memories

#mcdanfamloveswdw: day 3

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

ICYMI:

Click HERE to see the photos we shared on Instagram from our trip. 

Click Here if you missed Day 1.

Click Here if you missed Day 2.

Day 3: Friday, May 8th.

It was cheaper to buy a 7 day Magic Your Way ticket than a 5 day hopper so I decided to try it. Last time we stayed 8 nights and had a 4 day hopper – it was nice to have so much rest time and the boys definitely needed it at ages 2 and 3. My downfall is always that I want to see and do it all. I remember feeling like we were so scheduled and hurried to get everything in that it was hard to feel relaxed. My thought process with the 7 day (non-hopper) pass was that we would feel better about leaving earlier in the evening if the boys were wearing down. We’d be able to spend more days at Magic Kingdom and even check out our favorites more than once.  Explore the parks at a more leisurely pace. Take our time to smell the roses (or stare at fountains or wait in line to meet characters, etc). I had a bucket list in my mind of things we had never done and/or things I didn’t want to leave without doing at least once. The first thing we did Friday morning was climb aboard the train at the Main Street Train Station and ride it around the loop. If I’ve ever done this before, I don’t remember it. We all enjoyed it – a relaxing way to start a very fun day. 001 003 006 007 008 010

I used my prime lens Friday. I didn’t want to carry a big camera bag around to I made the decision to commit to a lens for the whole day. The prime lens gets great shots with amazing bokeh in certain circumstances but it just isn’t as versatile, especially when shots are taken in close proximity. Letting cast members or other people take pictures with the prime lens sounded like a disaster to me so I didn’t even try. People love zooming in and out and the prime lens doesn’t. I enjoyed getting pictures of some smaller details. I wish I had time to just stroll through WDW with my only objective for the day to take a million photos. I could have a lot of fun! 011 013

Two fun and important things I wanted to make time to do (which are often overlooked) were Swiss Family Treehouse and Tom Sawyer Island. Both are areas where kids (and adults) can run around, climb, explore, and imagine. These two attractions were highlights of our day and we spent quite a bit of time on Tom Sawyer Island. I can’t believe I’d never checked it out before. There was barely anyone else around. It felt like we had the place to ourselves and that we had been transported to another place and time.

Swiss Family Treehouse:016 017 018

Ryan wearing his Genie shirt on Magic Carpets of Aladdin Ride…how cute.022

Dole Whip, baby!023

Splash Mountain:025

So thirsty. I’d love to know how many gallons of ice water we chugged on that vacation.029

Playing pirates outside of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.030 031

Tom Sawyer Island:033 035 036 037 038 040 042 043 044

After 3 days of Dexter begging to swim and it being obvious that these boys were exhausted from 3 days of nonstop action, we called it a day at 6pm. We jumped on the next bus back to our resort. We knew we had an early morning Saturday for our first of two character breakfasts so we ate dinner, swam a bit, turned in early, and slept like rocks. 046Dex was one happy boy. He’d live in a pool if he could!

Up next – Animal Kingdom & breakfast with Donald and the gang at Tusker House.

xo,

~C~

#mcdanfamloveswdw: Day 2

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Click HERE to see the photos we shared on Instagram from our trip. 

Click Here if you missed Day 1.

Day 2: Thursday, May 7th. My 35th birthday!

I chose May 2015 for this trip for several reasons. February would have been nice but I was afraid of flight delays since Indiana winters historically reach a level of extreme misery during February. Ice, blizzards, and sub-zero temps are nice to get away from, but what if you can’t? Ideally we would have waited until September because crowds and rates are lower. Summer is not on my WDW radar because of the heat, crowds, and rates. With Theo starting Kindergarten this fall, I decided to follow my conscience and avoid going in September. I’m not personally against taking your kids out of school for vacation, but part of me feels guilty for thinking about it. Especially right after school starts. February, too unpredictable. September, school’s in. Those two times also have the lowest resort room rates. Next best option happened to be May. School’s still in session so the crowd levels are okay. Bonus – Dexter’s birthday, my birthday, and Mother’s Day all fell within a week. Sounds like a heck of a celebration to me. Why not? All in all, it ended up working out well for lots of reasons.

I had never been to EPCOT during the Flower & Garden Festival so I was excited to see all of the character topiaries and flowers in bloom.

