Vacation Magic

We are finally home from our family vacation. I know some of you have been frantically checking my blog, biting your nails, and pacing the room in anticipation of this post, so I'll get on with it. (But you should really stop that nail biting thing--it's a terrible habit.)

We high-tailed it out of town on Friday morning (Aug. 29th) with everything we own and probably some stuff that belongs to other people. Our children knew that we were headed to visit with our friends, the Lawsons, but what they didn't know was that we were going to be visiting them at a fabulous hotel in Orlando and going to Disney World! Yes, very exciting stuff, folks. The girls went crazy when they found out. We walked into the SeaWorld Renaissance and there were our friends! Lots of jumping and hugging ensued. The hotel was amazing, as you can see from the pictures. Just staying there would have been an awesome vacation in itself. The next morning we woke up early and drove over to Disney's Magic Kingdom. We had visited several years back with the Lawsons before Hopers was born and before their youngest son Joshua was born and their middle son Jacob was a little baby. So, this was like a Disney reunion for Noodle and her buddy Caleb. In addition to our friends, Seth's parents joined the fun for the day since they live nearby. Here's the line-up:

Seth

Me

Noodle
Hopers
Seth's Parents (John & Suzanne)

Steve

Michelle

Caleb

Jacob
Joshua (who went to visit his grandma while we were at Disney)

The first thing Hopers wanted to do was meet a Princess. She was so thrilled that the very first thing we did as we entered the park was see Snow White. She would only have her picture taken with her if we were with her. But Noodle wasn't interested. My little six-year-old was "over" the princess thing! (Sniff! I never thought the day would come.) She did end up having her picture taken with them, but only after Caleb convinced her to do it with him.

Noodle did, however, enjoy big-kid rides. She is now officially tall enough to ride roller-coasters. She was apprehensive on the first one, (Thunder Mountain) but really began to love them after that. She rode everything that her height would allow--Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain... all the mountains. We decided to make a video of us while on one:

We spent the morning running around the park, went back to the hotel for food and naps, then returned in the evening for more fun. One of the highlights of the day would have to be The Lollipops. One thing Noodle had always dreamed of doing in her six long years of life was to get a giant lollipop, so we made sure that dream came true. (Isn't that what Disney is for?) In fact, all the kids got one. We bought them just as we were leaving in the afternoon so they could sit and slurp on them all the way back to the hotel. (The kids were so sticky, it took approximately 3,500 wipes just to unglue them from the back seat of the van when we arrived.)

And here are a few more pics just to give you an idea of our day.