Disney World Pt6

Magic Kingdom was by far our favorite. I guess we are a "classic" Disney family, and most of our favorite attractions were right there in MK, so we found ourselves there three times! I have alot to share from MK so in an effort to break it up, I thought I'd share our favorite Castle shots first...because the Castle is definitely the most recognizable icon of MK.





One of the stage shows with Mickey and Minnie...


The view of the Castle was gorgeous at night.


This is a beautiful shot during "Wishes", the fireworks display over the Castle.




Here's one Em snapped of her and Trev that I didn't even know about until I was sorting through all the pictures from the trip. I love this brother/sister moment that wasn't prompted by a parent!


And here's a collage Emilee made...


And this is the professional picture that most of you have seen as our Christmas card.  It's rare to see all five of us in one shot so you can imagine this is my absolute favorite of the whole trip!

Disney World Pt5

We had some long days in the parks and Carter was a trooper. One evening he passed out in Joshua's arms while we were walking out of the park and this was the shot we snapped after we finally had made the trek from the shuttle to our room with this heavy little boy. He was OUT!
Disney World--- 1
Carter--- 0

And then we were up early again the next day to do it all again! Em and Joshua, perky at breakfast...

And Trevor took this picture, forever memorializing that yes, just like Texas does their state shaped waffles in local hotels, so does DW have Mickey shaped waffles in theirs!

Disney World Pt4

Animal Kingdom was our second favorite park. We did think it was a bit overly hyped up though. Maybe not really a "Disney Park", but more like a pretty amazing zoo. At any rate, we had another great day on our vacation!

Most of the pics we took that day are...wait for it...of ANIMALS hahaha!! We were told how lucky we were that day, though. Just about every animal that "might" be able to be seen from the jungle tour bus we DID see, so it was pretty exciting!

Hippos...

Zebras...

Rhinos...

Trevor snapped this elephant picture. See the reflection in the water? I thought his shot was pretty cool!!

And Carter petting a weird lizard in the interactive section

These next two shots are "before" shots. This was the one thrill ride in the park. And it has a teensy little sign that says "you may get wet". It was a nice day. Sunny. So we thought "eh, what's a little sprinkle, let's go for it!" Then we noticed about half the people in line around us in full waterproof poncho gear. Yeah, suffice it to say we were all thoroughly SOAKED on the ride, and we were just lucky to have kept our phones and cameras from being ruined! Oh well, it was a BLAST!

Disney World Pt3

We did the parks roughly in this order...Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom (back to Magic Kingdom for the evening), Hollywood Studios (back to Downtown Disney for the evening), and then Magic Kingdom again for our last day (which happened to be Thanksgiving Day). We went in that order largely due to crowd forecast and then went back to Magic Kingdom the last day because hands down, it was everyone's absolute favorite.

So here's a peek at our fun for the day at Epcot...

"The Epcot Ball" (and ughhh...I can't get this turned around, blogger is being a turkey, so please forgive the necessary head tilt for this one).
This huge sphere is the signature Epcot icon. This attraction takes you through a 16 minute riding tour of the history of technology, from the dawn of time until present day, and into the future. And the whole tour spirals INSIDE of the enormous Epcot Ball!

This pic is a screen shot of the "future" that Emilee and I created based on an interactive questionaire that we answered on the ride. It was pretty cool as they used face shots of us and put us "into" our future.

A pic of the monkeys as we waited...

To see the all important Nemo!!

And just before lunch Emilee wasn't feeling well. So I decided to take her and Carter back to the hotel. Carter and I enjoyed some down time poolside and Em took a long nap in the room.

Joshua and Trevor stayed and explored the rest of Epcot, which worked out perfectly as the remainder of the park is largely visual international displays and yummy food. Not exactly Carter-friendly, but VERY fun for Daddy and Son!

Some yummy pastry from France...

And you can't miss a beer and brat from Germany...

As they blasted off on the thrill ride Mission Space...

They got to see several awesome "street performances" like this acrobatic one...

And one of my favorite pics of Trevor from the trip...a likewise pose with a statue!!

Disney World Pt2

We didn't head into the parks when we arrived as it was mid afternoon and didn't want to waste a whole day's ticket on a half day, so we decided to explore Downtown Disney for the rest of the day. It was our first taste of "all things Mickey" and we were all pretty excited! Downtown Disney is an outdoor shopping and dining area outside of the parks, that you can just leisurely stroll. There are lots of Disney-esque sights without the bustle of all the rides and such. The weather was beautiful (phew!) and it was just a short walk from our hotel...

One of the first things we found was a Pirates of the Carribean photo op. All five of us love POTC so anything "Pirates" was a big attraction all week.

(And this pic was from a second visit to the same location and I couldn't leave it out cuz Carter decided he wanted to be in this one!)

The lego store and all the surrounding displays were amazing. They had at least a dozen life sized creations like Woody and Buzz. Zillions and zillions of bricks, I tell ya! And Trevor and Carter being the lego maniacs that they are were in seventh heaven!

I don't know the proper name for this next picture. There was this lady, a real live lady, all costumed and made up to look like a bronzed statue...and she periodically moved which would scare the junk out of passers-by who hadn't paid attention. It was amazing to sit back and watch her stay SOOOO STILL, and then robotically move to a new statue-like pose. Em and I just had to jump in front of her for a pic!

Goofy pics while we waited for dinner at the T-Rex restaurant.

The boys played in the "dinosaur bone excavation pit" and Joshua, Em and I played with the camera...

All of Disney was fully decorated for Christmas and this tree was the centerpiece of Downtown Disney. I love it's simplicity with the Mickey ears at the top...and I love that my camera didn't blurr the lights!

Disney World Pt1

For Thanksgiving last year we took "The Vacation"...that biggie that every family is supposed to do at least once...we headed to Disney in Florida. We had decided to go in January, but with our unexpected move that summer and Joshua's complicated work schedule, we weren't sure we would get there. But at 5 am Saturday morning before Turkey Day, we were on the shuttle from the hotel to the airport...

Carter got happily snuggled into his first class seat (this kid doesn't know how to travel any other way lol!) next to Daddy...

And Trevor decided to be my seat buddy...

By the time we were waiting for our second plane, Emilee had woken up enough to pose for some goofy pics with Daddy...

And post-9/11, this kind of thing doesn't happen much any more, but during the second leg of our trip Daddy was able to get Trevor a chance to see what it is like to sit in the pilot's seat of an Airbus A320. Get us there safely, Buddy!!!

Carter is 6...part 2!

Carter's actual birthday fell on Wednesday this week. Before school I snapped a cute picture marking his exact 6th birthday with our traditional paper sign on the fireplace.

At school he celebrated with "birthday" flavor oreos with his classmates and got a birthday pencil from the principal. He also brought home the "Birthday Notebook" from school as homework. Each birthday child takes this home and draws a picture and writes a sentence about their favorite part of their birthday. I thought Mandi would get a kick out of the fact that he chose his picture and sentence to be about his pirate ship cake from his party the previous weekend! Then after going to Trevor's track meet, Carter got to choose any restaurant to go out to eat. He immediately voted for "King Burger". He's a kid with cheeseburgers very near and dear to his heart lol!

We opened the remainder of his presents once we got home...

And then enjoyed birthday cake, with the 6 made especially out of M&Ms, as they are his absolute favorite candy.

I love the expression and his eyes in this picture...

I hope all your wishes come true, Boog. Happy, Happy Birthday!!!!