playhouse Disney show while the rest of the adults and Luke rode the Rock & Roller Coaster.

Tobin was MESMERIZED and Logan almost got away from me making a run for the stage when Handy Manny showed up. We loved everyone, but Tobin was especially happy that DARBY (from My Friends Tigger and Pooh) showed up, she is his favorite. Every time we talked about having breakfast with Tigger & Pooh (which we did Tuesday morning, pictures coming soon), he asked, “Will Darby be there??”

Then we went to the Beauty and the Beast show, where Tobin was again Mesmerized (Luke was riding Rock & Roller Coaster for the 3rd and more time, with Nana.)

Then Khymberly & I took our turn on the Rock & Roller Coaster (and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – the one ride I didn’t make Luke ride, since I don’t actually care for it myself. I was quickly reminded why.)

Meanwhile, everyone else headed over to the “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” playset.

 

Happy Halloween!

We’re just home from Fall Break at Walt Disney World with my mom, sister & brother and their families – it was a GREAT time, and I have lots of fun to share.
But I wanted to put some Halloween memories up before we get to far into November… So here’s what we had for dinner (a jack-o-lantern pizza from Papa Murphy’s – as you can see ours has a bit of an acne problem. :D)

Our little cowboy:

For those of you paying attention…yes, this is the same thing as last year. Our whole family was Pirates for the Halloween Party @ Disney World, and I didn’t want to have to come up with multiple costumes (especially since we have about 10 to choose from, including Luke’s costumes from ages 3-6, which will all fit Tobin.) But he wanted to be the cowboy riding a horse again, rather than any of the other choices.
Notable differences this year: Both years, almost every person who saw him asked what his horse’s name is. Last year, he stubbornly insisted “Just Horsey!” every time. This year, his horse is names “Gallop”, and Tobin did indeed gallop up and down the street as we went trick-or-treating. And at every house with steps up to the front door, as he descended, he stopped and reared the horse’s legs up, saying, “NEEEEIIIGGGHHH!” :)
And our Roman Soldier:

I am so thankful we were able to find this costume… We don’t have tons of choices for Luke like we do for Tobin, and since Luke was Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween when he was 6, I knew he wouldn’t want to use the same costume we had for him @ the Disney party. When he said he wanted to be a Roman Soldier, I wondered where in the world I would find that, and knew I wouldn’t want to pay whatever it cost. He was ecstatic when we were able to borrow this get up, although it ended up being much heavier than he anticipated…we had to leave the helmet behind, and hardly made it back into the house before he was disrobing. :)

And…. our family squirrel.

I NEVER thought I’d sink so low as to dress my dog up for Halloween, but the boys BEGGED, and I couldn’t resist this squirrel costume – for our dog who is squirrel obsessed. He was (obviously) less than thrilled, but patiently let me dress him up. Hee hee.

Poor dog.

And our traditional “laying in all the loot” shots…

It took a lot longer to get Luke Roman-ized, and Tobin changed his mind about his costume about 4 times…so we were quite late getting out to trick-or-treat. Luke discovered the glory in this, as lots of houses told the boys, “Take a whole handful, we don’t want any left over!” I think we have 20 mini-snickers bars!

  
Happy Halloween!