The Happiest Place on Earth

Eric had a conference in of all places, Disney World, so we headed down a few days early to take the kids.

Eric and I went to Disney World when I was pregnant with Jack, and I went to Epcot when I was in high school, but the last time we were at Disneyland was when Calvin was a new baby (over 7 years ago!)

We left Cincinnati after school on Friday, and stayed the night in Atlanta. We drove the rest of the way on Saturday, arriving at the hotel at about 4 pm. We checked in and went swimming. If you've ever stayed at any of the Disney hotels, then you'll know what I mean when I say that the pool is almost as good as the park itself!

We headed to Downtown Disney, stopping first at the Lego Store, which I knew my boys would go berserk over. Calvin was in absolute ecstasy. They had a huge model of the Millenium Falcon, giant robots and dinosaurs, etc. all made out of Legos. We stopped at the wall and packed a cup full of all sorts of Legos and brought it home.

For dinner we ate at Captain Jack's Restaurant, where the waiter clunked the lady at the table next to us in the back of the head with his tray, spilling a big icy coke all over her head. Oops. Anyway, it was right on the water, which was pretty cool, but the boys were starting to lose it, so we headed back and put them to bed.

On Sunday we went to the Magic Kingdom and were immediately disappointed to find that Space Mountain was closed. To quote Eric, "Leave it to Disney to break my kid's heart!"

(FYI, Eric is not a big fan of Disney, or any other over-commercialized venture. When we took the girls to Disneyland when they were little, we stood in line to meet Buzz Lightyear, only to have him leave after he was done with the kid in front of Erin. And there was no one behind us! He couldn't stick around for even one more cute little red-headed girl! So now we say "Leave it to Disney to break my kid's heart!" all the time, it's a funny family joke, especially if you know Eric and the way he reacts to stuff!)

Calvin freaked out on Stitch's Great Escape, who would have seen that coming? That was the first ride we went on and I thought they were going to have to stop the whole thing to let us leave. Serious screaming, feet drawn up to his chest, hyperventilating, I don't think anyone else in the room could hear anything. He asked to go home after that, but we decided he needed a good old fashioned go-kart to set him right again.

So, to make a long story short, we did Big Thunder Mt. twice, Splash Mountain once (Jack didn't want to get wet, but when you're the baby you don't get a choice!), Pirates, Haunted Mansion (no boys for that one, that would have been bad) I had never done the FastPass thing before, but it was great! No lines!

We went back to cool off in the pool for the afternoon, and Eric went to buy a new memory card for the camera since we had been taking pictures for the last 2 days without one! Aaargh! Those Lego pictures would have been awesome!

We took the bus back to the park, and it seemed like every bus was going to Epcot. Who goes to Epcot? I don't remember it being that much fun. The kids were giving me palpitations by getting so close to the street.

We had dinner at Tony's, the restaurant where Lady and the Tramp share a plate of spaghetti. Just as we walked in, it started to pour. REALLY pour. So, we ate and waited for it to stop.

But it kept raining, so we bought the $8 ponchos and made the best of it. Luckily, a lot of other people had given up and left, but they did cancel the parade and fireworks. Waaa.

Because of the lightning, the outside rides were closed, so we went on all the little kid rides in Fantasyland, like It's A Small World. That was my favorite when I was a kid, but I guess I was too little to notice that it's kind of cheesy. Annie said it was the scariest ride she'd been on all day.

We walked around and looked at the stuff we'd missed during the day. Do you remember the stocks from when you were a kid? And how you wished you could really leave your brother there?

The boys got tired, so we rode the bus back to the hotel and Eric and the girls stayed until the park closed at midnight.

The next morning we headed to Hollywood Studios, which Disney bought from MGM. I knew we'd come to the right place when we saw that Star Tours was there! I remember waiting for hours in line to get to ride that! It was still pretty fun, the boys loved it!

I made the boys take their picture with McQueen and Mater, even though CARS is SO last year.

We played in the really cool Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. Everything is giant, I really liked it.

The best part of the day was seeing the stunt car show! It was amazing! All the guys loved it!

Silly plastic army guy from Toy Story.

My boat.

We took off at about 5, and drove to Macon, stayed the night, then in the morning dropped Eric off at the airport in Atlanta, and the kids and I drove the rest of the way home. Everyone was so good in the car, and it was really fun! This is what my mother-in-law meant when she said she was glad she had had all of her kids so close together. We've arrived at that time where nobody's a baby, no naps, strollers, diapers, tantrums. The kids didn't even really beg us to buy them stuff! It was awesome!