last day of vacation

Saturday
It is our last day so we chose to go back to majic kingdom and I am so glad we did. This is by far the warmest day. We made it to “It’s a small world”. How do you go to Disney without seeing it’s a small world. The highlight of the day was going to see mickey mouse, we almost left without a picture of him. We did not know Minnie mouse would be there. Grace has talked about Minnie mouse for weeks. They only let 3 families in at a time and we were the last one. As soon as she saw Minnie mouse she started screaming, Minnie mouse I love you, Minnie mouse you are so pretty, Minnie mouse. She hugged her and kissed her and hugged her. She did not want anything to do with mickey mouse but had a good time. We road the fairy to the park instead of the tram just for faith. We went to the gift shop to get souveneirs, Michael had already gotten his beloved gloves, rob had gotten his hat and now it was time for the girls. Hope had known since day one she wanted princess polly pockets, Grace got a stuffed Minnie mouse and then she also got Minnie mouse polly pockets. Have I said she has daddy wrapped around her finger. Faith is much like her mom and had a hard time deciding what she wanted. She wanted the tinker bell movie but rob said we could get it another day. She finally and I mean after 30 minutes chose a princess charm bracelet. If we are going crazy in the van we are stopping to buy the tinkerbell movie. We left the park early because I wanted to get landry done before we got home. I asked Rob to leave the cooler plugged in while we were at the park. We did this last year with no problem. Well after 6 long days and this being the warmest we got back to our van to find a dead battery. Security was very nice and helped us. We stopped at CiCi’a for pizza and then went back to the hotel to grab the dirty laundry. We drove forever to find the laundry mat they told us about and never did so we decided everyone would just wear flip flops home instead of dirty socks. Did I tell you we wore flip flops on the way here so they would not have to find there socks and then tie there shoes every time we got out of the van. Did I tell you it was snowing most of the way down and yes I let my kids play in the snow in flip flops. On that note grace is feeling much better. She still has a runny nose but not bad and I did not give her a treatment. We let the kids get in the pool again. Then went to the room and started packing things up. I can not believe I almost forgot to tell you this. The best thing ever happened today. Grace was asleep in the stroller and I was standing with faith and Michael while rob and hope road a ride. Michael asked faith if she wanted to dance. I could not believe it. I told her she better dance with him because he may never ask again. It was the sweetest thing ever. It made the trip worth it. I love making family memories. We did let faith and hope make a CD, We chose the song All stars, silly me thought it was about sports. You move your head around and it gives you a new body. The girls love it because they are in bikinis and sleevless dresses. I am okay with it because it is vacation.

Sunday
Hope woke us up at 7am this morning saying it was time to leave. That is the first time I have been woken up by the kids. So we got everyone up and the van loaded and made sure the room was in decent shape and left. Have I told you how I unpack suitcases as soon as we get in a room and then make sure everything is organized. Or how every day I make sure the room is cleaned up even when we have maid service. I would not want them to think bad of us. We stopped at mcdonalds or breakfast. Grace has been the queen of accidents this morning, we had to make a stop to buy a towel because she spilt her drink all over her seat. She has told us she does not want to go home today. She wants to go to china. She has been talking about china for a couple of weeks. We thought we were stopping at a u-pick your own orange stand but it wasn’t. The man did let us go pick a couple so we could take pictures. So we are leaving with oranges and grapefruits and lemons. We are on the way home now with lots of fun memories. Grace just said “Doctor, Doctor, I feel like a apple”. I have really enjoyed her just talking this week. After ordering our food this morning she spent 10 minutes pretending to be the cashier and repeating back that we wanted chicken nuggets with dr. pepper. She is a mess, a wonderful mess, a mess I love more and more each day. So for now we are driving the long way home and hoping everyone will take LONG LoNG naps, I did buy a couple new books and a school house rock DVD to help on the trip. I will say I wish we would have brought Disney DVD’s along for the trip home. Most of them we have no watched in years but I think they would enjoy them now after being at Disney. Rob is taking the next 2 days off to re coop he says. The weather looks like it will be beautiful so I am betting he will go fishing and maybe work on sanding down the rest of the kitchen chairs.
i would like to be able to show you wonderful pictures on here because we had some great ones but i think i lost my SD card. I took both cards out of the cameras so i could down load them on the way home and somewhere along the way i realized i lost the most important one.

