Disney Recap Day 1

Guys.

It's been forever.

Well, one month exactly since my last post.  So not quite forever, but with everything that has gone on in the past month it sure does feel like a long time.

Today we have absolutely nothing to do.  Not a thing.  For the first time in foreeeveeeeerrrr...  

Why am I singing Disney tunes you ask?  Well, because the lyrics were appropriate to my sentence of course, but also because we just got back from Disney World.  !!!!  Yes, I know.  Awesome.  Those songs have been a major part of our lives in the past two weeks... but I digress.  Back to Disney in a minute.

I had forgotten what it feels like to have a day with nothing on the calendar.  For real, I think we haven't had a day like this since the summer.  All of our days have had at least one thing in them since August-- and more often than that, two or three or even more things.

So today I am taking full advantage.  The baby's napping, the big girls have been happily playing Barbies all day, I'm still in my pjs, M is laying in bed beside me, I'm sipping a poor man's pumpkin spice latte (a.k.a coffee brewed with cinnamon and ginger and served with lots of milk) and I plan to blog the afternoon away!  YAAAAAYYYYYY!!!

It's hard to even know where to begin.  There's Halloween to talk about, some wonderful concerts for me, plenty of milestones for the girls, that half marathon that I ran, and of course there's so much to say about the Disney trip...

I think I'll start with a Disney recap.  Maybe that will be useful for any readers who plan to do this kind of trip with small kiddos in the future?  Who knows.

Just to give you a taste of what's coming, here is one of my favorite photos from the trip.

We waited in line an hour to see Mickey, and the photographer captured this photo at the very moment that he turned to the girls and talked (yes, talked!!) to them for the first time.  So very magical.

I love this picture because our facial expressions are like a visual representation of what all of us were feeling all week-- adults included (we traveled with my parents, my sister and brothers, and all their significant others).  Even when you're old enough to figure out most of the behind-the-scenes tricks, being in that place is still just other-worldly... a slowing down of space and time.  I'm so thankful we had the opportunity to go.  I mean, even just the fact that somebody made waffles for me and all of my children every morning.  Magical, I tell you.  Coming back to real life (and my own food preparation) has been a bit difficult.

But let's back up.  Here's how it all began.

On Tuesday November 7, Mom and I met up and she took the girls for me for an overnight.  Things had been so busy for me with teaching and a concert run leading right up to the weekend before we left for Disney, I had simply had no time to get us organized and packed.  Grandma to the rescue.

So Tuesday afternoon I got myself and J packed, and then I had to leave for a photo shoot with Labyrinth Choir.  M did his packing while I was at the photo shoot.

Wednesday morning I finished laundry and packing for the big girls, then made a Target run for such trip essentials as band-aids, activities for the plane from the dollar bin, hand sanitizer, ear plugs, filtering water bottles, etc. etc. etc.  I also scored some cute matching Minnie shirts for the girls for only $8 each.

I returned home, packed all the stuff I had bought, and began "closing" the house.  M returned home from work and we left to meet Grandma and Grandpa at a hotel near the airport where we were flying.  This hotel offered breakfast starting at 4 AM and a shuttle to and from the airport, as well as free parking for your vehicle the entire week.  A no-brainer.

(Unfortunately C had a really bad itching attack in the night and I think M and I got about two hours sleep that night, but it was still very exciting.)

The next morning we were up at 4:45 to shower, get ready, and brush our teeth:

We had our breakfast, convinced J to get on the shuttle with the scary man (our poor van driver), made it through security checkpoints with plenty of help from G&G, and boarded the plane!!

Southwest does first-come-first-serve seating and so we worried a bit that G&G wouldn't be able to sit with us, since we were able to do family boarding ahead of everyone and they were way back in the "C" boarding group.  Luckily there were about 40 empty seats on this flight so they were able to sit right behind us.  Yay!

As you can see from the photo above Miss J powered through her coloring book in the first seven minutes of the flight and I was pretty sure we were SOL for the next two hours and 53 minutes.  But luckily there was play-doh and snacks.  And cookies.

And maybe a bit of the Lollipops game on Mommy's phone.

I'm very happy to report that she sat with her bottom in a seat for three whole hours, with minimal complaining, which is a small miracle.  Still thanking my stars for that one.

When we landed we made our way to the first level of the airport, and whipped out our Magic Bands:

After we "booped" our bands for the first time, we were able to board Disney's Magical Express (airport shuttle)!

I think we were on the bus just before 2 PM that day, and it was barely 30 seconds before Miss J was out.

We arrived at our resort (Caribbean Beach), got checked in, picked up our refillable mugs, and went outside to catch the internal resort shuttle over to our room.

(J slept through all of this)

All the Disney employees that helped us were so friendly and helpful and cheerful-- this was true of the entire week that we were staying there.  I really don't understand how every single employee-- right down to the people cleaning the bathrooms-- can truly seem to love their job so much, but they all had smiles on their faces and it just made everything that much better for us.  Wow.

I'm not gonna lie though, we were all pretty hangry by this point in the day, not having had any lunch... and even chatting with the friendly Disney employee at the bus stop was not enough to turn some of the girls' frowns upside down.  We snacked on apples and crackers from our Dad Bag at the bus stop, but as soon as we had ridden the shuttle to our room and put all of our luggage down, we set out in search of the "Island Market" which, according to advertisement, offered grab-and-go meals.

Well, we had purchased the Disney Quick-Service meal plan in advance, which I highly recommend.  Each meal offered us way more food than we could eat and I really think it was a great value.  Since our last trip here ten years ago they have really expanded to include a lot more healthy options too, which is great, because having way more hot dogs and fries than you can eat is not always a good thing.  Anyway, we dined that afternoon on club salad, caesar wraps, and the kids got Uncrustables with carrot sticks and applesauce pouches.  Not too bad!

Then we hit the pool!

M went in the water with the girls but at that point I was unfortunately feeling pretty sick to my stomach so I opted out.  I think it was a combination of a very mild stomach virus that I had at the time, and the total lack of sleep the night before.  So the girls had fun swimming until it got dark, and then we headed back to the room to shower off and get settled for the night.  By that time my brothers and sister were all arriving so we greeted them and shared our excitement!.... and then passed out.

Well, I take that back... the girls were hungry for another meal after their swim so we had some chips on the bed with Grandpa... because why not???

Day 2 coming soon!!!