Disney!!!

I have been itching to take the kids to Disney, and recently, so has Lance.  Given his free weekends this month, we decided to go for it.  Our next issue? Budget…or lack thereof.  We ended up doing one of those timeshare condo presentations.  We were prepared for a wasted day of insanity with the kiddos, but God had His hand in it, and it ended up only being a few hours of not-so-awfulness. The sales guy was brand new and kept apologizing for everything…lol. He took us to breakfast (as they all do), and asked right up front if we were doing this for the incentive (it varied depending on where you signed up—online or at a discount sales desk—we did ours online and it included tickets and hotel costs!!!), so we told him yes.  From them on out, he was super-low key.  Then, we found out we couldn’t bring the kids into the larger sales presentation, so he just rushed through the stuff, did a quick walk through and we were done! 

We had one day, one park tickets and opted for the Magic Kingdom.  Now, I only have pictures from the first part of the day on the camera.  At one point, Lance took the boys on the train so Maddy could do some big girl rides with me, so other pictures were via my phone. I’ll have to add those in a later post.  Here’s what I’ve got from the first part of our day…

 

Walking in from the parking lot.  Yep…got there early and parked so close that we didn’t need a tram!  (Random note: lots of guys in red shirts=an official Gay Day at Disney.  Good to know for future reference…)

Putting on their “First Visit” pins

They loved the monorail

Mesmerized by the sights outside the monorail

So glad we had someone snap a family pic for us right off the bat!

Looking at characters from afar.  Tommy isn’t a fan of costumed folk.

Mommy, I see the castle!!!

Watching the streetcar show

First Ride of the Day!

So happy!

Riding Small World

This was definitely Aaron’s favorite ride…a big baby mobile!!!

Poor guy was beat just a few hours in.

Proof Maddy actually sat down for two seconds.

Big gap from here (mid-morning) to the end of the day.  Will try and get cell phone pictures up later.

The very last thing we did was meet Mickey, Minnie, and some princesses.  Maddy was in HEAVEN.  Tommy was terrified.  Aaron was cranky.  Seeing Maddy’s reaction made the day for mommy and daddy.

Have you ever seen a happier little girl?

Getting ready to check out of our hotel room the next morning.

On our way home, we stopped in Leesburg to see Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Powell.  We had lunch first at Cracker Barrel.

It was an amazing trip and we can’t wait to do it all again!!!

New Smyrna Beach

June has been AMAZING. Lance has had normal-ish hours with weekends off! We love this rotation! But, like all good things, it must come to an end. In the mean time, however, we’ve been making the most of it! I still need to get pics up from Disney (and, you know, the past few months), but I thought I’d throw these up while I had the free moment or two.

Many many thanks to my Aunt Linda for letting us crash her condo at New Smyrna for a couple of nights! We drove down Friday  night after Lance got home from work and stayed through this morning.  We were fortunate to catch some sun on Saturday.  The kids had a blast.  Maddy had been to Jax Beach once just before her first birthday, but she was too young to remember.  The big two have been to the Gulf Coast a few times, but for me, it doesn’t count as “the beach.” I have many fond memories of summer days spent at Daytona and New Smyrna, so it was fun to finally get the kids over there for a bit. 

The kids loved just sitting in the wet sand and letting the water wash over their legs.  I was surprised at how brave Aaron was—he was the first to dart out into the surf!  We had so much fun (well, while outside…the kids got crazy once inside the condo.  I feel horrible for all the racket they made. I’m sure the neighbors were ecstatic when we left this morning…lol)!  Hopefully we can make a return visit to the beach once more this year!