day 5 vacation

Thursday
Today we went to universal studios. The weather was perfect almost 70, we even applied sunscreen. We learned a lot about Mr. Walt Disney. We saw a lot of shows. I got tickled because we watched the HSM #3 show and after only a few minutes faith was ready to go but then just a couple of hours later she wanted to stand and watch a lady sing old rock and roll songs. We did really well with budget again today. Michael got his beloved gloves he has wanted since before he got here. I let him get him today because he rode a roller coaster with dad. I bought Grace chips (and me a cookie) while we waited 45 minutes when the others were on a ride. Rob did buy a picture of them on the roller coaster. We all rode the toy story 3D ride together and that was neat. The park closed at 7 and I was glad. We were having fun but I know we are all tired. We stopped for dinner and am not back in the room. The kids are taking showers and then we are going to bed. Today was the day of bathroom issues. Grace wet through her pants and of course I did not have extras. Then another daughter kept telling us she had to go to the bathroom to get out of rides. She did not on this ride but the picture of her on the ride shows her eyes closed; she was really scared and pushed herself to go on it. Well she wet herself too. I felt so bad for her. Luckily we were leaving right after that ride. We also saw the race car show today, it was so neat for everyone. Grace had a ton more energy today but her cough sounds horrible. I think she is doing better and then I hold her and wonder if she just has a cold or if I need to be taken it more seriously. She has not had a fever but things happened so fast last time it makes me nervous.

wednesday, day 4

Wednesday
I am too tired for a lot of updates. Today we went to Epcot. We did not even get back to the room until almost 9pm and then still had to eat dinner. We saw some great shows today. I think we would all say our favorite was Honey I shrunk the audience, not only was it 3D but at one point you thought mice were attacking your legs. I can tell we are all tired because at some point we were all tired. We did great with budget again, we shared 2 popcorns and Rob paid for us to take a picture in front of the Cinderella castle. Well really in front of a green screen so they could make it look like Cinderella’s Castle. But it looks horrible and not real. Today’s big ride was called Soarin, rob and the kids went on it and then I took Michael and Hope on it, I have to admit, I was nervous, no scared on the ride. Grace sounds about the same, she had more energy today

day 2

Monday
We went to Animal Kingdom today, it was freezing but by lunch we were comfortable. This evening it is cool again. We stuck to our plan for food. We ate waffles in the room before we left and then we bought fries around lunch to share and besides one drink for Rob we did not even buy drinks. We bought NO toys today. We ate ponderosa for dinner. The park was so much fun, we saw a nemo show and bugs life and went through the safari, which is where all the animal pictures came from. Grace took a nice nap in the stroller, but we wanted her in the pictures. She thought it was funny to see herself in the pictures. We are back in the room now and getting ready for bed. It is going to be hard to post pictures because i love pictures of animals and will hate choosing

day one trip to disney

We woke up this morning to ice rain. I thought I had everything covered and then woke up to ice rain. I am so glad I have my friend to take care of the dog last minute. The trip down was scary at times. The roads were bad and there were allot of accidents. We made it, it took longer than we planned but that was okay. The kids did really well on the way down. They watched movies and played games. Oh yeah and Faith promised Michael she would not sing so she did not sing the whole way here. The hotel is better than we thought it would be. Except it does not have internet and I am too cheap to pay for it. There are 4 pools but we told the kids it was too late to get in them tonight. The suitcases are unpacked and Rob has gone to pick up dinner and some groceries for the week.