Sorry kitty, you can't come with us!
Vacation time! Having a home-schooling house means we can wait until everyone else goes back to school before we go on vacation. We are currently in Florida staying in a nice resort on Disney World property where we'll be staying the next week and a half.
Our plan is to try and blog each day to make sure we remember everything and fully capture the memories of our trip that we've been planning for so long. This is meant to be our on-line memory scrapbook of the all the events of our trip, so please indulge us if this gets too long and detailed.
Unfortunately, we missed yesterday due to the fact that we missed packing the right connection tools to get pictures off of our camera. We fixed that today, so here's what happened yesterday.
Friday morning (September 11th) we all woke up rather early. We were all up well before 6 am mainly due to excitement. We'd been packing in phases over the past week, so we just had to finish up a few last minute items and vacation-ready our home. Then a little after 7 our friend Aubrey picked us up to take us to the airport. We were so happy to have such a great friend who was willing to drive us out to help us not to have to pay for parking for a week and a half!
Our flight was leaving at the International Terminal in the DFW airport. It's the nicest, fanciest terminal at the whole airport. It's got all the cool shops, sculptures, and security gate technology. After being dropped off, we noticed not too many minutes later that Maria had left our camera in Aubrey's car! Luckily, it was soon enough that Aubrey hadn't left the airport yet and was able to deliver it to us. Hopefully that will be the only time that something gets left behind on our trip.
Waiting at the airport while Greg checks the bag.
We got through security and to our gate in a short amount of time, not too early, so there wasn't too much wait before we began boarding. This was the boy's first airplane flight ever so we were doing our best to point everything out and describe what was happening and what would be happening to the boys. We got on the plane and found our seats. The boys were both pulling some large wheeled backpacks that we had, while Maria had her carry-on bag and CPAP machine and I had my regular travel bag and laptop bag. We also checked one large bag as well--inside that bag were several other smaller bags to lug home the souvenirs we anticipated getting.
The boys excitedly waiting to be called to board.
We were all sitting next to each other in one row, with Maria and the boys in one set of three seats and me on the outer seat on the other side of the aisle. I wasn't too far from Maria, but I felt a bit lonely since there was little opportunity to interact with Maria as people were constantly going up and down the aisle. Instead I had to share my row with another couple who, luckily, were of significantly smaller stature than me.
Hi way over there!
The kids were really excited for take-off. I told them that after the plane ride, all the thrill rides at Disney would be a let down. They were amazed as we finally started going up in the air by just how quickly we were through the clouds (it was a rainy day) and above them. They loved looking out over the sea of clouds as well as seeing how all the buildings around the airport quickly shrank to tiny ant-sized dwellings. It made all the people around our seats enjoy the ride more just hearing their very vocal excited reactions to everything.
Spencer spent a lot of his time looking out the window
Happy and excited Colin
Nothing exciting happened on the plane ride, and we're all grateful for that.
Once we made it to Florida and eventually exited the plane, we got to ride a tram that took us from the terminal to the main part of the airport. So that was the third ride (after the car and plane) of the day and we weren't even in a theme park yet.
Oh no, we killed our kids by making them carry too much baggage!
We rented a car (a red HHR) and then told our GPS to find our hotel. We also told it to avoid all toll roads, which it did, but it left us doubting quite a bit as it led us in some pretty strange directions.
Not too bad. At least it fits our luggage!
We ate at a super-fancy McDonald's on the way to our hotel from the airport. There were flat-screen TVs in every direction (we watched a high-speed chase in LA for a while, which turned out to be an elderly woman - go figure), and the decorations were neat. The boys liked the talking trash cans. Too bad the food wasn't any better than usual.
The boys chilling out while waiting for happy meals.
Maria was entertained by the EIGHTEEN mirrors in the bathroom. Seriously, who needs THAT many mirrors?
Yay, we're on Disney property! Woo hoo!
The hotel was amazing. It's a Wyndham time-share resort and it's got all sorts of pools, games, and other activities to make it so we wouldn't even have to leave the resort to have a great time. We bought a one-year time share trial (on this prior trip) specifically to take a Disney park vacation. We went up and explored our condo and then quickly dressed in our swimsuits to go play in a lazy-river pool just outside of our building. It was raining, but we didn't particularly care, it just made it cool while we drifted around the winding pool.
Kid's room - they were happy to discover they had their own TV!
Dining room
Kitchen - with microwave, oven, dishwasher, and all those handy things
Living room
Master bedroom
Master bath
After we were done there, we came up and showered and got ready to go out. We needed food for the condo so we didn't have to eat out every meal, and so we could have breakfast the next day before the parks, and Maria wanted to go visit Downtown Disney and see some of the shops there. We decided we would visit Downtown Disney first where we might get dinner and then we would go shopping.
Unfortunately, we forgot the camera so the rest of the evening remains undocumented in photos.
We parked and wandered into one end of Downtown Disney, which is a big outdoor mall full of shops, restaurants, and entertainment. Maria was particularly excited to see their giant Disney Store and Lego Store. I wanted to see the magic shop, and the kids just went where we told them.