002 004

Both boys were big enough to ride Soarin’ and we all loved it! Unfortunately we only got to ride once because the wait times were long by the time we were able to get back to it. Soarin’ is my favorite attraction at EPCOT and I was excited to learn that additional capacity is being added. We used a FastPass+ on Test Track and we couldn’t get one for each attraction. Test Track was a big hit, too. I rode with Dexter and he said “mommy, pretend this is the batmobile and we’re going back to the Batcave, okay!?” See, he’s not ALL Disney.005

I had to take this picture because I knew it would perfectly represent Dexter in every single line. Theo was kind of following his lead here, but we could barely keep Dexter off of the railings, ropes, or chains in queues. He is such a busy body and has so much energy. When he’s not tired, he has to be moving. And guess what? When he’s tired, he has to move even more. “Dexter! Get down!” We must have said that 100 times a day.007 008

So pretty! I need the landscaper that designed this to come to my house.012

Kidcot stop in Mexico as we entered the World Showcase. They still have these puppets or fans or whatever you want to call them. 013

Tradition! We got a picture with Donald in Mexico last time so we had to recreate the memory. 017 018 021

First souvenir purchase! Dexter picked out this elephant in China and so cleverly named him …. Ellie. Yep. He carried him around and slept with him every night. It was cute, cute, cute.025 027 032 034

Hurrah for short lines to meet cool characters!035 036 038

Between France and the UK lies a walkway to the Boardwalk and Yacht & Beach Club Resorts. One thing I knew I wanted to do for my birthday was to visit Beaches & Cream, a full service restaurant and soda and ice cream shop within the Beach Club Resort. We opted to eat outside and daydream about staying there one day while eating our Mickey mini kitchen sink sundae. It was DELICIOUS and gone in about 5 minutes. Perfect break in the middle of a fun but long day on our feet. 039 040

Back to EPCOT for a little browsing.041 042

They had a Monsters University themed playground set up for the Flower and Garden Festival. Out of all the fun attractions, sights, sounds, and tastes – some of the boys favorite things at the parks were the play areas where they could run, climb, and act like little boys.045 049

Before our trip, I shared on The Affordable Mouse my concerns about Theo poo-pooing on our fun by constantly worrying and thinking about what souvenir he was going to get and when. Well…we had to have a little talk at EPCOT on day 2 of the trip after I’d heard him ask the same question one too many times. We had talked about it before our trip but he just couldn’t help himself. What did he want? A little $6 mystery pack of tiny characters…which happened to be the same pack he got a year and a half earlier. I thought he’d blow up but he had a great attitude and said you can’t have too many Ursulas, Oogey Boogeys, or Scars. I wish we’d bought the darn pack first thing. The rest of the trip, he was really good about it.

Dexter and water…oh the boy loves water. At Disney World, there is water everywhere! We made a lot of pit stops to look at various fountains, waterfalls, creeks, lagoons, lakes, and canals. I had to remind myself over and over that this is his vacation and this is what he loves. 050

Tradition of trying all the sodas from around the world at Club Cool.051

Dexter’s second souvenir closely followed his first. He had to have a stuffed Bruce (from Finding Nemo). He loves water and he definitely has a thing for sharks! Earlier in the day when we visited The Seas, we hunted and searched all of the aquariums for sharks with no luck. I finally asked a cast member who pointed us in the right way. He was mesmerized! I’m not sure when this love of sharks happened, but it was cute. So later in the day when he asked for Bruce, we talked to him about it  – told him he couldn’t get souvenirs every day – he understood. He still wanted Bruce. He got Bruce.054 056 058 060 062

After a long day, the buddies were tuckered out. I tucked them in and ended my birthday with a big smile on my face. 063When you check in, a cast member will ask if you are celebrating anything. If you are, they will give you a pin. I got to wear a pin on my birthday and had a lot of fun hearing “Happy Birthday Candice!” all day. I’d recommend celebrating your birthday by embracing your inner child to anyone.

xo

~C~

#mcdanfamloveswdw: Day 1

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

I have another post sitting in drafts titled “random thoughts” about our recent trip to Disney World. There’s so much swirling around in my mind surrounding the planning and execution of our vacation. I’m a processor. I like to hash it all out and get my thoughts collected in some sort of organized way. The post was turning into a big rambly mess that I know no one would care to follow so it will sit in drafts until I figure out what else to do with it.

