Disney World Vacation!

I feel very lucky to have spent the past seven days with my family vacationing at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. We have been planning this trip since May and it was the BEST VACATION EVER!!! We booked an all-inclusive trip, including food and park tickets. Since we stayed in a hotel right on the resort, we used the Disney transportation system that took us everywhere we wanted to go. Since this blog is dedicated to my sweet girls, I want to share everyday we had there. Now, I'm going to be a little sappy here, but my hope is that we look back on this vacation years from now, when the girls are vacationing with their own families, and remember Disney how it was when we were there in 2010. I really think I'm going to love being a grandma (a little too early, I know, but I don't like the disciplining part of parenting so much, so I can't wait to spoil them!) We saw so many grandparents treating their entire family to a Disney vacation, and I would love to do that one day. Okay, now on to our vacation:

Day 1 - Sunday, August 1st - Magic Kingdom

Our Airtran flight was scheduled for 7:30am out of Flint Bishop Airport (our favorite airport) so we woke up around 5:30am to get ready to go. We were all packed and took showers the night before, so we didn't have much to do before we left. The girls were sleepy but very excited to be leaving for Disney. I am pretty scared to fly so it was nice to have Todd (who jumped out of airplanes in the Army, so he's not scared at all) to be that source of strength for the girls. Eva and I sat in the row in front of Todd and Kayla while the plane took off. Eva was pretty freaked out, but once we got in the air she was fine. Kayla was not afraid at all. They were both very well-behaved on the plane.

We flew non-stop to Orlando and the Disney Magical Express picked us up from the airport. We didn't have to worry about our luggage because they transported it to our hotel for us. We stayed at the All-Star Movies resort. We arrived at our hotel around 11am. Check-in was not until 3pm but they got us into our room right away. Our bags arrived shortly after and we went down to the food court to have lunch, then back to our room to take much needed naps. It was so nice to be so close together in the same room for one week. I thought the girls would have a hard time sleeping together but we were so exhausted every night, we all slept great. Then we went to the Magic Kingdom for the evening. The only problem was the huge thunderstorm that started as soon as we boarded the bus! When we got off the bus, we stayed under the bus stop to wait for the rain to stop. The only problem was, it never seemed to let up and there was so much lightning, I really didn't want the girls out in that kind of a storm. So we waited for about an hour, then Kayla had to go to the bathroom (happened MANY times during our trip!) so we had to brave the weather and head inside the gate. Todd bought ponchos for all of us and we headed in. Cinderella's castle was the first thing we saw and the girls were so amazed. I will never forget the looks on their faces. Kayla said, "can we go there right now!" We had heard it rains everyday in Florida and I thought it would be a problem, but it's actually a good thing. The clouds hide the hot sun, the rain cools down everything, and people leave so the lines aren't so long, lol! We spent the evening walking through the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, riding on a boat through the jungle, went on the pirate ride, Aladdin's Magic Carpet ride, ate dinner, and watched the Electrical Parade twice. The girls got to shake Snow White's hand and thought that was the best :) The Magic Kingdom is just that, magical.

Day 2 - Monday, August 2nd - Typhoon Lagoon

Day 3 - Tuesday, August 3rd - Hollywood Studios

Day 4 - Wednesday, August 4th - Animal Kingdom

Day 5 - Thursday, August 5th - Blizzard Beach

Day 6 - Friday, August 6th - Magic Kingdom

Day 7 - Saturday, August 7th - Downtown Disney