We found the Magic Shop first. Unfortunately, it was pretty tiny, with very typical amateurish selections, and it smelled strongly of cigars. It turned out the last one was because it was housed next to a cigar shop of all places.
We wandered along and some street performers stopped us and pulled our kids out to do a hula hoop contest. Both Colin and Spencer were pulled out for separate contests and ended up being finalists for their individual groups and they ended up competing against each other and with a couple other winners for a grand prize. We were shocked out how good they both were since we don't regularly hula hoop at home. Unfortunately, neither won the final competition; Colin came in third when the MC said clap your hands and he thought he said lift your leg (not sure how he confused that one), and Spencer came in second when he finally gave out. Both of them received pins for doing well.
This is a shot of the boys doing air hula, to recreate the moment.
Speaking of pins, one fun thing the boys and Maria have been doing on this trip is pin trading. Maria bought lanyards and some (relatively) inexpensive pin lots on eBay so that the boys would have something to start out trading with. After watching them trade for a day, she decided to start wearing some as well to help find pins they were looking for. We've gotten some great ones so far, and it's a fun souvenir that doesn't take much room.
We were all wearing the same "Y" shirt that I got from BYU earlier this year which caused a lot of questions ("What does the 'Y' mean?" or "Does your name start with 'Y'?) and also brought a lot of acknowledgment ("I went to BYU too!" or "That was a great game against Oklahoma last week!") from random people throughout the day, especially walking around Downtown Disney. We plan on wearing coordinated shirts every day and it really makes it nice to be able to look out into a crowd and find the family with the same shirt as you -- or to ask someone if they've seen a similar shirt if temporarily lost.
We continued around and found the Lego shop which was amazing. We also found the giant Disney store and didn't even make it all the way through it before moving on (we were very hungry). We finally found "The Earl of Sandwich" restaurant where we had some tasty deli-style sandwiches. We were ready to go, but then Spencer pointed out a toy store which we had to at least look in. Inside they had a really cool Build-a-Potato-Head room with Mr. Potato Head and hundreds of random accessories. It was pretty amazing. They also had a Build-your-own-Light-Saber in the back that was cool. We plan on trying to go back again this week to see more--as well as to bring the camera!
We eventually made it back to our car and at that point we were all too tired to go shopping. I was afraid that if we played first we'd be too tired for work later. We decided we'd go home sans-groceries and hope we could find something for breakfast the next day.
After that we drove home, and quickly crashed into our beds to get some much-needed rest in anticipation of the first day at the park tomorrow.
Vacation time! Having a home-schooling house means we can wait until everyone else goes back to school before we go on vacation. We are currently in Florida staying in a nice resort on Disney World property where we'll be staying the next week and a half.
Our plan is to try and blog each day to make sure we remember everything and fully capture the memories of our trip that we've been planning for so long. This is meant to be our on-line memory scrapbook of the all the events of our trip, so please indulge us if this gets too long and detailed.
Unfortunately, we missed yesterday due to the fact that we missed packing the right connection tools to get pictures off of our camera. We fixed that today, so here's what happened yesterday.
Friday morning (September 11th) we all woke up rather early. We were all up well before 6 am mainly due to excitement. We'd been packing in phases over the past week, so we just had to finish up a few last minute items and vacation-ready our home. Then a little after 7 our friend Aubrey picked us up to take us to the airport. We were so happy to have such a great friend who was willing to drive us out to help us not to have to pay for parking for a week and a half!
Our flight was leaving at the International Terminal in the DFW airport. It's the nicest, fanciest terminal at the whole airport. It's got all the cool shops, sculptures, and security gate technology. After being dropped off, we noticed not too many minutes later that Maria had left our camera in Aubrey's car! Luckily, it was soon enough that Aubrey hadn't left the airport yet and was able to deliver it to us. Hopefully that will be the only time that something gets left behind on our trip.
Waiting at the airport while Greg checks the bag.
We got through security and to our gate in a short amount of time, not too early, so there wasn't too much wait before we began boarding. This was the boy's first airplane flight ever so we were doing our best to point everything out and describe what was happening and what would be happening to the boys. We got on the plane and found our seats. The boys were both pulling some large wheeled backpacks that we had, while Maria had her carry-on bag and CPAP machine and I had my regular travel bag and laptop bag. We also checked one large bag as well--inside that bag were several other smaller bags to lug home the souvenirs we anticipated getting.
The boys excitedly waiting to be called to board.
We were all sitting next to each other in one row, with Maria and the boys in one set of three seats and me on the outer seat on the other side of the aisle. I wasn't too far from Maria, but I felt a bit lonely since there was little opportunity to interact with Maria as people were constantly going up and down the aisle. Instead I had to share my row with another couple who, luckily, were of significantly smaller stature than me.
Hi way over there!
The kids were really excited for take-off. I told them that after the plane ride, all the thrill rides at Disney would be a let down. They were amazed as we finally started going up in the air by just how quickly we were through the clouds (it was a rainy day) and above them. They loved looking out over the sea of clouds as well as seeing how all the buildings around the airport quickly shrank to tiny ant-sized dwellings. It made all the people around our seats enjoy the ride more just hearing their very vocal excited reactions to everything.