Click HERE to see the photos we shared on Instagram from our trip. (or search #mcdanfamloveswdw). On to the fun.

Day 1: Wednesday, May 6th. After having been in the hospital with Dexter less than 1 week earlier, Ryan and I were apprehensive about what could go wrong while we were 1000 miles from home. The 2 things we worried would put a damper on our trip (bad weather and sickness) were non-issues! We’ve had our fair share of illness since then but I am thrilled to say we were all in good health in Florida. My father-in-law dropped us off at the airport. We had a 10:30am flight and got there in plenty of time to let our anticipation build as the boys watched planes land and take off. The beginning of any vacation is such an exciting time.
001 003

I hoped the boys would nap on the plane but they were too excited. By the time we boarded Disney’s Magical Express, they couldn’t hold their eyes open. They wanted to sit together on the bus. They are definitely growing up. It was strange for Ryan and I to be able to sit together in a situation like this. Theo and Dexter are buddies.013

We arrived at our resort mid-afternoon with plans to be at the Magic Kingdom by 4 but things didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped. I’d ordered several items from Amazon and it took time to get those to our room. When we got up to our room, our Magic Bands did not work to open the door. Ryan and the boys went back to the check-in lobby while I stood here as time ticked away. I started feeling very frustrated and anxious because I didn’t want to waste a park ticket going to Magic Kingdom for just a couple of hours. The boys were tired – we all were – from traveling all day. We hadn’t eaten lunch. After Ryan returned, I had to go and have my Magic Band reprogrammed, which took up more precious time. We did end up getting to the Magic Kingdom by 5 and as soon as we walked through the gates, all of my stress vanished.017

Theo using his Magic Band to get into the park.019 020 023 024 027

Our first ride, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, was new since our last visit in October 2013. Notorious for long wait times, I made a FastPass+ selection for this prior to our trip. The ride was smooth, fun, and perfectly themed. It was a wonderful start to our adventure. 029

Another top priority on my list was to try Lefou’s Brew -frozen apple juice with a hint of toasted marshmallow, topped with passion-fruit mango whipped cream, from Gaston’s Tavern in New Fantasyland. It was everything I dreamed of and more. YUM. 035

Moment of truth! The majority of rides with height restrictions at Disney World require guests to be 40″ tall. Part of the reason I planned our trip for this time (rather than February 2015) was that I wanted Dexter to have plenty of time to grow. I knew that him being 40″ would make a substantial difference in the number of attractions we’d be able to experience as a family. I had Dexter measured at the doctor’s office with shoes on prior to our vacation and the nurse said he was 40.5″ but I was still nervous. I didn’t know how precise she was or how precise the measuring at Disney would be. There was no doubt, no reason to double-check, tell him to stand up straight. He was over 40″ and he was thrilled! We all were. Throughout our entire trip, I never tired of watching him confidently stand there when cast members asked to check his height. He was proud to be big. As we all stood in line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad on that first night, I felt like my heart could burst. Here we were, just the 4 of us, at Walt Disney World. It felt like a dream. And now we were riding big rides together. I wanted this but at the same time, how did we get to this point so fast? My kids are riding roller coasters? What? Granted, we’re talking about Disney roller coasters, but you get my point. 040 043

Sad to say, this is my only picture with the boys in front of Cinderella Castle. We kept meaning to get that traditional, obligatory photo on Main Street but the time was never right. We were only ever on Main Street when people were pouring in or out of the park and I was hoping to get a photo without so many strangers’ butts, faces, shoulders, strollers, and elbows intruding into our special shot. I kept saying “next time,” and then eventually there wasn’t a next time. This will have to do. 052

We hadn’t specified a time we would try to leave but we were all wearing down by 9:30 or 10. It was so hard to leave when wait times for most rides were 5-15 minutes. We ended up staying until after 11pm and rode 13 rides in 5 hours! We stopped to enjoy the parade on our way out. 057

The boys couldn’t stay awake for it. What a big day!058Okay, now I’ve rambled more here than I planned so I think I’ll stop at Day 1 and pick up Day 2 (my birthday at EPCOT) next time.

xo,

~C~