Spencer spent a lot of his time looking out the window
Happy and excited Colin
Nothing exciting happened on the plane ride, and we're all grateful for that.
Once we made it to Florida and eventually exited the plane, we got to ride a tram that took us from the terminal to the main part of the airport. So that was the third ride (after the car and plane) of the day and we weren't even in a theme park yet.
Oh no, we killed our kids by making them carry too much baggage!
We rented a car (a red HHR) and then told our GPS to find our hotel. We also told it to avoid all toll roads, which it did, but it left us doubting quite a bit as it led us in some pretty strange directions.
Not too bad. At least it fits our luggage!
We ate at a super-fancy McDonald's on the way to our hotel from the airport. There were flat-screen TVs in every direction (we watched a high-speed chase in LA for a while, which turned out to be an elderly woman - go figure), and the decorations were neat. The boys liked the talking trash cans. Too bad the food wasn't any better than usual.
The boys chilling out while waiting for happy meals.
Maria was entertained by the EIGHTEEN mirrors in the bathroom. Seriously, who needs THAT many mirrors?
Yay, we're on Disney property! Woo hoo!
The hotel was amazing. It's a Wyndham time-share resort and it's got all sorts of pools, games, and other activities to make it so we wouldn't even have to leave the resort to have a great time. We bought a one-year time share trial (on this prior trip) specifically to take a Disney park vacation. We went up and explored our condo and then quickly dressed in our swimsuits to go play in a lazy-river pool just outside of our building. It was raining, but we didn't particularly care, it just made it cool while we drifted around the winding pool.
Kid's room - they were happy to discover they had their own TV!
Dining room
Kitchen - with microwave, oven, dishwasher, and all those handy things
Living room
Master bedroom
Master bath
After we were done there, we came up and showered and got ready to go out. We needed food for the condo so we didn't have to eat out every meal, and so we could have breakfast the next day before the parks, and Maria wanted to go visit Downtown Disney and see some of the shops there. We decided we would visit Downtown Disney first where we might get dinner and then we would go shopping.
Unfortunately, we forgot the camera so the rest of the evening remains undocumented in photos.
We parked and wandered into one end of Downtown Disney, which is a big outdoor mall full of shops, restaurants, and entertainment. Maria was particularly excited to see their giant Disney Store and Lego Store. I wanted to see the magic shop, and the kids just went where we told them.
We found the Magic Shop first. Unfortunately, it was pretty tiny, with very typical amateurish selections, and it smelled strongly of cigars. It turned out the last one was because it was housed next to a cigar shop of all places.
We wandered along and some street performers stopped us and pulled our kids out to do a hula hoop contest. Both Colin and Spencer were pulled out for separate contests and ended up being finalists for their individual groups and they ended up competing against each other and with a couple other winners for a grand prize. We were shocked out how good they both were since we don't regularly hula hoop at home. Unfortunately, neither won the final competition; Colin came in third when the MC said clap your hands and he thought he said lift your leg (not sure how he confused that one), and Spencer came in second when he finally gave out. Both of them received pins for doing well.
This is a shot of the boys doing air hula, to recreate the moment.
Speaking of pins, one fun thing the boys and Maria have been doing on this trip is pin trading. Maria bought lanyards and some (relatively) inexpensive pin lots on eBay so that the boys would have something to start out trading with. After watching them trade for a day, she decided to start wearing some as well to help find pins they were looking for. We've gotten some great ones so far, and it's a fun souvenir that doesn't take much room.
We were all wearing the same "Y" shirt that I got from BYU earlier this year which caused a lot of questions ("What does the 'Y' mean?" or "Does your name start with 'Y'?) and also brought a lot of acknowledgment ("I went to BYU too!" or "That was a great game against Oklahoma last week!") from random people throughout the day, especially walking around Downtown Disney. We plan on wearing coordinated shirts every day and it really makes it nice to be able to look out into a crowd and find the family with the same shirt as you -- or to ask someone if they've seen a similar shirt if temporarily lost.
We continued around and found the Lego shop which was amazing. We also found the giant Disney store and didn't even make it all the way through it before moving on (we were very hungry). We finally found "The Earl of Sandwich" restaurant where we had some tasty deli-style sandwiches. We were ready to go, but then Spencer pointed out a toy store which we had to at least look in. Inside they had a really cool Build-a-Potato-Head room with Mr. Potato Head and hundreds of random accessories. It was pretty amazing. They also had a Build-your-own-Light-Saber in the back that was cool. We plan on trying to go back again this week to see more--as well as to bring the camera!
We eventually made it back to our car and at that point we were all too tired to go shopping. I was afraid that if we played first we'd be too tired for work later. We decided we'd go home sans-groceries and hope we could find something for breakfast the next day.
After that we drove home, and quickly crashed into our beds to get some much-needed rest in anticipation of the first day at the park tomorrow.
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